I’ve seen this sentiment expressed multiple times, but is that really correct? Maybe this works differently for other people, but I’ve noticed that I have to use my language to really think. I can do trivial things mindlessly, but to solve a problem, I need to express it with words in my mind. It makes me feel like the most important parts of the brain actually are fancy language models.
When I am in an discussion I will look up and off the my left when I am thinking, but no words are happening in my "inner dialogue", it's just nothing and then I start speaking whatever I paused for.
Similar things happen to me while I am programming at work, I stare at the problem and the answer just comes.
As for the discussions, I agree that I don’t have a distinct narrative in my mind during one, but I also noticed that I don’t really know what exactly I’m going to say when I start a response. So it also feels like the act of responding is actually heavily involved in creating the response, rather than just putting it into words.
BTW, I’ve always wondered if people really think differently, or we just describe it in different ways. I guess we’ll never really know.
(I think there is a postmodern theory that a large part of our society is actually based on word games and not deliberation or contemplation. I used to dismiss the idea, but think about how important it is how you say something vs. what you say, and how people fight over definitions.)
Second, there are disorders like Wernicke's aphasia where people are able to speak grammatically correct sentences, but without communicating anything. Some people even confabulate whole stories that are somewhat consistent. But they are not drawing from their memory or their conciousness.