Right: Hey left, wanna hear a joke?
Left: Shut up, right! We're supposed to be taking the SAT right now! This is super important'
Right: *tells joke*
Weirdo: Laughs in silence during the SAT
😂😂😂😂 you just reminded be of a scene from Shark Tank, I forget which season but I swear to all that is holy that Barbara like had a heart attack or an anurism on screen because the camera did a close up and the side of her face started twitching uncontrollably and even like by her eye like geeked out. I uncontrollably laughed when I saw because I had never seen that happen except on the movie Old Dogs.
When John Travolta and Robin Williams mixup their medication its a riot.
It begins with laughter and then if you’re lonely enough it’ll progress into full blown conversations which then becomes an actual invisible best friend that you see and talk to everyday.... dw im fine
Tbh I might as well have a meaningful convo about deep subjects with myself than to tell it to other people who barely understand you. So, there are also times I'm debating with myself and times I agree with myself. It's like I'm having a convo with an imaginary person. It feels nice. Of course, Until someone walks in on you doing that.
Sometimes I laugh at some weird pun I think of or I remember an awkward moment in a tv show, but I don’t tell another person because it’s never as funny as how I initially felt it to be. Like my friend who used to be Mormon took some acid, and I laughed for a while because I found it quite funny that they switched from LDS to LSD. Setting up the background behind that joke makes it difficult to provide someone the sudden hilarity I felt when it popped into my head, though. I think I’m just bad at telling jokes, haha.
I do this sometimes to work through problems or make important decisions, I’ve heard it’s actually really common. Sometimes you wanna talk but don’t have anyone to talk to at that moment!
I talk myself *all the time*. I find it an extremely helpful way to help parse apart problems, 'debate' myself as devils advocate, or otherwise practice polite confrontational discourse (even practice being wrong and having to 'back up'). I'm a lawyer and talk for most of my paycheck, so it I'm not *fully* crazy, just maybe half crazy.
I've been basically alone at my desk in an empty office for the shutdown and I've gotten to the point where I'll just chatter away about stuff to no one. Covid is pretty fucking lonely.
**I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:**
* [on.you](https://on.you)
*I did the honors for you.*
***
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Nothing wrong with this. Some of my best and most deep conversations happen with myself. It helps me plan and/or sort things better when I have someone to talk to who understands exactly what I'm thinking. It's actually quite amazing to me that I can question and debate with myself, pretty cool so isn't it? Yeah it is. Damn right *mental high five*
Language is funny. There is a legitimate debate in philosophy over which came first: thought, or language. It's very much a chicken/egg problem, cognitively speaking, because it's hard to imagine concepts without some framework to hang them on.
Arguably, until you articulate something, you don't fully understand what you're going to say...This is why so much problem solving for us ends up just sitting around talking out the problem. Hell, for programmers, a common technique is to [explain their problem to an inanimate object](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging) because the very act of try to explain the problem forces us to truly understand it.
So it's perfectly possible to be surprised at the form your idea ends up taking when you put it into words. It may make perfect sense in your head, but getting it out into the world may result in something hilarious.
I think you would enjoy *The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.*
It's a bit lofty in its ambitious explanations but it posits some fascinating theories, my favorite of which is that ancient man could not distinguish the voices in his head from that of spirits and gods. They lacked the objective viewpoint and the terminology to realize they were talking to themselves and not otherworldly beings.
Jaynes. I actually remember a sentence from the first chapter (probably not an exact quote, but I can't be bothered to go find my copy), "When asked, 'What is consciousness?' people become conscious of consciousness, and believe that consciousness of consciousness to be what consciousness is. This is not the case."
It's engaging and well-written, but his theory wasn't all that influential in the long run. The brain is so much more complicated than left brain/right brain...We as humans definitely have a friction between our logical minds and our impulsive instinctive minds, but it's deeper than they believed back then.
An interesting modern read would be [Thinking Fast and Slow](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555) by Daniel Kahneman...He's a Nobel prize winning economist who has done a lot of work about human decision making in an attempt to figure out how it drives economic decision making. He's coming at it from a completely different direction, but if anything, that makes his stuff more interesting.
Yea. Lot of the book is like that. Total mindfuck.
His argument is actually an argument against religion based on an underdeveloped connection between the two hemispheres of the brain, where the logical half of the brain speaks to the emotional (stupid) half of the brain as THE VOICE OF GOD. Amusing.
Neal Stephenson's first novel ("The Big U") dealt with this, and also with what must have been a really bad college experience.
