Non-Linguistic thinking can be defined predominantly as thinking without words.
But, I would like to go a step further, to also define it as thinking without sounds, images and other familiar types of representation. The key characteristic in non-linguistic thinking, would be the emergence of an idea in its entire form in conscious awareness.
The emergence of an idea, could metaphorically be represented as an bubble or a packet. While the bubble or packet contains the entirety of the idea it is not yet linguistically apprehensible. That is to say that it would take a while before you could unpack the idea linguistically and therefore present it in a fashion most people are familiar with i.e. through language.
To give an example, a bubble might arise in your conscious awareness which contains the whole idea of how a bicycle is created. The bubble contains every detail and step on how one ought to proceed to create a bicycle. It might not seem like this yet, only after the fact of converting that idea into language, as to so describe the entire process of the idea, can one regard as an idea.
I consider this to be a movement in thinking analogous to the movements you make with your body. The bubble of the idea: ‘’I ought to grab that cup of coffee’’ will arise in its full entirety. No one seems to regard this as a problem of definition, you could describe how the movement in the arm works through sensory input and neurological processing, but that doesn’t make you or me any better at moving our arms, nor does it subtract from the elegance and simplicity pertaining the structure of our physical make up.
I would however say that to convert the tacit idea a bubble of a thought or for that matter a movement of the physical body into tangible language, would require a certain mental stamina. The activity of the depletion of this mental stamina could be categorized as conscious thinking. Furthermore, one cannot unpack the idea bubble without having a subtle mind. I would therefore classify this non-linguistic thinking as I just described as: having subtle thoughts. These subtle thoughts are presented in idea bubbles or packets, keep in mind these are only metaphors. Some people might perceive the presentation of the entirety of an idea to their conscious awareness differently.
I think it is a sign of intelligence and creativity to be able to perceive thoughts in their purest form, that is to say, the birth of the thoughts without the description of those thoughts in any form of representation we are familiar with. It requires an intelligent mind, to perceive this deeply into the depths of their own consciousness. I would regard the perceiving of idea or thought bubbles as the individual consciousness perceiving the in between of where thoughts come from(unconscious location?) and where thoughts arrive to(consciousness awareness).These movements of thoughts can be stimulated by external unconscious or conscious perception. Whether the movements of thoughts can also be stimulated in an isolated manner by internal triggers, is not clear yet.
Suppose, the individual takes a stroll around the block, and is thinking about a philosophical problem. Suddenly he hears a noise or perceives a leaf falling from a tree, unconsciously or consciously, and it reminds the individual of something else in his mind that subtle connects to what he was thinking. Because, of this external stimulus the individual begins to form a new pattern of thought, and therefore perhaps a solution he was looking for. Moreover, I have seen some people have different and similar names to these types of thoughts. I forgot the name of who coined this term, but an individual who wrote on creativity, defined these bubbles as implicto spheres. I personally like to call them idea bubbles.
