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How would you think through complex scenarios otherwise? Like: "How does the current US president influence global welfare?" (relevant, but rather trite, I know).

Genuinely curious how you could form an opinion or at least analyze the question without verbalizing the ensuing self-conversation in your mind. Much (abstract) thought is informed by language.

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whatnow37373 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

You convert the language statement into semantic space. That's where you do the theorizing and then you convert it back. I can't think in text space. It's way too slow and I very much suck at it.

It's hard to see how this works with such a complex question though. By its nature it's actually impossible to put into words. It's my theory that we all think like this, because it's literally impossible to think "in language", but some people need to have it as some type of security blanket and some don't.

Every time someone says they have some inner monologue I can ask where this comes from. Your inner monologue also needs a source and that can't be language again. You cannot source all thought you have about this question just from those words alone. Your mind is making all types of connections that might eventually be convertable into words, but are themselves absolutely not verbal.

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shippage a day ago | parent [-]

Sometimes, I wonder if those with an inner monologue focus on that process as being their consciousness, because they often use it to self-reflect on their own thinking process. It's that meta-reflection that people seem to consider their consciousness.

For those of us without an inner monologue, perhaps it's similar, just with a different way of self-reflecting.

I'm in the weird position of having memories of me as a child with a detailed inner monologue, and memories of post-stroke me without an inner monologue. The old memories feel like someone else's memories. I even called them xenomemories for a few years after my stroke because they didn't feel like they belonged to me.

In those old memories, I thought of my inner monologue as "my thoughts" and "my consciousness," but I have no memory of what was going on beneath that level. The words just seemed to flow in a way that made sense to child me. It was like young me needed words to keep thoughts stepping forward in an endless chain of reflection and reasoning via language. Young me didn't value anything except the build artifacts (the words), so all the rest of my thinking process never made it into my memories.

It was the effects of losing those words that made me so hyperaware of everything else going on in my brain, and I had to build up a new understanding of who "I" even was.

All the recent talk about the potential for LLMs to "think" in latent space instead of words feels so very similar to my own experiences, going from words with well-defined meanings to something less sharp, but with more room for nuance. Your mention of thinking in semantic space feels right to me based on the way I think through complex problems today. Thinking in words is exceptionally slow and clumsy for me.

In a sense, it feels like I traded in a binary computer for an analog (or quantum) one, and just like computers, I would imagine each style of thought has its strengths and weaknesses.

It would certainly be nice if my word compiler wasn't so slow and buggy, though. It makes it a lot harder to leave permanent notes for myself or communicate with others.

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whatnow37373 a day ago | parent [-]

Your perspective is unique given your circumstances. I can't imagine how it feels to operate in a different mode having traces of the previous one. Very interesting.

This issue is very complex. One of the thorny bits is that what you remember and what is germane are very different things. As humans we operate under the laws of psychology which necessitate interesting but ultimately quite inexplicable things like an "I" to somehow "anchor" our thoughts. I believe investigations into the nature of this "I" are still ongoing (after a few millennia). Perhaps different personalities can use different types of hooks to anchor this "I". Perhaps some are inclined to use language for this and others not.

Sometimes I wonder if it's just lack of introspection: the ones with inner monologue having accepted too soon that that's all there is to their minds and neglected to look underneath this chatter. They can see that this chatter must have a source as well. Surely they'll see this can't be another level of chatter, because I'll ask the question again and again. Ultimately all human cogitation is without source[1] and can't be anything other than purely spontaneous.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Good luck to you!

[1] "without source" meaning: not able to be observed by the subject itself

	▲	shippage a day ago \| parent [-]
		It certainly feels strange. The two epochs almost feel like past life and current life, with an unexpected and ineffable bridge between the two. I remember thinking in words, but it feels like someone else was doing that, because I certainly wouldn't do it that way today. It definitely makes me constantly question exactly who "I" am. > Sometimes I wonder if it's just lack of introspection... Maybe? I know I didn't introspect deeper than my words when I was a child, but that doesn't necessarily mean an adult doesn't introspect about it. I asked my husband about it because he told me he has a running stream of words most of the day except when he's relaxing. He is aware that he has a layer beneath the words, but still thinks of the words as "his thoughts" and the layer beneath as "just his subconscious," that bubbled up things like emotions or memories in service of his thoughts. So at least N=1, an inner monologuer did consider that his words weren't all of his thoughts, but he still considered the non-verbal stuff less important than his words. It was as if all he valued was the crystalized thought, not the underlying processes. > Good luck to you! Thank you! And to you, as well.

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madmask 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I have no inner monologue unless I switch it on consciously, which I don’t like doing as it slows down thinking by orders of magnitude. In your example, I see things like graphs, numbers, maps, make connections and see possible futures, no explicit words involved.

Edit: I also tend to “simulate” what is going to happen by conjuring up a small video of people dealing with the situation, or myself in that situation.