I was just thinking (actually I was picturing the kingly thumbnail of Abra and the thoughtfull, somewhat inquisitive look of Bushi and I wondered --- how do you guys think?

Abra, do you somehow feel a connection with symbols - like math, music, the periodic table of elements???

Bushi - what about you - do you think in terms of theories, data - maybe organized like a physics chart???

It's extremely hard to think about how you actually think until you try to think a different way. Try it - try thinking in pictures, or in musical notes.. Many people do this, honest. This is why some people are sevants. Example, the person who can hear an entire concherto one time and play it it flawlessly from then on....

They THINK that way.

Speaking of music - Alzheimers patients, when they can not longer even remember the most elemental rote memory - can hear a few notes of an old song sing it completely through, smile and dance to it as they do - and then become catatonic when it's done. They must be thinking do this, but I bet they are not thinking in language.

To be perfectly honest with you Michael I'm not sure if my thoughts on this matter could even be conveyed using language. And I'm not attempting to be coy in any way.

Considering the following:

"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something." - Richard Feynman

Language is the art of labeling thoughts using symbols or words. The only reason we do this is to communicate our thoughts to other minds. Everyone agrees on what the symbols mean. However, even in that context language often breaks down and fails to genuinely convey our actual thoughts.

Do you need to know the word 'fly' to understand the concept of 'flying'. Those words may give rise to thoughts into your mind, but the words are not the thoughts themsleves.

In fact, if I say 'flying' to you, what 'thoughts' run through your mind? Do you imagine yourself soaring through the air? Do you imagine riding in an airplane? Do you imagine some animal flying perhaps a bird or an insect? What do you THINK of when you hear the word? Or is the word all you THINK of? If the word is all you think of then you are thinking in terms of language, but if some more elaborated idea is conjured up in your mind, then you're nothing thinking in terms of language at all. Language is simply sparking you to have THOUGHTS that are totally seperate from the language.

In fact science tells us that Bumble Bees, and Butterflies can't even fly at all. They SWIM!

That's right. They're wings aren't areodynamic. They act more like fins. Air is more like water to them because of their size and weight. Hummingbirds share a little bit of both. When they hover they are swimming, but then when they take off horizontally and reach a certain speed their wings actually become aerodynamic at that point.

This may seem trivial, but the point is that words don't really mean much. What actaully matters is what we THINK when we hear or see a word. We translate words into thoughts. And when we wish to communicate a thought we attempt to translate the thought into a suitiable word, which often ends up becoming a very lenghthy explanation.

I personally feel that I have many thoughts that are nearly impossible to convey simply becasue I have no clue of how to turn them into lanaguage.

I can only attempt to give you a very feeble example with the following:

When I first learned abstract algebra I was having difficulty with it. I kept telling my teachers that I don't understand it. They kept telling me, it's simple! It's just a bunch of rules. Memorize the rules and make sure they all apply and you'll understand algebra.

I said, "No, that's not what I mean". I already understand the formal concept that it's just a bunch of rules. What I was attempting to get at was a deeper understanding of why the rules are the way they are (other than just because men wrote them down as axioms).

My teachers, would dismiss this as totally unnecessary for the purposes of learning and using algebra. In fact, I never learned the real meaning of algebra from studying math. It wasn't until I became a research technician working in a lab and actually experienced the quantitative relationships of nature. Only then did I shout, "Eureka! I understand algebra!".

Like Feynman suggested about knowing the bird, you could give me the rules until your blue in the face, but there can be no real understanding until an experience can be had as to why the rules must be the way they are.

So for me, thinking goes far deeper than language could ever hope to reach. In fact, I find it extremely difficult to use language to try to share the kinds of things that can only be understood through experience.

I can think of a lot of experiences that I can't even begin to put into words at all. So where does that leave language with respect to thought? Clearly thought is something quite different from language.

At least it is for me. That's all I know.

I think what needs to be clarified to merge all of our ideas is the concept of language, and what exactly can be defined as language.

If a concept can own an image, then isn't that a tag that the mind can reference?

If a sound can be tagged to an emotion, then isn't that the same as a word that does the same thing?

I think if I pull back my awareness and look to how computer language has changed the way we identify things using binary, then I CAN agree with many of the ideas put forth by creative.

I see where each of us has mentioned this in our own ways, red with the example of autistic children needing a structure that they understand to overcome disability, or creative when he mentions that all higher thought requires unspoken language, or Abra when he mentioned that no one without some kind of language even mathematics cannot understand or even use QM.

