The nature of unsymbolized thinking

Abstract

Using the method of Descriptive Experience Sampling, some subjects report experiences of thinking that do not involve words or any other symbols (Hurlburt and Heavey 2006; Hurlburt and Akhter 2008). Even though the possibility of this unsymbolized thinking has consequences for the debate on the phenomenological status of cognitive states, the phenomenon is still insufficiently examined. This paper analyzes the main properties of unsymbolized thinking and advances an explanation of its origin. According to our analysis, unsymbolized thoughts appear as propositional states, that is, they are experienced as compositional conceptual phenomena, with semantic and syntactic features analogous to those of the contents of utterances. Based on this characterization we hypothesize that unsymbolized thinking is continuous with the activity of inner speech, in particular, it is a form of inner speech where the speech action is aborted even before the intention to talk is implemented by motor commands. We contend that this account provides the best explanation of the distinctive features of the phenomenon, and it helps to understand the sense of agency and ownership associated with it. Finally, we consider a possible objection arising from the experience of unworded inner speech, and we show how our account should inform the debate about cognitive phenomenology.

Why are you talking to yourself? The epistemic role of inner speech in reasoning

“…In order to establish the more radical claim that amodal concepts are never conscious, we would need to examine and explain away phenomena that provide at least prima facie evidence for the contrary position. For example, we would need to discuss and explain the phenomena of unsymbolized thought (Vicente & Martínez-Manrique, 2016), briefly mentioned in the introduction, which is beyond the scope of this paper.…”

The Linguistic Determination of Conscious Thought Contents

“…This would be an episode of UT: an episode involving a thought with a propositional content but with no sensory accompaniment. Thus, in our construal, episodes of UT have as contents precisely the contents that a subject intends to express once they have been structured according to that subject's language (Martínez‐Manrique and Vicente, , Vicente and Martínez‐Manrique, ) , .…”

“…Firstly, the view makes UT continuous not only with inner speech (and, e.g., muttering to oneself), but with other phenomena that Hurlburt and his collaborators have uncovered, such as partially unworded and totally unworded inner speech (see also Martínez‐Manrique and Vicente, ; Vicente and Martínez‐Manrique, ). According to Hurlburt et al., (partially or totally) unworded speech refers to episodes in which subjects regard their inner experience as a variety of inner speech in which there are parts missing.…”

A Theoretical Computer Science Perspective on Consciousness

“…Brainish can express both symbolized and unsymbolized language. See(Hurlburt & Akhter, 2008) and(Vicente & Martínez-Manrique, 2016) for experimental evidence that human inner thought is always one (or two) of 1.speaking, 2.seeing, 3.feeling, 4.sensory awareness, and 5.unsymbolized thinking (such as occurs when looking for a word that's on the tip of the tongue).7 Coincidently, the classical Turing Machine is also defined as a 7-tuple, < Q, Σ, Γ, , q0, qaccept, qreject>, where Q is a finite set of States, Σ is the Input alphabet, Γ is the Tape alphabet,  is the Transition function, q 0 is the Start state, q accept is the Accept state, and q reject is the Reject state.8 Cycling can happen via the Up-Tree competition (section 1.3.3) and the Down-Tree broadcasts (section 1.3.1). In this way, CTM can also keep thoughts alive in STM continuously through many cycles by sending the thought from processor STM processors STM ….© 2020 Blum, Blum & Blum…”