When I paint in the studio I spend many hours alone.
Most of the time I listen to music that helps me explore moods and spaces within.
Some days, when I´m doing some more repetitive shapes, I love listening to podcasts and talks. This is a way of engaging in interesting topics and thoughts drill my mind. I can be far away in other peoples reality while my paintbrush moves by itself and I have almost no notion of what went on there.
Anyway, last year in February 2017 I was painting quite intensely in my studio. At home, (just across the street from my studio) we had a Colombian friend staying for a few weeks. He is wonderful Iyengar yoga teacher. Carlos. At lunch times or at breakfast we would gather at home and share the food.
One lunch time my mother was over eating with us. We have the custom to talk in English ever since ever, and that habit is difficult to break. So during this one lunchtime, my partner Jason, my mother Jenny, Carlos and I eat together. My partner and I talk mainly in Spanish to each other but we can easily switch to English or Catalan.
As Carlos heard me talking in English to my mother quite naturally after speaking very naturally in Spanish, he then asked me "So what language do you think in? "
This question is one I remember being asked many times as a child. I always wondered why people should ask such a question. It was obvious to me that i didn´t think in a language, it´s more like a concept or an image, but definitely not a language.
So, I sighed to this comment and answered as I had done in the past telling Carlos that I didn´t think in a language. He was so sure that I should think back and for SURE there was a language in my thoughts.
I argued back, so sure there was NO language in deep thought. I did come to realise that more superficial thoughts, like when you are about to talk to someone in a language, one obviously is thinking the language one is about to express ones self in but when one is thinking about profound thoughts there is no language, for me it hops from images to concepts in images... anyway... to cut a looong conversation short, there was no way my Colombian friend who only spoke Spanish could understand what I was trying to say to him and no way I could understand what he was saying to me.
After lunch, no hard feelings, the conversation had left me thinking, may be I was wrong. May be I had a different cognitive capacity to others.
As I had been listening to BBC podcasts in the studio recently on science, I remembered there was one that asked for peoples questions to be sent in.
So, I got on my computer, typed the email in to this program called Crowd Science and sent them my very recent thoughts on this topic. My question being: Do we really think in words or images and concepts? I couldn´t understand why it would be an other way than the way I thought. The discussion with Carlos made me think may be there is something I don´t get or I´m not understanding.
I got an instant reply from the program thanking me fro the email and that if they never replied not to worry because they got many emails a day and thank you anyway. I didn´t think anything more of it.
Next week I got an email from the program saying they were very interested in making a program about it and could they cal me and know more. So they did.
After that first call with the producers who asked me this and that and why did I think of this question bla bla... I then returned to my painting in the studio. As I was doing this I suddenly remembered I hadn´t mentioned I was a painter and this might be of interest for them when they ask the experts. So I just made a small email and let them know.
During the following months we were in contact from time to time and as I came across information that might be relevant to their investigation, I sent it to them. They also wrote to me a few times.
They then told me they decided they wanted to come to Ibiza to do an experiment on me right there live so we were planing on what days worked for us all.
This then extended to experimenting on other kinds of brains like my partner who is chess player or Pere a musician. All bilingual from birth.
It happened to be that the day the producers were in Ibiza to do this experiment on me I had to give an art class in the morning to a lovely school. They asked me if there were bilingual children there. OF COURSE! This school is a babel mixture of children from all over the globe, literally, so, we asked permission to the school and they were also included in the program.
Anyway, this program went out on air on the 30th of June 2017 on BBC World service. Here is the podcast if you care to listen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p056p7wf
I have just been told by Cathy Edwards the producer of this program that this program has been shortlisted for an award of ABSW Science Writers’ Awards for Britain and Ireland 2018
and we will know how it did in two weeks time!!! I´m thrilled to hear it has been nominated and hope they get the prize!
this is the link:
https://www.absw.org.uk/news-and-events/news/shortlists-announced-for-the-2018-absw-awards
Here are some images of the recording when they were in Ibiza last May:
Producers Cathy Edwads and Nastaran Tavakoli-Far.
experimenting on Jason.
recording Pere Verges.
Interviewing Pere Verges
Interview in the Studio.
Ther rest are images of the interviews at the School of Sant Llorenç, Ibiza.
I hope you have enjoyed this post.
If you have any thoughts on this topic please comment below, it is always interesting to know other people´s perspectives.
Best Wishes!
Romanie
www.romanie.net
this is when it was in the local news paper... (in Spanish!)
AND... please note.. the experiment was one thought out by one of my favourite people of all time, Richard Feynman...
This is fascinating; I would think all the words would combine to form one language and the unconscious would randomly sort them out. Despite study I only speak english well but I remember French words from my dreams when was attempting to study it. This post deserves much more attention; resteeming.