I think we all agree that language in one form or another has been an important tool in the mental tool chest to expand thought, to create boxes to place ideas in, and to facilitate communication.

I think the brain is too plastic to place any blanket statements on top of. I think we could easily say this or that about most brains, but I do not think fundamentally we can say that a brain must have language unless you mean any data tagging system, in which case it only makes sense that the brain has its own subconscious system that all conscious thought gets tagged to . . .
Then even a series of mental images if they related to specific concepts or actual things would then be an informal language.


If the language definition gets loosened up to be any recognition tagging system, then indeed all thought is dependent on language.

But I think most of us have taken a more formal definition of language in most of our posts here.

Awesome thread regardless!!!!

Yes, I certainly agree with this. Language allows for, and even makes possible, very complex analysis. In that sense language expands the possiblities of thought.

Also, if we define any sort of imagery as 'language' then in a very real sense we'd have to define all of experience as being 'language' because all of experience comes to us in some form of sensory input.

Moroever, if we view binary as 'language' then in a very real sense the universe is language.

One thing you mentioned that I would like to comment on was the idea of binary,...



A very important thing to realize here is that binary is not absolute. This is something that became very vivid to me when working with computers.

Our faces can be reduced to a binary number. Just take a digital picture of yourself and you have reduced the image of your face into a number.

So is that number unique to your face? Can you now say that this binary number somehow represents your face? And if so, then clearly your face has always been defined long before you were ever born (right down to any facial hair or scars or whatever).

But is that really true?

Well, yes and no.

It's only true within the confines of a particular system of organization. That number that represents your face in a computer does so because the computer knows how to decode information from the camera. The manufactures have decided upon a SYSTEM to encode and decode that visual information. Take away that SYSTEM and the number that used to be your face is nothing but gibberish! (i.e. stick a photo CD in a music CD player and it won't play).

However that same number that makes your face, may very well represent a piece of music in another SYSTEM.

The binary number is truly just a LABEL. It was created using a specific SYSTEM and must be DECODED or read using the SAME system, otherwise the number is meaningless.

So that binary number really has nothing to do with your face outside of the SYSTEM that has been designed to encode and read that visual information.

Well, if that's true of binary numbers, then it must also be true of words in language. The words (or symbols in a language like mathematics), only have meaning because of the SYSTEM we have designed around that language.

In other words, languages don't even exist outside of structured systems of agreement as to what the words or symbols mean. The same is true of binary numbers. And this is EVEN TRUE in binary arithemtic! Before you can even do binary arithmetic you need to agree on something like a positional system with carries, etc.

In fact, binary arithmetic doesn't exist in pure binary numbers. It too depends on an entire SYSTEM of interactions and special instructions and rules.

I view thought as something entirely different from this. Although, like I said before, I would have difficulty conveying how I view thought by using a language. It's almost something that's not sharable via language. You'd almost have to step into my mind and say, "Ah ha! I see what you mean." Although you should be able to see what I mean from within your own mind.

I suppose we can never know if we think alike. This is one of those things that are simply unknowable.

Why are some things obvious to one person, and not obvious to another? Clearly people think differently.

THANK-YOU! I've been working on a self-study program putting in hundrends of hours just to GET algebra. I get the rules but I don't think that way. I HAVE to have a picture to understand it (the whole picture). In other words "what does it look like" How can a written or spoken rule of numbers that are disassociated from anything make sense to me if I can't (as Abra said) see it in action????

In fact this is what I've been doing for hours tonight. I do better with geometry because I can picture a box, a prism or a triangle but I get nothing when I'm told to put a number here, multiply by the reciprical and then add and subtract numbers (seemingly at random) from one place to another. SLOWLY, I am getting it, but the moments of "eureka" are few and far between. Math will be undoing if I can't find a way to relate it to the way I think - it's discouraging and my advisors can't seem to help, they are baffled that a straight A student can't do algebra. I feel so stupid sometimes.

Too bad we aren't close, I could show you how to do algebra pretty easily.

Every algebraic problem can be made geometric. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. This even includes imaginary numbers! In fact, that was my real "Eureka!" when I actually met imaginary quantities in the real world.

Same thing goes with calculus and integration. I once met an integral that could never be explained in words. Ah, but she was a beautiful sight in nature!

I should be teaching mathematics. It's a crime that I'm not. What a waste of skills.

