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Do you think in pictures?

Do you think in pictures or words?

  • I think in Words!

    Votes: 37 18.6%
  • I think in Pictures!

    Votes: 140 70.4%
  • I have no idea what you mean! (This means you should post a reply to the thread)

    Votes: 22 11.1%

  • Total voters
    199
Yeah. I see the big picture and work backwards. But then, I learn the same way; I size up the subject a while so I have a place to hang the details. Used to code some; sections of code came the same way. Guess I never thought of it as different.
 
I dont know if I would call it pictures, but more concepts, I guess imagary, it's memory , but it's very vague, I don't have photographic recall or anything like that. Though I do remember many things, decently.

Right now, I'm thinking about the black and white movie, frankentein 1933, or 32 I think. You know, where they storm the building , and they burn it to the ground, You know, the big scary monster, that has to be killed, Cause it's very scary,and causing a lot of distress in the community, amongst the town folk. So I guess, I do think visually. But it's all very amorphous.
 
What I do for work definitely only happens because I think this way. I, too, work backwards, but I learned the process studying how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pulled off the Sherlock Holmes novels. I wanted to understand that man's genius, and so I dug in a lot to find out.
 
I was delighted with the Sherlock Holmes method, too. The author received quite a few pleas for help in legal cases, and did take up a few. He save one man who was obviously innocent, but it took him ten years to teach the logic to the necessary parties.
 
For me, I would say it is like thinking in imagery. If I can imagine how some things work or if I have seen something like it before, I can typically figure things out. The irony of my having issues with paying attention is that I tend to retain things by seeing how they work after doing them or watching others do something a few times. The same can be said about directions. I suck at directions if I don't have landmarks that relate to roads, intersections, etc. I tend to prioritize buildings or objects over street names and only start remembering street names after being familiar enough with my surroundings.
 
Yesterday, I was planning how to smooth out an uneven edge with the best appearance, and least waste and effort. I did a quick sketch of how I first thought of doing it. That suggested an improvement, which gave less waste but much more work. Then I saw a far better solution. A few hours later, while congratulating myself, I got another idea, and the sketch showed it was the "obvious" solution. - Easy, economical, and attractive, and also solved a minor problem all the other solutions had over the width of the saw cut.
I guess it is an iterative process. I try to draw what I'm thinking of, and then get better ideas from the things that show up on the paper.
 
What do you mean "think in words?" Or do you mean your first innate response to a lets say "apple."

Did you picture the word apple then a picture of an apple? Is that what you mean?

To think in words doesn't make sense because a word is just letter strung together and seeing/thinking the word "apple" is essentially a picture in it of itself so to me in my opinion doesn't make sense unless we are specifically prioritizing seeing the picture of apple spelled out. Excuse my spiraling.

I think in pictures, schematics, pattern assessment... like this haha
1684855333792.png
 
I think in synaesthesia. For apple I see the colour of the word which is influenced by the colour of each letter. I don't see an apple shape. I can't picture things because I have aphantasia.
 
it kinda feels like a mix of both for me? i dont really know how to describe it : oP personally i never understand when people ask about thinking in pictures or words because i never know if they mean seeing or hearing words when they think lol
the way im gonna go with to describe it is that i usually think in loose concepts and emotions. when i think of something, it's usually just the way it feels to me. this happens with a lot of my memories, too--i can think of a vague image for some, but mostly it's just how i feel about it or felt then. it's a lot easier to place what it is i think in when i'm listening to music, though! the emotions/loose concepts are still there but otherwise it's usually all images : o)
if there's some easier explanation for this i have yet to find it. it might be some kind of aphantasia, it might be because i've had 2 bouts of covid and havent had entirely the same brain function since, or maybe it's just not crossing my mind right now and i already know hot to explain it without actually remembering (if that makes sense)
 
I visualize concepts in the form of abstract shapes made of interlinking lines of light.

The shape is totally unrelated to the physical world, but I can follow the lines to figure out where problems or contradictions are. I don't know how it works, but it does.

I sometimes work as an artist and can mentally rotate 3d objects in my imagination - a hugely useful art skill, and it makes a lot of puzzle games easy.
 
Visually is not really pictures a misnomer. For me things just connect I can see the connections pictures is just a crude analogy.
 
Here is an example of how I do it in my previous position I made and designed ink formulas. think of each pigment as a pendulum, swiping out a colour, now add a second pigment it lengthens pendulum sweeping out a new colour , now add a third pigment. it does not lengthen the pendulum but rather acts as a second pendulum attached to the first the colour is not repeatable. Actually, it is chaotic. these are the kind of things I can just see, just reformulate the ink I look like a genius.my mind is able to connect obscure thing others would not remotely see as connected. I do this without even thinking. why asking me questions can be very confusing for others. But perfectly normal for me
 
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I visualize concepts in the form of abstract shapes made of interlinking lines of light.

The shape is totally unrelated to the physical world, but I can follow the lines to figure out where problems or contradictions are. I don't know how it works, but it does.

I sometimes work as an artist and can mentally rotate 3d objects in my imagination - a hugely useful art skill, and it makes a lot of puzzle games easy.
I love the sound of that.
I may have already posted in this thread, if I could telepathically send people pictures rather than describe something, I would love that, but don't tell Elon Musk as he will have some transhumanist idea to make that happen :)
 
keeping with my colour control never worry about the colour but rather the colour tolerance. most people see a tolerance as circle much like a target for shooting. The trick is how close can you get to centre I see an sphere or even an egg. in colour it's about how close you can get to the centre. in other word how do I stop the bullet at the end of its flight ink is not a bullet what I'm looking for is the end of it's, colour development. How can I determine the maximum colour development I have a background in Engineering along with formal education in pigment dispersion, how could I combine both to basically stop the bullet at the centre of a three-dimensional target easy t to see the connection? a bit of lab equipment? Some SPC again genius second nature to me. Nothing proprietary about it to do it you need my clone not many of us around.
 
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I visualize concepts in the form of abstract shapes made of interlinking lines of light.

The shape is totally unrelated to the physical world, but I can follow the lines to figure out where problems or contradictions are. I don't know how it works, but it does.

I sometimes work as an artist and can mentally rotate 3d objects in my imagination - a hugely useful art skill, and it makes a lot of puzzle games easy.
Similar here. I think in terms of models. Personally I don't have a visual representation in my head but I do have the sensation of them being objects to be manipulated. From them I get impressions of qualities and relationships. Essentially a metagraph.
 

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