An aside -- wow, what a great discussion this has turned out to be. My thanks to all involved. Mia McDavid writes: > So--Do we think in language. No, if it's food or tools or cloth or > anything else we can see and touch. Beyond that, language is absolutely > imperative for thought: The thoughts are literally impossible without > the language to couch them in. I find this incredibly seductive, as it matches up well with my own thought processes. When I'm working on a hard problem that I don't yet understand, it feels like there's underground rivers rolling around in my brain. But they have no form, and they're not clear. Sometimes they crystalize and become describeable. Sometimes I can force it to crystalize by trying to put it in words, either written or spoken. Sometimes the attempt to articulate destroys the idea. I can almost feel it drain away when that happens, and it's usually lost for good. (OK, it could have been a bad idea and articulation reveals that). But no matter what, the idea rarely works until I can write it down. The few exceptions are when something other than language articulates the idea. This can be music, where the act of playing crystalizes it. Other times it's physical process -- I'll know that if these three things happen at once, the proper result will occur, but until we do it I can't tell them in advance why it's going to work. So yes, an articulation is necessary. But it needn't be language that expresses it. A supporting question: is your cat or dog ever creative? -- It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities, without hour help. -- Chuck Pyle 'The Zen Cowboy' http://www.chuckpyle.com/bio.html