Does consciousness arise out of having a language?

@jknilinux,

jknilinux

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[QUOTE]
Does consciousness arise out of having a language?

If I didn't have language, would I still be conscious?
If I taught a monkey a language, is it conscious?
[/QUOTE]

You don't need a language to be conscious, people who have been born deaf dumb (no vocal cords) and blind are most definitely conscious

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@jknilinux,

I've thought about this a few times before, and sometimes it's developed into in-depth discussion with my mates. The thought first arose for me when we began comparing two poems in GCSE English. One of these was called 'Search For My Tongue', by Sujata Bhatt. The class discussed how the narrator deems her two languages to stuggle with each other, and how she talks about thinking in both of the different languages.

It was at this point that I realised that, more often than not, I do not think in a language, and I was actually rather surprised. For obvious reasons, in books or films, human thought is always portrayed to be like someone talking to themselves. I asked some of my friends about their thoughts, and most of them said that they do think in English, as if telling themselves what to do. I, on the other hand, simply know what I'm telling myself to do, without actually telling myself, if that makes sense. For example, if I feel hungry, I will simply make a decision as to what to do, and (without going down a route of considering free will) will then carry out whichever procedure I have chosen. I will never say to myself 'I should get a sandwich' in my head. The only time I come close to 'talking' to myself in my mind in such a way is when cursing or working out some kind of problem or puzzle, because I feel the urge to talk myself through what I should do.

Just out of interest, and I apologise if I am detracting from the main focus, does anyone else think the same way as I do, or as my friends say they do, or in a different way completely?

In answer, I do not think you have to have a language to be concious, and that is partly what I have been trying to say here; I know that I am capable of thought without language or any kinds of imagined vocal dictation. Words, I beleive, are a way of categorizing and communicating thoughts, not producing them. Having said that, certain communicative thoughts surely require an advanced language in order to manifest?

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@jknilinux,

If you have a stroke that knocks off the entire territory of your left middle cerebral artery, you will lose language. If it's bad enough, you can lose language completely.

You will still be conscious.

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@jknilinux,

jknilinux wrote:

Good question-

What is consciousness? By consciousness, I mean does it have self-awareness, emotions, or thoughts? Or, is it a robot, which is controlled only by it's instinct?

I think this is the central issue. That which is conscious is no different from a 'robot' except in that it is aware of its own actions. It is no less controlled mechanistically. Of course, it is not aware enough to realize that the actions of which it is aware, are in fact determined by external forces. A consious thing does not 'do things' or have a 'will', bur rather can form views of its actions and concludes that it is the author or those actions.

I would imagine that a parot is to some extent concious, in that it probably has some understanding of what it is doing. But I doubt it can reflect on those actions or form anything but the simplest evaluations of them.

It is all a question of complexity. The more complex the machine (from rock to person), the less directly dependent it is on external forces. For example, a rock pretty much reacts to immediate stimuli, perhaps other falling rocks. A person reacts to present immediate stimuli with reference to past stimuli, like the best Rub Goldberg machine ever. Thus, there is the appearance of 'freedom.' Reflection or selfawareness are the function of reacting in terms of itself. For a human being, this could mean reacting to a whistle in reference to some episode that occured a year before (a lifeguard rescue at the beach). Our thoughts are the product of this reaction, not the cause. So, when the whistle blows and we think of that episode at the beach and then do X, the thinking has not caused X, but rather we have thought about the beach episode because we, as an 'engine of reaction, a very coplex machine, are mechanistically reacting in terms of previous circumstances. Its like a wing-up toy, with the beach episode being the winding. Our actions are the product of series of previous events, the causality of which we have only the most meagre understanding.

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@BrightNoon,

It is simply illogical to assert that consciousness can arise out of language while at the same time assuming that without language, consciousness would not exist. (forgive me if this is irrelevant, I didn't read the thread).

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@jknilinux,

Is an end stage Alzheimer's disease sufferer conscious?

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@jknilinux,

Enlightenment is the difference between a person who perceives their reality through the senses, and one who, instead, understands that the senses can be deceiving, and adjusts their lifestyle to compensate.

In a sense, most of mankind, although perceiving the world through their senses, actually lives as though they were blind, deaf and mute, which suggests that the senses can be more of a hinderance to evolution than a benefit. It was not so long ago that the phrase, 'deaf, dumb and blind', was used to describe the disabled person's gutteral attempts at communicating in a world they perceived to be quite different from the reality of most of their brethren. The use of the word 'dumb' to describe the inability to speak would however better define the able-bodied person's inability to understand the reality of the situation.

