Date:  Wed, 6 Dec 1995 10:59:23 MST

From:  Tom Uharriet <UTOM[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ADMN.712.NEBO.EDU>

Subject: Re: non-linguistic thinking



Thanks Vicki,

C, Basic, Paschal (sp?), etc. are all computer languages. Does he

think in them or are they also stricly translations of something else?

Tom





> He reasons quite well with abstractions (and is a computer

programmer

> by profession). As for "how," I'm really not sure--since he's not

> thinking in English and I am, it's hard for him to explain this to me.

> The most noticeable sign of how he's thinking is that if he says

> something odd, and I ask him to repeat it, he will repeat it word for

> word, because he's already done the translating. For example, he once

> said he wanted a ham sandwich on roast beef (meaning he wanted a ham

> on rye), and when I said something like "run that by again" he

> cheerfully did so. The tricky thing for a lot of us, and maybe particularly

> linguists, to remember is that English is a system of abstract reasoning,

> Chinese is another, and so on--but that not all systems of abstract

> reasoning are languages. (It's possible that someone could construct

> a grammar of what my friend is using--but I don't think anyone yet has.)

>

> Vicki Rosenzweig





Tom Uharriet

utom[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]admn.712.nebo.edu