There are some random questions I ponder about at equally random times – whilst taking a shower, nodding away at a friend trying to explain something I clearly am not interested in or while at a salon when I am supposed to focus on my freshly painted nails.
I am not sure I can articulate them well enough lest the person consider me insane. I am going to try though.
Do we know which language we dream in? I have told myself umpteen times that the next time I have a dream I need to stop to think about the language I have been spoken to or am speaking in. Brownie points for if I can recall if it was in color or B/W. Apparently I cant seem to use these Freudian techniques very well to extract a coherent answer from within me.
When I ‘think’ of something is that thought in a specific language? How do I seem to understand what my unconscious or my brain is telling me if there are no words spoken?
When I am tousling around problems and questioning myself about a solution I do not recall asking or receiving the ‘solution’ in as many words. Yet I know exactly what I am supposed to do. How do I understand it without a medium – or does communication with myself doesn’t require a media of language?
And finally, on a slightly different fork of linguistics, how am I voicing out my thoughts in the language of my choice even as I am thinking them? Does language then influence the decisions I take? To use a very naive example, will I exhibit being ‘morose’ if I did not know of an emotion called morose. If we did not have language would we still as humans show these traits and emotions that we do right now
Then I found this article on the Nautilus on what Paul McCarthy calls the ‘Kekule Problem’ – Where did language come from?
To paraphrase – “I call it the Kekule’s Problem because among the myriad instances of scientific problems solved in the sleep of the inquirer Kekule’s is probably the best known. He was trying to arrive at the configuration of the benzene molecule and not making much progress when he fell asleep in front of the fire and had his famous dream of a snake coiled in a hoop with its tail in its mouth “the ouroboros of mythology”and woke exclaiming to himself: It’s a ring. The molecule is in the form of a ring. Well. The problem of course is not Kekule’s but ours is that since the unconscious understands language perfectly well or it would not understand the problem in the first place, why doesnt it simply answer Kekules question with something like: Kekules, it’s a bloody ring. To which our scientist might respond: Okay. Got it. Thanks.
Why the snake? That is, why is the unconscious so loathe to speak to us? Why the images, metaphors, pictures? Why the dreams, for that matter”
Bingo. Doesn’t that hit home.
To give some context,
“Cormac McCarthy is best known to the world as a writer of novels. These include Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men, and The Road. At the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) he is a research colleague and thought of in complementary terms. An aficionado on subjects ranging from the history of mathematics, philosophical arguments relating to the status of quantum mechanics as a causal theory, comparative evidence bearing on non-human intelligence, and the nature of the conscious and unconscious mind. At SFI we have been searching for the expression of these scientific interests in his novels and we maintain a furtive tally of their covert manifestations and demonstrations in his prose”
[ As a side note, I am curious to learn what kind of theoretical-research work actually happens in Sante Fe institute. ‘The institute is devoted to understanding the fundamental principles of complex systems at a variety of scales, from cell biology to human societies’ – sounds fascinating. Must read more]
Mc Carthy’s answer to the problem appeared to him, apparently, as an epiphany of sorts, when he was clearing trash one morning is that the unconscious is just not used to giving verbal instructions and is not happy doing so. Habits of two million years duration are hard to break.
The seemed quite a bit of an anti-climax of an answer to me. I am not really sure why. Maybe I was expecting a profound, must-read-multiple-times to understand solution? Maybe the simplicity of it does not justify the depth of the question? [Which reminds me of this other trick my mind plays on me correlating time/depth/complication with effort/ROI – I am always happier when the customer service representative at the other end takes a minute or so before getting back to me with the question I have posed. It, to my mind, implies that he/she has checked/done due diligence before providing an answer. For all you know (which may be exactly what is happening), he/she may just place me on hold and laugh over my ‘why not received product yet’ with her colleague). But I digress]
[Must add to reading list – The Language Instinct, Steven Pinkler & Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior ]
But the article though brings forth a very interesting point that I hadn’t considered before.
How does our unconscious work? How does it help us? What is ‘I’? Is that my unconscious? Is that what guides my north star?
Maybe I need to think about it before I hit bed and see if my unconscious has an answer.
