ravens are highly intelligent, with little to no indication of a language. That implies that a human raised in complete isolation loses the ability to reason, and I find that... unlikely.

@dellik no one said reason or navigate for survival.

@Clauddvon thats correct, no one said reason, or navigate for survival, you said intelligence is not possible without language, and I provided an example of something that displays intelligence, without language. Now that we agree we are on the same topic, do you see how you are mistaken?

@dellik I can see your point. However, even animals have language and thought. It's just not the same as our language and thought. Ravens make sounds and communicate with other Ravens so they have thought and intelligence.

My initial point is still very valid. Animals...ALL animals only process and think about those things that they have learned, communicated and lived. So any animal can think if they have experienced any of these things. Not how we do, but that's irrelevant.

Also no one says (except you) that you lose what you've learned. I don't believe that.

@Clauddvon lose what you learned? no where did I say, nor even come close to implying that.

And if you could only think about what you have learned, it would be impossible for anyone to learn anything new.. are you unfamiliar with abstract thinking?

You do not need communication for thought. thus, you do not need language for thought.

@dellik Read the last sentence and then go away. "Culture, experience and.... Teaching."... This LEARNED. Even abstract teaching, reasoning and thought is learned.

How Does Abstract Reasoning Develop?
Developmental psychologist Jean Piaget argued that children develop abstract reasoning skills as part of their last stage of development, known as the formal operational stage. This stage occurs between the ages of 11 and 16. However, the beginnings of abstract reasoning may be present earlier, and gifted children frequently develop abstract reasoning at an earlier age. Some psychologists have argued that the development of abstract reasoning is not a natural developmental stage. Rather, it is the product of culture, experience, and teaching.

@Clauddvon wow, 'and then go away.' no problem tool lmfao.

Exactly! That's exactly what you're thinking when your driving or catching a ball. It may be shorthand but your thoughts are words.

No it's not. You move your arms by a certain amount. You don't think "Two degrees to the left."

@novoxguy I can't move my arms 2 degrees to the left nor can you without some way to measure. It could be 3 degrees or it could be 5 degrees. We normally don't think in those terms. Also reflexes aren't thoughts.

@tymtravler if you can't move your arms to specific angles, then how can you reach out and pick something up?

I have to disagree with that. Not having a word for something doesn't mean you can't comprehend it. Language limits your ability to communicate with someone else, but that is different from comprehension. There are plenty of people, who I don't know their name, but recognize their face and know facts about them. Their name is a label, just like the name of an animal in Haitian Creole. I'm sure that if you showed them a picture of an animal they don't have a unique name for it, they could tell you things about it that is unique to it, all the same.

@novoxguy It's something I read about while at the university..our particular learned languages limit our perceptions of the world. For instance, Thai people have several times the number of colors they commonly name.

Not just blue, but "sky blue," or some other shade. I'll point at what I think of as "red" and the children will call it the Thai word for the color orange-red.

Even Europeans didn't "see" the color blue until fairly recently, thinking of the blue ocean and sky as "clear," instead of the color blue.

Also, just learning to read and write can rewire an adult brain. The rural Haitians couldn't even understand a photograph..to them, it was a blob of color dots, although they tried to humor by pretending to "see" what I told them was there.

Learning to read and write rewires adult brain in six months [newscientist.com]

@birdingnut I've read such an article before, and it's nonsense. You know that some scientists once reasoned the Aboriginal children were not as smart as their western counterparts. They gave the same IQ test to both. Problem was, the test involved recognizing household items, like thimbles and buttons. Things which the Aboriginal children were not familiar. But, later the test was repeated, where the items were rocks, seeds and leaves. Give the same test, the Western children would be the ones to do poorly. Haitians don't recognize a photograph? I bet that's an outright lie.