The Langauge of Thinking

Thinking is an excercise of the mind that is both a language and pre-language experience. If you are the curious type you might find the work of Jean Piaget (1896-1980) of interest. This research biologist was interested in how individuals obtain control over their environment through their cognitive (thinking)development.

For a moment become aware of your conciousness. You are now present and you are alert to that presence. If I ask you to think about your presence, what happens? You most likely begin to "speak", i..e. think in your preferred language. And, just what is the content of your thinking? In order to know the answer to that question you must be concious of what you are thinking about. Think about what you are thinking about.

When we practice thinking about what we are thinking about, we become concious of what we are saying internally. This is critical to cognitive management. Language is important because we think in pictures and pictures have names and meanings. These names and meaning are words and words are part of the structure of language.

We can learn a new language, but it not necessary to learn a new language in order to change our thinking. We can change the words we use to discribe our concious experience and using different words changes our perception and interpretation of reality.

So, if you want to change your private world, you can change your vocabulary and use different words to descirbe your experience. Will it change you experience? Yes, because nothing has meaning until you assign meaning to it. No expereince has purpose until you assign purpose to it. And the words you use to assign meaning and purpose generate emotions and behaviors. Think about it.