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This claim has always been very odd to me. My own thinking is, rather obviously, both. I have an inner monologue but it's not entirely word-based. There are
by retrac 3y ago
This claim has always been very odd to me. My own thinking is, rather obviously, both. I have an inner monologue but it's not entirely word-based. There are mental visual images, and I often gesture with my hands reorganizing imaginary collections of objects while arguing with myself. There's also words going on too.
There is also thinking through proprioception. The sense of awareness of the relative placement of the body in space. That, like the other ways of thinking, also overlaps quite a lot with both visual thinking (moving around imaginary objects) and lingual thinking (writing words in the air idly or sub-vocalization). It is probably not appreciated enough as a mode of thought.
Anyway, I suspect it's something of a false dichotomy, and it's not a binary/multi-way clean split, but that most people think like I do -- in a mix of modes, to varying degrees, using all their senses, all their models of the world, simultaneously. But the assumption that I'm relatively normal is the usual conceit here, isn't it? :)
- Swizec 3y agoVisual Thinking is a great book that goes more into this. Yes it’s a spectrum and different modes of thinking are better for different tasks. The author of Visual Thinking describes 3 types: linear language thinking, abstract visualizer thinking (common to engineers, mathematicians etc), and object visualizer thinking (common to artists, machinists, etc). Most people can do all 3 with different levels of proficiency/comfort, but only 1 is usually the primary. The dichotomy I mentioned is about having or not having that inner monologue/narrator.
- alganet 3y agoTo me, this section of the article deserves more attention: > They confessed they had thought it was a fictional concept made up as a narrative device in the TV show Dexter I imagine a person saying "I have an internal narrator", and other person thinking "shit, I don't hear stuff like TV shows, that person is different". A misunderstanding. I can bet that if the expression "internal narrator" was changed to "an internal voice that you can feel but cannot hear", more people would say they have it, and those poll numbers would change.
- schrodinger 3y agoBut I _do_ hear it, accent, inflection, pauses, and all. Not through my ears of course but a very close simulation. I don’t relate to the inner monologue as pictures reference at all!
- alganet 3y agoOk then, let's rephrase to "an internal voice that you can feel, but it's not heard by your ears". It's not sensory. The phrase doesn't matter. What I want to highlight, is that I can never describe my internal thoughts exactly. There's always a chance for misunderstanding (me not being able to put in words my thought process, or you not being able to translate my description to a meaningful experience to you). If a better method for determining this appears (eg. scanning some brain areas), then I could be convinced. Otherwise, it's all anedoctal. At this point of the discussion, it's time for p-zombies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie This thought experiment expresses well the problem of asserting someone else's consciousness experience. It can't be done yet.
- schrodinger 3y agoI don’t want to reject your experience because no one knows what anyone else experienced within their mind. But I know my experience is very much a conversation replete with proper grammar, inflection, etc to the point I could recite it out loud right after verbatim, so subjectively it’s very similar to hearing through my ears. Others experiences sounded more abstract so I wanted to share mine. But I suppose we may never really know :)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoIt's pretty close to hearing. Maybe 75% of the way there? Obviously it's a bit different than hearing with your ears but it's got almost all of the same information - except positional.
- yencabulator 3y ago> abstract visualizer thinking (common to engineers, mathematicians etc), and object visualizer thinking (common to artists, machinists, etc) Thank you for mentioning this! This explains a lot of myself to me. I can imagine an abstract space (like Einstein's gravity as a well thing), and then rotate it to look at it from different angles etc -- but I can't hold a realistic image of a vase in my head, only the shape.