Simply disproves the popular belief that "humans cannot think without language."

Update
・(2017-08-06) added

Preface
- I have come up with a simple and radical rebuttal, which I will record here.

- I think it is probably one of the following, but I can't judge it because I'm a novice.

　　- (a) It is already common knowledge among language professionals.
　　- (b) Contains fundamental errors common to laypeople


- If (a) above is the case, I think Wittgenstein and others have already taken care of it by now.

- The core of the rebuttal should be stated first. It should be easy to understand because the details of the argument have been greatly omitted and the subtleties (especially the No's) have been cut to the bare bones and simplified.


The core of the rebuttal
- Is "using language (i.e., assembling language that is not bullshit and conforms to grammar) itself" a thinking process? We will consider two possible Yes/No answers to this question.

- Yes → "Assembling language(1) into a grammatical form" itself must use language(2). The language(2) should use language(3) in the same way. In the same way... An infinite regress occurs. This is a contradiction, so it collapses.

- No → The claim is that "using language per se" is not thinking.... This is a clear self-contradiction.

- ...Thus, either Yes or No would lead to a contradiction. Thus, the myth of the title is disproved.


Possible counterargument: The theory that "language as it is is thought itself"

- The counterargument that the above Yes case does not contradict infinite regress can be assumed.... The counterargument would take the following form.


- The use of language (i.e., composing language that conforms to grammar, not bullshit) itself is the content of thought itself. In other words,
 it is wrong to consider that there are two different things (x, y):

　　(x) the content of thought, and
　　(y) the verbal expression of the thought

- These two are identical and have no difference.

- Therefore, there is no contradiction of infinite regress in the case of Yes.


- Such objections are fragilely destroyed by medical research that has investigated a large number of aphasic patients.


Article History
(2017-07-26) Created
(2017-08-06) Added

- I would like to add that I have noticed that a well-known medical fact (below) clearly shows that "language is not essential for thinking."

Medical Facts

Split-brain is a general term for a condition in the brain in which the corpus callosum, which connects the two cerebral hemispheres, has been severed to some degree. The surgical procedure that produces this condition is called a splanchnotomy. Although this surgery is rarely performed, it is usually done as a treatment for refractory epilepsy, usually to prevent physical damage by reducing the ferocity of epileptic seizures.

When a patient with a separated brain is presented with an image in his or her left visual field (i.e., the left half of the visual field of both eyes), he or she is unable to answer what the image is. Because of the disconnect between the two hemispheres, the patient could not tell what the right hemisphere was seeing. However, the patient can grasp and recognize objects in the left visual field with his left hand. This is because the left hand is controlled by the right cerebral hemisphere.

Early studies of the isolated brain were conducted by Roger Sperry and continued by Michael Gazzaniga. The results of this work led to an important theory of functional brain localization.

Patients with disjunctive brains sometimes produce speech as a rational explanation for their behavior. This is because the true motivation is unexplainable, since it is generated in the right cerebral hemisphere, which is linguistically inaccessible.
ref: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%88%86%E9%9B%A2%E8%84%B3



What we can say from the medical facts above
- Fact: The right brain of a patient with a separated brain cannot use language.

- If the popular belief (proclaimed by analytic philosophers and others) that "language is necessary for thought" is true, then the patient's right brain is not thinking. However, the actual results of medical experiments (see above) clearly deny this.

My view
.
- The experiments on patients with separated brains are the subject of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and have been well known for a long time. However, I have never noticed that the results of the experiments on the patients clearly prove that language is not essential for thinking. I am either too careless or too slow.

- It has taken me three years since my first article, but I think I have finally proved that "language is not essential for thinking" based on solid medical evidence.

- I think my common sense is just old-fashioned, and it seems to be common knowledge that "language is not essential for thinking."



ref: Language is not essential to thinking. There are multiple data evidences that show this. (2020-10-25)