The Word Shaker

Since I'm past due for a philosophical blog post....

This month's book club selection was The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak.

Today, as I did some last minute planning for our meeting tonight at Guglhupf, I re-read one of the short stories in the book, titled "The Word Shaker." The story is about the power of words.

In a psychology class, I remember once proposing a "chicken and egg" type question to my peers: Is it possible to think if you don't know any words?

I argued that it was not possible to think without words, but everyone disputed me, claiming that yes it is possible to think if you don't know any words.

I challenged them all to have a thought--any thought!--without using words to have that thought.

I'm not sure, but I'm guessing they all failed at this task. It's also highly likely that they were thinking these three words: "Kelly is weird".

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