Question About Consciousness

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Midgardian

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Hello, I am sure this question has been asked before, but I was looking through the forms and unable to find it anywhere, and it has been a major question on my mind, so wanted to ask.

I am not deaf, so it is hard for me to grasp the possibilities of this. How does someone who has been deaf their entire life conceptualize thoughts in their mind? Since people who are not deaf use spoken language, it has puzzled me what sort of system someone who is deaf would use when "thinking".

I appreciate the answers I get, and I may just be asking this from ignorance, but I am genuinely interested in some people sharing their experiences on this issue.
 
Thoughts are based on symbols. Language is made up of symbols. Symbols represent concepts. Thoughts are concepts. See the connection? Thought processes are not based on sound, but on conceptual symbols.
 
jillio said:
Thoughts are based on symbols. Language is made up of symbols. Symbols represent concepts. Thoughts are concepts. See the connection? Thought processes are not based on sound, but on conceptual symbols.
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Thanks for the prompt answer : )

I understand that language is a system of symbols, but I guess where my problem arises is in the realm of visual and auditory conceptualization. There is a differentiation between auditory and visual symbols. The words I am typing now are visual symbols, but the interpretation of their sound is, for me, an auditory symbol. When I consciously produce thought, I don't see the visual symbol, I hear the auditory symbol. Which is where my question resides.

For someone who is deaf, I would assume conscious processes would work on a visual level, so I am wondering at the nature of these visualizations, and how, in one's experience, these symbols consciously work.

Language is a big interest of mine, and so I just want to delve into a different linguistic system than my own and see how someone relates to that system and how that system produces thought. As you said, language is made of symbols, and that's just what I am trying to parse out, so I can understand the symbols on a different level.
 
Midgardian said:
Thanks for the prompt answer : )

I understand that language is a system of symbols, but I guess where my problem arises is in the realm of visual and auditory conceptualization. There is a differentiation between auditory and visual symbols. The words I am typing now are visual symbols, but the interpretation of their sound is, for me, an auditory symbol. When I consciously produce thought, I don't see the visual symbol, I hear the auditory symbol. Which is where my question resides.

For someone who is deaf, I would assume conscious processes would work on a visual level, so I am wondering at the nature of these visualizations, and how, in one's experience, these symbols consciously work.

Language is a big interest of mine, and so I just want to delve into a different linguistic system than my own and see how someone relates to that system and how that system produces thought. As you said, language is made of symbols, and that's just what I am trying to parse out, so I can understand the symbols on a different level.
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The word "chair" is a symbol for the thing. The spoken phonetic representation of the word "chair" is an auditory representation for the thing. The sign "chair" is a representation for the thing. A picture of a chair is a representation of the actual thing. All conjur the same thought in the brain...a memory of the actual thing. Yet only one is based on audtory information. Auditory information is not necessary for conceptual thought. Only language is.
 
Why does he think we can't think with written words?
 
Bottesini said:
Why does he think we can't think with written words?
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That's the point I'm trying to make, Bott. No matter what the symbol is that you use, it all means the same thing...a memory of the actual thing.:shrug:
 
jillio said:
That's the point I'm trying to make, Bott. No matter what the symbol is that you use, it all means the same thing...a memory of the actual thing.:shrug:
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Ok, I thought written words are very concrete symbols and easy to relate to objects, etc.

Hence my surprise the OP thought we could not understand them.
 
Bottesini said:
Why does he think we can't think with written words?
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Lol, I think this has just gotten more philosophically based than I wanted it too. I don't think that. I think that's a possibility, but that is essentially what I wanted to know. I understand linguistic symbols and all that.

But what I want to know is personal experience with cognition. I want to know how you think, what you conceptualize when you think: be it written words, sign language, or pictures. And then I sort of want personal experience with these forms of cognition, I know it's hard for anyone to say how they feel about the way they think, but just interested in sort of a stream-of-consciousness look at it.

That's all I was really asking, wasn't making any immediate judgments about how you do or don't think, or that any form of thinking is superior, just wondering about personal experience.
 
Bottesini said:
Ok, I thought written words are very concrete symbols and easy to relate to objects, etc.