The disabled person who cannot hear or see may have all of the physical attributes to speak as anyone else, but without the other senses to form words through perception, they might as well have no tongue at all. The senses are a person's contact with reality, which becomes 'reality' as they perceive it through their senses; which may not be the 'reality' of another person, whose senses have brought them to a different perception.

If you give a blind and deaf man an apple and he tastes it, he can grunt his approval at the smell, taste and feel of the fruit, but he cannot tell you he likes it, or hear you tell him what it is. He can only identify the fruit by what senses he has. If the next day he would like to have another apple, and his grunting indicates to you that he is hungry, and you then give him an orange, he would toss it aside and grunt his disapproval. His senses have alerted him to the fact that this was not an apple, or at least not what he thought an apple to be. But suppose you then give him an apple that came from a different tree, which was more sour than the one with which he was he was familiar. The feel of the skin and the smell would tell him that it was an apple, but when he tasted it he would once again toss it aside assuming it was not an apple. His reality is not yours. You know this to be an apple, yet he would argue with that perception. Most of mankind experiences life through this perception of their senses, and are as easily confused and misguided by them as any disabled person. It is our natural state before we become enlightened to this fact. Hense Plato's 'allegory of the cave'.

The struggle after enlightenment of this reality will be in how to apply our knowledge to our new reality. How can we look at an apple and understand its reality when we now know that what is an apple to us, may not be the same apple to someone else. What we see, smell and taste becomes what our own senses tell us that it is, but someone else who may smell it differently would have a completely different perception of it. Their sense of taste may find it far more sour than our own. If their sense of smell is more sensitive than ours, they might enjoy a more heightened sense of the fruit than what our reality of it becomes. In this enlightened stage a person must now ask themselves if this apple is an apple because they perceive it as such, or because an apple is just an apple. Why? Where did they come to this conclusion that it is an apple? The deaf, blind mute does not know it is an apple. They know it as a smooth textured round thing that tastes and smells a particular way. Noone can tell them it is an apple. Thus we have the reality of man's world. His existence is an apple because of what he has been conditioned by his senses and his fellow man to believe. Somewhere he learned that it was an apple, and learned this through his ability to apply his senses of hearing, speaking, tasting , smelling, and seeing.

So here we have the enlightened person experiencing the ability to now question and discern the reality of their sensual experience and interaction with life around them. Through this advanced stage of development they are now able to apply logic and comprehend the matters of their existence with a greater degree of understanding. They have become aware of another world; a different reality. One which they are now aware has been defined to them by their senses and the defintions of their fellowman. Someone has told them this was an apple, and someone has told them that this was the world. Now, being enlightened to this new reality, they understand that existence is an individual perception and can be very different from one perception to another. Reality can actually be altered if one has the ability to comprehend the perception of it and willingly alter those perceptions. In other words, the ability to teach your brain that what it thinks it sees and smells is not what you are going to accept as reality anymore. You will now think with your mind, and rationalize your perceptions, instead of simply giving in to them. Now when someone hands you a fruit and tells you it is an apple, and even though all of your senses want to tell you that is what it is, you will teach yourself to question that assumption until you have further examined it and applied your intellect and logic. You are no longer just eating the apple; you are now devouring every aspect of it.

You have become aware that eating an apple is not just a physical bodily function of satisfying hunger and taste, bit that you are now satisfying something else; yourself. The enlightened one has become attuned to their inner self. They have become aware that there is a need inside of them that requires more than physical satisfaction. They now understand that this inner self seeks more than the communication of language to know what an apple is. They must now know that it is an apple for themselves. Self! The spirit of a man. The enlightened one understands that the life force inside of them that uses these senses, and applies this new ability of comprehension, is also their identity, and the the location of their logic, and the center of their awareness. Self! The inner core of their true reality, from which the reality of their existence stems. A reality that no other individual can share. A reality so intimate and personal that only by experiencing it can it be expressed, and than that even expressing it does not make it a reality to someone else. Reality has become our own personal creation. No other living creature will experience it the way that we can now create it for ourselves. Our enlightenment has enabled us to create our own existence. We are now able to comprehend how our interaction with the creation around us is now affected by our enlightened perceptions of it. And now we can take those who have been imprisoned in Plato's allegorical cave and reveal the shadows to them.

But what of their pain? What about the shock to their perceptions? Are they able and ready to be enlightened? Can they be simply taken from the shadows into the bright light in their state? We may feel a need to save them from their ignorance, and reveal what we know to be the truth, but can we tell a man staring directly into the blinding sun that he should be able to see the world around it. We can tell a man that what he perceives as reality is only shadows of the true reality on the cave wall reflected from the light of the fire, but when he turns and is only blinded by the fire, his sense will tell him to turn back and protect himself.

