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 Janamil
Registered: 08/01/09
Posts: 1,699
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 Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter  [Re: Freedom]
#12480362 - 04/29/10 09:10 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Freedom said:
Quote:
Janamil said:
Anyway, I use to think in spatial reconstructions of places Ive seen. Take.. um, the field in the back of my house. I can remember specific events when I think of it facing in one direction, and then I can remember different specific events or thoughts when Im facing in another direction.
Wow that's fucking awesome, I also think in spatial reconstructions! I've never heard of anyone else who thinks this way. You weren't adopted in Florida were you? (my long lost brother)
lol no but thinking in spatial reconstructions is a double edged sword, it can seriously be advantageous and make it so you cant think as fast, or cant remember things as well as other people because you connect ideas differently. Its good if when your thinking about a subject you just picture a place youve never thought about before, and remember it. Thats the way I organize my memories.
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Action Jackson
Noob
Registered: 02/10/10
Posts: 213
Loc: box
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: TheSkyInYourEye]
#12481119 - 04/29/10 11:32 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
TheSkyInYourEye said:
Can anyone read without reciting the words in their heads?
When I'm reading fiction I find myself in the story and not really listening to the words but visualising everything. Maybe somewhere in my brain it's reciting the words as I read, but I don't necessarily hear it. All I see is the story unfolding, perhaps smelling, feeling, hearing what's going on in the story. But as soon as the dialogue starts, then yeah, reciting words, but once action and scene descriptions are happening again I'm lost.
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"It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream."
- Edgar Allan Poe
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 GreenGoblin7
Dreamer
 
Registered: 01/02/09
Posts: 711
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: Action Jackson]
#12481446 - 04/30/10 12:49 AM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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I'm very much the same way when I read, I'm pretty sure I read faster then I could recite the words in my head. The thing you said about just visualizing as you read is exactly how I would describe it.
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 "Only when the power of love overcomes the love of power will the world be at peace" - Jimi Hendrix
2009 Carolina Hunting Thread
2010 Carolina Hunting Thread
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quinn
some kinda love
Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: CrabCrack]
#12487945 - 05/01/10 09:52 AM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Wow op, this is uncanny...
I have been writing an essay on Saussure, and literally had reached the same conclusion.
Literally! I was up to a part talking about 'smells', how they could function just as well in creating thoughts as words do.
I was not too confident about it though...
Then i saw this.
Some good points as well about words being ideological by nature. A truly interesting topic...
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dripping with fantasy
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kikthecan
uhh
Registered: 02/25/09
Posts: 348
Last seen: 13 years, 3 months
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: quinn]
#12488742 - 05/01/10 12:50 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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I think in words too much I guess. Even though pictures are Always present, words were there first. Words just have a meaning that a picture wouldnt. I guess it's like assisted thinking, thanks amurrica
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 3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.
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AlphaFalfa
imagine
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: CrabCrack]
#12489321 - 05/01/10 03:05 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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This is one of my biggest problems with communication; it
is the fact that if one thinks with words, then
associations to those words generated through
experiences(especially with others) largely affects the
way we feel with a person's communication's. The trouble
arises in recognizing that communication is meant to be
compleltly unbiased, unaffected by a persons experience,
because the very nature of the intention to create \
language, was to serve as an objective exchange towards
some goal or either people speaking. So for example,
'really' is a word that in my experience, if asked prior
to me describing my intentions to someone, to resemble a
doubt or suspicion. Therefore, when someone says
'really' after I explain my intention's to them, I feel
\
anxious that they may not believe me and it may lead to
further conflict. However, many use the word 'really' to
mean 'wow' or 'I am surprised'. The irony of the
situation is that in relationships, communication, if you
believe it to exist in the way I described, as a bases
for a relationship is simply drawing on luck and
circumstance. As in you being lucky when they have
similair experience's surrounding the words you do. This
is probally also why you, as a thinker that does not use
words, cannot generate small talk with people to develop
a relationship that leads you to fit into a social
order. I guesse that is always why I say words and the
rest of the group react's strongly, yet when they say
certain words I react strongly and they find it meager.
Sadly, this type of experience is a rarity in our world,
happily, I do have one close friend and it is worth a
billion meager friends.
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if you ever feel lost, just remember, life is not a journey, it is entertainment, all 4 fun...
