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> Your speculations raise a larger question: Can you think without language? Answer: Nope, at least not at the level humans are accustomed to. Wait, I have a q

by est 16y ago

> Your speculations raise a larger question: Can you think without language? Answer: Nope, at least not at the level humans are accustomed to. Wait, I have a question: by thinking in language, does this mean, that, it's very common for people (in the English speaking world) to think like there was a background voice speaking in your head, like the thinking bubble scenes depicted in movies and sitcoms? As a Chinese, now I can think in languages (dual thinking in Mandarin and English), but in the school days I have developed a totally different, alternative way of thinking process. All Indo-European languages have alphabet to represent syllables, but Chinese is not a language (Mandarin, Cantonese are languages), it's a distinctively unique writing system. Why unique? Its logograms/logographs are not directly linked with phonemes but linked with the meaning itself. When I do thinking and reasoning, I recall a concept by the word's exact character shape and structure, then match with the picture of book pages I memorized, identify the corresponding semantics and then organize my result. This is way faster than thinking in languages like a background voice speaking in my head. Elementary education in China has a technique called 默读, which means read without speaking, after we learned this, later we were taught to get rid of "read" altogether. We only scan the picture of one book page, and cache it as a static picture, then a question is raised about a particular word appeared in that page. We are demanded to recite the context out. This is called memorize-before-comprehend. After decades of training and harsh tests like this, we were totally used to treat thinking as pattern extracting from lines of sentences. This is why Chinese find English grammar funny, a noun is a noun, it should be a static notation of things, easily recognizable universally, why the hell do people invent stuff like plural form to make obstacles for recognizing? Human voices spectrum are way smaller than visual spectrum. And our brain is faster and more optimized at processing mass volume visual stuff(especially pattern recognition), does anyone else think in pictures? Update 1: Anther reason why Chinese are soooooo obsessed with calligraphy. If some idea is really important we write it in an unforgettable, various artful way so the pattern extracting is even faster. And the calligraphy details contains rich hints and link to related ideas. Update 2: Found out deaf people also have problems with English grammar, similar to the common mistakes Chinese makes http://www.reddit.com/comments/bgasc/_/c0mmn2l http://www.reddit.com/comments/bgasc/_/c0mmn2l

javanix 16y ago
That's pretty fascinating. At least in my own experience, I talk to myself without actually making any sounds when I am thinking (in my head, so to speak). I never really thought that others would do it differently until this post.
- flatline 16y ago
  I do that too when I'm "thinking" about stuff, which is most of the time. When I get into a flow state though it's a combination of mental word fragments, images, mental conversations with others, and sometimes all of these drop away and I just act. When I examine it more closely, my normal thought pattern is actually more than just mental speech too, that's just the dominant aspect.
Arun2009 16y ago
> anyone else think in pictures I have noticed that most of my thoughts originate as 'tendencies'. These tendencies are not verbal, but often vividly embody ideas. I then have to expend some effort to verbalize them. This is easily done for most of my thoughts (such as this one!), but for some, I find that the tendencies are not vivid enough or translating them effectively into words is beyond my current abilities. I can get rid of the verbalizing stage altogether, which is what I would do when I automatically reason about where the center of gravity of a spoon I hold in my hand is.
epochwolf 16y ago
I think in written english. For me written english and spoken english are separate languages. I have extreme difficulty translating english words into their spoken equivalents. The reverse is easier only because I have far more practice with it. I have to memorize the spoken words that associate with the sounds. (Part of this may be because written english has a dozen possible sounds for each letter combination) This is horrible obvious when I try to work with numbers. I've never worked with math higher than two digits in spoken language. In order for me to do any more complex math I first need to translate the spoken numbers into written form. Translating between written and spoken forms is painful for me. It can take me two or three seconds per character to comprehend spelling, phone numbers, or math. Writing down a phone number is almost impossible unless one of the parts is one I have memorize. 414, 920, and 644 are numbers I can instantly convert between their written or spoken forms because they are parts of numbers I've memorized. It is frustrating for me because no one I've encountered seems to have this issue and therefore I'm a special kind of moron for not being able to keep up. The only reason this hasn't caused me horrible problems in life is I'm able to memorize enough to compensate. > And our brain is faster and more optimized at processing mass volume visual stuff(especially pattern recognition), does anyone else think in pictures? I'm pretty sure I think at one level of abstract above imagery most of the time. I'm currently reading through Lord of the Rings and I'm finding myself not thinking in imagery at all but simply absorbing information and forming mental maps of the terrain instead of experiencing it visually. Some of it is definitely Tolken's writing style, it readily lends itself to abstraction in my mind. When reading Lord of the Rings, I force myself to experience it at a lower level of abstraction. At a lower abstraction my brain has to work much harder to form original imagery (not just dropping in stuff from the movies) and my reading drops to a fifth of my normal speed. The experience is much richer and well worth it.

by est 16y ago

javanix 16y ago

That's pretty fascinating. At least in my own experience, I talk to myself without actually making any sounds when I am thinking (in my head, so to speak). I never really thought that others would do it differently until this post.

flatline 16y ago
I do that too when I'm "thinking" about stuff, which is most of the time. When I get into a flow state though it's a combination of mental word fragments, images, mental conversations with others, and sometimes all of these drop away and I just act. When I examine it more closely, my normal thought pattern is actually more than just mental speech too, that's just the dominant aspect.

Arun2009 16y ago

> anyone else think in pictures I have noticed that most of my thoughts originate as 'tendencies'. These tendencies are not verbal, but often vividly embody ideas. I then have to expend some effort to verbalize them. This is easily done for most of my thoughts (such as this one!), but for some, I find that the tendencies are not vivid enough or translating them effectively into words is beyond my current abilities. I can get rid of the verbalizing stage altogether, which is what I would do when I automatically reason about where the center of gravity of a spoon I hold in my hand is.

epochwolf 16y ago

I think in written english. For me written english and spoken english are separate languages. I have extreme difficulty translating english words into their spoken equivalents. The reverse is easier only because I have far more practice with it. I have to memorize the spoken words that associate with the sounds. (Part of this may be because written english has a dozen possible sounds for each letter combination) This is horrible obvious when I try to work with numbers. I've never worked with math higher than two digits in spoken language. In order for me to do any more complex math I first need to translate the spoken numbers into written form. Translating between written and spoken forms is painful for me. It can take me two or three seconds per character to comprehend spelling, phone numbers, or math. Writing down a phone number is almost impossible unless one of the parts is one I have memorize. 414, 920, and 644 are numbers I can instantly convert between their written or spoken forms because they are parts of numbers I've memorized. It is frustrating for me because no one I've encountered seems to have this issue and therefore I'm a special kind of moron for not being able to keep up. The only reason this hasn't caused me horrible problems in life is I'm able to memorize enough to compensate. > And our brain is faster and more optimized at processing mass volume visual stuff(especially pattern recognition), does anyone else think in pictures? I'm pretty sure I think at one level of abstract above imagery most of the time. I'm currently reading through Lord of the Rings and I'm finding myself not thinking in imagery at all but simply absorbing information and forming mental maps of the terrain instead of experiencing it visually. Some of it is definitely Tolken's writing style, it readily lends itself to abstraction in my mind. When reading Lord of the Rings, I force myself to experience it at a lower level of abstraction. At a lower abstraction my brain has to work much harder to form original imagery (not just dropping in stuff from the movies) and my reading drops to a fifth of my normal speed. The experience is much richer and well worth it.