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273 points geox | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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gcanyon ◴[] No.40712874[source]
You have to think that there were breakthroughs in communication technology — not just language in general but possibly also one individual who happened to be good at explaining things, either before or after language, who both taught more people, but also taught them how to teach — that led to step changes in technology.
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dboreham ◴[] No.40713012[source]
Theory: there are no humans without language. Consider: what language do you think in?
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mkl ◴[] No.40713064[source]
Quite a lot of humans don't think in language, or do only some of the time, see e.g. https://www.iflscience.com/people-with-no-internal-monologue..., https://www.livescience.com/does-everyone-have-inner-monolog..., https://www.bustle.com/wellness/does-everyone-have-an-intern....
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palad1n ◴[] No.40713166[source]
Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard, whose mind is blown (usually) that there is another type. One thinks in words, one has no words but a smooth stream of thought going.
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marssaxman ◴[] No.40713191{3}[source]
That's wild - I am clearly the first sort, because I cannot imagine what "a smooth stream of thought" would even be if it were not expressed in words.
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BlarfMcFlarf ◴[] No.40714012{4}[source]
It’s a process of serialization. I frequently have thoughts or ideas that take me a while to express in words. Being stuck to words seems so limiting, slow, and linear that I have a hard time believing it; surely there are more fundamental mental processes generating the words and the monologue is just a serialization of thought? Right?
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1. marssaxman ◴[] No.40722366{5}[source]
That's an interesting perspective, and I think you are on to something.

I have some experience with a meditative/dissociative state in which that monologue - which I think of as the "narrator process" - can be observed as just one of many mental subsystems, neither containing the whole of my consciousness nor acting as the agent of my will. The narrator merely describes the feelings which arise in other mental components and arranges them, along with the actions I take, into some plausible linear causal sequence.

Minds differ in many ways, and perhaps one way your mind and mine differ is that words flow quickly for me and do not feel slow or limiting; so I suppose I am easily fooled into perceiving that narrative as the medium of thought in itself. It had not occurred to me to describe the activities of the other mental subsystems as thoughts, but why shouldn't they be? And now I have a better guess at what it might be like to experience the world in a different way. Thank you!