8 ms·

Quite a lot of humans don't think in language, or do only some of the time, see e.g. https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue-explain-what-i

by mkl 2y ago

Quite a lot of humans don't think in language, or do only some of the time, see e.g. https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue-explain-what-its-like-in-their-head-57739 https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue..., https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monologue.html https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog..., https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-internal-monologue https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-intern....

palad1n 2y ago
Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard, whose mind is blown (usually) that there is another type. One thinks in words, one has no words but a smooth stream of thought going.
- marssaxman 2y ago
  That's wild - I am clearly the first sort, because I cannot imagine what "a smooth stream of thought" would even be if it were not expressed in words.
  - mainecoder 2y ago
    It is like your motor control thoughts, you don't think let me pickup this spoon you just pick it up, when given an equation you do not think go through the steps if x - 9 = 22, you just say x is 31 yet you have skipped in your mind there exists a base mental representation of these things some call it a small world model of a large world model encoded in an abstract knowledge representation sort of like a compilers abstract syntax tree and this representation is sort of universal in that you can take it from someone and give it to another person and they will automatically know provided that they have the requisite properties of the world model in which it exists for instance a thought about the symmetric group s3 could be transferred provided that the requisite structure for groups( just the definition, and concept of rotation exists which already exists by default in mammals).
  - bla3 2y ago
    For what it's worth, I used to be certain that I thought in words too. Then I moved to a different country and used a second language often enough that I sometimes think in it. I then realized that there are periods where I think in neither my native language nor in my second language, even when I'm thinking. YMMV of course.
    - Zambyte 2y ago
      Do you find your domain of thought shifts when you do not think with language? For example, do you feel you are able to do complex reasoning without language?
    - draculero 2y ago
      I usually dream in English - but I don't speak English. But I understand everything thanks to my dream's subtitles.
    - dotnet00 2y ago
      This describes my experience nicely too, although I didn't quite realize it until reading this. I was thinking I just thought in words and had a tendency to mix up the bits of various languages I know some words from, but occasionally I have some thought, then for one reason or another become conscious of the thought and get confused which language I was thinking in. Sometimes this even manifests as trying to mix languages (eg at one point I used to struggle to not sprinkle in french and farsi words into normal english, despite speaking english at a native level and only knowing the basics of the other two). I've always thought of my mental model as an endless conversation with myself, but I think the more fitting description would be a "smooth" series of thoughts which only materialize into language when I explicitly focus on those thoughts as their own thing. I do also think visually for things that have a visual component though.
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    I don't think in words unless I am speaking, writing, or modeling a conversational interaction. The vast majority of my thoughts are in the form of sense impressions, motor sequences, visualization, or wordless intuition. I'm sure you think that way too, you probably just layer a narrative over it. The sibling comment about picking up a spoon is an example I sometimes use - see yourself walk to the kitchen, move your hand to open the drawer, pick up a spoon, pour the tea, scoop the sugar. I can describe them but it's not natively linguistic to me. I'm hell at rearranging furniture or putting together an engine, not so good at positive self talk.
  - BlarfMcFlarf 2y ago
    It’s a process of serialization. I frequently have thoughts or ideas that take me a while to express in words. Being stuck to words seems so limiting, slow, and linear that I have a hard time believing it; surely there are more fundamental mental processes generating the words and the monologue is just a serialization of thought? Right?
    - marssaxman 2y ago
      That's an interesting perspective, and I think you are on to something. I have some experience with a meditative/dissociative state in which that monologue - which I think of as the "narrator process" - can be observed as just one of many mental subsystems, neither containing the whole of my consciousness nor acting as the agent of my will. The narrator merely describes the feelings which arise in other mental components and arranges them, along with the actions I take, into some plausible linear causal sequence. Minds differ in many ways, and perhaps one way your mind and mine differ is that words flow quickly for me and do not feel slow or limiting; so I suppose I am easily fooled into perceiving that narrative as the medium of thought in itself. It had not occurred to me to describe the activities of the other mental subsystems as thoughts, but why shouldn't they be? And now I have a better guess at what it might be like to experience the world in a different way. Thank you!
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard > One thinks in words No. There are people who believe they think in words, because they haven't bothered to examine the question, but there are no people who think in words. Think about the number of people you've ever seen do a double take at the idea that "I don't know how to put this into words".
  - Loughla 2y ago
