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Do Polyglots Think A Lot? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 9 of 13 12 July 2011 at 8:33am | IP Logged | ||
Are there forums about Zen and how great everyone is at mastering it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 13 12 July 2011 at 9:47am | IP Logged | ||
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The only people who claim NOT to think are those who practice yoga (and those who are dead, but they wouldn't answer any question here). And I think they think, but just in a way which isn't recorded for posterity because it isn't formulated in words or pictures.
Actually we have discussed thinking in foreign languages before, and then it turned out that some of us think in words in most of our waking hours, while others think in a more abstract way. It is not easy for me to imagine such a situation because I definitely belong in the first group - for me the nearest thing to non-lingual thinking is the kind of visual/auditive activity I had when I painted paintings or composed music, and which I still deliberately can call on when I have to make seven things fit in a place with space for five. This kind of mental activity is just as conscious as thinking in words - but some might not think of it as thinking. Unconscious mental activity is certainly also a reality (as proved by lots of experiments, which unanimously show that your brain makes choices before you become aware of making them) - but how can you report from this state of mind? The activity would become conscious if you tried. Even dreaming is thinking, although there are at least three kinds. If you wake people up from the lower sleep levels they often report vague, banal thoughtlike processes. If you wake them up from REM-sleep they typically report vivid dreams, and measurements will show that their brains are working busily, with the exception of the frontal lobes where conscious, goal-directed processes are localized. And then there are the lucid dreams where even this part of the brain apparently is working. So summa summarum, we think even while sleeping. The big difference is whether this activity is conscious, and whether it is verbal. Edited by Iversen on 12 July 2011 at 8:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6867 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 11 of 13 12 July 2011 at 3:24pm | IP Logged | ||
http://eckhart-tolle-forum.inner-growth.info/index.php This is a forum inspired by the writings of Eckhart Tolle, but no just about him or his writings alone. Most of the people on it are very active of mind and looking for guidance, but there are a few who speak from a place of real stillness. I wouldn't necessarily call them "Zen Masters" though, as Zen is a specific discipline. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5188 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 12 of 13 13 July 2011 at 3:17am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it's a far-fetched idea. I'm not a constant thinker. There are times my mind is quite active, other times I can easily shut it off and just drift along. Just like most people. It would surprise me greatly if there were any correlation between thinking hyperactivity and language aptitude.
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| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6581 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 13 of 13 13 July 2011 at 7:24am | IP Logged | ||
Who said anything about aptitude? My attempt at a guess would be that "thinking hyperactivity" is associated with intellectualism and "pleasures of the mind", which itself has a small tendency towards polyglottery, which is to a large extent an intellectual hobby (and HTLAL might be a forum that attracts the more intellectual variety of polyglot). So if there is some correlation it wouldn't surprise me, but it may be because of a third factor. Edited by Ari on 13 July 2011 at 7:25am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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