5 ms·

I'll preface this by saying I know this may sound entirely made up, unscientific, anecdotal, naive, or adolescent even, but luckily nobody has to believe me...

I'll preface this by saying I know this may sound entirely made up, unscientific, anecdotal, naive, or adolescent even, but luckily nobody has to believe me... A few weeks back I was in that limbo state where you're neither fully awake nor fully asleep and for some reason I got into a cycle where I could notice my fast-thinking brain spitting out words/concepts in what felt like the speed of light before my slow-thinking brain would take those and turn them into actual sentences It was like I was seeing my chain of thought as a list of ideas that was filled impossibly fast before it got summarized into a proper "thought" as a carefully selected list of words I have since believed, as others have suggested in much more cogent arguments before me, that what we perceive as our thoughts are, indeed, a curated output of the brainstormy process that immediately precedes it

mirror_neuron 3y ago
It’s hard (impossible?) to know if we’re talking about the same thing or not, but I experience something like this all the time, without being on the edge of sleep. We might both be wrong, but it’s relatable!
dicroce 3y ago
This is fascinating. I had another experience that I think sheds light on some of this. One day I was in my office and the lights were off. I turned around and looked at the dark shape on top of my coworkers desk. For a few seconds I stared blankly and then suddenly I had a thought: PC, it's his PC. Then I started to think about that period of time just before I realized what I was looking at... The only word I can describe what it felt like is: unconscious. Is it possible that consciousness is just a stream of recognition?
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  I think it's likely that consciousness is what you call it until you understand how it works.
Swizec 3y ago
> I got into a cycle where I could notice my fast-thinking brain spitting out words/concepts in what felt like the speed of light before my slow-thinking brain would take those and turn them into actual sentences The way I’ve seen this described by psychologists is that System 1 is driving the car while System 2 panicks in the back seat screaming out explanations for every action and shouting directions to the driver so it can feel in control. The driver may listen to those directions, but there’s no direct link between System 2 in the backseat and System 1 holding the wheel. Various experiments have shown that in many situations our actions come first and our conscious understanding/explanation of those actions comes second. Easiest observed in people with split brain operations. The wordy brain always thinks it’s in control even when we know for a fact it couldn’t possibly have been because the link has been surgically severed. Being super tired, on the edge of sleep, or on drugs can disrupt these links enough to let you observe this directly. It’s pretty wild when it happens. Another easy way, for me, is to get up on stage and give a talk. Your mouth runs away presenting things and you’re in the back of your head going “Oh shit no that’s going in the wrong direction and won’t make the right point, adjust course!”
- devinprater 3y ago
  Oh, yes, that's what I do! I act first, and then consider the action.
- nuancebydefault 3y ago
  Sometimes when I am in a Teams call, I observe myself talking. I know for myself that I can get carried away whilst talking and that time passes faster then. My conscious self sometimes needs to interrupt my talky self with a 'nough explained signal, or even with a 'nough joking signal. I read several studies that show that brains don't have a central point of command, so our true self can not exist (as one single origin). We are the sum of all our consciousnesses, similar to how a car is the sum of its parts.
nico 3y ago
There is a technique for achieving this state of consciousness, it’s called noting This is an awareness that advanced meditators seek, practice and develop to perceive “reality as it is” If you are curious, you might find related discussions, and a great welcoming community at r/streamentry on Reddit Also the book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha talks about it quite a bit, including instructions on how to do it
- jprete 3y ago
  Noting is very useful as long as you remember not to do it all the time.
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 3y ago
    If you don't remember then what? Stack overflow? Heap overflow?
- jondwillis 3y ago
  Is this different from Dzoghchen buddhism?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - nico 3y ago
    Noting is just a meditation technique You might also call it an exercise for insight practice There are multiple traditions that use noting or similar techniques for insight practice (maybe with different names) Can’t vouch for this thread, as I just found it, but here’s a related discussion (Dzogchen vs Vipassana) https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/9t3095/dzogchen_vs_vipassana_fundamental_differences/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/9t3095/dzogchen_v...
giva 3y ago
Well, this sound weird to me in the sense that I don't feel that I think in _words_. I only convert my thoughts into words when i need to speak or write them down; So when I need to communicate them to others, when I need to remember them for later, or when I am stuck and I need to clear things up. I was actually convinced it was the same for most people, and that for this reason "Rubber duck debugging"[1] is a thing. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
- JoBrad 3y ago
  Same. If I try to visualize my thoughts it’s like a cloud that coalesces into various forms, to show different scenarios. It definitely isn’t word-based until I decide to actually translate it into that mode.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    Interesting. I think all of my thoughts are this record I'm listening to as if it's an audiobook almost. Sometimes, it's like multiple parallel streams of different thoughts at different strengths that I can observe, like a thought line that is going on, on a more subconscious level, and it's something that if I notice, I might want to pay attention to. Like multiple LLMs are generating tokens in my head in parallel, but like in my field of view, some I can only listen/see barely because I'm not focusing on them.
- kjqgqkejbfefn 3y ago
  Am I the only one visualizing some of my most creative thoughts in a mental palace that is formed by many distinct (euclidian) spaces, whose axis connect to each other through a graph ? Closest thing that can describe this I found are simplicial sets: picture: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRx5XamWZ8s41oAUyuvbNm4VjesDr3AbpMuKNHdQWKDxJP4LoE2nSYkCdaADTL9VeSjNb0&usqp=CAU https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRx5Xam... It seems it's used by cognitive models, although I'm not formally trained enough to tell exactly how: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.08314.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.08314.pdf
marmaduke 3y ago
> curated output of the brainstormy process that immediately precedes it Daniel Dennett gives a nice albeit more detailed version of your idea in his book Consciousness Explained, could be worth a read
samstave 3y ago
Mandelthought psyt.
melagonster 3y ago
From positive perspective,it is surely that our thinking/mind is not just language and always faster than sentence formation.
JoBrad 3y ago
I had a similar experience when I was put under during surgery a few years ago. Later I learned that they used ketamine in their concoction.
allemagne 3y ago
I occasionally reach a similar state near sleep where I will be half-dreaming that I'm reading from a page of a book where the words materialize/"come into focus" right before my eyes into what is usually vaguely grammatically correct nonsense.
pictureofabear 3y ago
This seems like it might upend Descartes' "cogito, ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am") in that the process for forming thoughts in a language is not indicative that we exist, rather it merely indicates that we have evolved a brain that can produce and interpret language. Seems like we're dismantling a lot of what Descartes came up with these days.
- TriNetra 3y ago
  For that I came up (or got inspired from somewhere) with this: I'm aware therefore I exist. Pure awareness, devoid of all objects (thoughts/visualization) is me.
theaussiestew 3y ago
I have this too. My cognitive processes are not related to my thinking brain, which I define as the part of my mental process which produces the sounds of words in my mind. Instead, I've observed that first, my subconscious processes concepts at a much more fine grained level, much like the latent space of a machine learning model. Only substantially after, let's say 10ms after, do thoughts arise, which are just pointers to the already processed subconscious process. A very rough analogy would be the inference of an LLM in words, vs all the processing of embeddings that happens internally.
andai 3y ago
I forget the name but I remember reading about this as a recognized process in neurology. We usually only hear the thought that wins, but there are many generated simultaneously, and there is a selection process. Possibly related, I had a similar experience last night, where my mind simulated a fully realistic conversation between two people, with audio and video, except that the sentences made no sense. I thought that was interesting. My explanation was "the language part of your brain is too tired cause you've been using it all day."
- endofreach 3y ago
  Hm, interesting... i struggle with people understanding what i mean with having too many thoughts in parallel. I thought that's what adhd is, but turns iut, it's not. But i don't have a winning thought. I have to fight many of them & "pick" the winner if you will. People always take it as a figure of speech, but i honestly struggle with it. It's not rare that i can just sit quietly and after a few hours i am exhausted when finally having finished thinking. If you remember the official name, please let me know. I'd love to look into it more.

