Once a friend (Mehrdad) was complaining that the theory of formal languages that we are forced to study in university is just bullshit! My only comment at that time was what is bullshit is the curriculum! I suggested that if the lecturer could start from the first, where natural languages become to existence and how they are related to our thoughts, then the course would be quite amazing! Now I am preparing a series of posts concerning the theory of language and then I will move to formal languages. Just to mention: I am not a linguist and I’m not planning to put my nose in their aQsQs! These posts are just for discussion and may be subject to many technical mistakes.
There are many scholars who believe that language precedes thoughts. They bring examples: Hunter-gatherers from the Pirahã tribe, whose language only contains words for the numbers one and two, were unable to reliably tell the difference between four objects placed in a row and five in the same configuration. On the other hand, other scientists, including Elizabeth Spelke who has done an experiment showing that children learn to think independently about objects before they learn language, think in other way.
Whether the former group is right or the latter, anybody speaking in any language has a language of thought, i.e. a system of representations that is physically realized in the brain of thinkers and has a combinatorial syntax (and semantics) such that operations on representations are causally sensitive only to the syntactic properties of representations. The question I am asking is “What is the relationship between language and language of thought?” This can be a question for both of these two groups.
Just to mention: as Wittgenstein argues, many problems arise from philosophers’ misuse of language. I’ve taken his advice and wrote the paragraph above to unify our language. So from now we are dealing with the relationship between “language” and a system of the syntax and semantics of our thought, called “language of thught”.
In an earlier post, I opposed the common definitions of Mathematics and Physics. I claimed that the best definition possible is that Mathematics is a subjective projection of reality on science and Physics is the objective on. The similar discussion could be held here: Language is a projection of objects, into spoken, written, heard, read and gestural forms, to express and convey our meaning (even for an internal conversation). And language of thought is a projection of the same object on our mind and perception. Our problem just lies on the matter of classification and labeling objects. Imagine a circle and a square. In order you identified the objects, you label it in mind or expression. So these are two forms of the same thing. Even the first time you see a thing, you label it in your mind and the next time you recall it. Later, you put a word for it, so you label it in another way. We are not in a situation to judge about how we can think without language, because we do have a language and we aso think. However, scientists have done many researches, revealing that animals are capable of thinking about many objects that they have no way to express them. Nevertheless, language helps you organize and document your thoughts, convey them to the other people and is capable of assisting your memory. So any development in language or mental reasoning will make the other stronger.
Conclusion:
1. Language and language of thought are two independent representations of a same thing.
2. Language and language of thought make each other powerful and this is the greatest advantage of human race over beasts.
