Is it possible to learn to read and/or think without sub-vocalising each word?

I find Peters answer to thinking and subvocalising quiet interesting.

I think so. I can read a fair bit of Chinese for meaning with no idea what the pronunciation is.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-learn-to-read-and-or-think-without-sub-vocalizing-each-word/answer/Peter-Dixie

It gives me the impression that Chinese characters are mainly pictorial and you can get meaning from it by just looking at the pictorial representation of the writing. It is like trying to understand the meaning of a painting in a gallery or a museum as to what its intention or meaning of its form in the composition is meant to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the Chinese character for Art:

 

 

 

 

I especially like this representation of fine art from a Chinese website on Art:

“It refers to the integration and balance of skills, willingness, imagination, experience and other comprehensive human factors to create objects, environments, images, movements or The expression of sound, in order to share the beauty or deep emotions and consciousness of human beings with others to express the process of both perception and precipitation and presentation of individual or group experience”

It is especially appreciative when the word for Art is itself Art.

Having said that, let’s look at the English Alphabet: Art.

A is A and R is R and T is T – ART

ART has no pictorial meaning except what is in the mind to conjure up a meaning and perhaps that is why we have to silently sub-vocalise our words of our thinking for the brain to know what we are thinking for us to have to think at all. The brain has to hear us thinking for it to know what we are thinking so it can spin up an image or images for us as in image-a-nation. So this anomaly in us where we have to silently speak what we are thinking to have to think at all might actually be language specific. This anomaly had evolved in us mainly because of the way our language of English was invented to create specific words that have meaning to it and the BRAIN HAS TO HEAR that word (because it has no pictorial meaning) to it to create an image for the word in your mind.

Hence perception is image making. The way we understand things is from a word meaning to image making and hence perception, imagination and understanding. But if a language is already built around an image then the brain does not have to silent speak what it is reading or thinking for the brain to understand what it wants, as in the Chineses language. One just looks at the image and it knows its meaning.

It will be interesting to know if a Chinese can read or think silently without having to sub-vocalise everything they read.

If you look at this: New Scientist says that 60% of us experience “inner speech” where everyday thoughts take a back-and-forth conversational style. I always wondered why 60%? surely all of us do it. I wonder if this 60% correlates with the people in the world who use the alphabet to create words that need to be sounded by silent sub-vocal speech for the brain to make sense of it and hence the evolutionary process as a result of their language structure has gone on to develop psychological thinking as an evolutionary side-effect.

It is possible that the Chinese don’t sub-vocalise their thinking. What other languages are pictorial in nature and hence possibly don’t need to sub-vocalise what they think, or read and hence have cultivated a more silent mind overall and hence have a better connection with the cosmos and their spirit or their intangible aspects of human nature and perhaps more complete in themselves as a person, or as a people. Is it ridiculously possible that we are all not made the same! Hence how will the human species progress into the future or what are the advantages for the future of humankind and who will have the advantage to evolve and progress to the extremes of the mind:

Or is it an advantage to hear oneself think, such that recognising the phenomenon is important for the mind to progress away from the cliff top of the many to the few highly developed sense of knowing while being able to communicate with the environment as an advantage.

If you will permit me another observation. Let us look at this information about language and the development of the mind. Why do some of us have to “speak think” while some the language is pictorial in nature and hence to them thinking is more like an observation. or a kind of awareness.

Let us look at the countries involved and see if there is a correlation of any sort.

Ok, so the Chinese language is pictorial in nature and hence thinking is more like an observation. Look at the countries that have similar kind of language: China, South Korea, North Korea, Japan and Singapore – all highly successful countries. In China, I had read where workers are allowed to innovate in their work and if a more efficient method is discovered by altering the machinery or process, the companies that their work encourages such innovative thinking and make changes gladly accordingly. Such is the case is road building and laying of railway tracks and in construction. Hence innovation is a continual process. Their minds are open to everything all the time. China, Singapore, Japan and South Korea are successful innovators.

Then there is North Korea that we don’t know much about but they are what the Chinese communist government was before it decided to change its ways and choose a faster pace of life. Perhaps North Korea is in some way an embodiment of the kind of mind that their language has allowed them to develop – looking at it as a base state of the Chinese kind of mind. The mind through their language has developed to innovate through silence and Eureka Moments like of that of a trained artist, rather than one of controlled thinking and imagination and the slow frontline of discoveries. They would have had a lot of training in this method just because of the pictorial nature of their language.

India is very similar in spirit as are the Chinese. I gather that there was a time in their past their mystics would meet to share discoveries of the mind. Buddha, Lao Tze, Confucius, Krishna all of the same kind of mind. India also has some great innovative minds and somewhat like the Chinese, yet they are somehow in my mind seem to have a tinge slightly more chaos about them and almost like but different from China. I wonder if it is the way their language is structured which has an explanation for this difference.

Then there is America, Europe, the United Kingdom and the alphabet speaking countries. The word is the meaning in the dictionary, rather in the image of the writing itself. One having to silently speak what they are thinking to have to think at all, while the other its language requires a kind of observation of the characters in their language to understand the meaning of that “word” or character.

This is not a not a small difference between the races – it is the way their brains and minds would have developed that is not the same as the other. The Chinese kind of mind would be more observational and awareness orientated when it tries to understand a problem because their language would have thought them this in a massive important way to be like this in mind.

Then there are the alphabet thinkers, where the word is not the thing until the mind conjures up an image and where the brain can only do this when it hears what the individual is thinking and hence their thinking is really sub-vocal speech. They either speak loudly so they can hear you via their hearing at 20 Hertz to 20 KHertz hearing range or they silently have to speak what they are thinking for them to be thinking at all, so their brain can hear them to understand what they are thinking. This is an anomaly in the alphabet thinkers. Thinking and sub-vocal speech are linked and if sub-vocal speech is absent then they cannot think. What results is only silence in their mind. This is the advantage of the alphabet thinkers – they have a sure way to bring silence to their minds. This is what the mantra does in cross-legged meditation. It distracts the mind away from thinking to bring silence to the mind. The alphabet thinkers have a valuable tool at hand to control thinking in their minds – but they have to see this advantage to use it.

But art can show you the pattern:

The Chinese already have it in their language. They have nothing to discover for them to silence their minds as their language will already have allowed them that advantage but the alphabet thinkers will have to come to it.

Are we all really made the same? Is there a reason why we have placed borders around our countries to keep others out or is there an advantage to mix and match, curry with chips and some Soy Sauce mixed with hummus with avocado oil as a dip.

One-world-one-government. The future. Bringing the different minds together to work as one but thinking differently.

When you think you have seen it all then something pops-up in your mind to add to the missing puzzle. Manifesting a probability:

This observation of mine came after reading this link below.

Peter Dixie’s answer to Is it possible to learn to read and/or think without sub-vocalizing each word?

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-learn-to-read-and-or-think-without-sub-vocalizing-each-word/answer/Siri-Perera

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