/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10505471
Stop using words??

>>10505484
Yes. Whenever I think, I think in whole sentences. I find this to be very slow, and I'm fairly certain people who think without words are about to think much faster. People who read without words are able to read faster, so the same must be true for thinking.

Does anybody else do this without realizing it? I'm certain fast speakers like Ben Shapiro don't have time to respond to questions while formulating thoughts in sentences.

>>10505471
>>10505496

>I'm fairly certain people who think without words are about to think much faster.
Depends what you are thinking about. Visual thinking and pattern thinking is very useful in mathematics. Most people think in many different ways at the same time or rapidly changing focus depending on the task. It's common for low functioning autists to be unable to think in words, its a big part of their disability.

I wonder how people who think in languages like Japanese, which consists of shorter words, think compared to people who think in English. If thinking in words is better than without, then people who can think in more words per second must be better thinkers, and therefore the best language to think in is a language that uses short words.

>>10505471
Listen to "The Power of Now". The internal dialogue is a tool and can be put away when it isn't needed. /Sci/ is pretty stupid when it comes to meditation in general and will likely disparage any talk about spirituality or character attack Tolle. But if you actually care to find out how to calm the incessant chatter of the egoic mind than listen to the book, I think it is flawless when it comes to the topic.

You will be shocked how refreshing it is to calm the mind even for a few minutes.

>>10505471
How do you think without words?

>>10505650
You can think in pictures, right? You can think in symbols, right? Have you looked at somebodies face and knew what they were thinking? Yeah, those are all very fast and don't use words. I wonder how practical it would be to switch to this full time.

>>10505650
>How do you think without words?
Think pictures, think film, think patterns, think sound, think touch, think smell, think taste etc.

>>10505655
Yep. And it is a much faster way of thinking. If you actually pay attention to your "thoughts" you will realize it is 99% endless, useless chatter. It isn't actually thinking but more of a constant flood of fears, insecurities, and desires.

>>10505661
Do you have any tips on switching to this mindset?

>>10505638
Great Read

>>10505471
Stop

Just think nigga process information lmao

>>10505678
There is a famous quote on it, I am paraphrasing "meditation is easy, remembering to do so is hard". It takes a lot of practice but it is more worth it take you can imagine. All you have to do is to realize that you are not your chattering thoughts and then you, the real you, starts to silently observe them.

Seriously, just listen to the "Power of Now" audiobook. I know it sounds like I am shilling but Tolle does an excellent job of separating the spiritual mumbo-jumbo from meditative practice. Just keep an open mind.

>>10505655
There’s nonverbal cerebration that doesn’t use any of those too. I’ve tried to test it a lot ever since the NPC meme and I’ve found I have some kind of instant, intuitive understanding of what I mean and then afterwards struggle to put it into words in my head. When I forget to be aware of it I can go an entire day only to realise at night I didn’t have any internal monologue at all during it. People probably do it to different degrees and I’d be very surprised if somebody wasn’t able to think in anything else than language or senses

>>10505496
I don’t think there is a benefit to it and despite what you think, your brain is actually working even when you aren’t having internal monologue. In fact, it probably equips you better for communication like that to use it a lot

>>10505620
I'm sure there is a theoretically most efficient language that we could create and popularize. Every word only 1 syllable, I'm sure it's possible.

>>10505471
Stop thinking and learn to do something. You will find that if you do something you develop a non-verbal intuition for it.

I am sure you can practise things like geometric reasoning.

>>10505732
Sounds like effort to learn

>>10505567
Ben Shapiro studies the prevalent arguments and knows all sides. He speaks from memory, not present abstraction.

>>10506036
We say more with voice pitch and body language

>>10505471
Smoke DMT.

>>10505732
Chinese is like that

>>10505737
>I am sure you can practise things like geometric reasoning.
How pls help.

>>10505471
You are already thinking without words. Where do you think your vocal thoughts comes from? They don't just magically appear. They're processed from another level of thiking, stemming level by level down to different input feeds (like touch, smell and vision).

I used to read without words but never enjoyed it... kind of like always wanting to reach the end of the sentence to "integrate" what the author "really wants to say".