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Thank you Twirble for resteeming and giving it value! best wishes!
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Already had value; just needs more appreciation:)
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thank you! :-)
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Restemeed! Great story.
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Thank you Mirjana!
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¡Hola! Me alegra mucho que un evento tan sencillo como tomarte el tiempo de redactar un correo para ese programa haya desencadenado esta experiencia tan genial. Tengo mucha curiosidad de escuchar el podcast. Particularmente, al leer el principio del artículo, donde tu amigo Carlos formula su pregunta, me quedé pensando un poco al respecto. Yo pienso tanto en español, inglés e imágenes cuando vienen pensamientos sencillos y reflexiones más complejas, pero también pienso con sonidos y emociones y sensaciones, especialmente cuando estoy meditando sobre temas muy profundos. Es extraño de explicar, pero me da curiosidad si algo similar te ha llegado a pasar, espero no suene como algo muy loco, saludos!
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No me resulta nada descabellado ni loco. A raíz de dedicare más tiempo a hablar con conocidos de este tema, leer más acerca de ello y observar más,(y cómo no, algunas cosas que revela el programa en su investigación) he aprendido que parece ser que el cerebro tiene varios niveles de profundidad de pensamiento. Los más profundos y abstractos van demasiado rápido para poder formular palabras.A su vez, las palabras también pueden encerrar cada una una serie de imágenes y unidades de contenido que guardamos en ellas que pueden disparar este pensamiento profundo. Las conversaciones que mantenemos con otras personas acompañan un pensamiento que ya está más por la superficie procesándose en palabras del idioma en el que vamos a expresarnos. Bueno.... es un tema muy extenso e interesante. El mero hecho de parar para observarse a uno mismo y darse cuenta de como piensa ya es interesante, y todos somos un poco diferentes. Saludos y gracias Ophelia por pararte en este post a leer y escuchar!
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Ha sido todo un gusto, pues fue bastante interesante y es algo que uno no suele preguntarse mucho a sí mismo. Siempre me parece genial cómo podemos ser tan iguales y a la vez diversos, creo que es muy bello el aprender a valorar esas diferencias y lo único de cada quien 💜 También el cómo es de fascinante el cerebro y su procesamiento de información ante los diferentes estímulos. ¡La belleza está donde uno menos la espera!
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Así es! Descubrir y explorar es fascinante y estimulante!
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I have some personal experience and therefore personal insights on the topic...
My children speak 3 languages..... they are both bilingual since birth, and then a third language followed shortly thereafter. I am also fluent in 3, with additional knowledge of other languages.
The question Carlos asked you is similar to another question people often ask, "what language do you dream in?"
The answers are possibly similar as well...
I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but I will.
Thank you for sharing ths! Such a great story....
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it´s really horrible for me to hear my own voice ;-( ... but I like to open the topic to know how other people process this... more to talk about!
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Fantastic painting Greetings
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Amazing post and a very interesting concept about our inner thoughts and creativity.
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Thank you Opheliafu!
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I am so excited by this post! (I love your voice! And what a wonderful complementary duo you and Jason make; all to the dulcet tones of the wild violin.) As a former student of cognitive linguistics (pragmatics) and a bilinguist myself this topic is pivotal in my spiritual research on the nature of consciousness. My preliminary results agree that language shapes thought, since thought is but a map. This patterning is what you (as an aritst) study (observe, try to translate).
In anthroposophical terms, I find, I can better explain how this works with the help of the 12 senses: organs of perception. We don't leave it all up to one brain function.There is a working of the astral nerve-sense body that processes the input of an etheric stream of consciousness. This is a stream of memory-thinking or consciousness, a living energy which moves the language sense. It is not the dead thought/knowledge encapsulated in a (word) concep; trapped and killed by the I (necessarily). Consumed for the sake of Sense!
The art, however, of choosing the right word takes a sense called "language sense" (the 11th sense). It works in a group of four with "hearing", "conceptual sense (or thought sense) and Ego sense.
This language or speech sense uses vowels (emotive) and consonants (framework) for instruments to compose a symphony of meaning. One adapts one's movements to the instrument (think of the hands playing a violin or a drum or a flute). Language is a formative process, organising your formative (etheric) force , into fixed pathways (modes of thinking, ideas, attitudes even). So some languages most certainly lend themselves better to logical philosophy and others to lyrical poetry etc. (This in turn gives "national characteristics".)
[The Concept Sense is to do with receiving the already translated etheric - formed into language and reverting it to the etheric stream which can make a "sense"picture for you in your own mind. It is the ability to access the idea behind the words spoken. If we speak truthfully we can access this commonly available consciousness stream. If we create a fantasia, mirage world, we all meet on a mirror of our own cacophony which will break one day and leave us shattered. ]
We also have a sense for self-movement (predominant in the infant grabbing her toes, sucking her thumb). This one is cancelled out when we hear the other, walk on the bridge of language, com-municate/ con-nect (com=with). In fact: stand in-be-tween(2). I+I= the other. ("eye"+"eye"=to see).