The further enlightenment of a person tells them that, until a man can overcome their senses, they will not be able to look toward the fire. That step in evolution must be a personal choice based upon a change in perception, and a recognition of their inner self, which will experience the urge and need to look in that direction. Until that alteration of the spirit, and that awareness of self, a man is led and guided by the senses and cannot, and will not, deny them. If you give them an apple and tell them it is an orange they will simply laugh at you. And if you tell them that it is the apple of your world, they will have you committed in theirs.

There is a barrier to communication between the two realities that can only be torn down by self awareness. Language only becomes another log in the dam. One may call the fruit a pomme, while another calls it an apple. Is it a pomme or an apple? How do we reconcile that we are speaking of the same item? Generally we would do so by comparison. Language will become a matter of comparing one's word with another's and applying it to a point of reference. But referencing emotion and personal experience cannot be so easily done. It is simply fact that one reality will not be the same as another reality when they are being compared through sensual evaluation. So how does man communicate between the realities? How do we share the same pathways and enjoy the same gardens and sights and smells? How does one outside of the cave share their world with those inside of the cave?

This is where the enlightened ones come to understand the universality of creation, and that they are the working force behind it. They become aware that there is no such thing as sharing creation, but that there is only creating it as we live and experience it. Reality is only what we choose it to be ourselves, and yet we have no ability to make it a reality for anyone else. We are creating our own reality, and yet everyone else is also doing the same, and it becomes one place in the universe, full of individual realities. Creation is a montage of individual realities all combining to make one universal location. Thus we have the spirit of mind. A knowledge of self that overcomes the physical, and permeates the universe, gathering together in one cosmos of shared creations. The universal mind. The true God. The real world. Thought, becoming intelligence, and self aware, and becoming creation. Evolving through degrees of sensual revelations and enlightenment, and using experienced logic to apply the accumulated knowledge. We are all a part of this universal mind; this universal, and yet very individual and evolving self, and play our part in the creation of this universe.

It is unknown to us where this evolution will take us in the future, but it is obvious to see that there is a continuing advancement in spiritual knowledge that will only continue. Therefore we can logically assume that since we have reached this point of advancement, than it is very likely that others have advanced to stages of development ahead of ours. What abilities and awarenesses that they are capable of can only be imgained. But we can surmise, knowing the differing degree of awareness between enlightened spirits and those who remain trapped in the allegorical caves of Plato, that there could also be such a gulf between those who have advanced beyond our abilities and ourselves. Evolution is evident and unavoidable. That it cannot be accomplished in one human lifespan is obvious. There are too many elders who have not reached enlightenment. And there are too many young people who have reached enlightenment who have not lived long enough in one life to accomplish it. Evolution through many lifespans is evident.

It is also evident that the spiritual is not bound or restricted by the physical. the simple fact that our inner spirit resides in us right now in this present body, tells us that it had to come from somewhere. It tells us without question that there is a place where the spirit resides before it indwells a body, and that obviously tells us that it could also return to that same place at death. This also tells us that if our spirit can dwell in this present body now, that it is than likley that it could do so in the future in another body, and that it has likely also done so in the past. What can be possible now, could certainly have been so in the past, and can be so in the future. These simple logics help us to conclude the liklihood of reincarnation and a spiritual realm that coincides with the visible world we know.

Again we become aware of a universal bond connecting the immaterial with the material, and the spiritual with the physical. Each using the other to progress. A connection where life, and its energy of living, is expressed into billions of realities, all evolving into the one cosmic reality we know as 'Creation', and which many living in the shadows have come to call God.

Sincerely,
Pathfinder

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@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;45456 wrote:

Is an end stage Alzheimer's disease sufferer conscious?

Not at the very very end, but people with very advanced alzheimer's are indeed conscious.

To lose consciousness, you need to deeply affect either the brainstem or BOTH cerebral hemispheres. People with strokes very seldom lose consciousness, certainly not for long, unless it's a huge stroke or it affects their brainstem. But language is found only in the left hemisphere (in all right handers and in 90% of left handers). So you can knock out the entire left parietal lobe, completely lose language, but not lose consciousness.

2 Replies

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Not at the very very end, but people with very advanced alzheimer's are indeed conscious.

