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Firstly....I just got here. Poking around. Hi.
With which criteria could we use to determine whether an attempt to 'think without words' was successful? Is there a threshold one could overcome where they could say 'I've done it.....NOW I'm thinking without words"? Wouldn't such a threshold be completely determined subjectively without any sort of verification available? "I think I'm thinking without words".
Also, if I attempt to critically analyze the medium of my own thought process....most likely an impossible thing to do......the characterization that my thoughts are in 'words' is hard to justify. The concepts of mentalese or private language have sought to describe the medium of our thoughts and have had their problems too.
A last thing, the first sentence of your post seems to suggest that language consists solely of words. And we must stop here to clarify that the sobs of a crying person are still part of 'language' even though no 'words' are spoken. Is there a tangible difference between a sob/crying wail and the statement 'I'm sad"? Human language was born from grunts and crude mouth noises. To distinguish between a 'word' and an appropriately understood 'grunt' or vocal sound is highly problematic.