At 04:09 PM 8/15/2002 -0400, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On 15 Aug 2002, David Dyer-Bennet wrote: > >#I'm a counterexample. To me "non-verbal thought" is an oxymoron. >#Writing badly is to me a clear sign of thinking unclearly. And so >#forth. > >Does not compute. Writing is not the same as thinking. Writing requires >words; it is by definition verbal. So the fact that a person writes >badly does not prove that thought is verbal unless you assume that >thought can be transmitted directly through writing, without a stage of >transforming thought into words: i.e., that thought is verbal, the very >point you are claiming to prove. -- Or do I misunderstand you? For my part, I would not insist that thought has to be verbal, but I would say that thought has to be in language, where language is defined as a system of symbols. It may be that my definition of "language" is too broad to be useful. But I certainly agree with David that sloppy writing indicates sloppy thinking. I am not certain I can prove, or even defend this belief.