What is happening to you when you think? Are there words in your head? What verb would you use for your interaction with those words?
In other topic, I would consider this as minor evidence of possibility of nonverbal thought “could you pass me that… thing… the thing that goes under the bolt?”. I.e. Exact name eludes me sometimes, but I do know exactly what I need and what I plan to do with it.
> Even if the symbol fails to materialise you can still identify what the symbol refers to via context-clues (analysis)
That is what my partner in the conversation is doing. I am not doing that.
When I think of a plan what’s needed to be done (e.g. something broke in the house, or I need to go to multiple places), usually I know/feel/perceive the gist of my plan instantly. And only after that, I verbalise/visualise it in my head, which takes some time and possibly add more nuance. (Verbalisation/visualisation in my head, is a bit similar to writing things down)
At least for me, there seem to be three (or more) thought processes that complement each other. (Verbal, visual, other)
> we literally don't have the language to figure out how other people perceive things.
you are right, talking about mental processes is difficult.
Nobody knows how exactly other person perceive things, there is no objective way to measure things out.
(Offtopic: describing smell is also difficult)
In this thread, we see that rudimentary language for it exists.
For example: lot of people use sentence like “to hear my own thoughts” and a lot of people understand that fine.
In other topic, I would consider this as minor evidence of possibility of nonverbal thought “could you pass me that… thing… the thing that goes under the bolt?”. I.e. Exact name eludes me sometimes, but I do know exactly what I need and what I plan to do with it.