Linguistic Paradox and Emotional Quotient

I read something about Wernike’s aphasia or pure word deafness and wanted to share something about it. Well Wernikes is part in temporal lobe on damage of which person is able to hear sounds but not associate any meaning to it. That is he can even reproduce the sound/ word but cannot understand what it means. Our brain is a kind of parallel processor identification and association happens in different part of our brain.

Coming to more intriguing part where I am in doubt is that in earlier days IQ was associated with a person word power, but off late that concept has changed and more comprehensive ways of finding IQ have been designed vocabulary included. I however believe that vocabulary must be instead linked to EQ rather than IQ. If u notice the words that depict emotions have more synonyms, they have come because people found it exceedingly difficult to contain all their happiness/sadness in one word, their love in a single phrase. Again since brain is a parallel processor and words are stored separately, it’s not hard to believe that we store only those words which we need or use and perhaps understand. I believe that the words we use must then be a strong reflection of our emotional self rather than intellectual self. Again strong words reflect emotional strength or weakness. Strength in terms of stability per say that is a person whose language is very plain is emotionally stable/stoic and one with a richer language will tend to have more prominent mood swings and emotions.

A more comprehensive study of the subject will entail us to include other facets of language such as speech tones are more importantly body language. Body language in a way had been always a part of EQ parameter but language in general with it vocabularies and tones can give us a rather in depth idea of the emotional quotient of a person. More so a deeper study of the language used would reveal important behavioural traits. Language of a timid fearful person must have such inclination. All of us would have come across people who use the words like ‘God Forbid’ ‘Touch wood’ etc very frequently in their speech. Excessive use of abusive language is another common phenomenon that is seen among people which is indicative of behavioural patterns.


Words are an invention to which thoughts are the necessity. I strongly believe that as our thoughts, our imagination and our emotions grow or are consciously conceived by our mind, we need more and more words to describe them, give meaning to them. As a child we need to just cry to get our self expressed, then on from the limited vocabulary of a child to our adulthood we keep learning new words. Relative difference between people can be attributed to their emotional and intellectual thought processes and the need to express them thereof. Many a time words are reflection of our ego too, people tend to use more complicated vocabulary not as a part of need but as part of flare, use of lesser known synonyms without a justified need. It is not the need of thoughts but perhaps the need of the ego. What could be concluded for sure is that words convey much more than they apparently are meant to convey….they convey our state of mind, ego and perhaps much more

Consciousness without senses

First question that I would like to dwell is the possibility of a consciousness developing in the absence of senses. Can a kid born with all the five senses deficient ever develop a conscious?

In absence of all five senses the external world will be non existent for the mind. There won’t be any development of language or any meaning full communication of the mind with the external world. In such a circumstance development of a consciousness is impossibility. Language is a critical tool for the process of thinking and without language the consciousness will not be able to develop any construct or idea of either self or the external world.

More Intriguing will be the situation wherein the person looses all his senses at a later stage of life due to some accident. The question is what will happen to an already developed conscious if all senses are taken away from it?

In this case consciousness is already developed to a state that it can think and it already has a concept of self. More so it has a tool the tool of language which can allow formation of new thoughts.

If we remove all the senses then the person cannot see, hear, smell, feel or taste. In such a situation he will loose the sense of space and more so if he cannot even feel his breath the he will loose the sense of time. That is the component of ‘here’ and ‘now’ is removed from the existence. The question is whether the concept of ‘I’ can still survive. Such a person will soon loose the reference of where he/she is and how long it has passed since he entered this state. In my opinion the consciousness will start degrading and slowly end up in chaos.

This process however may not be immediate. It must be possible for some time for the mind to go with reference of past experiences and memory. The possibility of new thoughts and ideas are however is a very tricky question. He has the tool of language and he has retention in form of memory. Would it entail that the consciousness can still indulge in meaningful thinking. It is however uncertain that in absence of any new sensory inputs all thoughts being generated are more or less based on the past memories or new thoughts may also get generated.

Present knowledge of human brain has it that only 25% of the cerebral cortex is sensory and motor cortex rest is something called association cortex. This is where the modern psychology believes that thoughts originate. A complex association of sensory inputs past memories and perhaps many other factor lead to creation of thoughts. Coming to philosophy this question was most intricately studied by Immanuel Kant. His book critique of reason draws a detailed study of what is thought and what is its origin before dwelling further into what are the limitation of human thoughts. To start with he refutes thoughts being a mere interplay of sensation. So he dwells into a thoughts that would remain if all the sensations are removed, knowledge and thoughts that are independent of sensation, ‘a priory’. He has taken mathematics as a priory. Mathematical knowledge per say is not dependent on any sensation. So if it is not an association of sensation a derivative of past memory.

I am not sure however how much time it would take for the consciousness to loose the time and space reference and start degrading.