Does one "think" that one is hungry,
keld feldspar? When my stomach is empty and growling, I "feel" hunger, but do I "think" that I am hungry?
Yes, I can, if I go through the process, "think" that I am hungry, but is my initial feeling/thought/concept/etc. of hunger really "thinking"?
If I am sad, do I "think" that I am sad? Or do I "feel" sad, with or without thinking?
If someone is born profoundly deaf and learns to sign.
What is their native tongue?
Sign, I presume. And quite likely a version of sign which does not correspond precisely to the extant versions taught to deaf people.
Which, again, brings up the question: Without some version of sign, are those people thinking at all? Or is the thinking so intimately linked to the signing that only by virtue of signing are those people engaged in thinking?
And it isn't about deaf people in particular: The same question applies to those of us who hear. Without some version of language -- spoken, written, or whatever -- are we really engaged in thinking?
Have you ever had a thought not expressed, and inexpressible, in words? I have had many such feelings, but I would not describe them as thoughts. I would describe them as sensations -- akin to how I would describe sun-induced warmth on my shoulder.
If you encounter a very hot thing with your fingers, and your natural response is to pull away, is that a thought? Do you think to yourself "This is hot, and it could burn me, so I should pull away from it"? Or do you have a reaction -- pulling away -- that is not a thought at all?
Reason is valuable only when it performs against the wordless physical background of the universe.