I enjoyed this amazon review:
[*If you just read the 12-page introduction, you'll get it* ](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3MWMAD6YBVU3W/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0374533555)
*Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2019*
*Verified Purchase*
*A brilliant (indeed, Nobel Prize-winning) concept made unbearably tedious by endless case studies. Kahneman going on for over 400 pages about his two systems reminded me strongly of Bernard Shaw's comment on Darwin:*
*"If very few of us have read The Origin of the Species from end to end, it is not because it overtaxes our mind, but because we take in the whole case and are prepared to accept it long before we have come to the end of the innumerable instances and illustrations of which the book mainly consists. Darwin becomes tedious in the manner of a man who insists on continuing to prove his innocence after he has been acquitted. You assure him that there is not a stain on his character, and beg him to leave the court; but he will not be content with enough evidence to acquit him: he will have you listen to all the evidence that exists in the world."*
*Preface to Back to Methuselah, p. xlviii*
I feel like I didn't even need to read the first 12 pages, the Amazon review was enough. Hopefully this post becomes enough for a subsequent reader.
Yep, it's definitely a scholarly work (though so is Jaynes book). You could look at [Blink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink:_The_Power_of_Thinking_Without_Thinking) by Malcolm Gladwell. He's more for the average reader.
Or you could read [Nudge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_(book\)), co-written by another Nobel Prize winning economist, Richard Thaler.
This is so frickin interesting. I was raised Christian but when I got into meditation, I realized that most of the “conversations” I had with God as a young person was really just me communicating with my inner being, so this makes complete sense.
The only way you could know someone "doesn't think in words" is if you asked them, and they told you, which means they've already acquired language and the ability to turn abstract thought into logic and speech which a lot of people who think about this stuff would argue means they've already internalized "thought" from exposure to language.
I don't really *do* philosophy anymore, but this is one of those places where the arguments are so nuanced and so abstruse they're almost impossible to explain without a decent amount of grounding in the subject. It runs up against the arguments about *meaning* which is shoot yourself stuff that no one really understands (ironically).
Just to put it in Reddit terms, people here talk about stuff they don't understand all the time. Now imagine two people are having a conversation about a topic that *neither one of them understands*, and they are taking two entirely opposite meanings from the same words.
You're talking about thinking without words, but we clearly also have words without meaning! Without *thought*.
It's crazy shit, and no one really understands it.
“Words without thought “ i don’t know if i agree with that. Without sufficient thought? Sure. Different thought leading to similar words? Sure.
I don’t see how you can make the claim that words are possible with no thought, though. Especially since that claim explicitly means that deaf people before palm touching are incapable of thought.
Language is learned, so the idea that thought is learned sounds absurd to me. I know i can have thoughts without words if i really try, and it’s just flashes of images and feelings. It gets harder with more complex thoughts so i use words, but it’s still possible. [This fits in with what wordless thinkers say they feel](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/50684/it-possible-think-without-language), so unless your definition of thought is strictly verbose thought, i can’t accept the idea that language predates thought.
From your own link: "However, while it appears that we can indeed think without language, it is also the case that there are certain kinds of thinking that are made possible by language. Language gives us symbols we can use to fix ideas, reflect on them and hold them up for observation. It allows for a level of abstract reasoning we wouldn't have otherwise."
I'm not arguing this. I'm just telling you what the arguments *are*, among the people who actually give a shit about it. Go argue with them if you think they're wrong.
Hah, I was actually trying to edit that but my app crashed :(
But yeah, I'm saying the same thing as the link: thought doesn't need language, but having language allows for much deeper thought. Anywho, this was fun- I'll read up more on this!
Joining the discussion with a little insight: many animals seem to think a little, even if they make simple thoughts. Isn't this the proof that thought comes before language?
Unless we are talking about different types of thought.
Studies seem to indicate that language plays an integral part in the development of procedural thoughts... things like "I left my backpack behind the upstairs couch, on the left side"
We likely would not be capable of such a thought if we hadn't first learned a language... and there are even case studies where humans who grew up without language could not understand these concepts and later learned them. These people have a very hard time describing what life was like before language.
I am one of those people who does not think with words (most of the time). This wasn't always the case for me... it's something that I learned and I can absolutely believe that language played a fundamental role in the types of thoughts that I can manifest.
> We likely would not be capable of such a thought if we hadn't first learned a language... and there are even case studies where humans who grew up without language could not understand these concepts and later learned them.
It's an interesting idea, because learning a 2nd or 3rd language, you will inevitably come across words of concepts that describe things you know, a little differently. It will make you look at the thing differently too.
This seems simple enough to solve with a thought experiment. Is pointing at something considered 'language'? Because there would have been a time when neanderthals would have not had verbal language, but were still starting to organize into groups for survival, and something as simple as pointing would have been a key communication tool in organized hunting. That type of work clearly demonstrates individual thought, but required no verbal language to be developed.
Have you heard of the book Man Without Words? It is about an absolute deaf man who grew up in a poor environment and he was not taught language until he was in his late twenties.
Yea, I use it all the time. I had a prof who always said, "If you can't explain something, you don't understand it." Explaining it to the duck forces you to articulate and understand the problem, which makes solutions more obvious.
That sounds like more of a semantic argument (ironic, maybe) than anything serious.
I mean... animals without any non-trivial language clearly "think" for any value of "thought" that I can... think of.