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juslikejesus
Registered: 05/01/10
Posts: 76
Last seen: 10 years, 11 days
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: BrainChemistry]
#12491926 - 05/02/10 01:25 AM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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I'm not autistic, but you have to understand that autism comes on many scales. This one DOCTOR who is autistic was talking about, of course many aren't as gifted as such.
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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.
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CrabCrack
Stranger
Registered: 04/20/10
Posts: 62
Last seen: 13 years, 9 months
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: Janamil]
#12493195 - 05/02/10 11:14 AM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Janamil said:
For biology, I would remember a 3d construction in the book and everytime I thought of how this certain part of biology worked.. lets say natural selection. Id think of a rain-forest and create one in my head. Now then during the test, all I would have to do is remember that rain forest, and stand in different 2d cross-sections of it and remember everything I learned.
Now that I realize, I dont need to explain everything I think. Ill try and think more towards my spatial memory instead of English language. Itll take awhile and a few mushroom trips but hopefully I can change most of my thinking towards the spatial part.
Thank you OP you, really motivated me to try and start thinking in this direction again. I just try to think in just spatial with no language and its really hard to remember things, but hopefully I can find a way to connect it all. Also I think Ill start learning Japanese to help me with this goal.
Yeah thats exactly how it is for me too. For natural selection I picture of a field by a farm with tall grass growing but its like all my knowledge of natural selection is connected to this 1 picture so from that I can give a description of the concept if I'm asked it on a test. I just tested myself by pretending I was asked to describe it and theres more to it than that I have to compare two grass stalks of differing heights then imagine heavy wind coming in and killing the taller grass while the shorter grass survives and this is sufficient for me to come up with the words I'll need to give a decent definition of evolution by natural selection.
I find for remembering things its best to use as many senses as possible and words are like additional tags which make the memories more informative. Also despite years of reluctance to use them over the past year or so I've discovered how useful word mnemonics are. For example I could never remember what sides of the triangle sin, cos and tan represented because the picture of it is so plain and monotonous then one day I decided to try out the SOH CAH TOA mnemonic and I've remembered it ever since. You say hopefully you can find a way to connect it all. Thats exactly what I have to do the more I connect the new concepts to my memorized concepts the more vivid and meaningful the picture of the concept becomes and when its vivid and meaningful the memory gets integrated completely. When I'm lying in bed at night I like to think and I'll often start visualizing various concepts I've learned and the cool thing is I start discovering new things just by looking over the concepts I already have in my head. I didn't know how electric generators or motors worked before figuring it out in my head by putting together the knowledge I had of electromagnetic induction + magnetic attraction/repulsion.
Edited by CrabCrack (05/02/10 11:33 AM)
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CrabCrack
Stranger
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: quinn]
#12493340 - 05/02/10 11:53 AM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
quinn said:
Wow op, this is uncanny...
I have been writing an essay on Saussure, and literally had reached the same conclusion.
Literally! I was up to a part talking about 'smells', how they could function just as well in creating thoughts as words do.
I was not too confident about it though...
Then i saw this.
Some good points as well about words being ideological by nature. A truly interesting topic...
Yeah its interesting shit the languages we use today are limited to what we can transmit to other people. If we were telepathic we could use the full extent of our 5 senses + emotions to communicate. We know that deaf people can use nothing but hand movements to communicate so this is a visual language that happens to be limited to hand movements I wonder if some deaf people use sign language to think. Words are an auditory language that is limited to the sounds our vocal cords can make. The written counterpart of words is a written language but they're so monotonous and abstract I can't imagine anyone using written words to think. A way more limited auditory language is morse code but we can still use it to communicate. It would be funny if that psychic girl from True Blood listens in on your mind and all she hears is a series of short and prolonged beeps. She'd come to the conclusion your thinking in morse code haha.
As for making a taste or smell based language if you think about it if we're just using it to think we could make it way more complex than English. The sounds our vocal cords can make are such a small part of what we can actually hear yet we use them to communicate every day. Sound seems to contain a much more diverse spectrum of sensory phenomena than taste or smell though doesn't it. From what I can tell vision outdoes sound and when you combine all your 5 senses and throw emotions into the mix then you have something worthy of representing your thoughts. Heres an article I found where the author is trying to prove that its possible to think without words
http://www.jimmyakin.org/2004/10/thinking_withou.html
interesting shit because many of us know without a doubt that its not only possible to think without words but that we do it yet there are people that aren't even entirely sure its a possibility. This indicates a severe lack of communication about how we think. We rarely talk about how we think. This thread is the first time I've ever gone into any detail about it.