Hence my surprise the OP thought we could not understand them.
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Yes, they are very concrete symbols, and are not dependent upon the auditory sense at all. Yet "chair" is a symbol that refers to the actual object just as readily as if I said the word.
 
Midgardian said:
Lol, I think this has just gotten more philosophically based than I wanted it too. I don't think that. I think that's a possibility, but that is essentially what I wanted to know. I understand linguistic symbols and all that.

But what I want to know is personal experience with cognition. I want to know how you think, what you conceptualize when you think: be it written words, sign language, or pictures. And then I sort of want personal experience with these forms of cognition, I know it's hard for anyone to say how they feel about the way they think, but just interested in sort of a stream-of-consciousness look at it.

That's all I was really asking, wasn't making any immediate judgments about how you do or don't think, or that any form of thinking is superior, just wondering about personal experience.
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Ah, then your question has been answered. Deaf people think in concept the same way hearing people think in concept.
 
I guess I should have foregrounded myself a bit. I'm interested in this because of the history of linguistic studies, and observations made by theorists such as Ferdinand De Saussure and Wittgenstein. The general modernist consensus has been that linguistic symbols, like "chair," have no connection to the actual object that we call "chair," and that symbols for "chair" evoke different feelings for everyone. And so some theorists suggest that we no longer talk of common languages but of personal languages.

So I was just interested in the role of symbols in speech-impaired cognition in general, and more specifically how these symbols are constructed to represent a perception of reality, or something of the sort. Just curious.
 
Midgardian said:
I guess I should have foregrounded myself a bit. I'm interested in this because of the history of linguistic studies, and observations made by theorists such as Ferdinand De Saussure and Wittgenstein. The general modernist consensus has been that linguistic symbols, like "chair," have no connection to the actual object that we call "chair," and that symbols for "chair" evoke different feelings for everyone. And so some theorists suggest that we no longer talk of common languages but of personal languages.

So I was just interested in the role of symbols in speech-impaired cognition in general, and more specifically how these symbols are constructed to represent a perception of reality, or something of the sort. Just curious.
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All linguistic symbols, whether spoken, signed, or written, are arbitrary. The visual symbols in a signed language are constructed in the same way that the auditory symbols of a spoken language are constructed. Perhaps you would be interested in reading the works of linguist William Stokoe on the topic, or the works of psychologist Marc Marsharck on the subject of cognition of the deaf.

And, while it is true that when one sees the symbol "chair", the exact chair that is pulled from the memory is dependent upon personal experience, unless one suffers from aphasia, one does indeed recall some form of a chair, and not a frog. Therefore, while a shared language may have personal interpretations, it is indeed still a shared language.
 
jillio said:
All linguistic symbols, whether spoken, signed, or written, are arbitrary. The visual symbols in a signed language are constructed in the same way that the auditory symbols of a spoken language are constructed. Perhaps you would be interested in reading the works of linguist William Stokoe on the topic, or the works of psychologist Marc Marsharck on the subject of congition of the deaf.
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Thank you for the discussion and the suggestions. I shall have to try to find some of their works to help me along with this subject. Many thanks, again : )
 
Midgardian said:
Thank you for the discussion and the suggestions. I shall have to try to find some of their works to help me along with this subject. Many thanks, again : )
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You are quite welcome. Good luck with your learning.:wave:
 
Well, consciousness is an illusion - we are conscious because our senses are stimulating parts of our brains and our brains are extremely complex enough to make us self-aware. Our brains can hold memories and with the memories, we're able to form ideas.

If a person is born without any of the senses, he is nothing no matter how human he looks. But that "hypothesis" is impossible because every known organism has a sense of touch and that's the most basic requirement to achieve some kind of interaction intellectually. You don't really need a brain, contrary to popular belief, to have a sensation of touch. For example, bacteria has no brain but reacts to touch. Of course, it doesn't perceive pain the way we do but it does have a sense.
 
Interesting questions. I took a class on linguistics in college and loved that subject. It's fascinating! I've been deaf since 18 months and speak orally with hearing aids. The only way I can learn a new word is that I have to first read it in order to attach symbols (the written word) to the spoken word/auditorial sound. If someone were to try to teach me a new word auditorially first, I have a hard time grasping it because I can only hear part of the word, not the whole thing. For example, if you were to speak "that" to me, I would hear "...at" or "vegetarian" as "..ege..aria..". So my brain processes the symbols as partically auditoral and partically symbolically (letters). I think in English, like how I speak them because speaking in English is my main mode of communcation.