I don't know when the switch happened... possibly when I turned 27-28 years of age. I started reading the words outloud in my head and as a result it has improved my attention span, better comprehension (without re-reading paragraphs) and a better memory to recall what I just read.

I feel like this gives me "full" rather than "partial" understanding - because when I'm reading with words it seems to put me quite literally inside the author's mind.

>>10505471
>stop thinking in words
>stop thinking N-words
Just don't be racist.

>>10506223
do math olympiad geometry problems, there's a million of them online

You're too late, you've already learnt English. Try staying in isolation from birth, then you won't know any words.

>>10505471
Wtf is thinking in words? Words have no meaning without your thoughts and preconceptions in the first place nigga.

>>10505471

but what is the point of thinking fast? I personally don't need it. when you do math or programming you have to force yourself to think slowly, it is useless in these cases to think fast.

>>10506436
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>>10505471

>>10506242
>he doesn't read in meter
Sometimes its hard being this patrician.

invent and play the glass bead game

>>10506440
It's genuinely hard for me to imagine pictures in my head wtf is wrong with me

>>10505471
I never realized that I was thinking in a different way than anyone else until 4chan started bringing up the whole "wait you think in words??" stuff a few years ago. I'm like this since I've been born and I don't know how to think in words because my brain forces me to imagine the sentences anyway and it's basically the same effect but I'm reading out sentences as well which is redundant.
To answer your question, you can't. If you're not born with this you probably cannot force yourself to be like this, but don't take it as a negative because there are cons along with the pros, like being a terrible reader who needs to daydream the chapter to actually understand it, or being bad at memorizing things because the model for the memorization of something consists of making an elaborate mental film of it and "plain text" just refuses to get stored as a memory. Yes, you get a really fast stream of thoughts that can go quite deep without you losing focus, but would you really take that if shit memory and having to think a lot to verbalize what you're thinking about was the tradeoff?

>>10506471
Just practice. I dont think most people are able to hold a clear image in their mind for more than a few moments. "The brain is a muscle" is a meme, but in this instance it seems very true. Try to look at something for 3 secs, then try to imagine an image and hold it as long and as clearly as you can. Do sets and reps like you'd do at the gym.

>>10506471
You might have this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

>>10506440
Very good!


>>10505471
Surprised nobody has mentioned that article or book by Temple Grandin, that autistic scientist and engineer woman.

https://grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.mind.autistic.person.html

> I use language to narrate the photo-realistic pictures that pop up in my imagination. When I design equipment for the cattle industry, I can test run it in my imagination similar to a virtual reality computer program.

https://grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html

> It wasn't until I went to college that I realized some people are completely verbal and think only in words. I first suspected this when I read an article in a science magazine about the development of tool use in prehistoric humans. Some renowned scientist speculated that humans had to develop language before they could develop tools. I thought this was ridiculous, and this article gave me the first inkling that my thought processes were truly different from those of many other people. When I invent things, I do not use language. Some other people think in vividly detailed pictures, but most think in a combination of words and vague, generalized pictures.

>>10505471
Are you referring to hearing words verbally?

They were studying the areas of the brain that were affected by people who were experiencing auditory hallucinations. They found that the parts of the brain that were being activated were actually those connected to the vocal cords rather than the centers of the brain associated with processing sensory information that comes from the ears.

It is entirely possible to think in symbols, visualizing, emotional empathy, sensing, etc. instead of thinking in words whether written or verbalized. I maybe would try to create art or view more art and do less reading. If you like jazz maybe you could listen to that and maybe just feel the scat.

>mfw face when there are people on /sci/ that are so dummy they have to do verbal monologue and haven’t unlocked the power of the subconscious, nonverbal cerebration

>>10506471
People aren't all wired the same.
You can do visualization exercised when meditating to strengthen that mental muscle.

>>10506551
>>10506554
>>10506733
I mean its very blurry or kinda faded.Very breif too do you mean poeple can picture things for a long time and it is as clear as a picture on 4chan?

