In article <7f7lj98m42.fsf at faith.csis.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sdlee at faith.csis.hku.hk> wrote:
>>>>>> "John" == John Turnbull <john at turnbull.org> writes:
> John> Have you ever hummed a tune without realizing it?
>I can hum a tune in my mind.
That wasn't really the question. I would imagine most people can play
music in their mind.
> John> what am I doing? why am I doing it? is there a better way?
> John> all without words? Maybe so, but it seems to me a lot
> John> better to use words.
>Yes, except for the "why" question. Answering a "why" question
>requires reasoning, and reasoning often needs verbal thinking. But
>answering "what" and existence questions, I can do it without words.
>Even when answering "why" questions, I can sometimes do it
>language-lessly. So, that's again without words. (When I don't need
>to speak out the answers, why do I have to render the ideas in a
>language?)
Maybe I am being too restrictive when I say thinking, and mean
reasoning. You still haven't given an idea where you think the line is
between thinking and non-thinking response. I think the reason words
seem so important is that ideas can be expressed in words, and the words
are inherently invoked. Just as if the word "apple" is thought about
you will recall the taste, or the feel, or the image of an apple, if you
think about the idea of an apple the word is known as easily as the
other features.
> John> OK, so you draw pictures with no words.
>I often avoid words in the pictures. When I need to represent some
>ideas (esp. abstract ones) with words, I usually use the first letter
>(in case of English) to represent the whole idea. So, that serves
>only as a symbol (somehow arbitrary) or mark to remind me that that
>particular letter stands for that particular idea.
>> John> My diagrams tend to
> John> be more of arrangements of words on the page. Words are so
> John> much more efficient than wasting all that time with images.
>When I do geometry or solve geometric problems, I would draw the
>figures wordlessly. Yes, I would *label* some features (points,
>edges, angles) with letters, but they are only labels. If I have
>enough pens of different colours, I could do the labeling by means of
>colours instead of letters. That doesn't prevent me from thinking
>about the geometric problems.
It's been a *long* time since I've done any geometry, and I'd probably
need to draw diagrams, but it would be in response to thoughts in words.
John
