Can you think without words?
Can you think without words?
If you can’t put your idea into words, does that mean the idea isn’t a thought? Some people say that. I don’t agree. If the idea can result in a behavior, then it is a thought.
Some bullet-points of important information, from Mental Construction which develops and gives background on these points.
- Verbal, logical, rational thinking—is used for planning. Typically called left-brain thinking.
- Pattern-matching, creative, intuitive non-verbal thinking—is used to react to immediate circumstances. Typically called right-brain thinking
- Academic schooling favors verbal over pattern-matching.
- Creative arts choose pattern-matching over wordy analysis.
- Both methods are active in everyone, but often one method predominates in a person
- Both methods go on independently as well as being communicated across the corpus callosum and shared with each hemisphere. This logic and words can be applied to ideas originating in pattern detection, just as patterns can be fruitfully noticed in verbal descriptions although they might not be logically connected.
In sum, you can think without words; but many people are so well-schooled that words overwhelm their non-verbal thoughts.
