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The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

nytimes.com

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Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#91

Post by jansho »

bhrgunatha wrote: post #69
__jal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it isn't even vocalizing - I discovered that forcing things into words helps me troubleshoot after noticing that I solved my own problems after giving up and composing an email to someone to ask for help. The act of describing the problem in written form allowed me to see what I was missing. Since noticing that, I started doing it fairly, and not just with programming. At some point, I realized I was keeping…

Writing things down - or sketching or using mind-maps (not software but actually drawing your own manually) - seems to have an amazing effect on the brain. We haven't been writing long (in evolutionary terms) so I wonder why that is?

I think that the stuff in our mind is mostly abstract. We absorb things from the world all the time, conscious and unconscious, and make conscious and unconscious connections between them.

Thinking aloud, whether in the mind, on paper or even vocally, helps us to identify some of these points, and thus quantify a meaning from it. There's only so many points that we can mentally hold though - we're not good multi-taskers after all! So the better we can think aloud, the better we can consciously grab thoughts and identify the real gaps - which we can fill in by searching/ creating more points in our mind, or go external.

Hmm, just thinking aloud though ;)

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#92

Post by wingerlang »

taneq wrote: post #85
i336_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would actually be an answerable question, because of SO's draft mechanism. Opens new tab Sound of typing https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/296990/what-are-the... I've been thinking along the same lines for a very long time. Thanks for the inspiration to finally ask!

That's awesome! If they have a big enough database of half-typed-then-abandoned questions, do you think it would be possible to train an RNN (or something) to read a post in progress and predict at what point the answer should be obvious to you?

Not the same, but while writing the title it suggest other posts.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#93

Post by jansho »

suneilp wrote: post #50
alistproducer2 wrote: post #21

I grew up an only child and so in absence of anyone else, I learned to talk to myself instead. I naturally have a busy mind and over the years I've found that getting a thought out of my head is the quickest way to get it out of the way. I've had anxiety issues over the years. One day I was feeling a bit anxious and suddenly the idea came over me to just try to shut off my inner voice - completely. I focused on tryin…

When I started meditating more often, I kept getting distracted by miscellaneous thoughts. At first I fought it to get back to the "quiet mind" but that was frustrating. And I would angrily judge myself for the distraction. I got tired of beating myself up and then I recognized that these distractions were the short and long term problems such as conflicts at work within the last few days, or deep seated trauma, like…

> I stopped resisting the distractions

I echo this and many others here. Fighting back to "cure" yourself is almost always counterproductive and very, very painful. Think long-term instead, and think management; let it happen but guide it with the aim of having ultimate control over it.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#94

Post by anc84 »

wjdp wrote: post #18
__jal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it isn't even vocalizing - I discovered that forcing things into words helps me troubleshoot after noticing that I solved my own problems after giving up and composing an email to someone to ask for help. The act of describing the problem in written form allowed me to see what I was missing. Since noticing that, I started doing it fairly, and not just with programming. At some point, I realized I was keeping…

When writing SO questions I tend to only press the submit button 5–10% of the time before realising my error (typically something mundane). The act of putting the problem into words, along with writing up a good background of the problem (as you should for a good question) often forces an objective viewpoint/reevaluation of the problem.

Consider posting and answering yourself. I found myself searching for the same problem months later and once I found my own answer.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#95

Post by Broken_Hippo »

beilabs wrote: post #81

My father used to say; first sign of madness was talking to yourself, second sign of madness was replying to your conversation and the third sign....hairy palms. I talk to myself all the time, it's about more structuring my thoughts. I also swear to myself all the time. Self swearing is quite frequent.

I heard this, then I heard an updated version:

A sign of mental illness is when you talk to yourself, but think the person answering you (in your head) is someone else.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#96

Post by Broken_Hippo »

jpindar wrote: post #56
BadassFractal wrote: post #47

I remember Sam Harris pointing out in his book on consciousness and meditation just how absurd it is that we regularly have conversations with ourselves. "Hmm, I wonder where I left the keys, they must be on the kitchen table, nope, man I'm going to be late to work again..". Who is the interlocutor? Does the thing we're talking to already not have all of the information the speaker has? If we saw someone have this co…

There are many times when I don't have an internal monologue. I can't imagine what it would be like to have one all the time.

I can't imagine not having one. I don't mind having it most of the time. The biggest problem is that during some tasks, I can't always catch what folks say. For example, I read and write with my internal dialogue dictating the entire time. When someone speaks and interrupts me, I often have to ask them to repeat themselves.

In other words, it is really strong - To the point that when I first tried meditating, I found it extremely frustrating. The instructions I had didn't tell me what to do with the inner monologue. Somehow I was supposed to concentrate on breath without using it and I honestly couldn't figure out how to go about such a thing. I've never really understood why folks want to be without it.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#97

Post by majewsky »

jboggan wrote: post #79
mowenz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone's workplace promote rubber duck debugging? It seems to have a lot of positive press, and it works for me--though I'm cautious of talking to myself at work before knowing if it would come across negatively.

I haven't been in such a workplace but I wish that I would have. Would you use "rubber ducky debugging as a service" - like a chat service that stimulated you to find your own solutions?

M-x doctor

"Is it because of the loop condition that you came to me?"

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#98

Post by vldx »

suneilp wrote: post #50
alistproducer2 wrote: post #21

I grew up an only child and so in absence of anyone else, I learned to talk to myself instead. I naturally have a busy mind and over the years I've found that getting a thought out of my head is the quickest way to get it out of the way. I've had anxiety issues over the years. One day I was feeling a bit anxious and suddenly the idea came over me to just try to shut off my inner voice - completely. I focused on tryin…

When I started meditating more often, I kept getting distracted by miscellaneous thoughts. At first I fought it to get back to the "quiet mind" but that was frustrating. And I would angrily judge myself for the distraction. I got tired of beating myself up and then I recognized that these distractions were the short and long term problems such as conflicts at work within the last few days, or deep seated trauma, like…

Curious, after reaching the point where you had significantly higher level of self-awareness, have you noticed any alterations in the way you talk to yourself internally, i.e. the tone of your inner voice?

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#99

Post by majewsky »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #90
tokyokawasemi wrote: post #35

This is also super useful for learning a second language. I once met a dude in China without much of a noticable accent. I asked him if he had lived abroad, to which he replied that he had never been outside the country. He just regular talked to himself in English in his head. I'm sure other factors contributed to his strong English, but I found this really interesting and started trying it with Chinese (which I was…

Personally, I believe the mark of proficiency in a language is the point when you start thinking directly in it - when you stop explicitly translating to it from your native language.

That weird moment when you're not a native English speaker, lying in bed at night, pondering an open question while trying to fall asleep, then suddenly thinking to yourself: "Wait, why'm I thinking in English?"

For me, it seems to happen most often when I remember a certain word or phrase in English only, which causes my thought stream to switch languages.

Re: The Benefits of Talking to Yourself

#100

Post by TeMPOraL »

majewsky wrote: post #99
TeMPOraL wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I believe the mark of proficiency in a language is the point when you start thinking directly in it - when you stop explicitly translating to it from your native language.

That weird moment when you're not a native English speaker, lying in bed at night, pondering an open question while trying to fall asleep, then suddenly thinking to yourself: "Wait, why'm I thinking in English?" For me, it seems to happen most often when I remember a certain word or phrase in English only, which causes my thought stream to switch languages.

Yes. At first it was weird, but then I got used to it.

The thing is, nowadays I read and write much more in English than in my native tongue, so there's an ever-increasing amount of things I default to thinking about in English. I also tend to switch languages on the fly in my thoughts, depending on which one "feels" better at any given moment.

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