Science Forums 2

[lemit]

Before I had language, I understood that things involving pain or pleasure were going to happen to me, that I was experiencing pain that other humans thought was amusing, that I was leaving or losing things I loved, that there was indescribable beauty in the world, and that adults could be loving and cruel, sometimes in very close proximity.

When my cat was very young, she watched a PBS nature show about lions attacking gazelles. In the show, one lion would push the gazelle over and a second lion would grab its throat. The next day, my cat went outside, ran up to a squirrel, and pushed it over. The squirrel jumped up and ran away. My cat looked around briefly, became puzzled, and then came to the house where she spent some time looking at the squirrels with a puzzled expression. I didn't need language to see what was happening, and she didn't need language to create her own version of the nature show.

We do not need symbols to understand complex relationships, develop predictive capabilities, and create effective responses, all of which, when taken together, are a pretty good definition of cognitive thought.

Having said that, for those of you who watch American television, I did not do stock trading when I was a baby. If I had, I might have got us into the mess we're in now, but probably not.

--lemit