mirror_neuron 3y ago

It’s hard (impossible?) to know if we’re talking about the same thing or not, but I experience something like this all the time, without being on the edge of sleep. We might both be wrong, but it’s relatable!

dicroce 3y ago

This is fascinating. I had another experience that I think sheds light on some of this. One day I was in my office and the lights were off. I turned around and looked at the dark shape on top of my coworkers desk. For a few seconds I stared blankly and then suddenly I had a thought: PC, it's his PC. Then I started to think about that period of time just before I realized what I was looking at... The only word I can describe what it felt like is: unconscious. Is it possible that consciousness is just a stream of recognition?

idiotsecant 3y ago
I think it's likely that consciousness is what you call it until you understand how it works.

Swizec 3y ago

> I got into a cycle where I could notice my fast-thinking brain spitting out words/concepts in what felt like the speed of light before my slow-thinking brain would take those and turn them into actual sentences The way I’ve seen this described by psychologists is that System 1 is driving the car while System 2 panicks in the back seat screaming out explanations for every action and shouting directions to the driver so it can feel in control. The driver may listen to those directions, but there’s no direct link between System 2 in the backseat and System 1 holding the wheel. Various experiments have shown that in many situations our actions come first and our conscious understanding/explanation of those actions comes second. Easiest observed in people with split brain operations. The wordy brain always thinks it’s in control even when we know for a fact it couldn’t possibly have been because the link has been surgically severed. Being super tired, on the edge of sleep, or on drugs can disrupt these links enough to let you observe this directly. It’s pretty wild when it happens. Another easy way, for me, is to get up on stage and give a talk. Your mouth runs away presenting things and you’re in the back of your head going “Oh shit no that’s going in the wrong direction and won’t make the right point, adjust course!”

devinprater 3y ago
Oh, yes, that's what I do! I act first, and then consider the action.
nuancebydefault 3y ago
Sometimes when I am in a Teams call, I observe myself talking. I know for myself that I can get carried away whilst talking and that time passes faster then. My conscious self sometimes needs to interrupt my talky self with a 'nough explained signal, or even with a 'nough joking signal. I read several studies that show that brains don't have a central point of command, so our true self can not exist (as one single origin). We are the sum of all our consciousnesses, similar to how a car is the sum of its parts.

