Don't you have brain shivers that appear to rehearse likely conversations with other speakers?

I mean, don't you find your brain rehearsing the kinds of shivering by which it might recognise and respond effectively to other speakers' likely comments about views you hold? Shivers that tend to proceed with time-intensity envelopes fairly analogous to word-sounds?

So, I mean, monologues aside, don't you even have quote internal dialogues unquote? (Not actual ones, agreed. Probably.)

The basic question is this: are words more than their word-form? — NOS4A2

Before the meaning of hieroglyphs was deciphered, hieroglyphs were to us word-forms devoid of known meaning and, therefore, could not be used by us to convey meaning. But we presumed them to be words all the same on account of their seeming to hold some sort of grammar. Hence, before their decipherment, they were not words to us - but merely word-forms, this, again, on the presumption that they had been words to ancient Egyptians.

Words in any language we (or anyone else, such as the ancient Egyptians) make use of convey meaning - otherwise they’d be visual, sonic, or tactile gibberish, and not words.

I thereby conclude: words = word-forms + associated meanings(s). Making words more than mere word-forms.

My problem is that if the word-forms conveyed meaning, we’d know what they meant by reading them. It is precisely because they do not convey meaning that we do not understand them, not unless some Rosetta Stone or human being is able to supply them with meaning. The drift of meaning over time suggests much the same.

Yeah, I’m sure I do. I get subtle movements, which could be described as shivers as you say. Is this what they mean by thinking in words or an inner monologue, where neither the act of speaking nor any actual words are involved?

When you read, is there a voice in your head (i.e., subvocalization)?

There is nothing occurring that I could call a voice.

My problem is that if the word-forms conveyed meaning, we’d know what they meant by reading them. It is precisely because they do not convey meaning that we do not understand them, not unless some Rosetta Stone or human being is able to supply them with meaning. The drift of meaning over time suggests much the same. — NOS4A2

I'm not yet understanding how this conflicts with words being more than their word-forms. For example via analogy, red is just a color. But cultures will associate certain psychological states of being to the color red: passion (be it love or anger) in most of the West and, for example, luck and happiness in China, or else peace and/or justice in Japan. It's via these associations that the color red can then symbolize particular psychological states of being - this, for example, in paintings or on actor's faces or clothes. Same I find holds for word-forms: they're meaningless until a group of people associate the word-form to a meaning (or to a set of such).

Apropos, by "word-form" I so far understand the strictly perceptual aspect of words, be this via sound, or via sight, or via touch. Am I mistaking what you mean by the term?

No, you’re right, and we agree on most. Word-forms are meaningless until people associate them with meaning. But this, to me, means that people are meaningful, not the word-forms. People convey the meaning, and stand ready to supply it should they come across word-forms they understand.

That difference may be slight, but I think it has large implications for how we think about language. As objects or soundwaves or whatever, the symbols are completely innocent, and need not be feared nor revered. They need not be defaced or censored or glorified.

The core error is the simplistic picture of meaning being encoded in one brain, transmitted to anther, and then decoded. It's rubbish.

There's no reason to assume that consciousness is the same for each of us - and a growing body of evidence that it isn't.

Meaning is constructed across minds, between and external to them as much as within them.

word-form — NOS4A2

It's very unclear what "word-form" is.

The basic question is this: are words more than their word-form? — NOS4A2

"Word" can have a couple of meanings. It can be actual sounds or marks, or it can be an abstract object expressed by these physical events.

We know the two are logically distinct because a variety of utterances (the sounds or marks) can all express the same word.

My perspective is that the concept of a word is part of an analysis of communication. We dismantle it and put the pieces out on a table. Don't worry over abstractness. It's a result of this analysis.

A cool fact about words: in Vietnamese, the word expressed by a sequence of sounds is selected by the melody of the utterance. So you can say "mah" one way and it means ghost. Say it another way and it means iron. Or something like that.

I recently discovered that others can think in words. Some have even admitted to hearing an inner monologue, not so much as an audio hallucination, but as a fundamental component of their thinking. — NOS4A2

Do you mean there are people who don't?

Do you mean there are people who don't? — Wayfarer

We talked about this on a different thread. Only some people have it.

Meaning is constructed across minds, between and external to them as much as within them.

I'm not sure what this means. Where is this meaning across, between, and external to minds?

It's very unclear what "word-form" is.

Yes, I guess that's confusing. I didn't know it had a technical usage. What I mean is the form of the word, like the sound or scribble it takes. Maybe a sign?

My problem is that if the word-forms conveyed meaning ... — NOS4A2

They don't. Words do.

... we’d know what they meant by reading them. — NOS4A2

We do not read word-forms. We read words, and not always all the words, and we can still understand what is said.

This has been demonstrated by the ability to reading words even when the form is jumbled: For example and typoglycemia

People convey the meaning — NOS4A2

Those who know a language can convey meaning through the words they use, but that meaning cannot be conveyed to someone who does not know the language.

... the symbols are completely innocent, and need not be feared nor revered. They need not be defaced or censored or glorified. — NOS4A2

The symbols may be innocent but the words are not. Words are not simply a combination of letters or sounds. They are a way of saying things. Some things that some people say should be feared. One reason is not simply because others may revere and glorify them, but because they believe them and may act on them. They can be inspired by words and lied to and deceived by words.

Where is this meaning across, between, and external to minds? — NOS4A2

Use.