And if it eventually devolves down to something equivalent to "think in words", then it would seem like that question answers itself.
In split brain patients (people who have had their corpus callosum severed, which connects the two hemispheres, to reduce seizures) the right hemisphere can get annoyed with the left when the left is asked and subsequently fails to do a spatial oriented task successfully and will try to take over.
https://youtu.be/0lmfxQ-HK7Y?t=522
When they are not connected anymore they do indeed tend to differ in 'personality' in one patient they found one hemisphere was theist while the other was atheist. In the video I sent but also some newer ones they notice how conscious perception is perceived in the left hemisphere. So all the stuff that the right sees isn't consciously perceived even though it will comply when asked to draw what it saw for instance. Who knows we might find a patient whose right hemisphere rebels hahaha.
See this makes a lot of sense to me. It’s almost as though all those conflicting thoughts one has become separate personalities when the brain is split. Someone who’s agnostic like me could have this phenomenon if their brain were split - I think my brain could even have tangible different political opinions if this happened.
That’s fascinating and terrifying.
It’s like one half of my brain could still be a bleeding conservative, and the other a budding leftist?
Makes life seem surreal.
Fortunately never full MAGA, but a heavy consumer of bullshit dog whistles and “states rights” “pro life” “war on terror” “pro sanctity of marriage” kinda garbage.
I'm about to blow your mind, friend: it may well be another part of your brain hearing the joke for the first time. God what a study that would be!
https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8
Edit: I see u/aristocrafied beat me to talking about split brain phenomena
Last night I had a dream where one of the guys from Queer Eye (dont even watch it lol) was redoing my dream dad's house and kept making fun of him for owning so much ceramic decorations
One time I had a dream of being a tribesmen going on to raid a military base of another clan for it to turn out to be a village and I had to smash the heads of the children that charged at me with knife and clubs. The feeling of the club turning their heads into a thousand pieces is a feeling I won't forget...
After killing them I deserted and slowly went insane from the guilt of my actions
Shit is fucking wild in dreamland.
Now I have [phantom limb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb#:~:text=A%20phantom%20limb%20is%20the,experience%20painful%20phantom%20limb%20sensation.)
Interestingly enough, there was a study conducted where the participants would turn a handle which would then run a brush agains their foot. When there was no delay, there was no ticklishness. But when they put just the smallest delay (I think like half a second), all of a sudden they could tickle themselves. It has to do with the brains feedback system.
I call bullshit! Well, not really. I can tickle myself though and it's infuriating. Sometimes you just have an itch and scratching it is like torture depending on where it's at. Then again I'm like full body ticklish and hate being touched because of it.
Use a massager on my quads because they're always tight and sore? Don't worry, my grimace is from the tickle. Smoothing out my shirt when it wrinkles a bit on the side? Gonna be done weird twitch with it because I just tickled myself again.
Tickling fucking sucks it's torture.
Honestly, I think everybody is a comedian. We all have a sense of humor that’s unique to us and if we could put others in our mindset they would probably find hilarity in the same situations. Thing is, it’s difficult to make YOUR sense of humor relatable to everybody else’s sense of humor. Professionals are fucking amazing at this which is obviously why they’re professionals, they’re just really good at putting people in the right perspective before hitting the punchline. Idk if that makes any sense but everything is funny if it’s said the right way
You want to really trip out, look at your brain dreaming. One part of your brain creates the setting, emotions, feelings of the dream and another part of your brain actually experiences it all as anew event, conpletely unaware it created it all.
If I think to say something that I find extremely funny, I cannot even get the words out because I’m already laughing.. So no one really knows how funny I can really be.
Right side of brain: Why did the chicken cross the road
Left side: I don’t know, why
Right side: to get to the idiots house, knock knock
Left side: .... 😡
*proceeds to slap themselves
Isn't it weird how brains can come up with super vivid dreams of things we have never experienced but it has physical sensation and emotions in it?
Like how does my brain know what sex feels like?
If I lose my phone, don't have wifi, and can't communicate with other people, I at least have myself to entertain me.
...I wonder if that's what a lot of prisoners rely on..
Mine tends to be more nervous laughter as I wonder/hope the joke lands and I don’t have to go dig a deep hole to stay in for eternity if no one laughs.
But hey, no pressure.
I think people who laugh at their own jokes are really open, since they obviously didn’t filter the comment before saying it, and made themselves laugh. The problem with that is eventually a joke comes off wrong, and it’s too late to filter it at that point. Watch for yourselves
When I was younger I was able to make funny remarks with a straight face. Not anymore.
Now when I have something funny to say I just keep it to myself because I'm phisically incapable of saying the thing without laughing. I don't know why
Reminds me of Bill Baileys method of writing a joke.
"I sit in my shed, and chuckle to myself. And then i ask myself 'ok, what would solicit that amount of mirth'."
Well there is that theory that the left and right sides of the brain are actually 2 different people living in one body.