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nooneman
Registered: 04/24/09
Posts: 14,700
Loc: Utah
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: CrabCrack]
#12493416 - 05/02/10 12:16 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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I think using words/internal monolog probably 95%+ of the time, unless there's something I have to picture. I can't imagine having a non-verbal internal monolog, it just seems natural to me. Also, there are no disadvantages, words can express anything. And the attachment of morals to words can happen with images and sounds or anything for that matter.
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CrabCrack
Stranger
Registered: 04/20/10
Posts: 62
Last seen: 13 years, 9 months
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: nooneman]
#12493707 - 05/02/10 01:36 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
nooneman said:
I think using words/internal monolog probably 95%+ of the time, unless there's something I have to picture. I can't imagine having a non-verbal internal monolog, it just seems natural to me. Also, there are no disadvantages, words can express anything. And the attachment of morals to words can happen with images and sounds or anything for that matter.
Are you telling me you can adequately describe a psychedelic trip with words? Don't get me wrong now I can't even adequately think about psychedelic trips but there are plenty of things I can think about that I cannot describe. Like these hazy white threads that look like hairs floating around that I see when I'm sleep deprived. I can see them in my head but I can't accurately describe them.
I think the way to genius is acknowledging the fact that all methods of thinking have their advantages and disadvantages and that we can use any method any time its just a matter of being aware of it and choosing to use methods other than the method we've habituated. Heres a good example
A mental abacus. I've always had fairly feeble mental addition and subtraction skills what I do is I see the numbers and visualize the same process I would use if I was doing it on paper but the picture is so monotonous it will often fade and I forget the progress I've made. This abacus method is obviously way more efficient and I bet we could make it even more effective by adding different colours and shapes to the abacus. I'm gonna start practicing this method and see if my mental arithmetic skills improve 
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Mr. Mushrooms
Spore Print Collector
Registered: 05/25/08
Posts: 13,018
Loc: Registered: 6/04/02
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: CrabCrack]
#12498282 - 05/03/10 10:43 AM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
CrabCrack said:
I've been diagnosed as autistic, I dunno which preceded which but I never talk inside my head unless I wanna see what it sounds like. I thought this was the case for everyone but I was watching True Blood one day and was laughing at how whenever the psychic girl read someones mind she'd hear them talking in their heads then my friend tells me he thinks like that. Since then I've found out LOADS of people actually think with words. This is some fucked up shit on many levels. 1.) If you think in words you can only think about that which you have words for and all sorts of problems will stem from that. 2.) Sometimes things sound crazy or bad when in reality they're not. This paves the way for mind control because the media attaches morals to words. The most obvious example is the word drugs. 3.) Words take a very long time to sound out so this would severely slow down the thoughts who used them to think. How many of you here use words when you're thinking? Honestly if you now that you're aware of it stop doing it and you'll see how insanely superior thinking with your 5 senses is.
First off nobody thinks in words our thoughts are something we use to make pictures, sounds, smells, emotions etc. inside our own heads so people thinking that they think in words is an indication that they've been wording out their thoughts for so long they started believing that they need the words to think. We can use any of our 5 senses to analyze and form new concepts but it can be done and we could make a taste based language if we wanted to. Tactile senses would be more difficult than taste and smell. Taste and smell would be more difficult than emotions which in turn would be more difficult than sound and sound in turn is more difficult to think with than pictures. Pictures are the most effective it seems.
Sorry for your disability. This theory depends on a loose definition of what it means to think. Philosophically speaking, thinking requires words or significants such as sounds or letters.
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quinn
some kinda love
Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: CrabCrack]
#12498635 - 05/03/10 11:59 AM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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lol @ internal morse code...
Whether deaf people can think in signs...
I don't see why not, it just seems unintuitive.
Thanks 4 article. Funnily enough there are philosophers who actually devoted their careers to arguing that thought is defined by words
(Whorf, Sapir... even Saussure can be interpreted that way.)
We know this is not the case...
This is what i reckn atm: a 'thought' is a group of related 'sense values'.
So say all the sounds which we would say sound like a 'dog bark';
they are one sense value.
The same applies to all other senses.
If you hear a 'dog bark', it can signify the 'shape of dog', 'smell of dog', 'feel of dog', 'word 'dog''... 'taste of dog'?  etc.
Maybe it refers to all, some or none,
but that is how it has meaning,
because it is attached to another sense value...
A dog bark alone means nothing...
Doesn't it?
This may be wrong but
its just my Thoughts 
One interesting question... do you think a thought is defined by what it is or rather by what it isn't. Isn't a square square because of its relation to everything that isn't square?..
I dunno a bit of a riddle
Hope i was coherent.. damn words
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dripping with fantasy
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quinn
some kinda love
Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: Mr. Mushrooms]
#12498652 - 05/03/10 12:02 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mr. Mushrooms said:
Sorry for your disability. This theory depends on a loose definition of what it means to think. Philosophically speaking, thinking requires words or significants such as sounds or letters.
What do you mean? According to who?...
The analytic trad?
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dripping with fantasy
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CrabCrack
Stranger
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Posts: 62
Last seen: 13 years, 9 months
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: Mr. Mushrooms]
#12498662 - 05/03/10 12:05 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Mr Mushrooms: Thats the point of this thread. Anything can be used as significants for thinking. Pictures, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile senses, emotions. Not the actual phenomena that trigger these things inside our heads, just the sensory representation phenomena that goes on in our heads. The English language needs new words for all this. The word sense is too ambiguous and if I say sound it could mean the actual longitudinal vibrations of gas molecules picked up by our ears or it could mean the actual thing that goes on in our heads when our ears pickup sound or when we think about sound. I wonder how new words make their way into languages.
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CrabCrack
Stranger
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: quinn]
#12498833 - 05/03/10 12:33 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
quinn said:
Thanks 4 article. Funnily enough there are philosophers who actually devoted their careers to arguing that thought is defined by words
(Whorf, Sapir... even Saussure can be interpreted that way.)
We know this is not the case...
Interesting. My brother studies philosophy in uni and hes a pure word thinker. He gave credit to the ideas in 1985, he didn't even believe me the first time I told him that I don't speak inside my head. My father was a writer and I've figured out hes a pure word thinker too.
Quote:
quinn said:
This is what i reckn atm: a 'thought' is a group of related 'sense values'.
So say all the sounds which we would say sound like a 'dog bark';
they are one sense value.
The same applies to all other senses.
Its interesting shit. Thats a pretty good theory for what thoughts might be but I've been observing how I learn, form new concepts and analyze concepts for a while now and I've noticed there are things I use which are not sound, vision, smell, taste, emotion or touch. 1 example is how theres information attached to images. For example concept on an analogy. I see 2 semi transparent coloured landscapes but if I printed this image and showed it to people would be completely meaningless to them. Theres information attached to it in my head but the info isn't encoded in any of the 5 senses or emotions. Another example, this may be tactile or emotion or both but its pretty strange. I feel this click in my upper abdomen the area just below my ribcage and I use this click to think a lot. Its very mild and subtle but I use it to compress information or something. I'll have to observe a lot more to figure out what thats all about.
Quote:
quinn said:
If you hear a 'dog bark', it can signify the 'shape of dog', 'smell of dog', 'feel of dog', 'word 'dog''... 'taste of dog'? etc.
Maybe it refers to all, some or none,
but that is how it has meaning,
because it is attached to another sense value...
Notice how you'll rapidly have an idea of the size, physical appearance and also smell and taste of the dog after hearing it bark once. Theres no way anyone could think the words as rapid as this knowing comes about. It comes from memory of what you know about dogs but wouldn't you still be required to think about the memories in order to connect to the new sensory input? This may be another example of how the theory that we need words to think is invalid.
Quote:
quinn said:
One interesting question... do you think a thought is defined by what it is or rather by what it isn't. Isn't a square square because of its relation to everything that isn't square?..
I dunno a bit of a riddle
Hope i was coherent.. damn words
Yeah I know what you mean. I just got another insight into how I think by trying to conceptualize what you were saying there. I see white mist which represents all thought and within the white mist anything can be molded so to answer your question I'd say its defined by what it isn't. I have trouble just thinking about this concept. I'm definitely thinking about it visually but its not easy to think about. What about you how to do you think about that particular concept?
