Sunday66 wrote: ↑July 5th, 2022, 11:17 am
Language is not just words. Language is a symbolic system.
JackDaydream wrote: ↑July 5th, 2022, 3:24 pm
What may be important is how it appears that pictures and symbols came first in evolution, followed by songs and poetry in the evolution of language. It may be that this is true for individual development too. The relationship between language and symbols is also important, including metaphors, myths and stories.
I agree, and I think that it goes even deeper than you describe. As well as "metaphors, myths and stories", many of our words — the ones we use as descriptive labels for things — are also symbols in themselves. They are symbols that we use to stand in place of the thing they describe. Art, of all kinds, also uses symbols to communicate with its audience. Humans make use of symbols at all levels of communication, it seems. So I think that the "relationship between language and symbols" is that language is composed of symbols.
There are other symbols too, of course, with which language often interacts.
JackDaydream wrote: ↑July 5th, 2022, 3:46 pm
I also noticed that you referred in one of the posts in this thread to telepathy. Do you believe that it does take place.
I think that some form(s) of telepathy may be possible, but no, I'm not sure enough of this to assert that I "believe" it takes place. I used "telepathy",
carefully qualified, as an analogy to illustrate a point, nothing more.