Aspies For Freedom

Small piece of an article at BBC News which i find interesting:

Quote:

Key to intelligence questioned
Thought might not be dependent on language, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A UK team has shown that patients who have lost the ability to understand grammar can still complete hard sums.

This suggests mathematical reasoning can exist without language.

The study undermines the assumption that language is the key quality that makes our thought processes more advanced than those of other animals.

"We are kicking against the claim that it is language that allows you to do other high order intellectual functions," lead research Rosemary Varley, from the University of Sheffield, told the BBC News website.

link to article at BBC News

That's what I always thought, I never think in language, just mental concepts, which language vaguely conveys when I want to express my thoughts.

Dreamer Wrote:

That's what I always thought, I never think in language, just mental concepts, which language vaguely conveys when I want to express my thoughts.

I always saw language more like "gloves" to which my thoughts are the "hand". For me, it is very difficult to switch from one language to another (even though I am fluent in two and speak several others quite well) especially within a sentence (like a French word that needs to be pronounced properly within an English sentence), because it takes me a while to slip into the other "glove".

yes, I know language isn't always a determiner of intelligence. However, most people who have an excellent command of language and vocabulary are fairly intelligent. ^^ I have a pretty diversified way of thinking, myself. Sometimes I think in non-verbal images, and sometimes I think primarily in words. I speak three (nearly four) languages, and my brain operates in all three, plus phrases from the other languages I haven't completely learned. O_o

mayaku

Dreamer

Noetic

Yavi