Eli5: If we use language as instrument of thoughts, how did our ancestors think?
In: 8
This brushes up against a lot of philosophical questions we don’t really have firm answers to. E.g., what do you mean by “think?”
I assume you really are asking “what would I experience if I were that person?” We don’t even know for sure what it is like to be a cat. We can’t *really* say what it was like to be our ancestors.
That said, language probably isn’t a requirement to have an experience. Even among modern humans, some people self-report that they do not think very often in words except when they write or talk out loud. They still think, but it’s in concepts, images, sounds, etc.
Wordless thoughts should make sense: words are just **symbols** that represent concepts. The concept itself exists in the brain and isn’t entirely stored “inside” the word (ever know what you’re referring to but forget the word for it?).
I can’t really describe it much better, though.
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