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Not everyone has an internal monologue

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Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#801

Post by injb »

xenomachina wrote: post #364
thinkingemote wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine the answer would be; the same way you would talk about the concepts out loud to someone else.

So how do you think about something that you can't describe to someone else? There are many things I can deeply understand, but turning that understanding into natural language takes considerable effort. Are people with internal monologues incapable of understanding things they can't verbalize? Or is it that their brain just instantly verbalizes thoughts after the thoughts have already been formed? The latter seems a…

This is good question. Personally I have a hard time imagining what it's like to have a deep understanding of something non-trivial without having arrived at that understanding through language.

Let me ask you this though: how do you know you understand it? If you've never rendered your idea into language, or seen/heard it put that way, then it has never been criticized or vetted by anyone else.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#802

Post by mannykannot »

abathur wrote: post #663
mannykannot wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW it does not seem like any of the above for me. It is more like I am rehearsing what I would say if I chose to do so. That does not come across as a voice to me.

Say to who, when, why? I wouldn't include thinking through upcoming conversations, texts, tweets, emails, posts, presentations, or phone calls. Let's say you need to run three errands and eat dinner on the way home. How do you decide what to do when, and make sure you have what you need?

To no-one in particular. It is as if I were going to speak my thoughts on whatever the topic of the moment is. To me, that seems very different to listening to a voice. Thre's no homunculus, virtual or otherwise, telling me what to think.

I wrote elsewhere that this might just be an illusion - how it seems to me when, and only when, I am paying attention to what it is like to think.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#803

Post by pier25 »

warent wrote: post #611
pier25 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that a heartbeat is an involuntary reflex but I don't see how you can compare that to the mind chatter which is AFAIK related to cognition much like the rest of your thoughts and mental processes. Not only that, your inner monologue is completely unique to you. Probably from a part that you do not identify with which is why I was asking.

Ah, okay I see what you're saying! If you consider a young, attractive person who identifies with their beauty, eventually when they age and likely lose that beauty they once perceived, they end up feeling like they have lost themselves--or at least some huge aspect of themselves--and suffer greatly because of it. Alternatively, if they recognize their looks are just a transient thing that is not their identity, then…

I know what you are talking about. Did zazen daily for years when I was younger.

Personally I found that detachment and identification are two different things. I do identify with mind chatter or emotions as part of me but I try to not get carried away by those things. As they say, this too shall pass.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#804

Post by jddj »

hoseja wrote: post #730
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not the parent, but the general process would be: form a kernel of a thought, this is largely subconscious process. This thought is made up of meaning-and-context-rich symbols specific to my mind. Refine this thought, resolving contradictions and various logical weakpoints. Translate this thought into speech, losing much of the information content because language is a tool created to holler at your fellow hominids a…

I'm not lacking internal monologue, but this resonated with me.

Often I can feel that I have a complex idea more or less nailed down, but it's an effort to stop and put things into words, even internally.

Other times though even an internal monologue isn't enough to tease out the edge cases or weigh the tradeoffs, and I need to write stream-of-consciousness style.

Different styles of problems lend themselves to different approaches, I think

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#805

Post by spurgu »

keymone wrote: post #735
kthartic wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so you are thinking numbers then?

you don't think "one" every time you do something once. just like that you can train to not think "one-two" and not to think "one-two three-four" and so on. gets harder the larger the number, but it's a matter of practice.

Like bars in music? Like I can put on the metronome to, say, tic-toc-toc-toc (different sound on 1 vs 2/3/4) and will intuitively know when I've hit 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 bars. I just feel it. I might be able to use this method for counting, just hearing clicks, and count to 16 bars or something, while doing whatever else, even though I am like Feynman in not being able to talk out loud while counting.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#806

Post by mattlondon »

raducu wrote: post #791
mattlondon wrote: post #788

I would say I do both...but also what about "visual"? :-) E.g. when programming I often "see" patterns and shapes of code/data. Its not like a photographic memory and its hard to explain - I'm not "seeing" something I am used to seeing with my eyes (like actual code or whatever) but I have this sort of visual concept in my head of what the data is "shaped like" and I can "see" it. Hopefully this wont be taken as a bi…

Of course you are "seeing" patterns of code, structure and so on. Just like a mechanic is seeing or, a sportsman is seeing his next moves and so on. Even blind people "see" the same way, they still have a visual cortex and understand spatial relationships. So I'm pretty sure if someone did not have this type of "sight", they would have very low IQ.

It is not "seeing" in the same way as visualising things. The way I would visualise assembling a flat-pack wardrobe or something feels totally different to this.

It is hard to explain. The best I can think of is sensing (without visualising) a shape or pattern. You cant actively "see" it in your mind (e.g. if I imagine an apple I can actively see an apple in my mind) - this is more fleeting and defies any focused thought.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#807

Post by SeekingMeaning »

rrobukef wrote: post #324
daveslash wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came to make the same comment. Normally, I avoid giving the "Me Too!" comments, but I think in this context it's appropriate. If I'm casually thinking about life, the universe, and everything then I typically have a monologue. I don't "hear" it, per say, but I am thinking in sentence structure. If I'm analyzing a problem, working on a project, or trying to digest a situation, then I do not think in such sentence like…

I think Ihave control over how I think. An internal monologue is great for remembering in order. But I rebuild as an image of keywords which is great for connecting but the words blur. I rebuild as a map to navigate with a mental car. I rebuild as a shape to trigger my eyes, a sound for my ears... However the last week I've been stuck on naming "a complete thought", not just a vision which is just an image. But one t…

To be honest, I’m genuinely not sure what you’re saying.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#808

Post by mfinegold »

Was just discussing this with friends on social media. I noticed a few things: 1. The question of whether your mind races with thoughts is separate from the question if whether you hear an internal monologue. Some of us have a lot of thoughts racing but they aren’t necessarily in the form of a coherent voice we hear in our heads. 2. Some of us do run through conversations or monologues in our heads sometimes, but we mouth the words or even say them out loud. (And by “some of us”, I mean me. My preschooler has caught me doing this several times already :) ) 3. Raising the question of whether we have such a voice or not can influence whether we have it. As with everything, observing something changes the nature of what’s being observed.

I, for one, have many racing thoughts - and yes some of them verbal, if I’m preparing for a conversation with somebody - but others are more abstract or visual and spatial. For example, I can’t really make a decision with verbal sorts of thoughts. If I’m listing pros and cons, by the time I get to the end of one list I’ve forgotten the start of it... I think sometimes I need to imagine things more spatially to see them in my head at the same time.

Also - Somewhat related, I read awhile back that not everyone can visualize things in their head. Like, imagining something you’re inventing or haven’t seen before. This really surprised me! I can’t believe somebody CANT do that, maybe they just have a harder time doing it?

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#809

Post by heyvictor »

my mind is not racing, unless I am trying to solve a problem or if I am having irrational thoughts (from a bad interaction, a breakup, etc)

My mind feels more reactionary at times, as if some stimuli is provided and then I think about it. I definitely have the internal monologue but it's not happening all the time.

I'm also the type of person where you tell me something and I'll have to think about for a few hours/days before I can get back to you.

Re: Not everyone has an internal monologue

#810

Post by idclip »

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…

Consider a vipassana
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