alt Hacker NewsDoesn't hellen keller provide a counterexample? She seemed to imply pretty strongly that before acquisition of language she operated more on stimulus and bodily perception rather than higher-level thought.
Replies
It's clear humans have several networks working together. Some Mathematicians report they 'see' the solution, these rely on a visual network *. Others report they prefer to do math symbolically (relying on the language network?).
Perhaps there are also multiple human paths to higher-level thought, with Keller (who lost her sight) using the language facility while others don't have to.
* Given Box 1 contents, the article authors seem unaware of the research on this? e.g.
https://www.youcubed.org/resource/visual-mathematics/
https://www.hilarispublisher.com/open-access/seeing-as-under...
Those aren't mutually exclusive, stimulus and bodily perception enable higher-level thoughts about the physical world. Once I was driving a big cheap pickup with a heavy load on an interstate, and a rear tire violently blew out, causing the truck to sway violently. I operated entirely by feel + my 3D mental model of a moving truck to discern what and where went wrong and how to safely pull over. It was too fast and too difficult for any stupid words to get in the way.
I am glad humans are meaningfully smarter than chimps, and not merely more vocal. Helen Keller herself seemed to think that learning language finally helped her understand what this weird language thing was:
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free!
Keller's early experience of the world differed from typical in dimensions beyond language recognition.
One could make the argument that higher-level thought is not the same as awareness of higher-level thought; perhaps language only affords the latter.
She learned "language" later than most. The primary function for her was as communication with the outside world, not for cognition, which she was already doing from birth.
No, if i recall the section in her autobiography, specifically it was being taught the concept of "i" / "me" that did it.
Up until that point language was just an extension of what she already knew, it was the learning of being other that did the trick. Being blind and deaf would certainly make it hard to draw a distinction between the self and the world, and while languaged helped her get that concept under wraps, i dont think it's strictly speaking required. Just one of many avenues towards.