Sam Iglesias on Warpcast

Sam Iglesias pfp

I’m curious, for those interested in Neuralink type things: why do people assume that the brain can generate thoughts and intentions faster than speech? Speech: 125-150 WPM Typing: 65-75 WPM Wouldn’t we have evolved some level of parity whereby we more or less think in language at roughly the rate of speech?

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Sam Iglesias pfp

Also curious what people think the vehicle of thought is. For general purpose communication, it’s still language, right?

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moreReese pfp

IMO speech can sometimes be an impediment to thought expression. For example, I think “I want to teach you this or that”…often it’s easier to show you vs explain it with words. Jamming comes to mind too. Skilled musicians can improvise complex tunes without speech, solely based on intention to make music.

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rhys pfp

Interesting (Also interested in who assumes this) What would be the quickest way to communicate a spatial reasoning problem to solve? Words, to be read; or symbols? And while that wasn’t your question; does make me curious about how that idea is formed in the mind — word after word (linear), or an image snapshot

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Namekeeper pfp

Re. evolution: the mind is far far older than language. The limbic system is as old as mammals and it’s where much of what we think originates. I think words as a metric by which to measure thoughts is a false premise. Like projecting a sphere onto a plane… think about emoji for instance (or hieroglyphs).

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sean pfp

do you never stumble over your words?

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Phil Cockfield pfp

As I write this, I'm hearing the words in my head as I muddle it out...so that feels like language...but when I'm designing visually say, or doing other abstract reasoning, I don't think it's in sentences.

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Phil Cockfield pfp

Isn't it an issue of translation of the <thought> structure into phonetic language that is being bypassed? I'm guessing here (this is not my area). Of course the other angle is that we may not be thinking (as we know it) without it always being tied into a language primitive.

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Ben O’Rourke pfp

Fascinating question

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Diego Basch pfp

I can type faster than I can think. Output is by far not what limits my productivity.

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Noah Bragg 🔥 pfp

Noah Bragg 🔥

Interesting question.

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Alberto Ornaghi pfp

Alberto Ornaghi

Think about dreaming… while dreaming it seems to pass long time, but actually your REM is just few seconds. That is the thoughts going faster than you can describe with speech.

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Sam (crazy candle person) ✦ pfp

Sam (crazy candle person) ✦

I did my degree in psych and courses in language processing, the TLDR is that your brain knows what you want before you want it, because it has to signal action to the body. There’s a set rate of xyz milliseconds of thoughts to speech, e.g. forming thought takes 1ms, firing takes 2ms, speech production takes 5s etc

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Colin Johnson 💭 pfp

Colin Johnson 💭

Thinking exclusively in words is like using an analog computer when your brain is capable of being a quantum computer via relational and intuitive thoughts. (imo) https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/visual-images-often-intrude-on-verbal-thinking-study-says/

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Branksy Pop pfp

no we're not capped in our speed of thinking by the speed we could express the thoughts into words. there was a study i can't seem to find the reference to that suggested that we have already our answers ready for any dialogue we're into in the first 1-4 seconds once our interlocutor starts speaking.

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Britt Kim pfp

I’m thinking there is some wisdom in the system 1, system 2 distinction. I’d guess system 1 thoughts are much faster than speech. System 2 might only be slightly faster. As for evolution, considering an evolutionary product isn’t necessarily the most efficient, no reason to assume such an optimization.

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Eric Platon pfp

Difficult question, as hitting semantics issues from the start on what thought and intention are. Thought as symbol manipulation is “slow” compared to thought formed from raw sense (contentious wording here too). One reason is that symbols manipulation is often sequential.

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Joe Pedevillano pfp

Joe Pedevillano

Hard to say until we know more about the mind. A first general use case I see is typing on mobile. I’m doing it right now with my thumbs and it’s terribly inefficient

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jmon.eth pfp

Intuitive leaps for the win tho. Ain’t nothing faster than shit you just know know, yknow?

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