Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sdlee at faith.csis.hku.hk> wrote in message
news:7fpux48460.fsf at faith.csis.hku.hk...
[...]
> Anyway, your observation is a pretty typical one: some people think
> more dominantly in words and some people tend to visualize concepts
> more often. I myself fall into the latter group. I find it much
> easier to memorize and make derivations by visualization: a diagram
> beats a thousand words! However, there are times that I think neither
> verbally or visually: When I'm humming a piece of music. When I
> recite the first 200 decimal places of pi, I do it musically: I rely
> on the sounds and (predominantly) tones of the Cantonese pronunciation
> of the 10 digits. So, I can't recite them if I try to do it in
> Mandarin or English.
I have a musical background but had not thought of using it this way,
(and I certainly can't recite pi to 200 decimal places with sheer
memorization). BTW, I have come to realize that I feel in music. Strong
feelings are associated with melodies even when the lyrics are not
clearly remembered. It is almost as if the meaning of a "good" song is
as much in the music as in the words.
>>> Alan> This was novel to me, but I taught myself to visualize
> Alan> concepts, even abstract ones--guess what--my comprehension
> Alan> of the world increased with practice and I suspect my
> Alan> measureable IQ has risen too--(it hasn't been tested
> Alan> recently, but one knows what things are amenable to solution
> Alan> and not).
>> Knowing more methods of thinking (as well as more languages) do
> increase your ability to think. At least, you have more alternatives
> to try, so that you can hit some more effective ones by trial and
> error.
>[...]
Alan