>>10505471
easy, just
efr rfver-bjqwdgweu7tui.,-.34,-r.3,-46.7,5-6.y,g-er.f,w23-.er2,-.46,u-6.m,7-896-75,ybv-w23.r,23-.4,2-ec,3-.,34t-v.23,c-2.4,45-7.6,n6-.b7jh,-etw.3q,d

>>10506745
Id say mine are crisp but relatively transient images

>>10505471
stop being a brainlet

>>10505471
u need and optimally use both systems at different times
learning is your slow/conscious/literal system picking out some pattern from the vast see of impressions of your fast/intuitive/nonverbal system
training is making a conscious effort to slightly redirect your fast system by "scolding" it via your slow system

>>10505471
Kill some brain cells

>>10506749
Just what, have a fucking stroke?

>>10506933
no words brah

>>10506167
this

>>10505471
uygaksdjhgashydg ahsjd ahjdsgasjd ashjdabsdznm nb<jhda sghjad fashjbf ahjsdkf!

>>10505471
>/sci/ how do I stop thinking in words?
lobotomy

>>10507503
that's just funny words

>>10506745
I can completely manipulate 3d objects in my mind like a mental CAD program.

>>10505471
What do you want to think in instead?

>>10505471
does anyone also feel like thier thoughts are really fast? and that you consistently jump from on thought to another so fast? it's like i can't keep thinking about one topic for long. my brain just moves to another immediately like a hyperactive kid

>>10508116
isnt that normal for everyone?
i can create hollywoo movies in my head aswell and watch them on the spot

>>10508194
It's called having no attention span.

>>10505687
lmao

>>10505715
>NPC meme

Oh I hate it so much for poisoning the well of whatever meager public awareness and conception of meta-cognition there was, for spreading disinformation and misinformation at a rapid pace across the internet, and for making it impossible to discuss meta-cognition and different (non-verbal) modes of thinking without someone bringing up the NPC meme now, not only that but due to the way the study was misinterpreted by the fools spreading the meme-

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pristine-inner-experience/201111/thinking-without-words
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pristine-inner-experience/201110/not-everyone-conducts-inner-speech

They believed themselves to be superior to the "other" non-verbal thinkers, and I'm sure their ego got a very large boost after all this meme was spread and originated on /r9k/ of course. All they did was show their ignorance and poor understanding of the conclusions and the meaning behind the study that was done and their piss-poor understanding of meta-cognition.

This thread has been rehashed >>10509601
Its silly, this thread was doing just fine.

>>10509613
yeah that pissed me off too. glad this plebbit shit was stopped dead in its tracks.

This board must be 100% american. I guess it's likely at this time of the day.
So here is the answer and it was research years ago, there is nothing new about that. The people that thinks mostly in images are usually people that learnt more than one languages, and thus, usually at a young age. It works like this, when you only know one language, the words have much more meaning to you. They are what they are. When you learn more than one languages, you realize that words exists meaning things that doesnt exists in another language. Your perception on the world becomes much more complex. So instead of thinking in words, you have to adapt. You think in concepts, and the easiest way to visual complex concepts is to visualize them. You add shapes, movements, transformations.
Now it may sound like I'm shilling image thinking, but there are pros and cons in the different thinking methods, and you also have, as an individual, a genetic proclivity to think more in a way then another. And then there is the environnment. I would guess someone that reads a lot might think in words more. I certainly do when I'm done reading a book, but then I get back to my more normal state, which is pictures and images, but I'm a maladaptive daydreamer and I've been living in a imaginative world since I'm young, it's not much better.

>>10505620
>>10505732
>>10506172
hyn shi po wa tei doa fwei rhoi seil e doh

>>10505471
just think about nothing

>>10505471
I don't have that problem. I once thought everyone had the ability to think non-verbally. I guess some people's brains are wired differently.

>>10508250
>>10508116
what the fuck. fuck you. i wish i could do that

>>10505471
people actually do this? How does that work exactly I can only thing visually, which is good but... after a long think sometimes the most incoherent sentences come out, and a mumble alot so who knows

>>10510078
You don't have to visualize either to think without language though. It's really difficult to explain everytime I try to explain wordless/non-visual thinking to anyone.

>>10510358
Conceptual thinking is what its been called I think from the few who researched it. A fully formed "thought" just appears and you understand it instantly, no language/inner voice required.

