I see people on the Internet who write entire paragraphs or more without a single full-stop. I suspect this is the way they think, because I think in sentences and writing without them would take a lot of effort. So, is it common for people to think as a continuous stream of words?
I am no linguistics or psychology expert but my understanding is humans think in combinations of pictures and sensations. Expressing thought requires translating those mental images into words, which is a challenge because the brain at the primal level does not present ideas in logical sentences.
Oral speech is normally a stream of consciousness, broken up by pauses, ums and ahs, and filler words to catch the listener’s attention. Combined with speech is body language and facial signals - frowns, smiles etc.
In short - sentences are an artificial construct for the purpose of writing. So its not surprising that some people come out with a wall of text when trying to get a point across. Mind you, Philip Roth does it well.
Personally I detest it. I sometimes get precise enough to talk in bullet points, but that’s the way I roll. I’m a lawyer and am vaguely conscious of organising sentences in my head before speaking, but not in normal relaxed conversation.
On The Ricky Gervais show he has a go at Karl because Karl thinks in sentences, while Ricky thinks in images and sensations. I’m like Karl, I think in words not vague impressionistic ideas.
:dubious:
That’s not even close to being correct. Syntax goes through multiple levels of organization and processing before it gets fed to the speech centers, and is brutally interconnected to the rest of the brain’s language faculty- syntax operating as an ongoing stream of consciousness as you describe would be inefficient to the point of making casual conversation impossible.
If I have to write them down or explain them to someone, yes, but then, a lot of the time I’m translating (I do my problem-solving in images).
I do think in words most of the time, not just pictures or feelings (unless I’m dreaming). But my inner monologue is more like one non-stop run-on sentence–or a series of related sentence fragments–than a series of properly-formed sentences.
Should I be proud or dismayed that I’m in such illustrious company? 
No. I do not.
I discovered a long time ago that, when typing, my thought processes changed. I grew up reading a LOT OF BOOKS, from a very young age, so seeing it visually might have something to do with it. Thank gods I was forced to learn to type when I was 13; it really changed everything, especially since my handwriting SUCKS. And double-thanks for the computer age
Without a keyboard, my thought processes, when not being verbalized, tend to be more along the way I’d say things, rather than type them. And they are different. I often have to stop and think about how I want to say something verbally <or SHOULD stop and think about it, hehe> but when typing, my hands do their own thing and I am often surprised at what gets typed out.
I find that most people who type without stops still do stop. They just don’t type a period.
And some people do think in pictures, though it’s rare. All people think in sensations, in a sense. Haven’t you ever known what you wanted to say but not been able to put it in words? Or known the word you wanted but felt like it disappeared before you cold say it? You didn’t think of the word–you thought of a sensation of what it meant. (Likely, you converted it to the wrong word, and that’s why you got stuck.)
So I’ve heard that a lot of people think in words, so I imagine that they just type a stream of consciousness. As for me, I seldom think in words directly, but rather in concepts. These concepts are not words or images or sounds, it is a purely mental construct. When I’m thinking, it’s more or less like I just give some input to these concepts, they do their thing, and I interpret the output. It’s not so unlike the concept of object-oriented programming, really. So when I’m writing or talking, I’m simply describing that concept or the interaction between these concepts.
As such, it’s not too difficult for me to break my thoughts into sentences. Each sentence is basically just a description of that concept pulled out about this set of descriptions, one at a time. So like, with this post, for instance, I basically had the whole thing in my head instantly, I just have to write out each aspect.
I imagine that for others who have a similar thought process to me but still have very disorganized thoughts just see the jumbled mess. I’ve actually taken a considerable amount of time training myself by finding complex ideas that are difficult to articulate and taking the time to articulate them. Because I often find that I have these sorts of ideas and concepts that are actually fairly simple in my head but don’t lend themselves well to language. I think by practicing that, I’ve learned to do a lot better with other concepts that are more easily articulated.
:dubious: I am dubious (hence the “dubious” smiley). I was not thinking in pictures or sensations when I thought about how to respond to this. I was thinking in words, in sentences. I formed the sentences in my mind before I typed them into the computer.
True, some of the thinking I do involves mental pictures and/or sensations, but a lot of it involves language—and, as near as I can tell, that language is in the form of sentences.
I don’t, although I’m a good writer. As much as Sartre appeals to me, I think he was completely wrong on this point. I know it implicitly and by this date there’s been ample research.
Not me.
I think just like Blaster Master described, the verbal part doesn’t exist until I need to describe it to someone else. Objects is a good way to describe it but the objects don’t necessarily make sense, they are just place holders. They could represent things that you couldn’t really draw it, it’s a uniquely shaped blob that interacts with other objects.
When I think about a week and my schedule, I see (since I was young) the following:
A sequence of days going left to right, each with it’s own color and semi-fluid boundary for adjacent days, starting about 1 day behind the current day and my view of them is at about a 30 degree angle looking forward so I see the whole week and into the next week etc.
Saturday is dark/grey/blue
Sunday is brownish
Monday is yellowish
Tuesday is dark/tree-bark colorish
Wednesday is green
Thursday is a mix of tues and sun
Friday is light silver/grey/blue
Same thing for the year/months, although it’s a circle that doesn’t move left to right, it’s more like a clock with sept at 9, oct at 10, etc. In spring I am looking down on the months left to right and in fall I am a little under them looking left to right.
I know I joke a lot, but this post is serious.
I think most of you are misinterpreting what the OP said because I think he was actually talking about was people who write like this where they never end a sentence and just keep going on and on and on without using any punctuation it’s really kind if irritating particularly if they switch subjects in the middle of their humongous sentence like what’s with that ending comma thing where there’s the famous dedication “to my parents, ayn rand and god”?
Yes, I was wondering, since full-stops are like pauses to breathe, I thought they’d be normal in speech. You see people typing like that, but I’ve never seen someone pause to breathe in the middle of a sentence, so I thought people who typed like that spoke normally. Then why do they type like that?
As for thinking, I think in words and sentences, optionally imagery. But since finding out some people can/cannot visualise, I wouldn’t be surprised if people thought in other formats, and it turns out this is true.
I always think in full sentences. I “talk to myself” in my head all day long at work as I tend to be fairly antisocial.*
I also can think via sounds and music (thinking of a phrase can lead to playing a related song in my head), and images and “animations” in my head when working some sort of problem (academic or otherwise) in my head. Sentences seems to be the main mode, but I’d also say I think in a multimedia fashion as well/needed.
*I am well aware of the irony of being antisocial while posting on a message board. Truth be told, this is really my only outlet, having a decidedly stilted marriage, no contact with family, and no friends. No, I’m not being needy. It’s just the way I am. I’ve largely made peace with it. Dr. House is my hero (sans drugs!) if that tells you anything. I liken my personality to his, and I’m fine with this.
You are all Wilson.
Congratulations…
(That all seemed somewhat stream-of-consciousness, didn’t it?)
While others above have questioned the premise that pure thought could correlate to an artificial construct such as a sentence, I would go further and question the premise that thought can be “divided” at all.
At least in some way that isn’t equally as much just an arbitrary construct put forward for the sake of discussion.
I divide my thoughts into sentences. I also tend to think in paragraphs, which may be one sentence or longer; my idea of a ‘complete thought’ is more paragraph-level than sentence-level. A single sentence is usually more along the lines of one aspect of a complete thought.
However, when I’m actually solving a problem, I’m thinking in images or I’m sunk. All of my facility with mathematics and software comes from my ability to visualize.