What form do your thoughts take? Do you think in words you then read to yourself as a voice in your mind? Do you think in conversations? How about thinking in images, music, colors, forms (without the use of hallucinogens)? How facile do you really think you are when trying to translate your thoughts into understandable symbols most people (English speaking) really understand?
Just wondering. 
All of the above.
I think in verbal words usually. Iām also, I think, quite good at mental visualization, but thatās not usually how I actually produce thoughts.
Translating thoughts into understandable symbols is among the most important skills to develop (the single most important for philosophers, I reckon). Iām certainly better than average at it, though Iāve been known from time to time to offer particularly confusing explanations (which are offset by my occasional spot-on explanations).
When Iām struggling with a problem, in my own mind, my thinking takes the form of a conversation; one āsideā presents an argument, the other āsideā comes up with possible objectionsā¦
Writing it down helps make it intelligible to others, but sometimes there is no way possible to explain, to others, what I really mean (language is inadequate, but its all we haveā¦)
Hi friends,
Understanding is a long or multi-layered process.
Mind thinks but does not understand. It manifests different kinds of thoughts ragularly and does in the language which we learn first of all; mother tongue. We use to learn all other languages through our mother tongue. But this is applicable to humans only.
As we go deeper, the dependence on the language decrees and more relies on a different and universal mode.
These thoughts are understood by the consciosness. This is very point where realizations and feelings happened. It does not use any Human invented languages, but has its own language of understanding. That is precise reason why animals are also able to feel, even not knowing any formal language.
Thoughts of mind use to manifest in the front of consciousness just as we see different things on the computer screen. They all are before us but we stick or concentrate at one only at a time, which we find most attractive or appealing.
with love,
sanjay
I usually think of a thought, understanding that I cannot think in pictures. I can think of a picture, or itās re-presentation, but I have to consciously differentiate the thought of the picture, from the thought of the object, and lastly the thought (of the picture) from the realisation that it, too, is a thought of a thought (picture.
Can one have a thought with no object?(Picture)? Yes. The thiught of a seemingly objectless word, such as kindness, or any other higher level description. āKindnessā may or may not evoke an image (example : an image of a kind person). , but ākindnessā has actually been detached from any singular example. So it can be said to be totally abstract.
When I think of kindness, I can think of the empty shell of the word, therefore without a specific application I may be thinking formally. I can dissect the formal, logical structure of the word, derivationally, and arrive at meaning that way, but this process is reductive, and not phenomenal..
Therefore, in answer to your question, thinking is literal when language is used formally, and figurative, when used casually.
Generally language and vague images. Sometimes a song, but that is just another kind of language -or actually a kind hybrid of language and image.
This is important because what we think is what we are struggling to bring within the symbolic order of the board; that and to articulate to the point that others share our thoughts.
Where this runs us into trouble is when we think of other categories of thinkers who are partially based on information we get and our fantasies about what they mean. But as we face them more and more in reality, we find they are always more complex than what we have created in our little mental labs.
But itās a hard question to answer since our thoughts, like reality, always transcends the language we use to describe it.
Perhaps this has already been implied, but when Iām think about philosophy I will describe a concept with words then without giving it a name Iāll just casually refer to it as āthatā or āitā while thinking about related concepts. Words and concepts and images to some degree are just tossed around and intermixed as if I was rushing to write an article and plowing throw pages of notes and diagrams.
I perceive a silent ālanguageā which becomes all other things. Perhaps if the senses were like a hand, mind and its most subtle perceptions would be the palm.
Perceptions and emotions etc, donāt appear to have what we would usually call language, and yet surely there must be something innate within them by which we derive linguistic thought from them? Otherwise how do we know what they are saying?
I tend to think in tongues.
Whatās the difference between mind and consciousness?
Firstly, I use the words mind and consciousnes the same. Symbols must exist in the mind as well as outside it in places such as writing, music and objects. The question is; are the chemical interactions in the physical brain symbols as well? If we were to look at a functioning brain through I microscope in the part of the brain that could be said to āstoreā or ārepresentā symbols, would we be looking at a symbol. It seems like thereās an analogy here, but I canāt think of it.
Also, let me try a series of symbols āsymbolizingā each other. The sound of the word dog, the sound of barking, the sight of the written word ādogā, the sight of a dog, the sight of a dogās sculpture, and then to get more complex, the mindās concept of dog without using a representative of one of the five senses, and the knowledge one has of the presence of a dog.
I think consciousness is a function of the mind ā the conscious mind.
LOT guys:
The language of thought:
Been listening to a Modern Scholar audiobook on the philosophy of mind,
but canāt remember who came up with the concept.
The thing is that it is not so much a language in the way we know it consciously, but rather an underlying structure to language as we know it when we speak.
Man! I wish I could remember his name: Fodor
It would be the equivalent of Saussureās La Lange.
Once I fell asleep using a chat room, when I woke up people were accusing me of typing in tongues, I assured them I was using my fingers to type.
As opposed to the subconscious mind, I guess that makes sense.
Mine is kind of like two voices talking to each other.
āFuck, just stepped into a puddle. Bullshit.ā
āWhatever. You havenāt stepped in a puddle for a while.ā
āYeah, true.ā
My main thoughts tend to be in words. I thought everyoneās was?
In conversations it seems. We all hear voices. The only difference between a healthy person and a schizophrenic is that the healthy person identifies with the contents that emerge into consciousness.
When Iām trying to do something creative, like coming up with ideas for short films and skits I tend to think in images. Most often then not, an image will come to mind or a very specific situation or a certain camera angle and then Iāll develop the story around that.
All of the above. When Iām reading, I think in words. When I listen to music I often imagine images that go along with the music. When Iām editing video, I think in video.
Often I think in conversations between myself and myself. I also think in pictures, though some might say Iām just visualizing. Iām almost always hearing music in my head, I refer to it as my personal soundtrack, but Iām not exactly thinking in music, more just listening to it.
Itās not just language. We tend to think in images as well.
When we have sexual fantasies, we donāt just see a language going along describing it; we think in terms of images and sensations as well.
Of course, we as philosophers or intellectuals donāt have sexual fantasies,
do we?