The meaning of life revealed in the Difference (I-I=0=space, not nothing but the Inbetween dimension created out of being = the Taoist non-being.). It is this Difference or non-being we are constantly trying to convey with artful language (not functional messaging "pass me the salt" or "where do you live - North, north-west in the far distance").
[The opposite sense for the Concept Sense is the Life Sense, which is the primary almost instinctive sense of the newlyborn, registering (dis)comfort, hunger, pain, warmth). In order to enter the world of Ideas one must "forget" or rise above one's sense of Life. We leave the noisy world of desire, the chatter of language, and enter a silent world of hearing.
We are in danger of corrupting our language sense. This is reflected in many modern language disorders incl. Autism. Our Information Culture is at the root of dulling our receptivity to the living image and dulling our sense of imagination, inspiration and intuition (the three higher senses evolved out of lower sensing as by the initiate, artist or old-fashioned philosospher e.g.). Keep giving art classes to kids! And keep aboriginal languages alive! And encourage bilinguality/mulitlinguality (teach 3 languages in school minimal!). All these are exercises in keeping our thinking fresh, original, authentic and quick/mercurial: ALIVE and whole-making.
**** More information to be found in "Our Twelve Senses" by Albert Soesman ****
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wow, this is s post in itself may I say!
I have read though it a couple of times. You are quoting many many aspects related and although they are related to what this topic of Do we think in words?
I am interested in knowing what your direct experience is to this if you are bilingual? when you go into town with a list of things to do and places to go and buy things, the list is in words but , do you call this by the word or do you keep a visual list in your brain like a map that enables you to go from one place to the other? I mean in something very trivial like that, one might have a very different experience to an other. Thank you for this input that contributes so much to this knowledge. Very interesting to read, I will check out more in "Our Twelve Senses" by Albert Soesman.
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I don't think the list thing will tell you anything interesting about bilinguality necessarily. Maybe about what I was trying to explain to you earlier, that we cannot think in words even if we tried. Words are just fixed pictures, files you can recall. This is a data base, not the thinking an sich, I don't think.
Yes, I am of the mapping kind. I am currently training myself to go out shopping without a list (to keep the etheric flow supple). I think I am even afraid of lists of words (even rhymes) because of echolalia.
I visualise where in the shop I need to go to get the things I need, before I set off and remember the list in that way. In case I do forget I have a back up "photo" in my head of the writing: ie using a more photographic memory, which I used to rely on much. But this has become poor for me in the past ten years (since 40).
The writing on the list, futhermore is often illegible even to me and then I have to just go round my kitchen mentally to imagine what I need - if it doesn't correspond with the writing I get frustrated: I mustn't ad-lib too much!
I have a horror vacuui, so my head is always full but never with ready knowledge (I don't know jokes, or facts, names, places, dates, can't do quizzes, or recognise anything, art, songs, etc) Putting words and pictures together costs a lot of effort.
There is another aspect: spoken v written word. I practice formulating my thoughts in speaking (into thin air), and go mentally to pages in books or moments in time e.g. for the necessary words or thoughts I have heard or used before. Clealy I am searching for accurate formulation of something I cannot see but only feel. When I hit the true-value mark I'll know it: I will have said what I needed to say. I am often surprised by what I have then said. It feels like a kind of channeling - but I don't have other voices in my head! For the rest I do not think about what I think. I tried to, but it drove me mad (as a teenager).
My situation is maybe a bit different still, because I don't have anyone to speak my first language with on a regular basis. I have to keep it alive all by myself and by listening to the BBC like you do. I also have nobody to speak my second language with although technically it is my native language. It is a language I detest. In short, I talk very little to anyone. This too shapes the way one thinks. Steemit has shown me that. I am fairly incomprehensible to people around me.
Like you I am constantly translating into words. But not from pictures (clear images, scenes). From sense impressions, geometrical patternings, colours, sounds. Intangible etheric. Then like your husband I am compelled to find systems and pin this in ideas. I seldom sound logical to logical people. I have no talent for picture-making like yourself. This often leaves me grieviously misunderstood! While, at the same time I have no trouble whatsoever understanding a wide variety of people in many languages. One can go far on spiritual hearing and reading....
Wishing you much success with your research project!
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Thank you so much for your detailed observation and reflections on your process. It is great information o gather here. The fact of bilinguality is only interesting for the fact it makes it easier to track how one thinks because of having more than one version of thought patterns but what I´m really interested about( and you feature just that) is the thought process from images to words to patterns So, thank you again for all that insight in your ways. :-)
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