To lose consciousness, you need to deeply affect either the brainstem or BOTH cerebral hemispheres. People with strokes very seldom lose consciousness, certainly not for long, unless it's a huge stroke or it affects their brainstem. But language is found only in the left hemisphere (in all right handers and in 90% of left handers). So you can knock out the entire left parietal lobe, completely lose language, but not lose consciousness.

Just for the sake of questioning, say the person wasn't conscious, and had no possibility of being conscious again. Medically, that person is still considered to be alive, correct? If he's alive and yet not conscious, there is still a code of ethics doctors have to follow that makes it illegal for them to pull the plug, right (unless there is consent from a family member)?

I find this insanely interesting. This person is quite literally gone, the person, gone, his body still here in material form, no different than a rock on a mountaintop, or a tree in a forest. Yet, we would not apply the same code of ethics to an ape, let alone a rock, tree, deer, tiger, dolphin. We apply ethics to a group of cells without consciousness just because they are in the shape of a human. It's incredible.

1 Reply

@Zetherin,

This is all food for a separate thread, but it is an interesting issue, and I deal with it all the time.

Zetherin;46111 wrote:

Just for the sake of questioning, say the person wasn't conscious, and had no possibility of being conscious again. Medically, that person is still considered to be alive, correct?

Sure. You're not medically dead until there is cardiopulmonary arrest and no brain or brainstem activity. Brain death occurs when there still is cardiopulmonary function but the brain and brainstem are gone, but that is still technically alive.

Zetherin wrote:

If he's alive and yet not conscious, there is still a code of ethics doctors have to follow that makes it illegal for them to pull the plug, right (unless there is consent from a family member)?

It's not as simple as pulling the plug, because there are people in "permanent vegetative states" who don't need much medical care other than nutritional support.

But you're not entirely correct about this. If someone is in a permanent vegetative state and they have NO family or guardian, then with the support of a hospital ethics committee and sometimes a court-appointed custodian you can institute comfort measures and stop things like life support, dialysis, and medications.

That said, we DO respect the autonomy of families, which means that we have to be very good about counseling them through these decisions. And it also means you get into the occasional ridiculous situation, which usually happens when families believe in miracles and don't realize that prolonging life without hope for recovery is torture.

Zetherin wrote:

This person is quite literally gone, the person, gone, his body still here in material form, no different than a rock on a mountaintop, or a tree in a forest.

A person is a "thing" whether they're alive or dead. But the issue is not their degree of "thingness".

Zetherin wrote:

We apply ethics to a group of cells without consciousness just because they are in the shape of a human.

No, we do it because the person in question has great meaning to their family, and it sometimes takes a long time to come to terms with death when medical care can postpone it.

I should add that most families are extremely reasonable about this, and it's much more common that they decide to do comfort care than it is to find an extreme case where people believe in miracles. Ironically, it's usually the relatives who live farthest away who push for full-on life support -- I think there's some guilt about not being close and some distance from seeing just what it's like to live like that.

1 Reply

@jknilinux,

Maybe at the very end stage of Alzheimer's disease the mind, soul, consciousness awareness is gone, completely absent

I had a friend whose dad reached the end stage of this awful milady(i cant think of anything worse). All his dad could do was grunt like an animal and slobber. He was to all proposes a zombie.. The old man or the old mans body would repond to food, but only it it were forcibly put into his mouth. Then he deteriorated further to the point were they had to sustain him by a tube inserted into his stomach.

Was he still in there trapped in the abyssimal dark of his sick brain?

I am sorry if i paint an awful graphic picture of this horror, but with the population living increasingly to greater age, Alzheimer's disease is a plague and horror to the families that must in really continue to look overthe body of the beloved who has to all proposes become the living dead

I am not writing this as a youngster with sixty years or more of life before him , but i write it as a man considerably down the road of life, but thank god my mind is still as active a clear as it was when i was a boy

If I know for sure I have Alzheimer's disease I will commit suicide before i become a burden to my family or to myself

Here I bring in the idea of compassionate euthanasia, if i ever get remotely to this stage i will like my family members to extend their love and release my possible trapped soul into the void of freedom.

Bluntly kill me or kill my body

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@jknilinux,

We are perfectly comfortable with passive euthanasia, i.e. withholding or stopping medical interventions.

A lot of care needs to be taken with active euthanasia, though. Very few places even allow physican-assisted-suicide. Euthanasia would be exceptionally controversial. The issue is not how to apply it to cases like the one you describe. The issue is how it works when the lines are fuzzier.

1 Reply

@jknilinux,

Aedes

Yes we Euthanize our beloved suffering pets. When I had to do this when I was a boy I had to look into the dying eyes of my beloved suffering dog.

