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Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge around the Renaissance, with the invention of the printing press. The farther back we go, the more we have to use tongue-in-cheek definitions of "rapidly".
“Humans began to acquire knowledge around the time of Dacro and the Second Wormhole Leap. The farther back we go…”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience. https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-... If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It…
I find it hard to believe that they can't at all imagine what a tree looks like or imagine a face of a friend. I can understand some difficulty in a perfect image, but nothing?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Indeed, there are two types of people in that regard > One thinks in words No. There are people who believe they think in words, because they haven't bothered to examine the question, but there are no people who think in words. Think about the number of people you've ever seen do a double take at the idea that "I don't know how to put this into words".
I absolutely think in words. There are no pictures or whatever other mental model. There is literally a narrative of words and blackness inside head.
From that perspective, the experience of thinking in words or pictures is distinct from actually thinking in words or pictures. Saying one thinks in one of these ways seems to be saying what they identify thinking with.
For example, I don't usually think of fantasy as thinking. If I day dream, I wouldn't say I am thinking, but that is fairly visual. To what degree am I saying something about myself vs my identity if I say I do or don't think in words given that context?
Relatedly, I've noticed that when it comes to remembering something, it is not 'I' that remember. Rather 'I' set up mental cues and direct focus, which then hopefully causes the memory to be placed within my awareness. This happens below the level of direct experience. But I might say I failed to remember, taking responsibility for something that 'I' - the part separated from the automatic functions of the body - did not do.
So I'm suggesting statements about words vs pictures are about ego, metaphor and meaning-building, and not about actual mechanisms or communicating actual differences in the experience of thinking.
It can be difficult to talk about these things because such conversations implicitly occur between our identities, not between who we actually are - something beyond our grasp - and the noise this introduces is something I don't know how to surmount, or if it can be surmounted.
Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge around the Renaissance, with the invention of the printing press. The farther back we go, the more we have to use tongue-in-cheek definitions of "rapidly".
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.
Theory: there are no humans without language. Consider: what language do you think in?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are also humans who can’t conjure up an image in their head. Mozilla cofounder wrote a fairly famous piece about his own experience. https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/25/11501230/blake-ross-cant-... If there are people who can’t picture and people who don’t have an inner dialogue, I think it lends more credence to the idea that we don’t have free will and are just a bunch of chemicals controlling our behavior. It…
I find it hard to believe that they can't at all imagine what a tree looks like or imagine a face of a friend. I can understand some difficulty in a perfect image, but nothing?
One of the more cliche, and not super useful tests, is “imagine a ball on a table, someone pushes the ball and it begins to roll. What color is the ball?” For me that was a revelatory statement because I’d never consider that others might give the ball a color, or size, or texture as the imagine it. I assume not everyone with the ability to visualize does but it seems like many do according to the literature. To me it’s just a statement, a ball is rolling pushed by a nondescript person.
Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge around the Renaissance, with the invention of the printing press. The farther back we go, the more we have to use tongue-in-cheek definitions of "rapidly".
Imagine what they’ll say 600,000 years from now. “Humans began to acquire knowledge around the time of Dacro and the Second Wormhole Leap. The farther back we go…”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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... .
I'm highly suspicious that the whole "inner vs no-inner monologue" thing doesn't actually exist and has more to do with these things being extremely hard to explain using language, and people describing their subjective experience in subtly different ways.
French is my first language, I'm fluent in English, and I know a bit about many languages... But I've never had an inner voice or thought in language, even when I was very young.