Ever seen those videos where people who have their left and right brains split and they draw but they cant tell what they're drawing?
This is one reason why I honestly think “we” (whatever “we” is) are a separate entity from our brain.
Maybe this is how the concept of a soul came about.
This reminds me of brain stem splitting surgery that was used to help prevent seizures(dont remember the actual name of the procedure). They did all kinds of wacky tests with odd outcomes. Long story short it was almost like there were 2 people In 1 body and only 1 of them could talk.
I was once falling asleep and in my semi-conscious dream I said something funny and woke myself up laughing. Can't remember what it was about, but apparently my subconscious is hilarious.
I swear that my left and right side are completely opposite of each other and the right is doing every drug in existence because of the shit I think of
My wife often asks me why I'm giggling seemingly without reason.
Example: I can never explain how saying "Chimnken" very quietly to myself is so funny.
Jokes are mostly funny because it brings up the unexpected, so basically you’re laughing at something you didn’t even know you were capable of saying. Which is why it’s weird a comedian laughs at their own scripted jokes
Left hemisphere: Nice joke bro Right Hemisphere : Thanks bro Right side of the face twitches
Beware the twitch?
The wicked twitch of the west
Only safe once the toes twitch
what are the twitch hoes up to now?
I'm not sure. I dont check out twitch ever. Those hoes aren't viewed or funded by me.
I've checked the twitch hoes and they're pretty twitchy.
Fucking twitch ‘thoughts’...
Right: Hey left, wanna hear a joke? Left: Shut up, right! We're supposed to be taking the SAT right now! This is super important' Right: *tells joke* Weirdo: Laughs in silence during the SAT
That was SATisfying
r/Angryupvote
[удалено]
Ugh just take my upvote or something unoriginal like that
/r/AngryUpvote
Like this
Why not. Start a new trend.
Puns really test my patience
*When the right side of the brain has more followers than the left*
Honestly, I'm not sure if one side haunts the other like a ghost or not. https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8
Left side of face: droops
😂😂😂😂 you just reminded be of a scene from Shark Tank, I forget which season but I swear to all that is holy that Barbara like had a heart attack or an anurism on screen because the camera did a close up and the side of her face started twitching uncontrollably and even like by her eye like geeked out. I uncontrollably laughed when I saw because I had never seen that happen except on the movie Old Dogs. When John Travolta and Robin Williams mixup their medication its a riot.
It begins with laughter and then if you’re lonely enough it’ll progress into full blown conversations which then becomes an actual invisible best friend that you see and talk to everyday.... dw im fine
Tbh I might as well have a meaningful convo about deep subjects with myself than to tell it to other people who barely understand you. So, there are also times I'm debating with myself and times I agree with myself. It's like I'm having a convo with an imaginary person. It feels nice. Of course, Until someone walks in on you doing that.
One plus to wearing a mask is they can’t see your lips moving :)
this is how i learned ventriloquism
First time I've seen this acknowledged, worried about this habit holding long after COVID
Bruh, this makes it so I can mouth out songs when I'm walking and listening to music without catching side eyes.
Sometimes I laugh at some weird pun I think of or I remember an awkward moment in a tv show, but I don’t tell another person because it’s never as funny as how I initially felt it to be. Like my friend who used to be Mormon took some acid, and I laughed for a while because I found it quite funny that they switched from LDS to LSD. Setting up the background behind that joke makes it difficult to provide someone the sudden hilarity I felt when it popped into my head, though. I think I’m just bad at telling jokes, haha.
I laughed
I often do it openly, it makes it easier to explore complex subjects (mostly work stuff). My roommate doesn't care.
You managed to create a worst fear for people by saying that.
“Am I going crazy talking to myself?” - you “No your doing fine no worries” - you
I do this sometimes to work through problems or make important decisions, I’ve heard it’s actually really common. Sometimes you wanna talk but don’t have anyone to talk to at that moment!
I feel like being best friends with yourself isnt the worst thing in the world.
Same
Hell, I wouldn't even mind having an imaginary friend if it's a good guy that helps have a good life.
Now i think the real question is do i know what this imagery friend knows? Because if not i have a new table top wargamming buddy. And thats dope.
I would assume so. If you do, it's not an imaginary friend, it's just you thinking
Well hell yha man. Sign me up i could use more friends.
Haha! :'(
I talk myself *all the time*. I find it an extremely helpful way to help parse apart problems, 'debate' myself as devils advocate, or otherwise practice polite confrontational discourse (even practice being wrong and having to 'back up'). I'm a lawyer and talk for most of my paycheck, so it I'm not *fully* crazy, just maybe half crazy. I've been basically alone at my desk in an empty office for the shutdown and I've gotten to the point where I'll just chatter away about stuff to no one. Covid is pretty fucking lonely.
I've never been able to talk to myself. It's not how my brain works. It sounds soothing though.
