When is it better to think without words?

But we all know thoughts aren't words, the words come after the thought. The proof is that you can stop your inner words mid-sentence and you still know what you were going to think, because the thought itself takes a few milliseconds, and happens before the words start.

> But we all know thoughts aren't words, the words come after the thought

That seems valid at first, but if look at that premise closely, you'll see that even assuming wordless thoughts always come first, doesn't mean that during the process of thinking they don't give way to words. That is to say, thoughts can be a precursor, but words do offer a framework which you can use structure thought.

That's specially handy for abstract concepts, like individuality, the split of the self and the world, which are fundamental to thought as we understand it through language.

Nothing prevents you from understanding a concept with the help of language and then using the concept by itself, detached from the symbols you used to arrive at it, to think. But that requires a certain effort and intention that maybe is what the article is aiming for.

I think a better way to show this, would be that anendophasia [0] is a thing.

Some people have no inner voice, but aren't thoughtless automatons. They can still task-switch the same as everyone else.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38728320/

Or by watching rats solve mazes

"the split of the self and the world"

is something many buddhists and hindus would consider an illusion and fundamental error

Before right or wrong, it's a concept, it defines the boundaries of the body. It might well be an illusion, a source of unnecessary suffering, but it's a concept you can understand and reason about. I'm taking about frameworks of thought that comes before any value judgement.

I don't think we've attempted to study if rats have internal monolgues all that much, yet. It wouldn't surprise me if they did, or did not. I wouldn't say it is safe to assume they don't.

About the only real animal model has shown that some species of monkey probably do. [0]

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01664...

On 4chan and reddit, they actually believe that those without an "inner monologue" have no soul.

Or conversely, that one can be lost for words to describe what one is thinking!

Reddit has roughly 400 million weekly users. You think all of them believe the same thing?

That's what the evidence suggests.