I cried for over a month and still dream about this dog of mine and this is over fourty years down the road of life,

He was the best friend I ever had, and if there is a heaven I don't want to go there unless bully is there to greet mE with his wagging tail

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

We are perfectly comfortable with passive euthanasia, i.e. withholding or stopping medical interventions.

A lot of care needs to be taken with active euthanasia, though. Very few places even allow physican-assisted-suicide. Euthanasia would be exceptionally controversial. The issue is not how to apply it to cases like the one you describe. The issue is how it works when the lines are fuzzier.

I admire your work and all those who face these quandries on a daily basis, it must be very stressful.As a laymen on this subject i could never understand how you come to terms with the fact that depriving someone of the necessites of life such as food and depriving them of oxygen is not eventually the same thing. It results in the same outcome and the last being more humane.We have to as a society deprive certain people of life through lack of funds but deny the right of the living to choose their exit, its not a subject i can get my head around..I am thankful to people such as you who can face these dilemmas..

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@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall wrote:

Aedes

Yes we Euthanize our beloved suffering pets. When I had to do this when I was a boy I had to look into the dying eyes of my beloved suffering dog.

I cried for over a month and still dream about this dog of mine and this is over fourty years down the road of life,

He was the best friend I ever had, and if there is a heaven I don't want to go there unless bully is there to greet mE with his wagging tail

Alan what about the twenty dogs ive had the scores of cats ..walkies would take forever.

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@jknilinux,

XRIS

Quote:

Alan what about the twenty dogs ive had the scores of cats ..walkies would take forever.

AH!! XRIS I perceive an animal lover in you!. But the debate is not about the healthy but about those suffering from unspeakable trauma, suffering and intractable pain.

Death is the ultimate orgasm, why wait for it in unimaginable pain

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@jknilinux,

An interesting thought:

Is a baby conscious then with no language?

1 Reply

@gre107,

gre107 wrote:

An interesting thought:

Is a baby conscious then with no language?

Babies have language. It's just not very well developed. They have differentiated cries and ways of communicating. That said, consciousness doesn't require some kind of organization of thoughts -- it is a state of interaction and awareness of one's self and surroundings. Fish are conscious and they don't have language.

xris wrote:

I admire your work and all those who face these quandries on a daily basis, it must be very stressful.

You find ways to compartmentalize. I've had some tragic cases lately, and I just go home, hug my wife and my son, and shelve the emotions somewhere. One pearl, though, is that it's less stressful when there's something we can offer -- even if it's just offering support and counseling. I've probably had more people send me thank you notes after a loved one has died than after a recovery, because I spend a lot of time helping them make decisions and understand what's going on.

xris wrote:

As a laymen on this subject i could never understand how you come to terms with the fact that depriving someone of the necessites of life such as food and depriving them of oxygen is not eventually the same thing. It results in the same outcome and the last being more humane.

True, but there are two other elements to this. One is that when you actively euthanize someone you are potentially ending the life of someone who might have recovered. It's kind of like how we always want someone to shoot at us first when we go to war -- it seems wrong to be the aggressor. Similarly, it seems wrong to be the agent of death than to be the provider of comfort.

The other thing is that cognitive science studies have shown that humans have severe aversions to acts of violence, and to inject someone with a lethal dose of something is perceived that way.

Alan McDougall wrote:

Yes we Euthanize our beloved suffering pets. When I had to do this when I was a boy I had to look into the dying eyes of my beloved suffering dog.

We have a double standard with pets and humans. But we're also entitled to a double standard, because we ARE human -- and both ethics and laws of all sorts differ in our society.

The problems with euthanasia are 1) who gets to decide, and 2) how do you avoid the 1 in a million chance of inappropriately euthanizing someone.

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@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Not at the very very end, but people with very advanced alzheimer's are indeed conscious.

To lose consciousness, you need to deeply affect either the brainstem or BOTH cerebral hemispheres. People with strokes very seldom lose consciousness, certainly not for long, unless it's a huge stroke or it affects their brainstem. But language is found only in the left hemisphere (in all right handers and in 90% of left handers). So you can knock out the entire left parietal lobe, completely lose language, but not lose consciousness.

Or, just pluck out the ol' pineal gland...

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@jknilinux,

jknilinux wrote:

If I didn't have language, would I still be conscious?
If I taught a monkey a language, is it conscious?

Consciousness does not come from language. Consciousness is awareness of self and environment, and it is a result of the functions of the brain.

1 Reply

Does consciousness arise out of having a language?

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