Comment by blfr
1 year ago
I think that this is false, as in intersubjectively not true for the human experience. First, because our physical state has a huge influence on our thoughts, not just their content, but direction, "color."
Secondly, and more importantly, while some thoughts may not have a language (image memories, mental maps), others certainly do, they're narrative. I only speak two languages but well enough (English is my second language) that I can think in both, and often come to a point where I have to decide which it will be for this train of thought.
Shape rotators vs wordcels distinction strikes again, I guess.
Quite a lot of people have no inner voice, others no inner imagery, others no inner unsymbolized conceptual thinking (cf all of Hurlburts research).
We all use very varied modalities of thought! It's as rich as how different we look or how different we cook.
Having no inner voice, imagery, or whatever seems to be poorer rather than richer experience to me. I don't think the existence of deaf people invalidates the importance of music to human experience.
I don't think a deaf person's inability to listen to music with their ears makes them incapable of depth and clarity of thought, no.
I don't think people who aren't hard of hearing necessarily have particularly deep or clear thoughts simply because they listen to music with their ears either. It's very easy to confuse correlation with causation.
(I've specified "with their ears" because deaf people can perceive music through other means than the cochlea + cochlear nerve.)
Nearly every post that uses exclamation marks like this is off-putting. Fake enthusiasm is creepy. There is no way you are enthusiastic about people having no inner voice.
Of course there is. Maybe they are one of those people. I know multiple people who say they have no inner voice the way I experience it and I don’t get it, but yes they are enthusiastic about saying that they can still think perfectly well!