All humans catagorize in one way or another, depending on their capabilities, meaning that some brains are wired differntly, though we don't really know why.

I agree with Bushi for a couple reasons. First, I have memories that go back to a time before I had language. As I said, I think in pictures and I can connect with these pictures. My best guess of the earliest of these picture memories comes from my description of these pictures to my mother. She tells me that the earliest "memory" seems to be from about the age of 14 months. I have no words, language, that go with the pictures but they do speak to me. Learning language allowed me to communicate the events in the pictures but I couldn't do that until I learned to connect words with things.

That doesn't mean the pictures have no meaning, there were emotions tied to them and I even 'manipulated' situations to get what I wanted - yet I could not think, at that age, in language.

Bushi suggested a data tagging system, and the possibility that we 'learn' to form our own language before we are taught to speak or even understand. Of course we do this, many studies have proven that babies know how to manipulate situations to satisfy their needs, including the emotional ones. These manipulation are 'intentional' but there is no formal, spoken language that drives the babies actions, but there is thought involved.

I think this proves that we really are a social animal and it's not so much language that drives our intellect as much as it seems to be exposure to people, places, activities. A deaf child has no language, but communicates long before there is any kind of vocabulary.

I agree that language is the prime key to developing abstract thought, which is why autistic children rarely develop this ability and require some kind of assistance even as adults. But most can be taught basic self-care - if we find the right channel and tools through which to communicate.

The greater our vocabulary has become the greater our intellect, and creativity. Yet, to this day it is estimated that about 80% of the population never develop the geatest sense of morality. Why? Is it a lack of language skills, or an underdeveloped ability to think beyond the concrete (lack of abstract connections)? It's interesting to consider all this especially when we place such a high value on our language - perhaps it's language itself that prohibits our growth in that area. After all, every language in the world comes equipped with built in cultural bias.

Now, looking at language from that perspective, Creative is correct. For it is language that holds us back and prevents so many people from abstractly considering the world around them logically. But can we actually link the faulty thought process to language alone?

QUESTION: WHAT IS THE GREATEST OF ALL BIASES THAT EXIST INTERCULTURALY WITHIN ALMOST EVERY LANGUATE? Take a guess.

If you come up with the answer, you may figure out why language holds us back RATHER than helps us think.....

Awe eee e - Abra, I wish you could help me more too. Actually, you have given me a boost already, just knowing that someone with your ability had the same problems is a relief, more than I can tell you. At least you make me want to keep trying.

Great topic, Creative! And thanks for posting in my comments from the other thread. The conversation, in its entirety, has become appropriately complex... all of you have given me much to think about.

I don't think thought is an unspoken language. I think communication is the ATTEMPT to transfer ones thoughts to another, which is impossible, so good, clear communication is transferring thoughts as close as possible.

Ahhhh! Bravo! Good way of explaining how we do not think in language. I understand what you're saying.

Thanks to all for the time, consideration, and the complex expressions of personal knowledge.




While each poster here has laid out an in depth and relevent explanation for their own personal response to my own position, and to each others', it seems that perhaps Jeremy has the most complete understanding of what mine is, based upon the responses thus far. Judging from those, it is clear what some have thought my claim was, and therefore I can fully understand, appreciate, and agree with the negations and their reasoning. However, as sound as those refutations have been, they have not addressed the claims I made. They addressed the authors' interpretation of what I meant by the term language.

Knowing this, it is my responsibility to clarify. After all, if one cannot effectively express - in a common language - what it is that they think, then they either do not understand their own thoughts, or those thoughts cannot be adequately expressed by the available shared language being used. That needs to be known, and perhaps will help to clarify exactly what it is that I am trying to communicate, within this form - our shared language.

I should begin with the concept of language itself. I have, as is so often the case, developed a not-so-common understanding of what the notion consists of. Most here seem to have taken the perspective that my use of the term only includes the most formal and commonly used communication forms. I hold that it most certainly does not. There are countless forms of language, all of which do not necessarily require the ability to be effectively expressed to another - which would facilitate a shared understanding of that language. If that language is a self-contained and personal one which exists without the proper terminology and/or symbolic forms to represent it's contents, then the only expressional ability is to be translated through the previously understood representational symbols of another one. That is not to say that the language cannot exist without the ability to express it. Moreover, the only understanding absolutely required in order to constitute the existence of a lnaguage is within the individual which invented/possesses that particular form of language. No matter what the construct is composed of, the individual must recognize, identify, and therefore have applied meaning to each element of it, regardless of the form of content(images, emotional, representational symbology, forms, words, pictures, whatever.)