    I absolutely think in words. There are no pictures or whatever other mental model. There is literally a narrative of words and blackness inside head.
    - Aerroon 2y ago
      Do you prefer lions or tigers? BBQ sauce or ketchup? Green or blue? I bet you can answer all of these at a moment's notice, but where does your answer come from? Have you ever sat down and tried to reason out which one you like more? Or do you just 'know' the answer and then 'come up' with the justification afterwards? People can think in words, but it's certainly not their only way of thinking. I think the thinking in words is kind of like "thinking on paper" where you're trying to explicitly reason through something. The thinking process itself seems to be something on a deeper level.
    - bbwbsb 2y ago
      The crux is the word 'I'. When I say 'I' think, do I mean the conscious part of me which has direct experience of that thinking? If so, then I am denying all the of the thinking that 'I' don't do, but my brain/body does. From that perspective, the experience of thinking in words or pictures is distinct from actually thinking in words or pictures. Saying one thinks in one of these ways seems to be saying what they identify thinking with. For example, I don't usually think of fantasy as thinking. If I day dream, I wouldn't say I am thinking, but that is fairly visual. To what degree am I saying something about myself vs my identity if I say I do or don't think in words given that context? Relatedly, I've noticed that when it comes to remembering something, it is not 'I' that remember. Rather 'I' set up mental cues and direct focus, which then hopefully causes the memory to be placed within my awareness. This happens below the level of direct experience. But I might say I failed to remember, taking responsibility for something that 'I' - the part separated from the automatic functions of the body - did not do. So I'm suggesting statements about words vs pictures are about ego, metaphor and meaning-building, and not about actual mechanisms or communicating actual differences in the experience of thinking. It can be difficult to talk about these things because such conversations implicitly occur between our identities, not between who we actually are - something beyond our grasp - and the noise this introduces is something I don't know how to surmount, or if it can be surmounted.
aurareturn 2y ago
There are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience. https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-visualize-things https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-... If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It also makes you think about consciousness and whether it’s even real.
- pcrh 2y ago
  With regards to consciousness per se being real, that question was resolved with Cogito, ergo sum.
- thfuran 2y ago
  >If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will That seems like a bizarre leap. What's the connection?
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    Because it implies that we only behave based on how we feel, not how we think. The thinking part is an illusion. Therefore, our “consciousness” has no effect on how we behave. I’m not willing to die on this hill by the way so if someone else comes along and argues otherwise, I’m open to other ideas.
    - MeImCounting 2y ago
      Thinking isnt even a path to "free will". Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus just like feeling is.
      - mistermann 2y ago
        Where does "clearly" originate, and what does it refer to? Is "just" a synonym for "exactly" in this context?
olalonde 2y ago
I'm highly suspicious that the whole "inner vs no-inner monologue" thing doesn't actually exist and has more to do with these things being extremely hard to explain using language, and people describing their subjective experience in subtly different ways.
- epgui 2y ago
  I 100% do not think in words or sentences or language. It feels more like node-traversing a graph of concepts, but it's all completely abstract. While I am able to consciously play back my thoughts linguistically or visually with some effort (and at the cost of efficiency), by default there are neither words nor images. French is my first language, I'm fluent in English, and I know a bit about many languages... But I've never had an inner voice or thought in language, even when I was very young.
  - MattPalmer1086 2y ago
    Right, very like me. Language is the front end; I use it to express thoughts when needed (to record, communicate and check reasoning) The back end is working in some kind of abstract space. I suspect people who say they think in language are not really thinking "in" language. I think we all have this abstract conceptual space in us. I'm not even sure what it means to think in language; where do the ideas and concepts come from that are being expressed? I guess some people have to internally "hear" a thought expressed before it is real to them.
    - Quinner 2y ago
      Internal monologue (or dialogue, as it can play out as imagined conversations) is an apt name for it. Imagine reading a play. Everything is expressed as language, and ideas and concepts are expressed through that language.
  - olalonde 2y ago
    What I am saying is that probably everyone thinks the way you do, it's just that not everyone would describe it in that way. For example, I'm sure you came up with this comment in your head at some point before typing it and many people would describe this as an inner monologue, whereas you apparently do not.
raincom 2y ago
"inner monologue" exists whenever people have hopes, dreams, plans, etc--thats what humans being intentional agents mean. Sure, there is a spectrum: those whose monologue is so active during the wakeful time to those whose daily brief monologue is about what to say in tomorrow's scrum standup.
- kbrkbr 2y ago
  Research indicates that reality is more complex and messy than that. https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monologue.html https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog... It seems more likely that a theory that bases being an intentional agent on the notion of an inner monologue is not the best model for what's happening.

