Frances to Cheerskep and Derek and others... It might be useful here to consider the pragmatist stand, that holds the mind is in thought, rather than the thought being in the mind; and when the mind is in the act of thought, then it is only by way of using signs methodically in systems of signs. There are furthermore only two kinds of thought posited by pragmatism called nondiscursive thought and discursive thought. Nondiscursive thought is enacted by any and all kinds of semiotic signage signs, from icons to indexes to symbols. Discursive thought however is enacted only by linguistic language signs, which are necessarily lingual and verbal symbols; and regardless of their sign origins as nonlingual icons or indexes or symbols, or other sorts of nonverbal symbols if such virtual language signs are found to indeed exist. These verbal symbols are hence the stuff of discursive thought and are such thought, but are not that which symbolizes discursive thought as a further object somewhere deep in the far reaches of the mind or brain, because there is no other kind of nonsymbolic sign system or nonsign system by which discursive thought can be made of. If discursive lingual thought deals with nondiscursive signs or thought it is by way of using verbal languages to symbolize and interpret these things. Even consciousness in all its forms from the unconscious to the conscious, which consciousness is deemed as pure illogical feeling by pragmatists, is a mental act; but only by way of signs, because it is prone to error and interpretation and correction on the part of the normal signer. Even a real sense of conscious pain for example can be wrong, when it is referred phantom pain. There is therefore nothing in the life or being or body or brain or mind or thought that is other than signs.
Cheerskep writes in part... Writers struggle to choose the best words -- how could that be if their thoughts are in words? Derek replies... I think the answer is they struggle precisely because the thought only emerges fully once they sense the best words have been found. Until then, it is a kind of embryo of a thought. 'Crime and Punishment' is in a sense just one thought - which needed all those words to fully reveal itself. Dostoyevsky was not writing down a pre-thought 'language-less' idea - like an amanuensis putting someone else's ideas on paper. He was exploring - discovering - his thought, as he wrote. Like all artists. I think we all do much the same in everyday life in a less developed way. Wordless thoughts would be like 'a painter' who had never painted anything.