All of this further develops my understanding within our common form of language, hopefully clarifying some of the misconceptions of others concerning the point of view held by this author.

This has been a fantastically expressed thread, by the way!!!

Symbols versus the Thing




I feel that I do indeed recognize your "no-so-common" understanding of the notion of language. However, I personally feel that your espanded definition of languge only serves to muddle the concept of the word itself.

Allow me to try to explain what I mean.

Let's say that mathematical formalism is a language. This is a language that was invented by men to communicate ideas about the quantitative nature of the universe.

However, we sometimes speak of mathematics as the language of the universe. So now we have TWO different ideas about this language. One is mankind's attempt to build a symbolic notational scheme of axioms and rules to communicate, organize, and understand the quantitative properties of the universe. The other is that very quantitative nature of the universe itself.

I'm currently writing a book (and I'm actually writing on it now!), where I start out with the following conditional statement:

IF mathematical formalism is supposed to correctly describe the quantitative nature of the universe, THEN mathematical formalism is incorrect.

In other words, from my point of view, mathematical formalism is a language. However, the actual quantitative property of the universe is not a language. Instead it's merely a behavior. It's a phenomenological actuality that can be sensually experienced. Whereas mathematical formalism is nothing more than an attempt to put those sensual experiences into a symbolic language for the purpose of communicating those ideas.

In other words in English we use the word Tree to convey the idea of a certain type of plant life on earth. However, that word is just a symbol that conjures up the reality of what a Tree actually is.

I could just as easily use a picture of a tree to convey the idea of a tree. You may argue that this is just another form of a symbolic pictoral language.

But what if I actaully take you out and show you a tree? At what point does the symbol versus the actual experience of a tree matter?

If it never matters, then you would simply be claiming that the entire universe is nothing but symbols. Which may very well be true, but just the same, that kind of flies in the face of the very concept that we are attempting to convey when we use the symbolic word "language". Once you get to the point where you remove the distinction between the symbol and the actaul thing that the symbol represents then the very need for language disolves and we no longer need to have any concept of language, it would be a superfluous concept.

Therfore, for me, language means using symbols to convey ideas and concepts that cannot be communicated through direct experience.

In other words, for me, mathematical formalism is a language. It's a symbolic representation of something else. The quantitative property of the universe is not a language, it's simply is. If anything it's a behavior not a language.

So there must be a distinction between an actaul concept and the symbols we use to communicate them. For me, language is the symbols we use to communicate the concept. Language is not necessary for the concepts themselves. Although when considering very complex abstract ideas symbols make keeping track of concept far easier. So language and symbols do expand our ability to consider many interconnected concepts. But I still hold that this is not the primordial basis of thought.


Where Do Concepts Come From?



Well, this goes right back to creation myths. There are two basic creation myths: The Eastern and the Western views.

The Eastern Creation Myth

In the beginning all was chaos and God fell into two parts, the yin and the yang, and organized the chaos into good and evil

This is an interesting concept, but it begins with all concepts already preexisting as "Chaos". So now all God needs to do is organize this preexisting "Chaos". If we think of this in terms of philosophy we can imagine the mind of God as having the potentiality. All that can exists already does exist, and God's creativity is a result of organizing this chaos of infinite possibilities.

In a sense this would fit into your picture of the idea that thought is language. All that the mind of God needs to do is take the chaos and make sense of it (i.e. organize it in comprehensible meaningful ways). This is what you seem to be suggesting as the basis of thought.

The Western Creation Myth

In the beginning the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Here we have the beginning of all creation taking place in a void of darkness and earthy things were without form. Although, as usual, this western creation myth contains conflicts by then saying that the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. The idea that water already existed suggests that form had already been constituted. After all, water itself is make of H2O and we know that oxygen is a very complex atom that wasn't even around 'in the beginning'. Although one could argue that these waters were spiritual waters, and not physical waters. None the less, there seems to be some conflict here in the idea of things being without form and in darkness, yet there still exists a 'face of the waters' upon which God can move. Clearly this suggests some substrate from which to construct the physical world.

However, let's not get lost in spiritual interpretations here. Instead let's look at this second myth in terms of starting with nothing - a pure void of darkness. No sensual experience yet available.

How then does the mind create new things, based on your model of language being required for thought? Language is nothing more than symbolically organizing what already exists. But the mind is capable of creating new ideas apparently from nothing.

