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Inner Speech

plato.stanford.edu

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Re: Inner Speech

#21

Post by cl3misch »

poopoopeepee59 wrote: post #13
cl3misch wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I wonder if the people that wrote this article are unable to fathom that people without an inner voice exist? I asked myself the same. There was a famous Reddit thread a couple years ago from a person who recently learned they did not have an inner voice, which made myself realize I also don't have one. I don't have the link saved and there seem to be a couple of such posts, but this one was pretty impactful in…

[flagged]

The term "Non-Player Characters" for fellow humans is incredibly condescending. Please acknowledge that every human is a player character. Albeit with a different quest and skilltree than you.

Re: Inner Speech

#22

Post by asimovfan »

Sometimes called manas in buddhism. The discursive mind. Its incredible to me in the middle of all this mental unease nobody is talking about this stuff.

Re: Inner Speech

#23

Post by causi »

After keeping track for a while, my conclusion as regards my inner voice is that it's an artifact of "paying too much attention" to what's going on in my mind. If I'm in a flow state I have no inner voice. If I'm overly bored, or nervous, or have some other reason to be actively and consciously paying attention to the decisions I'm making, I have a very clear inner voice. It's an artifact of recasting subconscious thought into conscious terms.

Re: Inner Speech

#24

Post by bhaak »

yetihehe wrote: post #12
cl3misch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have an inner voice myself. So I asked myself whether the authors of the Plato post can't imagine that.

I have inner voice, it's very hard for me to comprehend how can you think, but it's possible. How I understand it: you just write what you think, without rehearsing it before inside your mind. We all do it to some extent when writing, it's not like I actually need to replay everything before I write. "I asked myself" by a person who has no inner voice sounds like a blind person saying "I see..." when he understands s…

Thinking doesn't need words. Thinking for me is a process of ideas and concepts coming from different directions, colliding, merging, splitting, transforming, and then going into other directions to interact with other thoughts.

The translation between these concepts to words or sentences from my mouth or my fingers is effortless by the way. Which I myself find interesting. I think it should take some effort but it doesn't.

If you wonder how one can think without an inner voice then I wonder can you even think without your inner voice? And can your inner voice be faster than your vocal voice and if not, doesn't that slow down your thought process?

Re: Inner Speech

#25

Post by travisjungroth »

neoberg wrote: post #19

I'm not sure if I have inner voice or not. Do you really "hear" a voice? I can imagine concepts as well as construct whole sentences in my mind but there is no actual voice that I'm hearing. Is this what's called inner voice?

Yes. This stuff is hard to pin down, but I’d put the most common understanding in vaguely Western culture as:

1. Most people experience something similar to imagining themselves talk much of the time.

2. Most people do not hear voices, as in hearing a voice that you could easily mistake as coming into your awareness through your ears perceiving physical sound.

Your experience sounds like the “default”, for lack of a better term.

Re: Inner Speech

#26

Post by boxed »

keiferski wrote: post #8
politelemon wrote: post #2

It's a bit odd reading this because I learned just a few months ago, right here, that I am aphantastic (no mental imagery). Shortly after that, while discussing with some coworkers, I also learned I am anauralic (no inner voice). It appears they do sometimes go together: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8551557/ I think for those of us who don't have an inner voice, section "3.2 The Semantic Content View"…

Is inner voice the same thing as inner speech? I’m interpreting “inner voice” to be a kind of pseudo-personality similar to what people mean by conscience, while inner speech is simply the mental version of speech. I can understand someone not having an inner voice, but I can’t see how writing is possible without inner speech. Otherwise, how can you have thoughts prior to writing them down? Also note that the article…

> I can understand someone not having an inner voice, but I can’t see how writing is possible without inner speech. Otherwise, how can you have thoughts prior to writing them down?

The conscious experience of inner voice/speece/eye/nose/whatever is not really saying something about how the rest of the brain functions. Almost everything anyone does is indeed not projected in inner mind before being executed. The subjective experience is a post-hoc narrative of what the mind did, not really a part of the planning process itself. Think about running in a dense forest for example. There's no way to plan with inner mind where to direct your eye muscles first and then having received the visual input, plan with inner mind where to put your feet on the ground to not trip on a rock or root.

Re: Inner Speech

#27

Post by Epholys »

thinkingemote wrote: post #20
Epholys wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have an inner voice, it's just completely abstract thoughts. I "feel" the interrogation about a subject, just without words.

So if I ask you to form an image of a song, (or recall it in your mind): the "happy birthday" song. How vivid or clear is it? Do you have no clarity, some, or lots? is it vivid as the actual sound as if you were hearing it in real life? Do you notice the tune as well as the words? Now change this image of happy birthday so that it's now a childrens choir singing it. Now change it so its by a bunch of cynical unix gre…

Wow, these questions are really interesting, I've never thought about it!

For my favorite songs, I can recall it perfectly... But I don't hear it at all as if I was hearing it in real life. In fact, I don't know how to describe how vivid it is. Maybe I don't hear it at all? But I can sing these songs (out loud) without a problem.

However, I seem to be incapable of changing some elements about it. I can't seem to be able to make it faster, slower, change the singer, or the instruments. But, when I sing it out loud, I can of course modify it.

For "Happy birthday" (well, in my native language), it's really weird. Because I don't have a specific song in mind, I can follow the words, the tune, but I don't "feel" the voice of a specific singer. And I'm incapable to change this recall to different voices, like children or grown men. But if I listen to a version sung by these people, I can recall it after (until I forget).

Thanks again for these questions, I was aware of my lack of inner voice, my difficulties of a "inner sight" (that's a whole other can of worms), but I never applied this interrogations to a "inner hearing".

Re: Inner Speech

#28

Post by neoberg »

travisjungroth wrote: post #25
neoberg wrote: post #19

I'm not sure if I have inner voice or not. Do you really "hear" a voice? I can imagine concepts as well as construct whole sentences in my mind but there is no actual voice that I'm hearing. Is this what's called inner voice?

Yes. This stuff is hard to pin down, but I’d put the most common understanding in vaguely Western culture as: 1. Most people experience something similar to imagining themselves talk much of the time. 2. Most people do not hear voices, as in hearing a voice that you could easily mistake as coming into your awareness through your ears perceiving physical sound. Your experience sounds like the “default”, for lack of a…

Interesting, thank you. I've found some subreddits while trying to undrestand this and it's amazing what some people experience and how different it is for everyone.

There is a person on r/hyperphantasia who says that they can look at a ruler, take that image and overlay it on something else to measure. Wild.

Re: Inner Speech

#29

Post by poopoopeepee59 »

cl3misch wrote: post #21
poopoopeepee59 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The term "Non-Player Characters" for fellow humans is incredibly condescending. Please acknowledge that every human is a player character. Albeit with a different quest and skilltree than you.

[flagged]
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