quentin comments on Describe the ways you can hear/see/feel yourself think. - Less Wrong

11 Post author: Dmytry 27 January 2012 02:32PM

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Comment author: quentin 27 January 2012 09:19:42PM *  2 points [-]

I can read much, much faster than I can think words, and yet I still hear (at least some of) the words.

I can mentally replay any sense I've experienced. I sometimes get appropriate physiological responses, such as my mouth watering when imagining food. I can hear music, see movies. The resolution of any of this isn't very good. I wouldn't normally say I can actually experience these things, I do because I can't grok how else one would imagine a cow without "mentally seeing" something like a cow; but apparently this is the case (?).

I am bad at manipulating numbers. As far as I can tell, either I have something memorized (e.g. multiplication tables) or I graphically visualize writing the problem out, long-hand, on paper, complete with all the steps you learned in 3rd grade like crossing out digits when you borrow. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this... the most inefficient virtual machine that ever was.

On the other hand, I have amazing (low-end at least) intuition. Actually, most all of the problem solving and "real thinking" I do is a complete mystery to me. This is causing problems for my research, as in lower education (which I consider as everything through undergrad) I never had to study, or even think methodically. I just squint my eyes and the answers comes out of the ether.