Re: When does thought become language?
From a materialist position;
Our senses organs are basically detectors. The redness of an apple is not intrinsic to the apple.
Eyes are escentually light detectors. When light rays or photons come in contact with an apples surface some are absorbed and some are reflected and enter our eyes and a signal is sent to the brain which produces thoughts of redness, form, shape, texture etc. The qualia are an idea, a thought in the brain which appears to be extended in space>>out there<<.
When a tree falls in the forest the acoustic energy or sound waves spread out from the epi centre of the crash in complete silence. It is only when the waves come in contact with an ear drum [and a brain] can there is said to be sound. The universe is silent.
Person X says, “Can you see the apple?”
Same thing, no sound actually is emitted from her mouth. When the acoustic waves hit my ear drum and send a signal to my brain my brain creates a sound, as a thought, with all its varied complexities from the incoming data.
Her voice utterances become an idea in my mind. The photons reflecting of her body, her sent, and body image are perceived as ideas, accompanied by various intensities of other internal thoughts.
From this perspective the perceived world is an externalization of thought, and language is some aspect of that thought. But when does thought become language? When it leaves the privacy of [internal] thinking and becomes an idea in some ones mind?
Of course the nondual perspective is that all is mind, including photons.
To try to take the op a little seriously, isn’t that the one of the points of Zen Buddahism? The koans teach that we come to understanding the universe limited by how we have learned to perceive it, but such may not be the best basis. It tries to shatter our presumptions and assumption.
In another way, what we use as language, the evolution and ontogeny of language, tells us much of ontology. Linguistics is a reasonable model of how we form perceptions of a presumed independent reality in general. Language is helpful for what is in our experience (as a culture) but limiting and even misleading when trying to understand something outside of our cultural experience.
language requires at least a sender and receiver
to impart knowledge
dumb animals have a ‘language’ since they communicate with each other and are really dumb enough not to use words. as i suspect also do insects and other life forms
we have gotten a bit too big for our mouths.
our vocabulary is only consistent with out existent.
and as was pointed out no object really discerns what it is called unless by concencus.
I think language is only used to confuse, and little sincerity can come from it. The purist languages are computer programming languages like haskell, which do what they are supposed to do, and mean only what the mean without any innuendo. Annoying things which spoken languages have created – religion, war, governments, and forum trolls.
Things which other forms of art have created: beautiful paintings and peaceful songs.
You revived a ten year old Zombie thread just to demonstrate that you are not familiar with Goya’s The Third of May 1808, Picasso’s Guernica, Work’s Marching Through Georgia, or The Merry Ploughboy?
I kind of wish the OP had come back to explain what he means in more practical terms. Just a zenish awareness of the suchness of things beyond their objectification? Or some actual change in the way we communicate?
