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Meditation is exactly the practice of letting your inner monologue chatter until it dies away and you're fully tethered to your sensations and surroundings. So

Meditation is exactly the practice of letting your inner monologue chatter until it dies away and you're fully tethered to your sensations and surroundings. So if one can learn to meditate, in theory one can meditate all the time (therefore not have inner chatter/monologue) The more interesting question is what is the usefulness of inner dialogue in itself. A way to rehearse/articulate thoughts to be communicated to someone else? A roleplay with yourself to prepare for a future encounter? Thinking doesn't necessary need the 'echo' of hearing a voice. That's separate, that's more intriguing to me

gonehome 5y ago
Meditation is recognizing the omnipresent voice and trying to quiet it down. It’s partly why I suspect those that think they don’t have an internal monologue just aren’t recognizing it. I think you can get better at quieting the voice or letting thoughts pass, but I don’t think you can really turn it off for longer than a few moments. Gurus that claim they have and have “reached enlightenment” just seem to be lying either to themselves or everyone else (or both).
- psyc 5y ago
  How or where did you acquire such specific beliefs about what minds can or cannot do?
  - gonehome 5y ago
    My skepticism probably comes in part from an anti-religion, anti-mystic reflex. There’s a lot of woo around this stuff so it often puts me on guard. Obviously nobody is claiming psychic powers here, but I wouldn’t expect brains to operate that differently - so it’s surprising to me.
    - traverseda 5y ago
      You might enjoy "37 ways words can be wrong". https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-that-words-can-be-wrong https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-th...
    - LocalH 5y ago
      >but I wouldn’t expect brains to operate that differently Everyone's neurotransmitter balance is different. Of course that will cause brains to sometimes operate wildly differently.
      - gonehome 5y ago
        Sure, but there are 4 billion years of selective pressure behind us that make us a lot more alike than different. Maybe this runs at a higher level in the 'brain software stack' that has more variation, but it seems like it'd be a more common lower level type of thing. Ultimately this is just a hunch though about what I suspect is more likely, I can obviously be wrong.
    - mimimi31 5y ago
      Maybe it's similar to how an artificial neural network can converge to different local optimums for a particular problem, depending on its initial parameters and training method. Our brains might just find different ways of representing thoughts, be it through words, images, sounds or even just abstract concepts. If none of them are strictly better than all the others, then there's no selective pressure for the brain to prioritize development in one specific direction over others.

gonehome 5y ago

Meditation is recognizing the omnipresent voice and trying to quiet it down. It’s partly why I suspect those that think they don’t have an internal monologue just aren’t recognizing it. I think you can get better at quieting the voice or letting thoughts pass, but I don’t think you can really turn it off for longer than a few moments. Gurus that claim they have and have “reached enlightenment” just seem to be lying either to themselves or everyone else (or both).

psyc 5y ago
How or where did you acquire such specific beliefs about what minds can or cannot do?
- gonehome 5y ago
  My skepticism probably comes in part from an anti-religion, anti-mystic reflex. There’s a lot of woo around this stuff so it often puts me on guard. Obviously nobody is claiming psychic powers here, but I wouldn’t expect brains to operate that differently - so it’s surprising to me.
  - traverseda 5y ago
    You might enjoy "37 ways words can be wrong". https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-that-words-can-be-wrong https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-th...
  - LocalH 5y ago
    >but I wouldn’t expect brains to operate that differently Everyone's neurotransmitter balance is different. Of course that will cause brains to sometimes operate wildly differently.
    - gonehome 5y ago
      Sure, but there are 4 billion years of selective pressure behind us that make us a lot more alike than different. Maybe this runs at a higher level in the 'brain software stack' that has more variation, but it seems like it'd be a more common lower level type of thing. Ultimately this is just a hunch though about what I suspect is more likely, I can obviously be wrong.
  - mimimi31 5y ago
    Maybe it's similar to how an artificial neural network can converge to different local optimums for a particular problem, depending on its initial parameters and training method. Our brains might just find different ways of representing thoughts, be it through words, images, sounds or even just abstract concepts. If none of them are strictly better than all the others, then there's no selective pressure for the brain to prioritize development in one specific direction over others.