Michael Mitchell: Archive

Thinking requires language. Language is a code (or system) of symbols. A symbol is an object that represents (or means) another object or an unlimited number of similar objects. The conscious awareness of simularity requires the differentiation of at least two objects, a process (or mechanism) that requires the ability (or power) to abstract (or mentally isolate) each from what is otherwise perceptual chaos (or undifferentiated sensations). We cannot think of anything we haven't conceptually identified by means of language. We can perceive objects, entities, attributes, etc., maybe for a few seconds beyond our direct (sensory-perceptual?) experience of them by means of memory -- or for however long the experience persists, of course -- but we cannot think of anything independent of experience without language. That's essentially what thinking is. It's not what we perceive, but the meaning we've given to it. The important thing not to misunderstand here, though -- for anyone who wants to describe or explain or model cognition, as the full system of all mental processes, including the physiological processes they depend on -- is not the distinction between sense-perception and thought or reasoning, but the integration of existence and consciousness. We don't think of the symbols qua symbols. They're not "entity surrogates". We think of what they represent, as if there is no distinction, as if they're the same.