by mkl 2y ago

palad1n 2y ago

Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard, whose mind is blown (usually) that there is another type. One thinks in words, one has no words but a smooth stream of thought going.

marssaxman 2y ago
That's wild - I am clearly the first sort, because I cannot imagine what "a smooth stream of thought" would even be if it were not expressed in words.
- mainecoder 2y ago
  It is like your motor control thoughts, you don't think let me pickup this spoon you just pick it up, when given an equation you do not think go through the steps if x - 9 = 22, you just say x is 31 yet you have skipped in your mind there exists a base mental representation of these things some call it a small world model of a large world model encoded in an abstract knowledge representation sort of like a compilers abstract syntax tree and this representation is sort of universal in that you can take it from someone and give it to another person and they will automatically know provided that they have the requisite properties of the world model in which it exists for instance a thought about the symmetric group s3 could be transferred provided that the requisite structure for groups( just the definition, and concept of rotation exists which already exists by default in mammals).
- bla3 2y ago
  For what it's worth, I used to be certain that I thought in words too. Then I moved to a different country and used a second language often enough that I sometimes think in it. I then realized that there are periods where I think in neither my native language nor in my second language, even when I'm thinking. YMMV of course.
  - Zambyte 2y ago
    Do you find your domain of thought shifts when you do not think with language? For example, do you feel you are able to do complex reasoning without language?
  - draculero 2y ago
    I usually dream in English - but I don't speak English. But I understand everything thanks to my dream's subtitles.
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    This describes my experience nicely too, although I didn't quite realize it until reading this. I was thinking I just thought in words and had a tendency to mix up the bits of various languages I know some words from, but occasionally I have some thought, then for one reason or another become conscious of the thought and get confused which language I was thinking in. Sometimes this even manifests as trying to mix languages (eg at one point I used to struggle to not sprinkle in french and farsi words into normal english, despite speaking english at a native level and only knowing the basics of the other two). I've always thought of my mental model as an endless conversation with myself, but I think the more fitting description would be a "smooth" series of thoughts which only materialize into language when I explicitly focus on those thoughts as their own thing. I do also think visually for things that have a visual component though.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  I don't think in words unless I am speaking, writing, or modeling a conversational interaction. The vast majority of my thoughts are in the form of sense impressions, motor sequences, visualization, or wordless intuition. I'm sure you think that way too, you probably just layer a narrative over it. The sibling comment about picking up a spoon is an example I sometimes use - see yourself walk to the kitchen, move your hand to open the drawer, pick up a spoon, pour the tea, scoop the sugar. I can describe them but it's not natively linguistic to me. I'm hell at rearranging furniture or putting together an engine, not so good at positive self talk.
- BlarfMcFlarf 2y ago
  It’s a process of serialization. I frequently have thoughts or ideas that take me a while to express in words. Being stuck to words seems so limiting, slow, and linear that I have a hard time believing it; surely there are more fundamental mental processes generating the words and the monologue is just a serialization of thought? Right?
  - marssaxman 2y ago
    That's an interesting perspective, and I think you are on to something. I have some experience with a meditative/dissociative state in which that monologue - which I think of as the "narrator process" - can be observed as just one of many mental subsystems, neither containing the whole of my consciousness nor acting as the agent of my will. The narrator merely describes the feelings which arise in other mental components and arranges them, along with the actions I take, into some plausible linear causal sequence. Minds differ in many ways, and perhaps one way your mind and mine differ is that words flow quickly for me and do not feel slow or limiting; so I suppose I am easily fooled into perceiving that narrative as the medium of thought in itself. It had not occurred to me to describe the activities of the other mental subsystems as thoughts, but why shouldn't they be? And now I have a better guess at what it might be like to experience the world in a different way. Thank you!
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard > One thinks in words No. There are people who believe they think in words, because they haven't bothered to examine the question, but there are no people who think in words. Think about the number of people you've ever seen do a double take at the idea that "I don't know how to put this into words".
- Loughla 2y ago
  I absolutely think in words. There are no pictures or whatever other mental model. There is literally a narrative of words and blackness inside head.
  - Aerroon 2y ago
    Do you prefer lions or tigers? BBQ sauce or ketchup? Green or blue? I bet you can answer all of these at a moment's notice, but where does your answer come from? Have you ever sat down and tried to reason out which one you like more? Or do you just 'know' the answer and then 'come up' with the justification afterwards? People can think in words, but it's certainly not their only way of thinking. I think the thinking in words is kind of like "thinking on paper" where you're trying to explicitly reason through something. The thinking process itself seems to be something on a deeper level.
  - bbwbsb 2y ago
    The crux is the word 'I'. When I say 'I' think, do I mean the conscious part of me which has direct experience of that thinking? If so, then I am denying all the of the thinking that 'I' don't do, but my brain/body does. From that perspective, the experience of thinking in words or pictures is distinct from actually thinking in words or pictures. Saying one thinks in one of these ways seems to be saying what they identify thinking with. For example, I don't usually think of fantasy as thinking. If I day dream, I wouldn't say I am thinking, but that is fairly visual. To what degree am I saying something about myself vs my identity if I say I do or don't think in words given that context? Relatedly, I've noticed that when it comes to remembering something, it is not 'I' that remember. Rather 'I' set up mental cues and direct focus, which then hopefully causes the memory to be placed within my awareness. This happens below the level of direct experience. But I might say I failed to remember, taking responsibility for something that 'I' - the part separated from the automatic functions of the body - did not do. So I'm suggesting statements about words vs pictures are about ego, metaphor and meaning-building, and not about actual mechanisms or communicating actual differences in the experience of thinking. It can be difficult to talk about these things because such conversations implicitly occur between our identities, not between who we actually are - something beyond our grasp - and the noise this introduces is something I don't know how to surmount, or if it can be surmounted.

