So, if people "see words" when they think them - what did they see before their inner eye when they were kids and couldn't read yet (and therefore couldn't assign meaning to written words).
Not everyone has an internal monologue
111–120 of 904 posts
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#112Could internal monologue a vestige of bicameralism? >Bicameralism[Note 1] (the condition of being divided into "two-chambers") is a hypothesis in psychology that argues that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind.[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicame…
From your own link: > The primary scientific criticism has been that the conclusions drawn by Jaynesv [i.e., bicameralism] had no basis in neuropsychiatric fact.
Weirdly, I think that his theory makes sense without leaning on bicameralism at all. Internal monologues could be a recent development with very few obvious physical changes in the brain that caused it, and the cultural interpretation of it could have changed.
People think of the idea of 'the mind' and 'the self' being obvious and self evident, but they are anything but, and it took a lot of brilliant philosophers and poets to come up with words to talk about it and metaphors to use. It seems completely believable to me that bronze age people did not have a clear understanding of what thought was and what was doing the thinking.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#113This is how I felt when I found out I have Aphantasia
I was like WTF? All these people can make pictures in their head? This is not fair!
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I think that's pretty normal. I do it all the time. I can even "compose" my own music (it can be any genre, with any type of instruments, and even include voices), but I have no ability to play instruments myself. I'd love to get into music, but just don't have the time. My literature professor back in college said he "listened to" classical music in his head during his morning runs. I just assumed everyone did i…
>No, I think that's pretty normal. I do it all the time. [Edit: Currently I "listen" to a lot of Georgios Papadopoulos, heh!] >I can even "compose" my own music I can relate! Unfortunately, I'm totally untrained regarding music. I once tried to enter one of the melodies in my head (simplified) into a music program, and it took forever, because I had to find the correct notes by trial and error: "Not that one. Neither…
I think this kind of trial and error is actually the best way of learning an instrument. My guitar teacher did exactly what you did (but on a keyboard) when he was a kid, and even got feedback from his parents on whether he hit the right keys. He's a hell of a guitar player now, surely among the (subjectively) very best in my country.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#115LSD turns off some people's inner monologue.
Anyway, I'd like to know more about the visible / observable differences between people who have inner monologues and those who don't.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#116Had a writer say "We think in words. Without language, we could not form thoughts". Which is instantly nonsense. I can think of a blue elephant, then the Gettysburg Address. If I'm asked "What did you think of first?" I'd say "a blue elephant". So where was that blue elephant in the mean time? Still in my mind, still a thought. Just not at the surface, not words.
I look at code projects by scrolling through all the source files. When I'm done, I have a shape of the code in my head. Not a thought; not a memorization of the words that scrolled by. Some kind of abstraction. Now I can work on the project. That is certainly "thoughts" but not words.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#117There are also people who code-switch. I sometimes monologue and sometimes think abstractly.
Agreed; I switch between them as well. When I have a monologue running, the most common content is trying out and editing drafts of sentences meant to express thoughts or feelings that have arisen without words. I've worked as a technical writer for somewhere around half of my career. I wonder if that career and my frequent self-editing are somehow causally related (in one direction or the other).
Also, I occasionally seem to stop thinking entirely and just experience sensations, perceptions, and sometimes emotions. I rather like those intervals, and am prone to try to sort of savor them. They generally don't last very long before thoughts start popping up again.
I went to a Buddhist college for a while, and the curriculum included quite a lot of meditation. I wonder sometimes if those episodes without apparent thought are related in some way to the many hours of sitting I did (and still sometimes do). I don't really know, though. Maybe all that sitting taught me how to allow thinking to peter out. Or maybe it taught me to notice when it does and not interfere with the process. Or maybe it's completely unrelated.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#118Unfathomable to me. My mind is constantly racing, playing out different conversations, interviewing myself in a variety of roles to navigate my thoughts on things (one day I'm the president of the US talking about foreign policy, another day I'm a big tech CEO navigating the diversity questions). I constantly have something in my ears to tune myself out, podcasts or music. After being diagnosed w/ ADHD I realize I'm…
It took me until my mid-20s before I realized that not everyone thought this way.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#119Unfathomable to me. My mind is constantly racing, playing out different conversations, interviewing myself in a variety of roles to navigate my thoughts on things (one day I'm the president of the US talking about foreign policy, another day I'm a big tech CEO navigating the diversity questions). I constantly have something in my ears to tune myself out, podcasts or music. After being diagnosed w/ ADHD I realize I'm…
On the other hand, this probably allows you to put yourself in someone else's shoes more easily.
Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue
#120LSD turns off some people's inner monologue. Anyway, I'd like to know more about the visible / observable differences between people who have inner monologues and those who don't.
Very interested in trying LSD or other psychedelics for this reason. I'd love to be able to experience what it's like to shut off my default mode network.