Your thinking speed is not limited by the pace of your inner voice so it allows for faster thinking in general too.

>>10506471
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>>10506745
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm

>>10510358
writers and philosophers typically think largely in sub-vocalization because their medium is rooted in language. for writers it tends to be a combination of visual/emotional/language components while philosophers favor logical formulation and language exclusively. mathematicians are also prone to language-based thinking as a sort of meta analysis of their visual/logical deductions.

>>10506440
When you think about it the non-verbal/non-visual thinking method is kind of fucking nuts, I mean how does it work I want to know more about it. I didn't even know people think with an inner voice until I was in high school and just thought that sequence you see in movies/shows where people talk to themselves in their heads was just a convenience used in order to make a persons thoughts clear to an audience, and not that it was a way people actually think all the time.

Further research revealed primary visual thinkers, primary auditory/inner monologue thinkers and primary wordless/conceptual thinkers like me, only any kind of information or research about that was difficult to find. I remember feeling ashamed and depressed because my visual thinking/visualization ability was abysmal and I thought I had no imagination but then I realized I did have imaginative and creative thoughts only they weren't visual nor verbal. Then I realized just how complex and varied peoples methods of thinking and visualizing could be, and started to wonder how many people even knew that others might think differently than them, and if a poor awareness and lack of attention paid to meta-cognition might not have fucked people over in school for example. I remember never being able to hold math problems in my head because how the fuck were you supposed to do that, no image I try to conjure up in my head can stay solid and steady for more than a few seconds.

I feel like we have only just begun to scratch the surface of meta-cognition for instance aphantasia was not widely known until a few years back, knowledge and awareness of the condition spread online, and the NPC meme about effectively dehumanizing non-verbal thinkers, or aphantasics is such a pain in the ass for the misinformation and ignorance it spread.

>>10505471
Copious amounts of psychoactive hallucinogens

when i was younger i used to memorise spongebob squarepants episodes and then replay them in my head as I headed of to sleep.
Was this normal?

>>10510407
i think this is literally what autists do
i feel you tho

>>10510407
>>10510408
>i think this is literally what autists do
Kinda, though I memorized the hobbit and would recite chapters in my head. Then I discovered weed and music, so that whole database got wiped before I finished high school.

>>10505620
>It's more because of the association between the calligraphy representing multiple ideas in one character.

>>10505620
japanese is an SOV language meaning they specify the subject -> object -> verb in that order. their thinking is different in that they prioritize the subject first and then move from the general to the specific. it has little to do with the grammar length and more with how they perceive the importance of a subject in a top-down hierarchy. their use of highly metaphorical and open-ended language is also a consequence of this, as the subject is concrete but the transitive states between subject, object, and verb are more loosely defined.

>>10510431
it is also reflected in their calligraphy, yes. japanese differs from chinese largely in that chinese characters are less representative of distinct concepts than simple phonemes. chinese is extremely literal and lacks nuance.

>>10505471
stop trying to say your thoughts to imaginary people

>>10510398
Also something interesting, after learning about inner monologue thinking I had to try it out to see what was different cause I felt like I might have been missing out on something. Now I'm not so sure.

One interesting phenomenon to come from these experiments is that I may have a non-verbal/non-visual thought about anything (I should do x - but obviously without saying so in my head) and understand and comprehend the thought but immediately following it is a verbal repetition of the wordless thought, but it lags behind, because the thought preceding it was already processed and understood without having any accompanying image or verbal component, so its like the inner dialogue thoughts lag behind my non-verbal thoughts and that can be quite annoying when it happens.

Anyways this means neither inner monologue nor mental imagery is necessary for thought. One complication of this is because I can understand a concept without employing inner monologue to understand it, it gets difficult when I have to explain it to others. One way I find myself getting a better or more refined understanding of some ideas/concepts is a mental scenario that plays out in my head of me imagining myself verbally explaining the concept/idea to someone, or by writing it down in long paragraphs like now

But like that image shows abstract thinking feels easy with this mode of thought because you don't need a word or an image for an abstract concept or idea you just think about the concept/idea itself, you can kind of "hold" and juggle around multiple concepts and ideas and weight them against each other all without any accompanying mental dialogue or imagery

Ah fuck another wordless epiphany just came to mind on how to describe this thought method- Rather than "hearing" yourself think you are "feeling" yourself think if that makes sense, but its different from emotion, emotion is felt in the body, this is more like, your thoughts have some sense of "subtle solidity" to them.