nico 3y ago

There is a technique for achieving this state of consciousness, it’s called noting This is an awareness that advanced meditators seek, practice and develop to perceive “reality as it is” If you are curious, you might find related discussions, and a great welcoming community at r/streamentry on Reddit Also the book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha talks about it quite a bit, including instructions on how to do it

jprete 3y ago
Noting is very useful as long as you remember not to do it all the time.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 3y ago
  If you don't remember then what? Stack overflow? Heap overflow?
jondwillis 3y ago
Is this different from Dzoghchen buddhism?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- nico 3y ago
  Noting is just a meditation technique You might also call it an exercise for insight practice There are multiple traditions that use noting or similar techniques for insight practice (maybe with different names) Can’t vouch for this thread, as I just found it, but here’s a related discussion (Dzogchen vs Vipassana) https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/9t3095/dzogchen_vs_vipassana_fundamental_differences/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/9t3095/dzogchen_v...

giva 3y ago

Well, this sound weird to me in the sense that I don't feel that I think in _words_. I only convert my thoughts into words when i need to speak or write them down; So when I need to communicate them to others, when I need to remember them for later, or when I am stuck and I need to clear things up. I was actually convinced it was the same for most people, and that for this reason "Rubber duck debugging"[1] is a thing. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

JoBrad 3y ago
Same. If I try to visualize my thoughts it’s like a cloud that coalesces into various forms, to show different scenarios. It definitely isn’t word-based until I decide to actually translate it into that mode.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  Interesting. I think all of my thoughts are this record I'm listening to as if it's an audiobook almost. Sometimes, it's like multiple parallel streams of different thoughts at different strengths that I can observe, like a thought line that is going on, on a more subconscious level, and it's something that if I notice, I might want to pay attention to. Like multiple LLMs are generating tokens in my head in parallel, but like in my field of view, some I can only listen/see barely because I'm not focusing on them.
kjqgqkejbfefn 3y ago
Am I the only one visualizing some of my most creative thoughts in a mental palace that is formed by many distinct (euclidian) spaces, whose axis connect to each other through a graph ? Closest thing that can describe this I found are simplicial sets: picture: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRx5XamWZ8s41oAUyuvbNm4VjesDr3AbpMuKNHdQWKDxJP4LoE2nSYkCdaADTL9VeSjNb0&usqp=CAU https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRx5Xam... It seems it's used by cognitive models, although I'm not formally trained enough to tell exactly how: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.08314.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.08314.pdf

marmaduke 3y ago

> curated output of the brainstormy process that immediately precedes it Daniel Dennett gives a nice albeit more detailed version of your idea in his book Consciousness Explained, could be worth a read

samstave 3y ago

Mandelthought psyt.

melagonster 3y ago

From positive perspective,it is surely that our thinking/mind is not just language and always faster than sentence formation.

JoBrad 3y ago

I had a similar experience when I was put under during surgery a few years ago. Later I learned that they used ketamine in their concoction.

allemagne 3y ago

I occasionally reach a similar state near sleep where I will be half-dreaming that I'm reading from a page of a book where the words materialize/"come into focus" right before my eyes into what is usually vaguely grammatically correct nonsense.

pictureofabear 3y ago

This seems like it might upend Descartes' "cogito, ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am") in that the process for forming thoughts in a language is not indicative that we exist, rather it merely indicates that we have evolved a brain that can produce and interpret language. Seems like we're dismantling a lot of what Descartes came up with these days.

TriNetra 3y ago
For that I came up (or got inspired from somewhere) with this: I'm aware therefore I exist. Pure awareness, devoid of all objects (thoughts/visualization) is me.

theaussiestew 3y ago

I have this too. My cognitive processes are not related to my thinking brain, which I define as the part of my mental process which produces the sounds of words in my mind. Instead, I've observed that first, my subconscious processes concepts at a much more fine grained level, much like the latent space of a machine learning model. Only substantially after, let's say 10ms after, do thoughts arise, which are just pointers to the already processed subconscious process. A very rough analogy would be the inference of an LLM in words, vs all the processing of embeddings that happens internally.

andai 3y ago

I forget the name but I remember reading about this as a recognized process in neurology. We usually only hear the thought that wins, but there are many generated simultaneously, and there is a selection process. Possibly related, I had a similar experience last night, where my mind simulated a fully realistic conversation between two people, with audio and video, except that the sentences made no sense. I thought that was interesting. My explanation was "the language part of your brain is too tired cause you've been using it all day."

endofreach 3y ago
Hm, interesting... i struggle with people understanding what i mean with having too many thoughts in parallel. I thought that's what adhd is, but turns iut, it's not. But i don't have a winning thought. I have to fight many of them & "pick" the winner if you will. People always take it as a figure of speech, but i honestly struggle with it. It's not rare that i can just sit quietly and after a few hours i am exhausted when finally having finished thinking. If you remember the official name, please let me know. I'd love to look into it more.