If you begin with darkness and void, and think, "Let there be light". How could you have even thought about light if you had never had any previous experience with it? Clearly if you created this concept anew, then thought is far more than just language! You're doing far more than merely categorizing and symbolizing thing for the purpose of organizing them. You're actually creating new ideas that had never existed before.

In fact, having just written all of this out perhaps I see that you may be onto something, especially in terms of the Eastern Creation Myth. If Chaos preexists everything then no true creation is required. No thing is being creating from nothing. All things exist as potentiality all of the time. All that is required is to organize them in to form.

Boy! Jeanniebean is going to LOVE this!

So, anyway, having rambled on far too long already, I suppose I can see your point in terms of the Eastern Creation Myth. Perhaps all thought (and all of existence) is indeed nothing more than an organization of the primordial "Chaos" which takes the form of the "Quantum Field". In fact, if the "Quantum Field" is taken to be the 'waters' of the western Creation Myth then this God too began with Chaos. It's just a less enlightening myth that tends to confuse the important issues.

So I thank you for sparking this ramble. You've make me think more deeply about Eastern Mysticism.

The only bottom line here seems to be going back toward a 'Thought-Created Universe', all because of your idea that language (as the ability to organize chaos in a meaningful way) is required for thought.

Well, obviously if we define language as "the ability to organize chaos in a meaningful way", then clearly language would be required for coherent thought. Personally that's not my definition of language. My definition of language is not an "ability", to do something. Instead I see language as an organized symbolic system created for the purposes of communicating ideas.

Again, to rehash:

Mathematical formalism is a language.

The quantitative property of the universe is not a language. It's just a behavior.

These is how I differentiate between language and the thing the language is describing.

But that's just a personal viewpoint on semantics I suppose. However, when it comes to languages is not semantics all-important? If the symbols and words of the language mean different things to differnet people then the language breaks down and fails as a tool of communication.

I never claimed that language was required for all thought.



That distinction is necessary. You still have not completely gotten what I wrote earlier. I never wrote that the method by which one identifies the world with is the same thing as the world.

Using your Feynman example...

How does one come to identify what one thinks is relevent information about the bird in question? Language, no matter whether it is complex or as simple as it's name alone, all of those things belong to language. Call it muddled if you choose, but it is a clearing of previously muddied waters...

Well, I can't respond to your thoughts. I can only respond to the things you post (i.e. language)

The title of your thread asks, "Is thought unspoken language?"

To me, that conveys the idea of the question, "Is thought language?".

After all, if thought is unspoken language, this implies that this is what thought is (i.e. unspoken language).

This quite naturally gives rise to the question of what we mean by "language". You have already suggested that your definition of language is "no-so-common".

To me, the very WORD "language" implies a symbolic system used for the purpose of communication.

Now, if I accept this as my definition of language, then obviously I'm going to view this topic from this point of view. After all, the question is whether or not thought is unspoken language. So before we can even answer that question we must be crystal clear that we are both having the same thoughts with respect to what language even means.

Otherwise, the language fails to properly convey our thoughts, and we get lost in different understandings of semantics - a very common problem with languages.

You say,



The only thing I'm trying to say is that I view language as a symbolic method to attempt to convey thougts from one mind to another. Therefore thoughts themselves would not be language by that very definition.

Unless of course, you're attempting to communicate with yourself. In some sense this seems to be what you are suggesting because you seem to be suggesting that we use language as a way to systematically organize thoughts in our minds.

I think we most certainly do this, especially in terms of the cerebral cortex. In fact, the ability of the cortex to abstract thoguht is what differentiates the cortex from other parts of the brain. Without a cerebral cortex we most likely would not be able to even invent complex language.

I think the point that I'm trying to get at is that at the most fundamental level this is not (in my mind) the basis of thought.

Although it may be the basis of analytical thought (i.e. logic).

So perhaps we're in agreement and we don't even realize it.

Perhaps if we rephrase the question posed in the title of the thread to state, "Are some levels of thought basically the same idea as language?"

Then I would readily agree.

The only reason I hesistate to agree carte blanche is because I feel that this is only one aspect of thought. In other words, I don't feel that this is the defining quality of primordial thought in general.

So I guess my answer to the question "Is thought unspoken language?" would have to be "Not entirely". But I do agree that this is one capablity of thought. Well, obviously it is since we have invented language.

I've actually been thinking quite a bit about thought lately.

