I have never not thought in words. How does it work? Like, how can I for example think about plans or something if not in words?

I do meditate here and now, but sooner or later the constant stream of words will 100% set in again, usually during or immediately after meditation. And these words for example tell me or discuss whether I should go shower, go to gym, do dishes, or whatever. And in the end I'll decide based on that discussion and do it. It's weird how defined I am by this inner voice.

I do have an inner monologue, but I do make many decisions non-verbally. I often visualize actions and their consequences, in the context of my internal state. When I’m thirsty I consider the drinks available nearby and imagine their taste. In the morning coffee feels most tempting, unless I’ve already had a few cups - in that case drinking more would leave me feeling worse, not better. After a workout, a glass of water is the most expedient way to quench the thirst. It is similar when I write a piece of code or design a graphic. I look at the code and consider various possible transformations and additions, and prefer ones that move me closer to my goal, or at least make any sort of improvement. It’s basically a weighing of imagined possible world-states (and self-states), not a discussion.

I struggle to imagine how people can find the time to consider all of these trivial choices verbally - in my case it all happens almost instantaneously and the whole process is easy to miss. I also don’t see what the monologue adds to the process - just skip this part and make the decision!

That said, I do use an inner voice when writing, preparing what to say to someone, etc. and I feel like I struggle with this way of thinking much more.

I had this for the longest time. Very imbalanced academic performance because I could get the answer and understood a lot of things, but had huge trouble with written work. That is, converting the thought process into a linear stream of words and sentences. I suppose it's like serialization of objects in memory.

Edit: maybe this is like the difference between a diffusion model and a "next token" model. I always feel a need to jump around and iteratively refine the whole picture at once. Hard to maintain focus.

But taking a step back, this process of converting reasoning tied to experienced consequences into words that have relatively stable meaning and interpretation over generations is what is "academic".

Without that, one does not learn quickly what another human already thought and tried out in the past (2 hours or 2 years or 2 millenia ago, does not matter), the civilization never progresses to the point it has, and we reinvent all the same things repeatedly ("look ma, I strapped a rock to a stick and now I can bash lion's head in").

So really, if you struggle with this part of the process, you'd need to rely on somebody else who can understand your "invention" as well as you do, and can do a good job of putting it into words.

Really, this is what makes the academic process, well, academic.

The top-level comment tried to distinguish betweeen symbolic processing — verbal and non-verbal — as really being "thought", and other cognition/reasoning not.

I believe many of the things you bring up still involve symbolic reasoning (eg. how do you decide when is too much coffee if you do not think in representation of "I had N or too-many"? how do you consider code transformations unless you think in terms of the structure you have and you want to get to?).

It's no surprise that one is good with one language and sucks at the other, though: otherwise, we'd pick up new languages much faster. And not struggle as much with different types of languages as much (both spoken — think tonal vs not, or Hungarian vs anything else ;) — and programming — think procedural vs functional).

So spoken/written languages are one symbolic way to express our internal cognition, but even visual reasoning can be symbolic (think non-formal and formal flowcharts, graphs, diagrams... eg. things like UML or algorithm boxes use precisely defined symbols, but they don't have to be as precise to be happening).

It is a question if it is useful to make a distinction between all reasoning and that particular type of reasoning, and reuse a common, related word ("thinking", "thought"), or not?

> I have never not thought in words.

You don't notice it, but that inner voice is only on the surface. It is generated from what's going on deeper. You may not notice it is very good at occupying your attention. Your "real" thoughts are deeper, then we have processes generating speech based on our deeper structures.

Language communication is not a true representation of what you know. It is a messy iterative process when we try to externalize in words what we know. We also end up with people having the same words who don't understand one another.

An instance of that is the often used (at least on reddit) bell curve meme - https://i.imgur.com/cUOiP2d.jpeg

It is not that the person on the right has the same understanding as the one on the left. It is far deeper, but you end up using the same words. The knowledge behind the words is hard to express, when you try you will not end up truly conveying your internal state. The words are iteratively and messily derived from exploring your inner state, with varying success.

