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Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

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Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#51

Post by anon22981 »

vishnugupta wrote: post #45

Most of the time we are communicating (internal monologue) with ourselves which I’m sure shapes our thoughts. I’d guess a large percentage of that is through a language. In fact languages codify a community’s culture, values, a way of life all of which go way beyond communication.

Imo the internal monologue is often about summarizing or sorting out something, while I’ve already figured it out non-verbally. Like a verbal confirmation. Though sometimes the internal monologue is about processing something and figuring stuff out.

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#52

Post by tetrisgm »

082349872349872 wrote: post #32
tetrisgm wrote: post #15

We don't have better tooling to transfer information between humans though. We have language, and we have art. It seems that art transcends humans in some ways: happy / sad music seems to affect animals, and we've seen animals contemplating things. Without language, we can't really create a mapping to what that means though. We simply don't have a better way to compress multiple concepts into few bits of information…

I often work with animals who show signs of thought: presented with a novel situation, they pause, reflect, and select the prudent option. I sometimes work with people who show no signs of thought: external stimuli are perceived, converted into a stream of language, and conveyed, with no apparent effort at audience-based compression (selection of an appropriate message from a wide variety of potential messages), or e…

That's great insight. How do you think animals store or communicate those thoughts? From your own experience.

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#54

Post by [deleted] »

calf wrote: post #17

The crux of their argument is that the language faculty and other faculties (math/logic/abstract, theory of mind/social reasoning, spatial/temporal imagination, and other cognitive abilities) all evolved in parallel, so the most plausible explanation is that language is mostly independent of all those other faculties which are activated in distinct neural network areas of the human brain, based on brain scan studies…

[deleted]

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#55

Post by derriz »

calf wrote: post #17

The crux of their argument is that the language faculty and other faculties (math/logic/abstract, theory of mind/social reasoning, spatial/temporal imagination, and other cognitive abilities) all evolved in parallel, so the most plausible explanation is that language is mostly independent of all those other faculties which are activated in distinct neural network areas of the human brain, based on brain scan studies…

Actual human natural language isn’t recursive in any meaningful sense. Formal grammar - an (often futile) attempt to describe the structure of natural languages - is generally expressed using a formal mathematical system which features recursion.

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#56

Post by benrutter »

It absolutely melts my mind every time I come across the two facts that:

- People experience their thoughts very differently

- We all secretly believe that deep down, everyone experiences thought like we do.

I've never really had a strong internal monologue when thinking, so my assumption would always be that of course, thinking isn't very linguistic (even if we can use it as a tool while thinking).

It seems like there's a large number of people who experience their thought exclusively as language.

That sounds absolutely nuts to me, but I've heard people say the exact same in reverse. Even more fringe is that there's a sizable number of people who when thinking about words (i.e. remembering names) visualize their words as text. What!? I can't imagine that anymore than I can imagine how a jellyfish feels?

The University of Wisconsin did a cool study that comes with a fun quiz you can do to see just how much of a wierdo you truly are: https://uwmadison.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3NMm9yyFsNio...

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#57

Post by etrvic »

nopinsight wrote: post #7

There are many concepts in our thought stream without a 'word' or even a simple 'phrase' to label them. A word or a common phrase is coined when a concept is sufficiently common and important enough such that someone comes up with a label to communicate the idea succinctly and the label catches on. We, humanity, have words or common phrases to label the vast majority of significant concepts. However, not every concep…

> There are many concepts in our thought stream without a 'word' or even a simple 'phrase' to label them.

If those concepts would exist you wouldn’t be able to explain them using words, no matter how complex the phrase may be. Taking a phrase and expecting it to have a single word replace is unrealistic. You can’t just asign a word to every possible sentence/phrase. Having a direct translation means you don’t necessarily need that word in your language.

One might argue that the limit of our language is the limit of our ability to think.

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#58

Post by _bramses »

benrutter wrote: post #56

It absolutely melts my mind every time I come across the two facts that: - People experience their thoughts very differently - We all secretly believe that deep down, everyone experiences thought like we do. I've never really had a strong internal monologue when thinking, so my assumption would always be that of course, thinking isn't very linguistic (even if we can use it as a tool while thinking). It seems like the…

Makes you wonder as well if the expressed genetic traits we can’t see are more are less different than the ones we can.

For example, does evolution have any pressure to produce those who think linguistically, vs healthy hair and skin?

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#60

Post by visarga »

Let's do a mental experiment: Put 2 year old Einstein on a remote island, all alone, and come back 30 years later. Assume he survives. Will he impress you with his insights?

They say we don't use language for thought, but language informs our strategies and choices, and collective experience is essential for progress. We only add small increments of insight from our own experiences to the pool, but the experience captured in language is greater than any one of us.

And more interestingly, LLMs trained on this data show amazing capabilities that go beyond mere reproduction. LLMs gain everything Einstein lost in this experiment, what is the language part and what is the pure insight part? Looks to me humans are like LLMs on feet, and with a full social complement surrounding them.

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