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I would say thought was possible
without language and photography involves a thought process without words. We
express ourselves with images. I recall that when I was about 22,
I lost my languages due to a head injury but I could still reason. In fact I
had no knowledge of language and when I heard talking is sounded like the
cooing of birds or the sounds animals made. Not speech at all. I could read
still however and had some knowledge of writing. I think I must have read the
pictures and diagrams, not the written word. They took the books away from me
because it seemed I did not understand. They thought I was terribly deficient.
Then my wife (who was a nurse for this sort of thing) taught me international
sign language. Then, after she left me because I was deficient, some other
young women I lived with looked after me and I picked up language from them. I recall how I worked out that the
sounds they made had words and the words were attached to actions and things or
people. It was some time before I found out that the shapes I saw were tables,
chairs and people and then that the people were young women of my age and again
someone I could sleep with – but that came years later. I learned by moving my
hand round the objects and relating it to what I saw. The same for the people. So thoughts are objects in the
mind and concepts usually about relationships between objects. The structures that related to
these concepts were still in my brain and so I had to reattach them to the
things they related to. Before my head injury, I
understand recovery involved growing a new brain, I spoke languages other than
English. One of the languages I lost was mathematics and symbolic logic.
However I did not lose the capacity for mathematics or logic but just had to
learn all the symbols and concepts. However I found setting up a physics system
as a mathematical model very difficult to relearn whereas I used to find this easy. Now after further psychiatric
treatment I found the mathematics course I was taking impossible so I withdrew.
I have asked for me fees refunded by the hospital with other damages. So when I took up photography
again it helped me reacquire the intellectual skills I had. By they way I have re-grown other
parts that I lost through surgery. I won’t go into details but this capacity
runs in the family. However we tend to die around 70. I’m 67. --- 3 years to
go! There is no language without
thought and so photography is a language an _expression_ of thought. Chris From: owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Palcewski Linguists say there is no thought without
language.
On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 6:05 PM, Emily L. Ferguson <elf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: At 12:27 PM -0700 8/6/10, mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wrote: Words have nothing to do with thought or the ability to
think.
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