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Not everyone has an internal monologue

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#681

Post by collyw »

40acres wrote: post #105

Unfathomable 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…

Did you every try meditating? Most styles (that I know of) involve trying to quieten the mind, or train you not to grasp onto thoughts and run with them. Instead just let them arise and fade away. That's assuming you would be interested in changing this. (It's certainly beneficial when someone has annoyed you and you can't get it out of you head for the rest of the day).

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#682

Post by collyw »

bananamerica wrote: post #544
_y5hn wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you think less you may be open to more possibilities, be more spontaneous and even have some childlike fun. However, others can be taken aback and even suspect ulterior motives, until you harmonize better with others.

Thinking less can be advantageous for situations that welcome spontaneity, thinking more is very useful for all the others.

> thinking more is very useful for all the others.

Is it? Buddhist monks would likely disagree with you.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#683

Post by ALittleLight »

bananamerica wrote: post #542
pazimzadeh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be like that, and it was helpful in many ways as I seemed to always be ready for wherever a conversation might go. But I wasn't living in the moment. Now I actively stop myself from simulating the various branches of potential conversations. It feels good to live in the moment (shaking my head a little when I feel it starting helps). The downside is that I don't have as many prepared responses and am more e…

On the other hand, it is so satisfying when a conversation hits a branch you worked on for hours on end! Very useful for dating and job interviews. Especially for people with foot-in-mouth disease [1] [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/foot-in-mouth_disease

While I do play out a lot of conversations and branches in my head, my imagined lines of conversation never really play out in reality. I find for example that my imagined conversations are a lot more hostile, I'm always imagining having to battle and batter my coworkers and managers to explain why things are the way they are - but in person I find that not only are others nicer than I imagined they would be, but I am too. I'll plot the cutting things to say, but in reality I realize that such things would be wholly inappropriate and undeserved and I don't really want to be mean anyway.

For me, this tendency is more of a problem online. This is because I can simply plot out a conversation and then write it the way I planned. It's something I need to be mindful of, to restrain my inner-jerk not just in person but online too.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#685

Post by caymanjim »

rsl7 wrote: post #666
caymanjim wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I used to from time to time imagine my half of a conversation in which I was showing around someone notable who had traveled through time to get to the present day. Maybe someone from 1,000 years ago or maybe from 50. That is, for entertainment, not to cope with anything. I never felt like my imagination was quite good enough to turn it into fiction. I do this all the time. It's usually Ben Franklin, but sometimes…

I had no idea other people do this too. To me, it doesn't even feel intentional.

Same. I'll be driving along or walking down the street and my mind will wander to "I wonder what Franklin would think about cars. How do I even explain how they work? And let's not even get into cellphones." Faraday is another common target. It's always someone I could picture having a beer with, rather than some interminable boor (I imagine) like Newton.

The "tour" description is perfect; I'm always explaining or showing the person around or something. I imagine there's some ego component here; I only have a popular-science level understanding of these things, and my explanations would only be interesting to someone from the past or otherwise detached from society (which is also something I think about).

This all manifests as a bit of a mind game or thought experiment; it's not as though I'm actually conversing with the person. It's almost entirely one-sided: me imagining how I might explain the world to someone smart and curious but without any modern scientific knowledge.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#686

Post by _y5hn »

WJW wrote: post #352
_y5hn wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now your read this sentence in Darth Vader voice. Not the first time though.

Just wanted to comment that I don't seem to be able to do internal Darth Vader voice. No idea why.

Maybe these are easier:

Arnold Schwazenegger: "I'll Be Back!"

Aqua Lene: "I'm a barbie girl, in a barbie world. It's fantastic, it's all plastic!"

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#687

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

bananamerica wrote: post #542
pazimzadeh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be like that, and it was helpful in many ways as I seemed to always be ready for wherever a conversation might go. But I wasn't living in the moment. Now I actively stop myself from simulating the various branches of potential conversations. It feels good to live in the moment (shaking my head a little when I feel it starting helps). The downside is that I don't have as many prepared responses and am more e…

On the other hand, it is so satisfying when a conversation hits a branch you worked on for hours on end! Very useful for dating and job interviews. Especially for people with foot-in-mouth disease [1] [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/foot-in-mouth_disease

> Very useful for dating

Really? By far the most useful thing for dating seems to be the ability to be in the moment while conversing and being able to feel the flow of feelings and emotions - that's what makes a good interpersonal intimate conversation good and speeds up any dating goals one might have... Overthinking stuff, or even thinking a lot in general (while conversing) - does not.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#688

Post by not_kurt_godel »

okareaman wrote: post #574
pazimzadeh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be like that, and it was helpful in many ways as I seemed to always be ready for wherever a conversation might go. But I wasn't living in the moment. Now I actively stop myself from simulating the various branches of potential conversations. It feels good to live in the moment (shaking my head a little when I feel it starting helps). The downside is that I don't have as many prepared responses and am more e…

That sounds like hell to me. I don't have an internal monolog. I think in visuals. I am a quiet person. I am a better programmer for it I think. I visualize the structure of a program I am writing and pair programming would also be hell for me.

I definitely am capable of thinking non-verbally, and I agree it can help with programming. But I just can't wrap my head around not having an internal monologue at all. How did you even write this comment? What was the process that led you to put together this particular series of words, if not 'hearing' them in your own mind as an expression of your thoughts first?

Edit: Thinking on this more, I may not have had an internal monologue when I was younger. I recall when I was maybe 11 or 12, I had a sudden, distinct moment of increased self-awareness, after which my internal monologue became my predominant mode of thinking. My first thought was that all of my mental activity up till that time had been in a fog, and that I really hadn't even been a fully conscious being. I crossed some kind of cognitive rubicon which my previous self couldn't even understand. I assumed this was a normal phase of mental development at the time, but now I'm curious if others have had similar experiences.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#689

Post by Out_of_Characte »

neltnerb wrote: post #575
40acres wrote: post #105

Unfathomable 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…

My thinking was... 1. Each time I review a concept or memory it lost information, so the most "honest" conception of something I could have was an unblemished impression lightly touched. 2. So can I just let feelings and thoughts flow around without letting it turn into words? 3. I found that while my comprehension didn't appreciably decrease, I still did fine in classes and homework, I had more trouble explaining co…

I hear voices and see visuals of other people with extreme clarity in my head. I thought everyone had that given I couldn't comprehend how you would discuss and/or reason about things without conjuring up a representation of that thing.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#690

Post by saberdancer »

CriticalCathed wrote: post #432
meowface wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some theories that the brain may effectively contain more than one "proto-consciousness" (or perhaps some of them are actually "fully conscious"). Maybe 2 or 3, maybe a whole lot of them. If this is true, then when you have an internal "dialogue", you may be literally conversing with different sapient "beings". If so, who's actually the "you" there? Are you one of them, or all of them, or just kind of obser…

I think that the bicameral mind hypothesis makes sense. Oh, and the phenomena wherein the disconnection of the hemispheres of the brain results in strange cognitive artifacts such as being able to give two different answers to one question, even questions like "what is your favorite color," points to at the very least some kind of parallel consciousness. Another hypothesis is that one hemisphere is the "speaking" bra…

Your disconnection example doesn't imply parallel consciousness to me, it implies extreme flexibility of a general intelligence processor in our heads. This theory seems to be field proven with many example of people suffering massive head trauma yet their brain was able to continue functioning.
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