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> American philosopher Jerry Fodor proposes an alternative idea, called the “Language of Thought” hypothesis. He argues that in addition to our consciously per

> American philosopher Jerry Fodor proposes an alternative idea, called the “Language of Thought” hypothesis. He argues that in addition to our consciously perceived internal monologues, we have a second internal language that is codified into the brain—a kind of “mentalese,” that we don’t consciously perceive. That's roughly in line with the anecdotal reports from the "tulpa" community seem to report when trying to train a portion of their brain to operate as a quasi-independent entity: https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas/

hacker_9 11y ago
This seems fairly obvious, we don't use English to communicate to ourselves to move our fingers over the keyboard for example, or breath, or do any movements. Even visualizing stuff in the 'minds eye' doesn't require language, you just 'do' it. It's not much of a leap to think that the English we hear in our head comes from somewhere too, a more basal/instinctual level. If you look up speed reading too, you'll find that the people try to unlearn the hearing of the voice in their head when they see a word, in order to be able to process more words quicker. As for the 'tulpa' link, that might be one of the stranger thing I have seen in a while! I think it is natural to hear other peoples voices in your head that you know from real life, when you you hear their reactions to some action you do. But I've never heard of training a whole new voice from scratch! Anythings possible I guess.
- philipov 11y ago
  Not to mention programming. Tracing/composing an algorithm or larger program is entirely visual and semantic, like flowcharts. There's no need for internal monologue using spoken language.
- colanderman 11y ago
  I am not an author, but I would imagine that creating such internal entities as "tulpas" is something every good author does?
  - hacker_9 11y ago
    I can understand getting in someones head, and trying to think as they do. But hearing their voice, and seeing them, and talking to them and they reply like a separate person? I'm not so sure about that..
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  If you find it fascinating/strange you might be interested in this snazzy article (which is the one which linked me to the concept to begin with) that discusses plausible (but speculative) mechanisms for both this and other mental phenomena, including dissociative identity disorder and certain religious experiences: http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/ (I think I came across the link in the comment pages here not too long ago, and it's been posted to the main news stream before, a while ago.)
dmd 11y ago
Jerry Fodor being the guy who argues seriously that every possible concept from CAT to CARBURETOR is innate. (Yes, I know that's a very superficial[0] interpretation.) [0] http://www.margolisphilosophy.com/uploads/1/1/0/7/11073530/radicalconceptnativism.pdf http://www.margolisphilosophy.com/uploads/1/1/0/7/11073530/r...
iokanuon 11y ago
There's no "tulpa community". It's just one big joke. https://reddit.com/r/Tulpas/comments/3111ug/meta_just_so_you_newbies_know_this_is_all_an_in/ https://reddit.com/r/Tulpas/comments/3111ug/meta_just_so_you... >I know it's on the official unwritten rules, like how everything in /r/nosleep "is totally real guys 4srs" so that readers can immerse themselves into the story, and that this is all like, a parody sub from that one video. >But seriously, I think some of these new people think we mean it these days. >Guys, seriously, tulpas don't exist. Knock it off. Jokes aren't funny when people make them real.
- SolaceQuantum 11y ago
  That was posted on April fools according to the comments. It might be worth actually reading your sources?
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  Don't be silly now. There's totally a community. Granted, it's basically comprised of a bunch of people whose stated mission is conspiring to deliberately drive themselves mildly insane and conjure hallucinations and voices in their head... and you needn't trust their testimony any further than you can throw it... but this IS the Internet and there are surely stranger communities out there. (just don't ask me where to find them, I have no idea.)
- kefka 11y ago
  Youre right, the basis for the group came from creepypasta and Supernatural. However the history of the Tulpa is interesting. I implore you to read Alexandria David-Neel about her memoirs of Tibetan Buddhist magic. What got me started was that others could see your thought form. So, what's being seen? If it was an illusion of brain chemicals, why can someone else's brain observe it? But yeah, stay away from /r/tulpas and go read David-Neel's books. And try it before you knock it. You might find something, or nothing at all.
  - fennecfoxen 11y ago
    Downvoted as Patently False because anyone who spends 30 seconds to look up the FAQ for /r/tulpas and read the rules can find the part where they explicitly disallow the creepypasta and the part where they say "the bulk of the community sees this is an entirely psychological technique". (However, factual matters aside, you may feel free to Reddit-bash all day long and I won't mind, or promote David-Neel if that's what you're into.)
StavrosK 11y ago
I can attest to this. I don't have an inner monologue (not that I can't, I just don't), I stopped in my teens. Nowadays, if I do talk to myself internally, I can feel the idea forming initially in milliseconds, and then the internal monologue just puts it in words, but it's just for amusement, it's not something necessary for thought. Most of the time (like right now, when writing this comment) I skip the monologue entirely. It makes sense to me that this is exactly how we talk. We don't think things out at first in our heads, we just form an idea and then say the words to communicate it. I was talking about this with a friend, entirely incidentally, and it turns out that he does the same thing too. I find it hard to believe we're that rare.
- colanderman 11y ago
  I've noticed this when speaking about complex topics. The unvocalized thought will be a the edge of my brain, and while, with simpler topics (such as this), I pre-vocalize it internally before speaking, with complex topics, I am unable to, and instead, the final vocalization just happens unconsciously without any internal "rehearsal". Some insights I even have trouble putting into words, and I stumble for a bit trying to explain them to co-workers.
- jdiez17 11y ago
  >It makes sense to me that this is exactly how we talk. We don't think things out at first in our heads, we just form an idea and then say the words to communicate it. This sounds pretty familiar to me - I feel communication is like serializing my thoughts, which happens without internal monologue. It seems to me like everyone would think this way, but I have no idea.
- hyperpallium 11y ago
  Me too. Thought is more fluid; putting it into words concretizes it, collapses the possibilities of the waveform. Somewhat, formalizes it. Words are a serialization format for thought. There are different formats; there are also different bindings possible for the same information in the same format. Grammars are used to describe both. Actually, important early work on regular and context free grammars was done by a linguist. Of course, none of that shows that thought is analogous to graphs of data structures. But I suspect if we ever develop direct brain-to-brain communication (i.e. prelinguistic telepathy), we'll see similar problems to interoperating programs written by different people at different times in different contexts for different purposes.