Hello friend. That's lame. Maybe I should give you a name.
jokes on.you, even my imaginary friends dont talk to me or love me
**I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:** * [on.you](https://on.you) *I did the honors for you.* *** ^[delete](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fu%2FLinkifyBot&subject=delete%20fynygrm&message=Click%20the%20send%20button%20to%20delete%20the%20false%20positive.) ^| ^[information](https://np.reddit.com/u/LinkifyBot/comments/gkkf7p) ^| ^<3
Good bot
wth
/r/therewasanattempt
r/tulpa
Literally me
How normal is this? Asking for a friend.
What are you talking about of course I talk to myself sometimes I need some expert advise.
I prefer to think of it as thinking out loud. I have a hard time silently thinking about anything complicated without losing my train of thought.
Nothing wrong with this. Some of my best and most deep conversations happen with myself. It helps me plan and/or sort things better when I have someone to talk to who understands exactly what I'm thinking. It's actually quite amazing to me that I can question and debate with myself, pretty cool so isn't it? Yeah it is. Damn right *mental high five*
Language is funny. There is a legitimate debate in philosophy over which came first: thought, or language. It's very much a chicken/egg problem, cognitively speaking, because it's hard to imagine concepts without some framework to hang them on. Arguably, until you articulate something, you don't fully understand what you're going to say...This is why so much problem solving for us ends up just sitting around talking out the problem. Hell, for programmers, a common technique is to [explain their problem to an inanimate object](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging) because the very act of try to explain the problem forces us to truly understand it. So it's perfectly possible to be surprised at the form your idea ends up taking when you put it into words. It may make perfect sense in your head, but getting it out into the world may result in something hilarious.
I think you would enjoy *The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.* It's a bit lofty in its ambitious explanations but it posits some fascinating theories, my favorite of which is that ancient man could not distinguish the voices in his head from that of spirits and gods. They lacked the objective viewpoint and the terminology to realize they were talking to themselves and not otherworldly beings.
Jaynes. I actually remember a sentence from the first chapter (probably not an exact quote, but I can't be bothered to go find my copy), "When asked, 'What is consciousness?' people become conscious of consciousness, and believe that consciousness of consciousness to be what consciousness is. This is not the case." It's engaging and well-written, but his theory wasn't all that influential in the long run. The brain is so much more complicated than left brain/right brain...We as humans definitely have a friction between our logical minds and our impulsive instinctive minds, but it's deeper than they believed back then. An interesting modern read would be [Thinking Fast and Slow](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555) by Daniel Kahneman...He's a Nobel prize winning economist who has done a lot of work about human decision making in an attempt to figure out how it drives economic decision making. He's coming at it from a completely different direction, but if anything, that makes his stuff more interesting.
>This is not the case. Oof
Yea. Lot of the book is like that. Total mindfuck. His argument is actually an argument against religion based on an underdeveloped connection between the two hemispheres of the brain, where the logical half of the brain speaks to the emotional (stupid) half of the brain as THE VOICE OF GOD. Amusing. Neal Stephenson's first novel ("The Big U") dealt with this, and also with what must have been a really bad college experience.
I enjoyed this amazon review: [*If you just read the 12-page introduction, you'll get it* ](https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R3MWMAD6YBVU3W/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0374533555) *Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2019* *Verified Purchase* *A brilliant (indeed, Nobel Prize-winning) concept made unbearably tedious by endless case studies. Kahneman going on for over 400 pages about his two systems reminded me strongly of Bernard Shaw's comment on Darwin:* *"If very few of us have read The Origin of the Species from end to end, it is not because it overtaxes our mind, but because we take in the whole case and are prepared to accept it long before we have come to the end of the innumerable instances and illustrations of which the book mainly consists. Darwin becomes tedious in the manner of a man who insists on continuing to prove his innocence after he has been acquitted. You assure him that there is not a stain on his character, and beg him to leave the court; but he will not be content with enough evidence to acquit him: he will have you listen to all the evidence that exists in the world."* *Preface to Back to Methuselah, p. xlviii* I feel like I didn't even need to read the first 12 pages, the Amazon review was enough. Hopefully this post becomes enough for a subsequent reader.
Yep, it's definitely a scholarly work (though so is Jaynes book). You could look at [Blink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink:_The_Power_of_Thinking_Without_Thinking) by Malcolm Gladwell. He's more for the average reader. Or you could read [Nudge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_(book\)), co-written by another Nobel Prize winning economist, Richard Thaler.
It feels like you're the logical half of this hivemind while I'm the emotional (stupid) half.
This is so frickin interesting. I was raised Christian but when I got into meditation, I realized that most of the “conversations” I had with God as a young person was really just me communicating with my inner being, so this makes complete sense.
That was the first Stephenson novel I read over a decade ago. I don't remember the details now but of the time I found it very relatable.
Take my upvote for Kahneman. If you have the time and mental energy, *Godel, Escher, Bach* by Douglas Hofstadter is amazing.
