I was staring blankly at my desk thinking about how to overcome a programming task at work when it suddenly dawned on me I had spent the best part of half an hour trying to envision how this problem could be solved. This got me thinking, why is it thoughts have to take a non-zero length of time to occur? What is the process in the mind that causes it to be slow, almost as if I were to be speaking the thoughts aloud? Is our thought process just wildly inefficient?
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2This seems like an awkwardly conceptualized question to me because it appears you are equating nonzero length of time with slow. Why would you expect a thought process or series of thoughts to take no time? – Krysta Jul 21 '16 at 14:43
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1According to a popular theory in cognitive psychology called Dual Process Theory, there are at least 2 systems or types of "thinking" - fast and slow. Fast thinking does happen nearly instantaneously - arguably the vast majority of decision-making that one does in a day uses this system. You may be asking about slow thinking, in which case I would recommend adjusting the question accordingly. – Arnon Weinberg Jul 21 '16 at 17:56
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There are other ways to think, some of which are strikingly fast, compared to what you are describing. The term "noetic" or "noesis" describes this fast, high processing capacity thinking – Alex Stone Jul 22 '16 at 15:53