What Came First Thought Or Lan :: essays research papers

Language came after Thought In order to be able to prove the statement 'Language came after thought', the words 'language' and 'thought' first will have to be defined. Language could be described as a system for formulating and communicating information, thoughts and feelings. There is, however, not one adequate definition of thinking, since most definitions do not cover all aspects of thought. It could be defined as a mental activity, but also as the way one's mind perceives one's senses. Having gathered this information, the concepts of language and thought will be looked at, and the relationship between the two concepts will be found. Firstly, a distinction has to be made between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. There are infinitely more thoughts in our mind than we can ever perceive. The German psychologist Fechner, who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century, compared the mind to an iceberg. This iceberg has only a fraction of all the information and thoughts stored in the mind above the water level, on the surface of consciousness, but by far the biggest part of it is hidden underwater, in the unconscious mind. Recent research has shown that only a very tiny proportion of our unconscious thinking is converted to conscious thinking. This conversion processes like the search engine in a computer: this 'search engine' unconsciously selects the thoughts we want to be available for our conscious mind. Then a small part of the thoughts from the unconscious component of the mind, the part that is aware of, and to a certain extent induces the person's choice of action, is consciously translated i nto language. This means that the meaning a person wishes to express provides the strategy for the proper word. In the conscious mind there are words, whereas in the unconscious mind there are only concepts. Creativity, for instance, can be found in the unconscious mind. Inspirations for paintings or for music compositions are found in the unconscious mind. Human beings, however, do not encounter them in the form of words. Musicians in general are much more likely to think in form of harmony instead of in a melody: they do not think in the form of chords, but in the form of harmony and melody. This harmony is in that musician's subconscious mind, and is expressed through his conscious mind in the form of a melody. Even scientists often do not think in language.