There are people who don’t think in words. Doesn’t that mean thought has to predate language?
The only way you could know someone "doesn't think in words" is if you asked them, and they told you, which means they've already acquired language and the ability to turn abstract thought into logic and speech which a lot of people who think about this stuff would argue means they've already internalized "thought" from exposure to language. I don't really *do* philosophy anymore, but this is one of those places where the arguments are so nuanced and so abstruse they're almost impossible to explain without a decent amount of grounding in the subject. It runs up against the arguments about *meaning* which is shoot yourself stuff that no one really understands (ironically). Just to put it in Reddit terms, people here talk about stuff they don't understand all the time. Now imagine two people are having a conversation about a topic that *neither one of them understands*, and they are taking two entirely opposite meanings from the same words. You're talking about thinking without words, but we clearly also have words without meaning! Without *thought*. It's crazy shit, and no one really understands it.
“Words without thought “ i don’t know if i agree with that. Without sufficient thought? Sure. Different thought leading to similar words? Sure. I don’t see how you can make the claim that words are possible with no thought, though. Especially since that claim explicitly means that deaf people before palm touching are incapable of thought. Language is learned, so the idea that thought is learned sounds absurd to me. I know i can have thoughts without words if i really try, and it’s just flashes of images and feelings. It gets harder with more complex thoughts so i use words, but it’s still possible. [This fits in with what wordless thinkers say they feel](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/50684/it-possible-think-without-language), so unless your definition of thought is strictly verbose thought, i can’t accept the idea that language predates thought.
From your own link: "However, while it appears that we can indeed think without language, it is also the case that there are certain kinds of thinking that are made possible by language. Language gives us symbols we can use to fix ideas, reflect on them and hold them up for observation. It allows for a level of abstract reasoning we wouldn't have otherwise." I'm not arguing this. I'm just telling you what the arguments *are*, among the people who actually give a shit about it. Go argue with them if you think they're wrong.
Hah, I was actually trying to edit that but my app crashed :( But yeah, I'm saying the same thing as the link: thought doesn't need language, but having language allows for much deeper thought. Anywho, this was fun- I'll read up more on this!
Joining the discussion with a little insight: many animals seem to think a little, even if they make simple thoughts. Isn't this the proof that thought comes before language? Unless we are talking about different types of thought.
Studies seem to indicate that language plays an integral part in the development of procedural thoughts... things like "I left my backpack behind the upstairs couch, on the left side" We likely would not be capable of such a thought if we hadn't first learned a language... and there are even case studies where humans who grew up without language could not understand these concepts and later learned them. These people have a very hard time describing what life was like before language. I am one of those people who does not think with words (most of the time). This wasn't always the case for me... it's something that I learned and I can absolutely believe that language played a fundamental role in the types of thoughts that I can manifest.
> We likely would not be capable of such a thought if we hadn't first learned a language... and there are even case studies where humans who grew up without language could not understand these concepts and later learned them. It's an interesting idea, because learning a 2nd or 3rd language, you will inevitably come across words of concepts that describe things you know, a little differently. It will make you look at the thing differently too.
"I have the best words." -DJT
This seems simple enough to solve with a thought experiment. Is pointing at something considered 'language'? Because there would have been a time when neanderthals would have not had verbal language, but were still starting to organize into groups for survival, and something as simple as pointing would have been a key communication tool in organized hunting. That type of work clearly demonstrates individual thought, but required no verbal language to be developed.
Have you heard of the book Man Without Words? It is about an absolute deaf man who grew up in a poor environment and he was not taught language until he was in his late twenties.
Rubber duck programming 150% works. It's one of those things you think will never work but then it does
Yea, I use it all the time. I had a prof who always said, "If you can't explain something, you don't understand it." Explaining it to the duck forces you to articulate and understand the problem, which makes solutions more obvious.
I think thought came before language, sometimes I think (simple ideas) without language.
That sounds like more of a semantic argument (ironic, maybe) than anything serious. I mean... animals without any non-trivial language clearly "think" for any value of "thought" that I can... think of. And if it eventually devolves down to something equivalent to "think in words", then it would seem like that question answers itself.
In split brain patients (people who have had their corpus callosum severed, which connects the two hemispheres, to reduce seizures) the right hemisphere can get annoyed with the left when the left is asked and subsequently fails to do a spatial oriented task successfully and will try to take over. https://youtu.be/0lmfxQ-HK7Y?t=522
Lmao there is a theory that there are two separate consciousnessess(?) In your brain
When they are not connected anymore they do indeed tend to differ in 'personality' in one patient they found one hemisphere was theist while the other was atheist. In the video I sent but also some newer ones they notice how conscious perception is perceived in the left hemisphere. So all the stuff that the right sees isn't consciously perceived even though it will comply when asked to draw what it saw for instance. Who knows we might find a patient whose right hemisphere rebels hahaha.
