I was thinking about deaf people today and decided to investigate what language deaf people think in. Unable to find a nice neuroscience study, I settled for a few blogs that discussed talking about the question with their deaf friends. Many of them said that they thought in sign. Attempting to think in sign myself was quite impossible, but thinking in expressive movements came very quickly. This is largely because I do not have the sign language vocabulary to establish a monologue in the language. My ability to communicate through movements of my body are limited to emphasis and emotion. Take a moment to think about frowning and sadness without frowning. Going through the motions in your mind. I would argue, aside from having less connection to the language centers of your brain, there is little difference between this action and the inner monologue you normally think through. Now try smiling and happiness in your mind and discover that this is much easier, smiles being one of the most contagious expressions, one could argue that your smile is nearly always primed.
So what does this tell us about the nature of consciousness?
There is certainly a question of motivation. Thinking jumps around from thought to thought, reliving experiences, repeating information, allowing full access to all functioning parts of the brain. A thinking person can visualize objects, practice speech, mix and meld ideas based on heuristics they have developed for doing so. This all seems to be for practice. Regardless of whether you are a person that has dedicated themselves to math, science, art, writing, business, or religion, you are constantly thinking and a good portion of that happens in the language you know and most of us speak that language well, at most as well as our conscious thoughts. It is natural for us to be motivated to talk to ourselves in our heads so we can better be able to communicate with others.
There is also a question of how the idea of "I" or self realization occurs. If you are most greatly developed through the communications of other people, and you practice the skills of communicating with other people through your conscious thoughts, along with your other skills. What will you call yourself other than I, given you are constantly communicating with yourself. Many have come to call themselves by their own names. No doubt I would be better at saying my own name if that were the case for me. Your self could be described as a graph with all your skills and ideas on the x axis and a bar coming up from each describing how primed or practiced each is. The greatest being the most practiced and ready to be filtered through language and become the start of a conversation.
So I is a creation of humanity and we must look past this humanity to realize that I is nothing without Us. We are not I because everything that makes up I comes from the world around us and what we gain from the communal pool of knowledge. Our ideals and faiths are a product of the part of the pool we come in contact with, but perfection as a species comes from allowing each of us to reach as deep as we can into that pool. That is where we can find the greatest truths and the insights into why we are the way we are and what we should do next.
We are not I.
6.5 billion minds should never think alone
650 quintillion neurons should never fire alone
So what does this tell us about the nature of consciousness?
There is certainly a question of motivation. Thinking jumps around from thought to thought, reliving experiences, repeating information, allowing full access to all functioning parts of the brain. A thinking person can visualize objects, practice speech, mix and meld ideas based on heuristics they have developed for doing so. This all seems to be for practice. Regardless of whether you are a person that has dedicated themselves to math, science, art, writing, business, or religion, you are constantly thinking and a good portion of that happens in the language you know and most of us speak that language well, at most as well as our conscious thoughts. It is natural for us to be motivated to talk to ourselves in our heads so we can better be able to communicate with others.
There is also a question of how the idea of "I" or self realization occurs. If you are most greatly developed through the communications of other people, and you practice the skills of communicating with other people through your conscious thoughts, along with your other skills. What will you call yourself other than I, given you are constantly communicating with yourself. Many have come to call themselves by their own names. No doubt I would be better at saying my own name if that were the case for me. Your self could be described as a graph with all your skills and ideas on the x axis and a bar coming up from each describing how primed or practiced each is. The greatest being the most practiced and ready to be filtered through language and become the start of a conversation.
So I is a creation of humanity and we must look past this humanity to realize that I is nothing without Us. We are not I because everything that makes up I comes from the world around us and what we gain from the communal pool of knowledge. Our ideals and faiths are a product of the part of the pool we come in contact with, but perfection as a species comes from allowing each of us to reach as deep as we can into that pool. That is where we can find the greatest truths and the insights into why we are the way we are and what we should do next.
We are not I.
6.5 billion minds should never think alone
650 quintillion neurons should never fire alone
powered by performancing firefox
No comments:
Post a Comment