aurareturn 2y ago

There are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience. https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-visualize-things https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-... If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It also makes you think about consciousness and whether it’s even real.

pcrh 2y ago
With regards to consciousness per se being real, that question was resolved with Cogito, ergo sum.
thfuran 2y ago
>If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will That seems like a bizarre leap. What's the connection?
- aurareturn 2y ago
  Because it implies that we only behave based on how we feel, not how we think. The thinking part is an illusion. Therefore, our “consciousness” has no effect on how we behave. I’m not willing to die on this hill by the way so if someone else comes along and argues otherwise, I’m open to other ideas.
  - MeImCounting 2y ago
    Thinking isnt even a path to "free will". Thinking is pretty clearly determined by exterior stimulus just like feeling is.
    - mistermann 2y ago
      Where does "clearly" originate, and what does it refer to? Is "just" a synonym for "exactly" in this context?

olalonde 2y ago

I'm highly suspicious that the whole "inner vs no-inner monologue" thing doesn't actually exist and has more to do with these things being extremely hard to explain using language, and people describing their subjective experience in subtly different ways.

epgui 2y ago
I 100% do not think in words or sentences or language. It feels more like node-traversing a graph of concepts, but it's all completely abstract. While I am able to consciously play back my thoughts linguistically or visually with some effort (and at the cost of efficiency), by default there are neither words nor images. French is my first language, I'm fluent in English, and I know a bit about many languages... But I've never had an inner voice or thought in language, even when I was very young.
- MattPalmer1086 2y ago
  Right, very like me. Language is the front end; I use it to express thoughts when needed (to record, communicate and check reasoning) The back end is working in some kind of abstract space. I suspect people who say they think in language are not really thinking "in" language. I think we all have this abstract conceptual space in us. I'm not even sure what it means to think in language; where do the ideas and concepts come from that are being expressed? I guess some people have to internally "hear" a thought expressed before it is real to them.
  - Quinner 2y ago
    Internal monologue (or dialogue, as it can play out as imagined conversations) is an apt name for it. Imagine reading a play. Everything is expressed as language, and ideas and concepts are expressed through that language.
- olalonde 2y ago
  What I am saying is that probably everyone thinks the way you do, it's just that not everyone would describe it in that way. For example, I'm sure you came up with this comment in your head at some point before typing it and many people would describe this as an inner monologue, whereas you apparently do not.

raincom 2y ago

"inner monologue" exists whenever people have hopes, dreams, plans, etc--thats what humans being intentional agents mean. Sure, there is a spectrum: those whose monologue is so active during the wakeful time to those whose daily brief monologue is about what to say in tomorrow's scrum standup.

kbrkbr 2y ago
Research indicates that reality is more complex and messy than that. https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monologue.html https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog... It seems more likely that a theory that bases being an intentional agent on the notion of an inner monologue is not the best model for what's happening.