4 ms·

I sometimes talk to myself or to hypothetical instances of other people I know. I try to do this quietly at times since I know it might not be perceived favora

I sometimes talk to myself or to hypothetical instances of other people I know. I try to do this quietly at times since I know it might not be perceived favorably by others. Mainly I do this to verbally externalize thoughts and force them back into my auditory memory (deliberately), hopefully reinforcing or bolstering a position I want to take or a course of action I need to take later. I hope I never lose track that I am initiating those conversations...I'm old enough to be well past the standard age for developing schizophrenia...but if I did lose track, I at least have my atheism to fall back upon and my memory of having read through Jaynes a couple of times.

sevensor 11y ago
> I try to do this quietly If you hold a mobile phone to your ear, nobody will give you a second look.
- iagooar 11y ago
  Unless you get a real call while doing so.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    "Please hold while I get the other line" (what should really worry you is if you hear 'ok.')
- jonsterling 11y ago
  Just make sure your phone is charged, since you'll look like a real douche if there's an emergency and you need to call police/ambulance with your dead phone that you've just been talking on...
mettamage 11y ago
I do the same thing. I'm actually inspired by trying to talk to hypothetical instances of other people. I never did that. I normally talk to myself and to a lesser extent to my past self (when I was younger it would be my future self, but I'm currently in 'the future'). If there's a real person around I just talk to the real person, and on non-shy days this could easily be a stranger. It could make me annoying, but I also like to listen if it's about the same topic. To me this all seems perfectly normal. My reasoning is that by activating more brain areas (i.e. Broca & Wernicke) and preferably also the pre-motor and motor cortices by moving (so walk while talking to yourself), the brain can make more connections to the content you're thinking about. That's just my hunch though.
- sageikosa 11y ago
  A lot of decisions where I work are made in meetings with at least 4 or more people. The practice "conversations" are just that... practice. Dialog is more my thing than a perpetual debate club, so I'm practicing being persuasive to authorities rather than defaulting to combative against others with different stories to tell.
petke 11y ago
Sounds a bit like like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

sevensor 11y ago

> I try to do this quietly If you hold a mobile phone to your ear, nobody will give you a second look.

iagooar 11y ago
Unless you get a real call while doing so.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  "Please hold while I get the other line" (what should really worry you is if you hear 'ok.')
jonsterling 11y ago
Just make sure your phone is charged, since you'll look like a real douche if there's an emergency and you need to call police/ambulance with your dead phone that you've just been talking on...

mettamage 11y ago

I do the same thing. I'm actually inspired by trying to talk to hypothetical instances of other people. I never did that. I normally talk to myself and to a lesser extent to my past self (when I was younger it would be my future self, but I'm currently in 'the future'). If there's a real person around I just talk to the real person, and on non-shy days this could easily be a stranger. It could make me annoying, but I also like to listen if it's about the same topic. To me this all seems perfectly normal. My reasoning is that by activating more brain areas (i.e. Broca & Wernicke) and preferably also the pre-motor and motor cortices by moving (so walk while talking to yourself), the brain can make more connections to the content you're thinking about. That's just my hunch though.

sageikosa 11y ago
A lot of decisions where I work are made in meetings with at least 4 or more people. The practice "conversations" are just that... practice. Dialog is more my thing than a perpetual debate club, so I'm practicing being persuasive to authorities rather than defaulting to combative against others with different stories to tell.

petke 11y ago

Sounds a bit like like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging