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cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/2916897
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The original was posted on /r/science by /u/mvea on 2024-05-15 10:17:06+00:00.
That’s amazing to me! It would be so much extra effort for me to put things in words to think on them first. The only time I do that is when I’m testing how it will sound to someone else. Even then, I’ll build the sentences, and then simulate a person hearing them in concept with what I know of the audience to see how they would receive it, and what concepts they draw from what I say. Then I adjust the words as needed to get the thoughts across to the audience.
The best metaphor I can think to describe it is assembling a jigsaw puzzle. You don’t need to describe the shape of the piece to be able to find a matching piece it fits into. The shape, size, edge, color, and pattern all inform you of where it will fit. That’s kind of a hunch. This conceptual thinking works similarly. There are “attachment points” to each concept that link them together with other mental abstracted concepts. There are places that don’t fit which let you know the pieces are unrelated.
yeah to find the matching piece I might visualize it but like I could not look for a piece without talking to myself about sifting through the pieces and how this ones not quite right and such.
For me it’s not that I can’t think without words, it’s just that the words are very useful tools for organizing my thoughts. I’ve been doing it all my life though so it doesn’t really require more effort than thinking in concepts. It’s like breathing, it happens automatically but I can stop or control it if I want to. When I stop my inner voice I would describe my thoughts as sort of fuzzy and ephemeral. I would easily forget them or have difficulty expressing them without first putting them into words.
I’ve found the opposite. The older I get, the “expensive” words are to use. The concept when in mind is so complex and nuanced, to use a word for it shaves off all that complexity and nuance and collapses the thought into the limits of the definition of that word. When it becomes a word, its…less, a mostly formed shadow of what it was. That’s the price of communicating it to others.
We operate oppositely in this, which is wonderful! For you it sounds like the thoughts don’t have meaning until you choose words and make them concrete. Like your thoughts are liquid and fluid, but you’re able to make them solid and meaningful by confining them in words. For me, I do the best I can with choosing a word, sometimes dusting off old antiques, to try to match as close as possible to the concept. Sometimes I have found words in other languages sometimes fit better because of a closer match of concepts or properties. That too has its drawbacks, as using that would lose your audience when you’re trying to communicate an idea.
If a word does not adequately describe what I’m thinking I just use more words, or I get creative with them and use them in new ways. I guess that’s what makes me prone to getting lost in thought for long periods of time or being very long winded when I’m talking to people. When I’m talking about something I’ve recently been very interested in people often have to cut me off because I’ll essentially start verbalizing my thought process to them and forget they’re there.
I try the same and have the same result!