At a Loss For Words

It is thought that there can't be thought without language. How thoughts are made in the brain's wiring has to do with the installed hardware. Language is the software for that wiring, and may even be interconnected with other systems in the body such as the immune system. Hypochondria may have to do with a software that is bloated with too many words. One could also say that there are diseases that contribute to a software with too many images or sounds. Social media are oceans of images and perhaps makes us less balanced thinkers, as opposed to media that are a fine balance of text and visuals. I know some very intelligent people that get all their knowledge from TV (all image and sound) that may not access reading parts of the brain (the slow analytic System 2). It’s no wonder we’re becoming reptilian in our behavior; we are all in System 1, communicating only with images and hardly any text. But I don't think that purely visual thinking is less important, and is obviously most important in art, but is distinctly different from "slow" painting (System 2) and photos taken with a smartphone (System 1). Paintings might be a form of text and image as one, as neither would be sufficient to express its nuances--a "skeleton of essential dynamic features".


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