Seriously, I'm watching these lectures, "Biology and Human Behvaior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality". These lectures are quite revealing about how the brain works, and which parts of it we use to think in different ways. Also how these different parts are affected by hormones, environmental stimulus, genetics, and even the time we spent in the womb before we were born.

It's amazing. Much of what we would swear is our own 'free will choice' is truly not our own choice at all. And this includes both aggressive and altruistic behaviors. We may not be nearly as responsible for the moral values that we hold as we think we are.

One thing that has become very clear from accident and victims of wars is that when a part of our brains is damages or diseased in some way our entire behavior can change dramatically. This implies that we aren't what many people have suggest we were (i.e. some kind of seperate spirit or soul controlling a brain), but instead we are indeed our brains. And if our brains are changed, then so do we change.

I realize this might seem like way out in left field from the question of whether thought is unspoken language. But if you could watch these lectures I think you'd see why such a question is an extreme over-simplification of what's actually going on in our brains.

A better way to state your question might be to ask, "Is our cerebral cortex responsible for language?". That might be a far more meaningful question. I think the answer to that question would be a resounding, "YES!".

But to speak in terms of thought from an entirely hypothetical philosophical notion is basically meaningless. The brain is so complex, that the very idea of a thought itself as many meanings.

For example, would an instinctual thought qualify as language? There was no need for any logic or symbology there. Instincual thoughts can arise from illogical stimuli. In that case, instinctual thought would be as far from language as thought can be.

I think the question is just over-simplified.

Just my thoughts.

James,

This is an overlapping post, so forgive me if it shows that...



Nothing has been written in this thread that refutes my claim in any way. It seems that there still exists the need for me to extrapolate farther for clarity, although a careful re-reading of what was earlier written may now invoke a more accurate form of mental deliberation regarding those things.

I think that the key here is recognizing what can be thought about in terms of language. All concepts, notions, and the like are represented by thoughts which are held in the mind. These ideas have some form of categorization and applied meaning. This does not equate thought to 'the thing' being thought about. The accuracy of that understanding is unimportant to this discussion, it's existence alone constitutes a completely self-contained language. Each thought has it's own framework of symbology and/or appropriated meaning in memory. The more complex the notion, the more individual elements necessary for framing it's completion in thought, which is why any and all complex frameworks require a written form of language. Most minds are not capable of accurately categorizing, storing, and retrieving the amount of information required for the recognition and identification of those ideas.

Each element has it's own individual or some form of combined identity in the memory... has it's own relevent meaning. To insist that these things need to have the quality of being able to be communicated in order to be considered language is to deny the primary function of the concept itself. Communication is not necessary, as so many examples in this thread have shown.

Language is not just vocal or written symbology. That type of language is invoked through the communication needs. To claim that that is required is to insist that one cannot have a self-contained, uniquely individual set of mental tools/symbols/pictures - what have you - stemming from curiosity alone. A framework by which understanding is had does not necessarily require the need of communication to anyone else other than the thinker and his/her own thoughts - which are always contemplated in his/her own language.

That is the fallacy in your personal understanding - which is inaccurate - of what it is that follows from my claim.

Maybe a simpler way of saying what I'm attempting to convey is this:

Thought that arises from the cerebral cortex is indeed very 'language-like'. However, all thought does not arise from the cerebral cortex.

How's that?

To avoid further possibility of confusion, I am speaking about deliberate and conscious thought. Any other form is not thought as I understand it to be, but that is another topic altogether. I mean really... can it be considered thought if it is not rolled around in the lobes?

In that event you're limiting "thought" to only be analytical (or logical) processes.

In that limited case I would agree that analytical thought is necessarily language-like because it applies rules of logic to abstract ideas.

So that clears up a lot.

However, humans don't always think analytically. In fact, the vast majority of human behavior is based on non-analytical thought.

In fact, based on what I've just learned from this neurobiology lecture, the kind of analytical thought that you're requiring stems almost entirely from the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex.

This frontal lobe is truly where logic arises.

When we REM sleep, the frontal lobe goes "off-line" and we dream using only the remaining parts of the cortex. In those cases we have dreams that don't need to make logical sense.

However, this can be different in some people. Some people have become so deeply dependent on logic that they refuse to allow their frontal lobes to completely go off-line even when dreaming, so they tend to have very logical dreams.

So the kind of logical thinking that you're talking about truly arises only from the frontal lobe of the brain.