>>10510449
>>10510398
Actually when you think about it, a common experience we all share regardless of thinking method is having a word in mind to say but being unable to remember it (tip of the tongue phenomenon) this means that you have a concept already in mind but lack the word to share the concept with the person you are speaking to and thus cannot communicate it despite you yourself comprehending and understanding the general concept of what you're trying to say otherwise you would not be struggling to find the right word you need to share it.

Further proof this kind of conceptual thinking is normal, it can probably be trained, though I'm not sure how. In the same way you can train your visualization skills by mental imagery exercise and repetition, and in the same way I taught myself and trained myself to think more verbally and utilize inner monologue, you can probably also train this non-verbal conceptual method of thinking, only its very difficult to explain with words how to train yourself to utilize non-verbal thinking because I'm not even quite sure how it happens myself.

>>10510449
>imagining myself verbally explaining the concept/idea to someone
This is very familiar. I've noticed that most of my thinking is some form of daydreaming about scenarios and interactions with people. Although the latter feels a bit like a coping mechanism to be able to still speak to people.

It does make actually explaining thought more difficult, because it feels like there is a huge separation between the 'inner' and 'outer' world. I have noticed that practicing inner monologue and in general taking the time to verbalise thoughts and feelings makes it easier to communicate them and organise them.

>>10510398
It's funny how you mention movies, because there are definitely some representations of alternative modes of thinking in media. One example that comes to mind is something like Scrubs, where JD makes sense of the world through elaborate daydreaming scenarios. Although it's played for laughs in the show, it present a process of dealing with the outside world by through imagination.

>>10510393
From the other mathematicians I've discussed this with it seems to be a mix. Generally language-based thinkers are mostly algebraists and logicians, while topologists and geometers mostly seem to think in pictures (and communicate to others in pictures as well). Nowadays, category theory provides a sort of middle ground, where everything can be put either into (more visual) diagrams or into symbolic expressions. Both ways of thinking seem to help with math and I'm sure most really brilliant people are succesful because they can switch and translate between multiple modes of cognition.

>>10510415
Ahah fuck I did this with the original Star Wars movies. I knew them so well I could recite the entire first arc from the Tantive IV attack to the Death Star scenes

Fuuuck I even tape recorded it so I could hear it when I wanted, I was so obsessed with Star Wars

>tfw meditation is never boring, my mind is always able to find peace in simple things such as the sound of cars passing or complex things like creating dream-like landscapes.
>tfw I like to put ambient music while meditating because my mind can interpret the sounds and embody them into things that I'm unable to explain on my current state of mind
>tfw I'm always challeging my abstract thinking by creating landscapes that can evoke good feelings with things I haven't seen in movies or TV
Feels good to be left-brainfag

>tfw meditation is never boring, my mind is always able to find peace in simple things such as the sound of cars passing or complex things like creating dream-like landscapes.
>tfw I like to put ambient music while meditating because my mind can interpret the sounds and embody them into things that I'm unable to explain on my current state of mind
>tfw I'm always challeging my abstract thinking by creating landscapes that can evoke good feelings with things I haven't seen in movies or TV

>>10510697
>because it feels like there is a huge separation between the 'inner' and 'outer' world
Holy shit yes, you put it into words better than I could that's exactly what it feel like.

>I have noticed that practicing inner monologue and in general taking the time to verbalise thoughts and feelings makes it easier to communicate them and organise them.
Yeah but it still feels unnatural at times, for example if I want to say something to someone if I practice speaking it in my head with my inner voice it feels super unnatural and difficult to then repeat that same sentence to someone in real life, word for word. Hell even if I have these daydreams where I get my words across to someone when describing something or whatever it never turns out that way in real life and I default to my natural method of speaking without needing to know the exact words and sentence I'm going to say but just the general idea of it which is then communicated as succinctly as possible using the right words as they are spoken

I guess it could be described as a more intuitive way of thinking, I don't know.

