Can you really contemplate without having a conversation with yourself?
When I think about things I sometimes have ideas and remember what I was thinking later. If I remember an idea and begin to contemplate it then I sometimes compare that idea with alternatives and almost end up debating with myself. This is all in my head but I began to wander whether anyone else can really contemplate without a discussion - not even an internal one.
Comments (21)
I'm 86 and have talked, argued, debated with myself all my life. As a mathematician that internal dialogue goes on forever.
When I was a rock climber and free soloed unknown territory I was my own companion, reasoning with myself constantly. When things got dicey I imagined an invisible cord suspended from the heavens having me on "top-rope".
What human being does not converse with themselves?
Contemplation need not be worded? That had occured to me, but how are we supposed to discuss a lack of discussion? It's not that simple, surely? I can't see how a conclusion could be made from a nonworded contemplation to be honest. Thinking fast without worded contemplation has always seemed like an instictual behaviour to me. I'm not saying it's what I usually do, I'm saying the only form of nonworded contemplation I can imagine would tend to be pretty shortlived.
The way you have expressed it confuses me. Are you saying (or asking if) there is a difference between the back and forth of internal dialogue?
I'm not really asking about any difference there might be between the back and forth of internal dialogue, or at least that wasn't the primary intention. My main query was about what I would call 'alternative thinking methods'. Quoting jgill
I was under the impresion that worded contemplation is kind of normal but I was hoping that someone could explain a better method or instigate a debate about alternative forms.
In my experience of contemplation, there always seems to be a narator who just can't keep quiet at least, that's if there isn't really a conversation going on.
Quoting believenothing
I agree with @I like sushi, although I guess it depends on what you mean by "contemplation." In my experience, most of my thinking, and just about all my creative thinking, takes place without words, although there is certainly a back and forth, with ideas generated without words and then modified and justified consciously. Other people have said they don't experience it that way.
Quoting I like sushi
Quoting Paine
Quoting T Clark
Quoting Janus
Contemplation, worded thought, internal dialogue, modified and justified consciously, abstract thinking - we're using different words, is it clear we are all talking about the same thing?
A thought experiment I've used and tested.. Ask someone if they can imagine a circle, if the answer is yes - and it usually is - then ask them to imagine a circle. Having done that, ask them what colour it is and whether it was that colour before you asked them or if it only became that colour after they thought about it..
In most cases when I've done this, the circle was a particular colour and it was that colour as soon as it was imagined but here's the strange thing.. When I imagine a shape it has no colour until I choose what colour it is. The shape and the colour are like two seperate things that I choose to combine. I rarely imagine anything with specific details, I'm usually asleep.
Goodness gracious! :sweat:
Your thread is possibly in the Lounge because the answer is straightforward and obvious, unless you want us to equivocate around your terms toward a contradiction or a new question.
If all/any contemplation amounts to a kind of conversation of the self with the self (reflectivity), correlations between internal private phenomena and external public phenomena, can we converse with ourselves without ever contemplating within ourselves?
Imagine a hypothetical simulacra of a person who has no sense of interiority at all. From the outside you might conclude they are fully capable of conversing with themselves... but would they also be contemplating? Can there be thought without interiority? If so, why does interiority exist at all?
Can a computer capable of some "thought" have zero sense of interiority?
You are stretching this thread into a more interesting discussion, being less ambiguous and posing better questions but I can't elaborate on my original question without wandering whether it should be a new thread..
Quoting Nils Loc
I do talk to bots now and then, trying to find exactly that - thought. I'll be honest with you, I forgot what equivocate means a long time ago. I'm disappointed that no one has responded to your comments as well.
I hope you're satisfied with the answers you got.
You might find the following article about global aphasia interesting. It is possible to lose the ability to understand or produce spoken or written language. These folks retain various cognitive capacities. They can still contemplate/imagine without the ability to talk to themselves. However, language may still play an important role in helping to develop these cognitive capacities in the first place.
Can we think without language?