I'm sure that those whom are native ASL signers would probably think in a commination of signs, sounds/expressions, and words. Or maybe even in pictures. It really all depends on what we mainly communicate mostly in. Our brain has the ability to think in different ways: as sounds, as images, as symbols, etc.

While we're on the topic of linguistics and consciousness, I had an interesting experience with the Sanskrit language. Are you familiar with the term "xenoglossy"? Xenoglossy
Many times in altered states, such as when I am very very relaxed like when my brain goes into a different wave state or during dreams, I would visually see Sanskrit words in the Roman (phonetic) alphabet. At first they felt very familiar and natural to me to know it, but then when I wake up, I have no clue to what they mean and would be skeptical that they were actual words with actual meanings. I was so curious and looked these words up in the online Sanskrit dictionary. Everytime, those words were for real and had actual meanings pertaining to what was going on in my life. It showed me that we are part of a greater, higher consciousness that is beyond this physical body we reside, is beyond time and distance. How we think is not limited to our brain's function, that I've learnt.
 
yes, very interesting discussion! one thing meant kindly, is why connect "speech-impaired cognition" w/Deaf or hearing loss? If such an assumption is made, why make it?

I happen to have LD. I think in pictures or non-verbally as often, if not more so, than words. I also sometimes think in colors.

Bott and Jillio, I actually wondered that too..
 
So, I was poking around this forum for a different purpose, but this conversation induced a visceral need to respond, because I love the subject matter...

I *think* what the question being asked is how a congenitally (or very early) deaf person interacts with his/her inner monologue. That voice that composes and organizes your thoughts, though not necessarily in a grammatically correct language.

I've had the experience of learning a grand total of 5 different languages (or at least starting to learn and forgetting most of them): English from birth, Dutch and Thai between ages 3 and 7, French in High School (I actually remember enough to speak it), and Italian for a brief time before and during a month-long trip to Italy. Adding in ASL now (finishing up my first semester of it) and I have started to learn 6 languages, which sounds really impressive until I remember I can barely speak complete sentences in French, and have next to nothing to show for the rest. I can say "Hello" in Thai!

I may be somewhat unusual as an American, because I learned languages so young, but as soon as I start to learn a language, my internal monologue entirely shifts into that language. Which is why I always have to have a translation dictionary or I get driven crazy by incomplete thoughts ;) The experience is somewhat different learning ASL, because without closing my eyes it's almost impossible to visualize what the signs would be, and since I spend a lot of my time driving now trying to think in sign (which also induces my hands to MAKE the signs) it can be a bit awkward. If you see some guy driving down the road staring into nothing and fingerspelling "pneumonoultramicroscopicsiliconvolcanoconiosis," it's ok, I'm just practicing. Instead, what I'm "hearing" in my head is actually the sensation of making the signs, ie the expressive, but not receptive side (which I've always had trouble with in all non-English languages, since I've never been fluent). I would assume most hearing people, as I do, are actually hearing the sounds more than remembering what it feels like to move air through your larynx and modulate the tones.

The next train of thought this sends me down is... How do you think in English if you're a signing deaf person? Are you seeing the visual words in your brain, or running a translation algorithm from ASL or PSE to written English? And (in my boundless curiousity): How would an oral deaf person run his/her inner monologue? I don't know much about speech-training, but I'd assume it's every bit as consciously physical an experience as learning ASL is, since sound isn't the feedback mechanism in your body.

At this point, I'm doubting anyone read this far, so I'll stop musing...
 
dogmom said:
yes, very interesting discussion! one thing meant kindly, is why connect "speech-impaired cognition" w/Deaf or hearing loss? If such an assumption is made, why make it?

I happen to have LD. I think in pictures or non-verbally as often, if not more so, than words. I also sometimes think in colors.
Bott and Jillio, I actually wondered that too..
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Very interesting, dogmom. That is actually a well known, although rare, phenomenon. Is it anything in particular that causes you to picture colors?
 
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