hacker_9 11y ago

This seems fairly obvious, we don't use English to communicate to ourselves to move our fingers over the keyboard for example, or breath, or do any movements. Even visualizing stuff in the 'minds eye' doesn't require language, you just 'do' it. It's not much of a leap to think that the English we hear in our head comes from somewhere too, a more basal/instinctual level. If you look up speed reading too, you'll find that the people try to unlearn the hearing of the voice in their head when they see a word, in order to be able to process more words quicker. As for the 'tulpa' link, that might be one of the stranger thing I have seen in a while! I think it is natural to hear other peoples voices in your head that you know from real life, when you you hear their reactions to some action you do. But I've never heard of training a whole new voice from scratch! Anythings possible I guess.

philipov 11y ago
Not to mention programming. Tracing/composing an algorithm or larger program is entirely visual and semantic, like flowcharts. There's no need for internal monologue using spoken language.
colanderman 11y ago
I am not an author, but I would imagine that creating such internal entities as "tulpas" is something every good author does?
- hacker_9 11y ago
  I can understand getting in someones head, and trying to think as they do. But hearing their voice, and seeing them, and talking to them and they reply like a separate person? I'm not so sure about that..
fennecfoxen 11y ago
If you find it fascinating/strange you might be interested in this snazzy article (which is the one which linked me to the concept to begin with) that discusses plausible (but speculative) mechanisms for both this and other mental phenomena, including dissociative identity disorder and certain religious experiences: http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/ (I think I came across the link in the comment pages here not too long ago, and it's been posted to the main news stream before, a while ago.)