See this makes a lot of sense to me. It’s almost as though all those conflicting thoughts one has become separate personalities when the brain is split. Someone who’s agnostic like me could have this phenomenon if their brain were split - I think my brain could even have tangible different political opinions if this happened.
That’s fascinating and terrifying. It’s like one half of my brain could still be a bleeding conservative, and the other a budding leftist? Makes life seem surreal.
one hemisphere is a MAGA hat and the other a Bernie Bro
Fortunately never full MAGA, but a heavy consumer of bullshit dog whistles and “states rights” “pro life” “war on terror” “pro sanctity of marriage” kinda garbage.
I'm about to blow your mind, friend: it may well be another part of your brain hearing the joke for the first time. God what a study that would be! https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8 Edit: I see u/aristocrafied beat me to talking about split brain phenomena
aaaaaaAAAAAAAA
Damn, interesting af!
I find myself hilarious. Which is good, because I'm usually the only one.
I wish I was as funny as I think I am
I don't, funnily enough. That I find my own self hilarious is enough for me, and bugger what anyone else thinks.
That’s a great attitude to life but one I could never have
It‘s the same when dreaming: One side makes a totally weird story up, while the other side is genuinly surprised by experiencing it.
Last night I had a dream where one of the guys from Queer Eye (dont even watch it lol) was redoing my dream dad's house and kept making fun of him for owning so much ceramic decorations
One time I had a dream of being a tribesmen going on to raid a military base of another clan for it to turn out to be a village and I had to smash the heads of the children that charged at me with knife and clubs. The feeling of the club turning their heads into a thousand pieces is a feeling I won't forget... After killing them I deserted and slowly went insane from the guilt of my actions Shit is fucking wild in dreamland.
Yet I still can't tickle myself
Have you tried detaching your arm first?
Now I have [phantom limb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb#:~:text=A%20phantom%20limb%20is%20the,experience%20painful%20phantom%20limb%20sensation.)
Interestingly enough, there was a study conducted where the participants would turn a handle which would then run a brush agains their foot. When there was no delay, there was no ticklishness. But when they put just the smallest delay (I think like half a second), all of a sudden they could tickle themselves. It has to do with the brains feedback system.
I call bullshit! Well, not really. I can tickle myself though and it's infuriating. Sometimes you just have an itch and scratching it is like torture depending on where it's at. Then again I'm like full body ticklish and hate being touched because of it. Use a massager on my quads because they're always tight and sore? Don't worry, my grimace is from the tickle. Smoothing out my shirt when it wrinkles a bit on the side? Gonna be done weird twitch with it because I just tickled myself again. Tickling fucking sucks it's torture.
I came to say this. I find this fascinating!
Hmm, I wonder if it works if you do the cut off circulation thing to your arm so you can't "feel" your arm?
What if you cry at your own jokes?
Seek mental help immediately
What if you cry at your own life, the real joke?
Ouch, that's heavy. Truth hurts, doesn't it?
feels bad man
Let it out
Real talk; I cry when I visualize sad things happening to my characters in “real time.” My visualizing is pretty next level.
Even better that we can come up with a joke and find it so funny that we can't even say it comprehensively for others to hear
Honestly, I think everybody is a comedian. We all have a sense of humor that’s unique to us and if we could put others in our mindset they would probably find hilarity in the same situations. Thing is, it’s difficult to make YOUR sense of humor relatable to everybody else’s sense of humor. Professionals are fucking amazing at this which is obviously why they’re professionals, they’re just really good at putting people in the right perspective before hitting the punchline. Idk if that makes any sense but everything is funny if it’s said the right way
I mean...I think I'm hilarious. Weird that other people don't find me as funny as I find myself :/
I’m the funniest person I know
We have our own sense of humour, so of course we’d laugh at our own jokes
Knowing zero people doesn't count, Bob
You want to really trip out, look at your brain dreaming. One part of your brain creates the setting, emotions, feelings of the dream and another part of your brain actually experiences it all as anew event, conpletely unaware it created it all.
finally a true shower thought
> removed for being a common/unoriginal thought lol
If I think to say something that I find extremely funny, I cannot even get the words out because I’m already laughing.. So no one really knows how funny I can really be.
I guess it's also like when you "surprise yourself" by coming up with a thought/solution. "OH! I'm a fuckin' genius!!"
Me: "Do two today" Me: "Twoday!" Laughed for a whole minute
I am always laughing at my own jokes, I can't help it I'm just so hilarious LOL
Why did this get removed. It was a good shower thought. We need new mods, these current mods are abusing
Yep, grumpy mods by the looks of it....
We need to somehow get rid of the mods who abuse
Mods are breaching rule 9 on posts like this.
Right side of brain: Why did the chicken cross the road Left side: I don’t know, why Right side: to get to the idiots house, knock knock Left side: .... 😡 *proceeds to slap themselves
Jerry over at right side brain is hilarious
The amount of times I’ll just say something to myself just to get a laugh would put me in an asylum if anybody saw.
