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well, terry, you are an incorrigible functionalist for whom everything is an instrument for solving a problem. for you, language is "A tool for improving communication and extending our memory." you employ the old story of a hammer that encourages its owner to hammer everything. isn't this what you are doing? you invited me to "1. Drop out of language use for a few days. Do not talk, read or use words." you can SAY that and invoke in me a conception of what you might be saying but the only way to DROP OUT OF LANGUAGE would be to submit yourself to a complete lobotomy that removes all of your life of experiences, starting with your ability to draw elementary distinctions, for example between red and green (colors are learned in language) "2. Look at aphasic stroke victims whose language centre has been destroyed." Such persons had the ability to speak and train their bodies accordingly and for a long time. no wonder if they can continue to function without speaking and writing "3. I know a man here in Western Australia who is a long term meditator and who has extensive Alzheimer's disease well past the point that he would normally be in care. His habit of living moment by moment and without much dependence on a culturally, word-mediated, picture of reality means he can continue to live by himself and function relatively normally." it is well known that alzheimer's is a degenerative disease that slowly erodes not only the ability to express thoughts but also to think and act coherently (coherency is a property of narratives not biology or physics). degenerative means that there are various degrees of loss and you didn't tell me the state of your acquaintance. if language were so superficial and dispensable so as to allow alzheimer's patients to function without it, why would alzheimer's be such a problem for those who have it and those who live with them? i am lucky not to have personal experiences with alzheimer's patients but i most recently was part of the doctoral dissertation committee advising a student who compared the unequal progression of several degenerative diseases, including alzheimer's. you say "that language is only a superficial secondary aspect of human functioning (a bit like those who use cars so much that they forget that they can also get places by walking)." yes, there are several autonomous systems within the body that function without language, coma patients demonstrate this but don't know that. even such a simple phenomenon as obesity is not only a word, it presupposes social norms that are steeped in language. i invite you to shelve your functionalism. it constructs an impoverished world and, coming back to design, a shrunken space to realize new ideas. klaus