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Mr. Mushrooms
Spore Print Collector
Registered: 05/25/08
Posts: 13,018
Loc: Registered: 6/04/02
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: CrabCrack]
#12500112 - 05/03/10 04:33 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
CrabCrack said:
Mr Mushrooms: Thats the point of this thread. Anything can be used as significants for thinking. Pictures, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile senses, emotions. Not the actual phenomena that trigger these things inside our heads, just the sensory representation phenomena that goes on in our heads. The English language needs new words for all this. The word sense is too ambiguous and if I say sound it could mean the actual longitudinal vibrations of gas molecules picked up by our ears or it could mean the actual thing that goes on in our heads when our ears pickup sound or when we think about sound. I wonder how new words make their way into languages.
I get what you're saying, but in terms of concepts and conceptual cognition we use words. That's what we're doing now and that's what we do. Otherwise post pictures and see how well we understand each other in terms of concepts and conceptualization, nuanced concepts and conceptualizations. I liked the video with the new math in it. Is that thinking? Not in terms of concepts and conceptualizations. A calculator can do math. Is it thinking? You look at a photo. You are perceiving it. It isn't a thought, it's a perception. The photo makes you sad. That isn't thought either, it's an emotion. Do you understand what I am saying? As I said before, this is a loose definition. Philosophy requires a tighter one.
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Freedom
Pigment of your imagination
Registered: 05/26/05
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: Mr. Mushrooms]
#12500268 - 05/03/10 05:03 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mr. Mushrooms said:
I get what you're saying, but in terms of concepts and conceptual cognition we use words.
To communicate with each other.
But if you believe any of the above examples where concepts and conceptual cognition are used, you should clearly see that within the realm of ones own mind concepts and conceptual cognition do not depend on words. This is why the intuitive eureka moment is not a linguistic process.
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Mr. Mushrooms
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: Freedom]
#12500800 - 05/03/10 06:35 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Freedom said:
Quote:
Mr. Mushrooms said:
I get what you're saying, but in terms of concepts and conceptual cognition we use words.
To communicate with each other.
So when I am thinking through an abstruse philosophical concept I don't need words.
Quote:
But if you believe any of the above examples where concepts and conceptual cognition are used, you should clearly see that within the realm of ones own mind concepts and conceptual cognition do not depend on words.
I read the examples and explained why they fail.
Quote:
This is why the intuitive eureka moment is not a linguistic process.
What is an intuitive eureka moment and what is a linguistic process?
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Freedom
Pigment of your imagination
Registered: 05/26/05
Posts: 6,016
Last seen: 19 days, 19 hours
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Re: Thinking without words - Serious matter [Re: Mr. Mushrooms]
#12501044 - 05/03/10 07:14 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mr. Mushrooms said:
So when I am thinking through an abstruse philosophical concept I don't need words.
It depends on how you think. Maybe you need words. I certainly don't.
Quote:
I read the examples and explained why they fail.
I couldn't find your explanation. I only saw, "Philosophically speaking, thinking requires words or significants such as sounds or letters." As people above have written, one can use spatial representations as 'significants'. They can also use internal visual images and somatic/emotional representations
Quote:
What is an intuitive eureka moment and what is a linguistic process?
An intuitive eureka moment is when the solution to an idea suddenly pops into one's mind. A linguistic process is one that uses language. I suppose you could argue using somatic representations is a language in a way, but that is not how the word is commonly used.
Here is how I often think. I have used it for college math and physics classes and also for coming up with hypotheses and designing experiments to test them in a research lab, so this isn't just wishy washy hocus pocus crap, it works:
Distinct concepts get distinct representations in my mind. These representations are not linguistic (words or phrases), they are spatial/somatic/emotional. So just as an example a molecule might be represented by a feeling in my chest. An oxygen atom in the atom would 'feel' like it has a negative charge. This feeling would be perhaps like tension in the spot on the representation in my chest where the oxygen atom should be.
In my organic chemistry classes the other students had to memorize all the individual reactions, while I could represent the molecules in my body and literally feel where the electrons would flow (except for the catalysts, which act in strange ways that can't be predicted with just organic chemistry).
I have to always work backwards, I get the answer to a problem in a strange way like above, and then have to figure out the step by step logic to prove the answer and explain it with language.
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