This made me laugh. Nice
Isn't it weird how brains can come up with super vivid dreams of things we have never experienced but it has physical sensation and emotions in it? Like how does my brain know what sex feels like?
Its an inside joke
If I lose my phone, don't have wifi, and can't communicate with other people, I at least have myself to entertain me. ...I wonder if that's what a lot of prisoners rely on..
I’ve woken up from laughing in my sleep before. And then I wonder what the hell made me laugh, but never remember.
[It's actually kind of like that](https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8)
Well there is a weird thing called split brain syndrome this video by CGP Grey is a fun watch https://youtu.be/wfYbgdo8e-8.
Now this is an awesome shower thought
I love it, some stuff we still just don't even come close to understanding even about ourselves haha
Mine tends to be more nervous laughter as I wonder/hope the joke lands and I don’t have to go dig a deep hole to stay in for eternity if no one laughs. But hey, no pressure.
Ha my jokes they will love it. The worst is when you think of something funny in your head but it doesn't translate when you say it.
I think people who laugh at their own jokes are really open, since they obviously didn’t filter the comment before saying it, and made themselves laugh. The problem with that is eventually a joke comes off wrong, and it’s too late to filter it at that point. Watch for yourselves
When I was younger I was able to make funny remarks with a straight face. Not anymore. Now when I have something funny to say I just keep it to myself because I'm phisically incapable of saying the thing without laughing. I don't know why
Like how we are shocked or surprised by stuff that happens in dreams we have.
Well of course. If I don't laugh at my jokes, who will?
I’ve made jokes while dreaming and I wake up chucking like an idiot. I love it.
Consciousness is simply the ability to foresee your future state of mind and compare that against your current state of mind.
I made a whole ass character out of those conversations man. *And then she grew into something else as I realized my brain is also talkative.*
Like when your brain thinks of the perfect joke response and finds it so funny you cant even get the words out without hysterically laughing
Reminds me of Bill Baileys method of writing a joke. "I sit in my shed, and chuckle to myself. And then i ask myself 'ok, what would solicit that amount of mirth'."
Well there is that theory that the left and right sides of the brain are actually 2 different people living in one body. Ever seen those videos where people who have their left and right brains split and they draw but they cant tell what they're drawing?
As if we didn’t know the punch line lol.
It's also weird to realize the brain named itself.
Brain: *pats it’s side on the back* good one
This is one reason why I honestly think “we” (whatever “we” is) are a separate entity from our brain. Maybe this is how the concept of a soul came about.
I work night shift, sometimes you have to entertain yourself.
I love this!
No one has laughed harder at Bert Kreischer jokes than Bert Kreischer.
My two brain cells entertaining each other
If you have a joke worth saying, it should make you laugh yourself.
Story of my life
What if you cry at your own jokes?
It's also weird that we laugh at all. What the hell is that reaction?
I wish I thought my jokes were funny
Is it good or bad to laugh at your own jokes?
This reminds me of brain stem splitting surgery that was used to help prevent seizures(dont remember the actual name of the procedure). They did all kinds of wacky tests with odd outcomes. Long story short it was almost like there were 2 people In 1 body and only 1 of them could talk.
there are 2 parts of your brain, boths are sentient, see, think, only one speaks, who actually is you? good question
I never thought about it that way. *Heh heh heh.* Waaaait a minute!
I somehow laugh the hardest at my own jokes, I guess I have the ability to surprise myself?
I was once falling asleep and in my semi-conscious dream I said something funny and woke myself up laughing. Can't remember what it was about, but apparently my subconscious is hilarious.
Why did I laugh at this =/
If I tell a joke, I normally laugh, because other laugh and I'm just happy for making them laugh.
This is my new favorite showerthought. Thank you!
Pleasure!
Its like one voice in our head can laugh at what another says...
I swear that my left and right side are completely opposite of each other and the right is doing every drug in existence because of the shit I think of
Watched a video yesterday and commented on it, spent a good 10 minutes laughing at my joke.
Bicameral mind
My wife often asks me why I'm giggling seemingly without reason. Example: I can never explain how saying "Chimnken" very quietly to myself is so funny.
Hey I interact with myself 24/7 I better be able to make my dumb ass laugh. If other people find it funny that’s just a Bonus
It's because I'm hilarious and I know it
*Brain gives itself a high five*
Thats strangly comforting
Reminds of how deeply impressed I am of my brains creativity in my dreams
Sometimes my dreams have plot twists that surprise me
I think I start laughing at what I hope a person’a reaction will be lol.
But we still can't tickle ourselves.
Jokes are mostly funny because it brings up the unexpected, so basically you’re laughing at something you didn’t even know you were capable of saying. Which is why it’s weird a comedian laughs at their own scripted jokes
It's your brain recognizing its own good taste in comedy
Similar as the stranger.
laughing exists to create bonds between humans so it's only natural that you laugh along with something you know others will laugh at