Thought

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The sphere of human spiritual activity and the dependence of its manifestations on his bodily organization still remains extremely mysterious and every fact that illuminates this sphere in one way or another deserves our deep attention and comprehensive study. Having asked the question “what is thought” in this slightly compilation note, I do not at all think of analyzing the thought process from the aspect of the qualities of thought itself - whether it is healthy and logical, or vice versa.

In science, there is a thesis that a person thinks in words. This position was generalized and formulated, almost even for the first time expressed, by the famous scientist linguist Max Müller. Between humans and animals, says Max Müller, “there is one line that no one dared to shake - this is the ability to speak. Even the philosophers of the motto "pen ser c 'est sentir" (to think is to feel) (Helvetius), who believe that the same reason makes both man and animal think, - even they must admit that so far not a single species of animal has developed your language."

The human word is not a means for expressing thought, as almost all researchers usually say: it is thought itself in its external revelation. The means always presupposes something separate from the thought to the fulfillment of which it serves, something special, heterogeneous, as a result of an intentional choice used to achieve a certain goal. The word has a completely different relation to thought: it is an involuntary manifestation of thought, so closely organically fused with the latter that their separate existence is impossible. The human spirit, during its earthly existence, is tied to the organic body, and any of its departure is involuntarily reflected in the activity of the body: in shame a person blushes, in anger he turns pale; the activity of the imagination moves his nerves. Exactly the same relationship between thought and word: the second is involuntary, unintentionally, by itself, and, moreover, an echo of the first that is always formed. Who does not know from self-observation that any thinking, even the invisible completely silent, necessarily presupposes an internal conversation with oneself?

Thus, neither thought without language, nor language without thought can exist: there is a connection between them, just as close, and even even the closest, as between spirit and body. This connection, approaching perfect identity, is most clearly revealed by a) the historical development of the word, both in the indivisible and in the whole people, which is in the strictest parallel with the development of thought.

Indeed, since we embody our thoughts in verbal forms, it seems difficult to assume that it is possible to think in a different way. Human speech, at least with respect to the people themselves, is, if not the only, then certainly the best means for the external embodiment of thought. But, despite the thoroughness of this theory, it still needs some amendments and reservations, since there are facts in favor of the fact that a person can think not only in words, but also in a slightly different way.

“Wordless thinking,” says Oscar Peschel, “accompanies all our domestic activities. The musician embodies his thought in the forms of a rhythmic series of sounds, the artist expresses his mental structure with a known combination of colors, the sculptor excises his thought in the forms of the human body, the builder uses lines and planes, the mathematician uses numbers and quantities. A number of these generally known facts, however, shake to a certain extent the infallibility of Max Miller's theory, but only to a certain extent. There is no dispute that a musician, artist, sculptor, etc. can think about well-known tones, colors, shapes, etc., but this does not at all prove that, when thinking, they do not express their thoughts, so to speak, internally, that is, not out loud, but in words. In relation to the same ex. to the mathematician, this assumption is becoming more than plausible.

The speech of children consists exclusively of exclamations, in the form of separate vowels and syllables, and nevertheless, the familiar ear distinguishes the meaning in these exclamations. All this perfectly confirms the position that one can think not only in words. But all these examples are exceptions to the rule.

Thought and word are two inseparable concepts. Words without thought will be dead sounds. Thought without words is nothing. Thought is unspoken speech. To speak is to think out loud. Speech is the embodiment of thought. Let's do a couple of little experiments:

- Look away from the monitor for five seconds. Some familiar object caught your eye, its verbal "portrait" does not interfere with the flow of your thoughts.

- Now close your eyes for 10 seconds. Your hearing has sharpened, your main thought has been supplemented by outside noises (conversation, music), and the senses of smell and touch have also been added to your thought-image.

The participation of feelings in the process of thinking is so extensive and omnipotent that a person often considers his internal mental state as a result of external phenomena, that his thoughts appear to him, so to speak, in an external, objective, bodily form. Hence the direct conclusion that a person can think, and often really thinks, by sensory impressions of smell and taste. These positions apply indifferently to all five or more - depending on the classification - of the senses, even because they all represent only different modifications of the basic sense of touch. The only difference is that this touch with the eye, ear or hand is done in different ways. Even with our nose, we feel the microscopic parts of odorous objects floating in the air.

Memory sometimes presents such minute details that we did not even know about, and all thanks to our senses. The renewed sensation activates the same parts of the brain and in the same way as the original sensation.

Here is what Gustave Flaubert, one of the best and most talented novelists of the French real school, says in his letter to Ganry Taine: “The personalities I imagine persecute me, penetrate me, or rather, I myself go into them. When I wrote the scene of Emma Bovary's poisoning, I so clearly felt the taste of arsenic in my mouth that I positively poisoned myself: I twice had all the real symptoms of poisoning, so real that I vomited all my lunch."

“A person,” says Mr. Sechenov, “is known to have the ability to think in images, words and other sensations that have no direct connection with what at that time acts on his sense organs. In his consciousness, therefore, images and sounds are drawn without the participation of the corresponding external real images and sounds … When a child thinks, he certainly speaks at the same time. In children about five years old, thought is expressed in words or conversation, or at least by the movements of the tongue and lips. This happens very often (and maybe always, only to varying degrees) with adults. I, at least, know from myself that my thought is very often accompanied, with a closed and motionless mouth, mute conversation, that is, movements of the muscles of the tongue in the oral cavity. In all cases, when I want to fix some thought primarily in front of others, I will certainly whisper it. It even seems to me that I never think directly with a word, but always with muscle sensations accompanying my thought in the form of a conversation. At least, I am not able to mentally sing to myself with the sounds of a song, but I always sing it with my muscles, then it is as if the memory of sounds appears”. (Psychological Studies, Sib. 1873, pp. 62 and 68.)

The loftiest ideas are a product of the senses, and without the latter, the ideas themselves would be impossible. The conclusion drawn from the collected facts and observations is simply formulated:

Thought is a product of life

Thought is strictly individual, depending only on life experience, upbringing, morality and education.