At 12:41 PM 8/16/2002 -0400, Mark A Mandel wrote: >On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Steven Brust wrote: > >#At 07:56 PM 8/15/2002 -0400, Mark A Mandel wrote: >#>On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Steven Brust wrote: >#> >#>#I have often closed my eyes and called up a pleasing picture. That is not >#>#thinking, that is exercising my memory. If I make conclusions about that >#>#picture, such as, "I'd like to go back to that beach," or, "I wonder what >#>#she's up to today?" I am thinking. But sometimes--often--those pictures >#>#merely call up emotion, they bring with them feelings. That is *feeling* >#>#it is not *thinking*. >#> >#>Now suppose you're planning a day at that beach as part of a road trip. >#>You know the roads in the area pretty well, but you'll be driving there >#>from a different place than you usually do. You start figuring out how >#>to get from point A to point B. What goes on in your mind? ># >#A sudden desire to call up someone who can read maps. If I *could* read >#maps, or had any geographical skill, I would use those techniques to make >#decisions. In other words, I would be manipulating symbols in my mind. I >#call this activity "thinking." > >So do I, but that's not thinking in language. I believe it is. In an earlier post, I defined language as a system of symbols, and used the term, "verbal language" for word-based languages such as Hungarian, English, and the unimportant tongues of man. It may be that my definition of "language" is too broad to be useful. But it seems to me that it is valid to make the point that thought occurs by manipulating symbols in our brains. I believe that the learning of a skill involves (in part) learning the language associated with that skill. That was my point.