For better or worse, language has the attention of the people. We end up with magical tales about "true names", where knowing an entities "true name" gives you full control. Or with magic that is invoked by speaking certain phrases, and the universe obliges. Or with heated discussions about arbitrary definitions when it rarely matters, and when you really shouldn't, because if you get to the inevitably fuzzy edges of the actual concepts behind words you should just switch to other words and metaphors that have the subject you are interested in discussing in the middle instead of at the edge. In reality, our internal models and thinking are hidden in our not that well understood (except in the minute details, those we know a great deal of) neural networks.

Ah yes, language is the guise the rationally irrational wears. /s

I mostly agree with you but I always find it a bit funny how we are the only things/beings that seem to be aware of their own (meta)cognition yet I can't actually pop up my hood like a car so to speak to understand what actually goes on. It gets funnier when we generally can't agree what goes on in our heads by just talking about it with each other. I don't suppose the fox thinks about why did it enter the hen house after the meal, what led it to such an act.

More related when I wrote this comment I still can't tell if I engaged my inner monologue and wrote by dictation as it were or if I let my fingers do the thinking and I read back what they wrote.

Discussions about the mind's eye and inner monologue and so on are always fun but most of the time I never get that much out of them other than satisfying curiosity.

As an aside I remember reading somewhere that some speed reading techniques involve not speaking in your mind the words you're reading (forego your inner monologue) and just internalizing their form and their associated meaning that you already know or something like that.

I tend to think in images without an internal dialog running. If I think about an upcoming trip I will imagine a series of images related to the trip, possible places to go, or just generally the place. After a bit a potential conclusion appears fully formed in my mind. If I think about a work problem, I might imagine the document, a coworkers face, or something like that while ruminating on it. Basically it feels like the subconscious is handling the details and the conscious self overall directs it.

Occasionally there is some snippet of a sentence I imagine, but it’s almost always cut off prior to finishing the sentence. If I imagine writing something, though, I’ll speak it to myself in my head.

Funnily enough, I’m a pretty weak mental visualiser too. I don’t have aphantasia but metal images are very transparent and dark.

I think primarily in structures, spaces, and transformations. Language tags along afterward.

Interesting. I do the same but would never refer to this as thinking. Probably something more like "visualizing" or "feeling".

It works for coding or system architecture and things like that, as well. For you, when you start thinking, a narrative voice appears? Is it debating yourself?

No, I have plenty of non-linguistic mental processes, I just tend to define thoughts as linguistic to distinguish them from the other mental processes.

What about a-ha moments when you're solving a tricky problem? For me they come in a flash and I know I've solved the problem even before I've narrated the solution to myself.

For me such moments come in the form of knowing that I can verbalize it, but I have to verbalize it as quickly as possible otherwise I might loose it

> I have never not thought in words. How does it work? Like, how can I for example think about plans or something if not in words?

This is just a mistake on your part. Your thoughts are already not in words.

I can summon up a voice if needed, but yeah normally not thinking in words. Aphantasia means I don't think in pictures either ;) What I think mostly is in patterns and connections, and flows.

Ditto. I have a hard time thinking in pictures. When I do there can only be one detailed part at a time, a very small area.

I don’t really think in language either. To me thought is much more a kind of abstract process

Meditation is interesting because it made me able to not only separate thoughts from words, but also consciousness from thoughts.

It’s also consistent with our intuition that toddlers have consciousness and thoughts and other mammals at least consciousness (and emotions) without language.

This feels like last year when I found out I have ADHD and aphantasia...

What do you mean "think in words"? Is it like a narrator, or a discussion like Herman's Head? Are you hearing these words all the time or only when making decisions?

I still don't "buy" that some people don't have an inner voice. In my opinion it's either a misunderstanding of what it means to have an inner voice (it's not the schizophrenic "other person" voice), or people simply lying to appear quirky and special.

If people don't have an inner voice, it also must be the case the some people (these people?) don't have consciousness. It isn't obvious that consciousness is essential to fitness, especially of an inner voice isn't. Some people may be operating as automatons.

> If people don't have an inner voice, it also must be the case the some people (these people?) don't have consciousness.

Don’t see how you got to that.

If something as (ostensibly) fundamental as an inner voice is "optional", chances are that consciousness is also optional.

The obvious error here is that an inner voice is not fundamental, and the fact that many people describe their consciousness in such different terms makes it much more likely that consciousness is just something that manifests in a variety of subjective experiences.