dmd 11y ago

Jerry Fodor being the guy who argues seriously that every possible concept from CAT to CARBURETOR is innate. (Yes, I know that's a very superficial[0] interpretation.) [0] http://www.margolisphilosophy.com/uploads/1/1/0/7/11073530/radicalconceptnativism.pdf http://www.margolisphilosophy.com/uploads/1/1/0/7/11073530/r...

iokanuon 11y ago

There's no "tulpa community". It's just one big joke. https://reddit.com/r/Tulpas/comments/3111ug/meta_just_so_you_newbies_know_this_is_all_an_in/ https://reddit.com/r/Tulpas/comments/3111ug/meta_just_so_you... >I know it's on the official unwritten rules, like how everything in /r/nosleep "is totally real guys 4srs" so that readers can immerse themselves into the story, and that this is all like, a parody sub from that one video. >But seriously, I think some of these new people think we mean it these days. >Guys, seriously, tulpas don't exist. Knock it off. Jokes aren't funny when people make them real.

SolaceQuantum 11y ago
That was posted on April fools according to the comments. It might be worth actually reading your sources?
fennecfoxen 11y ago
Don't be silly now. There's totally a community. Granted, it's basically comprised of a bunch of people whose stated mission is conspiring to deliberately drive themselves mildly insane and conjure hallucinations and voices in their head... and you needn't trust their testimony any further than you can throw it... but this IS the Internet and there are surely stranger communities out there. (just don't ask me where to find them, I have no idea.)
kefka 11y ago
Youre right, the basis for the group came from creepypasta and Supernatural. However the history of the Tulpa is interesting. I implore you to read Alexandria David-Neel about her memoirs of Tibetan Buddhist magic. What got me started was that others could see your thought form. So, what's being seen? If it was an illusion of brain chemicals, why can someone else's brain observe it? But yeah, stay away from /r/tulpas and go read David-Neel's books. And try it before you knock it. You might find something, or nothing at all.
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  Downvoted as Patently False because anyone who spends 30 seconds to look up the FAQ for /r/tulpas and read the rules can find the part where they explicitly disallow the creepypasta and the part where they say "the bulk of the community sees this is an entirely psychological technique". (However, factual matters aside, you may feel free to Reddit-bash all day long and I won't mind, or promote David-Neel if that's what you're into.)

StavrosK 11y ago

I can attest to this. I don't have an inner monologue (not that I can't, I just don't), I stopped in my teens. Nowadays, if I do talk to myself internally, I can feel the idea forming initially in milliseconds, and then the internal monologue just puts it in words, but it's just for amusement, it's not something necessary for thought. Most of the time (like right now, when writing this comment) I skip the monologue entirely. It makes sense to me that this is exactly how we talk. We don't think things out at first in our heads, we just form an idea and then say the words to communicate it. I was talking about this with a friend, entirely incidentally, and it turns out that he does the same thing too. I find it hard to believe we're that rare.

colanderman 11y ago
I've noticed this when speaking about complex topics. The unvocalized thought will be a the edge of my brain, and while, with simpler topics (such as this), I pre-vocalize it internally before speaking, with complex topics, I am unable to, and instead, the final vocalization just happens unconsciously without any internal "rehearsal". Some insights I even have trouble putting into words, and I stumble for a bit trying to explain them to co-workers.
jdiez17 11y ago
>It makes sense to me that this is exactly how we talk. We don't think things out at first in our heads, we just form an idea and then say the words to communicate it. This sounds pretty familiar to me - I feel communication is like serializing my thoughts, which happens without internal monologue. It seems to me like everyone would think this way, but I have no idea.
hyperpallium 11y ago
Me too. Thought is more fluid; putting it into words concretizes it, collapses the possibilities of the waveform. Somewhat, formalizes it. Words are a serialization format for thought. There are different formats; there are also different bindings possible for the same information in the same format. Grammars are used to describe both. Actually, important early work on regular and context free grammars was done by a linguist. Of course, none of that shows that thought is analogous to graphs of data structures. But I suspect if we ever develop direct brain-to-brain communication (i.e. prelinguistic telepathy), we'll see similar problems to interoperating programs written by different people at different times in different contexts for different purposes.