Those who know a language can convey meaning through the words they use, but that meaning cannot be conveyed to someone who does not know the language.

I cannot believe words transport meaning from A to B because I have not been able to witness this occur. No one has. No one has looked at a symbol and seen anything called “meaning”.

The symbols may be innocent but the words are not. Words are not simply a combination of letters or sounds. They are a way of saying things. Some things that some people say should be feared. One reason is not simply because others may revere and glorify them, but because they believe them and may act on them. They can be inspired by words and lied to and deceived by words.

But they are simply a combination of words and sounds for the reasons I mentioned. They are passive. They cannot do anything more than be there. They cannot act upon a person anymore than any other scratch on paper or articulated guttural sound. Unless a sign falls on someone’s head, not a single person can be affected by a word. It’s wrong to treat them as powerful or transporters of nefarious goods because it lays blame at the wrong feet, and it makes weak everyone who might come across them.

Use

The meaning must be acquired before we start using words or else we have nothing to associate them with. Meaning is prior to use.

Nuh. This has been explained to you previously, by myself and by others; it dissolves the perplexity in your OP, but you can't see it.

Are words more than their word-form? Yes, they are also what we do with them.

Yes, and everyone reverts back to metaphor. Meaning is across, between, and external to minds, but as soon as I look it isn’t. Now it’s what we do with them, but what you do with them is type them out.

The basic question is this: are words more than their word-form? — NOS4A2

Well, yes. When a written mark (word) enters in a specific con-text, such as the story of a book, where it is related to other written marks (other words), it stops being simply an isolated mark and becomes the story (just like an individual enters in relation with others individuals and become society, the individual becomes something more than individual: a citizen). The whole is the story, and the signifiers (the parts) are retroactively affected by the story. A sign always, in a certain sense, "stands in place of something else"; It can be said that it refers us to something absent. And it becomes absent when it enters into relation with another sign that affects. For example, a descriptive language is in place of what it attempts to represent; and in this case what is represented seems to unfold, extend its essence beyond what it actually is. In this sense, a sign is not only a sign in itself, but a thing virtualizing itself and becoming another, surviving in the other, like a sign becomes a story in its relation with other signs.

I agree.

what you do with them is type them out. — NOS4A2

And so long as you don't consider what we do in writing them out, you cannot progress.

I supose it is your extreme individualism that prevents you seeing how words build the social world, one of promises and contracts and obligations and derision.

Only some people have it. — frank

There are people who don't use language to think by themselves?

If that does happen, how can personal testimony work as a reliable report of such a lack of experience?

When somebody says: "This does not happen to me", where is the contact point between the diverging experiences? There has to be enough shared experience to point at a breaking point of difference if such a proposition does anything.

I get subtle movements, which could be described as shivers as you say. Is this what they mean by thinking in words or an inner monologue, where neither the act of speaking nor any actual words are involved? — NOS4A2

It's what they mean by "sub-vocalisation", at least.

There is nothing occurring that I could call a voice. — NOS4A2

Why not, if it resembles speech in respect of its graph of intensity against time?

Only some people have it. — frank

I think they are either confused by the unwarranted emphasis on sub-monologue to the exclusion of sub-dialogue (far more typical I expect) or they are reacting consciously or otherwise against the unwarranted inference to actual internal speech.

There are people who don't use language to think by themselves? — Paine

I think there's a spectrum. NOS seems to be so far on the side of not thinking in words that he doesn't quite understand what's going on with people who have it. He's mystified.

I'm more in the middle of the spectrum because I can do it at will, but at baseline, there's no internal voice. I experience things, but those experiences can't be fully captured by words. It's like words are a net and some of my experience falls through the holes. My memory of it is in feelings. A metaphor I use is the feelings are like music. There are base notes, treble, harmonies, and recurring themes. But it's not music. It's emotional tones.

I've known people who have an internal voice constantly, from the time they wake up till they go to sleep. I couldn't grasp that when I first discovered some people like that. I thought I would shoot myself if I had an internal voice all the time.

think they are either confused by the unwarranted emphasis on sub-monologue to the exclusion of sub-dialogue (far more typical in my own case at least) or they are reacting consciously or otherwise to the unwarranted inference of actual internal speech. — bongo fury

Everybody seems to think we're all the same. It's really hard to grasp that we aren't.

Everybody seems to think we're all the same. It's really hard to grasp that we aren't. — frank

Touche.

I don't recall seeing a link in the thread to an article on the experience of an inner voices, so...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/oct/25/the-last-great-mystery-of-the-mind-meet-the-people-who-have-unusual-or-non-existent-inner-voices

I'm towards the nonexistent inner voice side of things myself. Though I can relate to experiencing an inner voice to some extent, it's not an aspect of my normal experience, let alone something that seems necessary for thought in my experience.

I don't look at 'internal discourse' as an excess of an activity.

Talking too much limits perception. That is a condition we can observe. Personal conditions are both too close and too far.

But do these limitations tell us anything about thinking through language?

Words come in the form of sounds and visual patterns. I can say any sentence I like to myself "silently"; I can hear it within, so to speak. Although I am also a visual artist, I cannot see internal images; meaning I cannot invoke a picture of anything like a photograph and examine it like I would a photograph. —except—when I'm tripping—then the internal images can be stable enough to examine them closely, but they don't seem to be subject to will, like the internal speaking of sentences is.

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