>>10505732
there is actually a language called lojban that was construct to be unambiguous and supposedly logical. there are also other humanly constructed langauges that go under the term conlanguages.

>>10508140
So just because nobody has the intellect to replicate all my discoveries yet, I'll explain this one manually, even though it's not been requested.


The brain doesn't have a "stop" command. You literally can't change your habits by just trying to make them stop. You need to replace them with something else.

>>10512291
>The brain doesn't have a "stop" command. You literally can't change your habits by just trying to make them stop. You need to replace them with something else.

Is that really true? That goes for everything? Seems more likely for mental things than behavioral like say trying to stop a nervous tic or whatever, seems like it would work to just stop it whenever you catch yourself in the act.

Though this makes a lot of sense when it comes to breaking habitual negative thinking patterns and cognitive distortions, etc.

>>10506440
If i loose my inner monologue who am I?
What is consciousness?

>>10512261

>>10510398
>>10510449
>Rather than "hearing" yourself think you are "feeling" yourself think if that makes sense, but its different from emotion, emotion is felt in the body, this is more like, your thoughts have some sense of "subtle solidity" to them.
I get this feeling when I notice I'm dreaming.
I can't control what happens in my dream, but i know I'm dreaming. When i'm awake, i feel like my consciousness is questioning my imagination. When I'm sleeping, my imagination is in charge, and there's a funny feeling of my consciousness being questioned by my imagination, i could describe it as my imagination driving a car, while my consciousness is just a passenger, who can't do anything but watch. When I'm awake, my consciousness feels above my feelings, but in my dreams it's the other way around.
P.S: I'm a verbal thinker.

>>10505471
Think in images instead

get brain damage

>>10505471
>/sci/ how do I stop thinking in words?
> thinking in words
> n word
stop hanging around black people

>>10505650
>>10505654
I think without words or pictures, it just comes on its own. What is it I'm doing?

>>10513637
give me likes

>>10505471
Stop reading in them.

>>10505471
Its easy, i do it most of the time since 10 years old and its a lot faster without words. I just tend to think in images or symbols and make connections.

>>10514021
Its possible withou words, images and symbols, but that would be a bit slower than thinking in images and words for me

I don't even think. No imagine or symbols. My mind is silent.

If I have a problem, it just gives an answer but I don't know how I came to that. When I read it compartmentalised and I can access it. I feel like a machine but at the same I'm very mystical

>>10505620
Why do you think/what examples have you got to convince me that Japanese words are shorter?
I only studied the language to low-middle level but I got the feeling that in general words are longer, due to the lack of a large number of syllables to use to construct words (less than 200, English has some thousands).
Clearly they speak syllables way faster (they're shorter) than English speakers, so in the end everyone talks about the same speed.
Also listening to both fast-speaking and slow-speaking songs I hear clearly Japanese sentences take much longer to say than their e.g. English translation.
As a non English native speaker I think English is one of the fastest, condensed language, surely among widely known languages

>>10505732
>>10506036
Go study Ithkuil, you Sapir-Whorf fags

Lojban is beautiful, but above is the real Übermensh language

>>10513573
Take a lesson out of Buddhism, you are not your thoughts, mistaking your inner monologue and inner voice for your "self" is an illusion.

Even the wordless/imageless thoughts are not also your true self either, you are the consciousness and the awareness that is aware of thoughts but you are not the thoughts them-self, in meditation at certain stages (Jhana) you can experience blissful and blank, quiet states of mind with no thought, yet still be fully aware, fully conscious, it turns out your identity does not dissipate when your conscious awareness of thoughts (verbal/visual/conceptual) ceases and you simply remain in awareness

You can experience this state of mind not just in meditation but in flow states for example too.

>>10514135
>them-self

themselves*

>>10513617
I think once you notice you are dreaming you should take the steps to make your consciousness in charge that way more than just being aware of the fact that you are dreaming you can actually manipulate and control your dream

That is if you want to I guess, not everyone seems to want to lucid dream with full control, they just want to be consciously aware but not in control of their dreams sometimes, either way control is something that can be trained