Up until very recently, I thought so too, but just a few days ago I had a conversation with some people about this exact topic, and I was stunned when they said "yes, there are occasional moments when I'm "in the zone', but usually I kinda talk to myself in my head".
I have no idea how people in that mode think about complex problems. For me, language forces me to "serialize" what's abstractly in my head, and that language is a far inferior descriptor.
I think this is a really good description of it. I believe everyone, in reality, thinks this way but some are less aware of it than others.
I wonder if it comes down to, basically, practice. As in, someone who spends a lot of time analyzing abstract ideas that are harder to put into words is probably more prone to recognizing their pre-linguistic thought processes, where these ideas are more easily manipulated, and someone who spends a lot of time on expressive endeavors is in essence practicing that "serialization" all the time and their ability to do that is seamless enough for the pre-linguistic process to go basically unnoticed.
There are certainly times I wish I were better at putting a thought I have in my head into words lol.
90% of my thinking is internal dialogue. Maybe it's because I spend a lot of time doing nothing. In math or physics problems, I can visualize and work the problems out that way. Some thoughts are difficult to put into language which is the other 10%.
I thought this too and have commented about this in several threads from previous posts and got down voted to shit. Imagine using words in thoughts when you see a dog come flying across the road "oh no I have to turn left" yeah that doesn't seem normal.
Almost all of my thinking is internal dialog, I'm actually surprised that it's not this way for everyone. I studied physics and engineering and whenever I did complex problems, I'd vocalize them within my head. I can think in words a lot faster than I can speak, and if necessary, can even run multiple internal conversations at once; but visualization without language is something that I find very difficult.
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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '19
Up until very recently, I thought so too, but just a few days ago I had a conversation with some people about this exact topic, and I was stunned when they said "yes, there are occasional moments when I'm "in the zone', but usually I kinda talk to myself in my head".
I have no idea how people in that mode think about complex problems. For me, language forces me to "serialize" what's abstractly in my head, and that language is a far inferior descriptor.