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Comment by sanex | Hacker News Reader

How do you think? I think with words.

Do you have an internal monologue?

I don't. I seem to think at a more abstract, pre-verbal level rather than through an internal voice.

Some studies suggest that frequent internal monologue may occur in roughly 30–50% of people [1], but the research is based on relatively small samples.

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intersections/202304...

I have different modes depending on what I'm doing, but I think usually I'm reasoning non-verbally

If you try and think before you speak, does it just not work?

FWIW I have ADHD and my internal monologue just will not shut up. I don't exclusively think in words but I do think in a lot of words.

I honestly don't think that people's self reports of whether they have an internal monologue are super reliable. They can mean different things by it or be psychologically attached to a particular representation of their thought processes, it can be related to self concept or self esteem or personal perspective in ways that are hard to tease out.

I think something like this proved to be true when it came to folk theories of different learning styles (e.g. visual vs language based) once those started being tested in rigouros ways. People could still be right but I would be interested to see what we get if we test more directly for subvocalization or fmris for language based brain activity.

I tend to agree with Albert Einstein below; there's a very physical/spatial aspect to my problem solving before it can be translated to words. I work in software so there's nothing innately physical about it. Never put much thought to it until LLMs brought it up for debate.

"The words of the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be "voluntarily" reproduced and combined....From a psychological viewpoint this combinatory play seems to be the essential feature in productive thought....The...elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and can be reproduced at will."

Theres more than words in our minds. Think harder are you absolutely sure? You REASON with words but your ideas dont form just from you reasoning. The ideas just seem to come out of nowhere to the part of your brain that then reasons around them.

Fair, but the original comment was about reasoning.

same for llm though

How do you know that it's the words driving the thinking, rather than the stream of words just being an observable trace tacked onto the actual thinking?

These days, words. When I was in an environment where language swapping between 4 to 5 languages was common, I thought in pictures and described it in the correct language for the audience. It was a plasticity mind trip.

Also saved pesos on the charge-per-text SMS schemes the local phone companies used because we could embed information across so many options.

My friend has aphantasia and cannot think with words, sounds, or pictures.

How do they describe how they think?

Even easier, what are they doing when they are reading?

You don't need to imagine words, sounds, or pictures to absorb information. There's the live image of the text, but you don't need visualization.

I know people who have trained themselves to skip the "sound out the word in your head" part of reading and are incredibly fast readers. I personally can't do it, but there are neurotypical people who can.

Not OP but I have this too. It’s like a voice in your head constantly. It can make writing very easy as you just transcribe the internal monologue.

It’s weird, I’d be hesitant to say “it’s a voice” but it kind of is and it is not my own which I find curious (who on earth is speaking in my head). In some ways it sad, if I close my eyes, I can’t picture a sunset and I can’t really dream. I love reading books but I can’t visualise the settings properly but it resonates with how my mind describes the world to itself.

He says he just knows concepts. His brain works in non-verbal, non-visual concepts. Like he knows that his wife's eyes are blue and can draw her, but he can't visualize it.

You think with and without words. When you have to pee, it isn't like you speak to yourself "Gee, pinch in the loins, I guess that must mean must have to pee. Alright legs, get me up off my butt. Left right left right left right. Stop. Hand, get the zipper going. Johnson, your turn now."

Nope. You up and pee.

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