monotonic said:
...There appear to be caveats to this process. The symbolic process needs to be translated to language. When the symbols aren't constantly informed by language and don't have the linguistic feedback loop to guide them, they take on a life of their own and what follows, in my experience, is basically a dream, often without images. In other cases, it's the familiar experience of finishing your thought but not really understanding what you were just thinking. It seems like you have "forgotten" what you were going to say, or that you don't know how to say it. My understanding is that people just aren't aware of this layer of thought and the impressions pass by unnoticed. The impressions dissolve very quickly when not in use, and because they don't link directly with language they don't stick in memory/associate very well. We learn from a young age that what isn't a word doesn't exist, so these "sub-verbal" thoughts fall by the wayside. They are after all very slippery and not easy to study, and don't bring instant gratification or even the promise of future utility. For a child who's wellbeing hinges on pleasing their parents, instant results are favored and anything that slows that down is considered deadly. Anticipation instead becomes the way of life...
I have noticed that the two of us seem to have a few unusual traits in common. I do much of my heavy-duty problem solving in an entirely non-verbal mode to which I don't think I even have conscious access. I haven't tried to look too closely at it, partly because consciously thinking about it interferes with the process itself, and partly because it is far too easy to create a fictional verbal narrative about an inner observation, the way conscious narratives often tend to be.
When you are a non-verbal thinker living in a verbal-thinker world, as we are, it becomes essential to be able to translate. Otherwise what I end up with, anyway, is talking about what results I have "intuited," without being able to explain them. When all that was really required was a solution to the problem, that might be OK (but not entirely satisfying to the verbal-oriented folks), but the rest of the time it is not enough. So if you are an intensely non-verbal thinker, it is important to develop the facility to translate if you want to be of service to others. Or at least that is how I look at it.
This problem parallels that of would-be "teachers," that have achieved a certain intermediate level of mastery of some thing and now face the task of learning to pass on what they themselves have learned if they are to advance further. That can be quite a different task from the original learning task, but a vital one if the aim is to serve others.
Verbal thinkers might be going through the same process without realizing it -- who knows. My feeling, however, that the hemisphere dominance of the thought process (depending upon what is being thought about, of course) is different, as are the problem solving strategies. This create a human world where some people are better at solving some problems, and others are better suited to solving other problems. That makes sense to me, as an evolutionary strategy, but I am a bit shy on evidence to prove it.
You might find the book
Thinking In Pictures by Temple Grandin interesting, if you haven't already read it, although I will say that by the time I read it I had already noticed much of what she points out. I seem to be somewhere on the high end of the autistic spectrum, where she started out rather low (nonverbal) and worked her way up, so there are similarities and differences. I don't identify as autistic per se -- too much of my machine works normally. But in a fundamentally nonverbal mode, for sure.
I am not sure about the musical aspect of thinking that you describe. I guess I haven't paid much attention. Music is important to me, in ways that I can't explain (there is a clue right there), but performing it well involves muscular coordination that I don't seem to have, which has dampened my enthusiasm for it over the past 54 years since I first tried to learn an instrument (still trying!).
What I do notice is that I have often seen, in my mind, complex problem solving processes as similar to symphonic performances. Lacking the literal ability to perform, I look to that to satisfy my need. So maybe I have been paying attention after all. I am not, however, aware of having any sort of synesthesic experience.
I hope I am not straying off track. It has taken me several tries to align your initial post in this topic with my own experience, and I may not have it right yet.
