6 ms·

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

drupe 3y ago
But what is the experience of "asking yourself something" like for you if you don't literally hear a question being asked in your head?
- Epholys 3y ago
  I don't have an inner voice, it's just completely abstract thoughts. I "feel" the interrogation about a subject, just without words.
  - thinkingemote 3y ago
    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 grey beards singing it in a convention. How easy was it to change this image? Did changing it affect the clarity?
    - Epholys 3y ago
      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".
      - thinkingemote 3y ago
        I got and adapted the questions from a survey about these issues but I've been trying to get the question right as we tend to use language which presupposes things. I like this one as it asks to form an image and asks about clarity. The image is about hearing. So it crosses both parts. Another example would be to form an image of a telemarketer on the telephone. Change the accent. Introduce line distortion. For me it's in the middle. Happy birthday is clear to visualise and I can follow the tune. it's not very vivid but it's like I'm singing to myself with my mouth shut. I don't have a mental "visual" image of the song by default. When changing it the imagery appears a bit more but the focus is on the sound. I can easily change it to children's voices, the unix greybeards is more difficult as it requires me working out what they would sound like including spatial echoes from the auditorium. I find the resulting image (which is clearer than the children) is amusing.
        Epholys 3y ago
        Ha, interesting! I don't have the control you have on my inner hearing. For a song I love, I can like sing along with my mouth shut, not only the voices, but also the instruments. Strangely, it's hard to have the complete song at the same time (voice + instruments), but I suspect it's more of a skill issue, as I seem to be able to do it faintly. I'm not envious of the people who have an inescapable inner voice. I think it would hinder my thoughts, the speed of it, and the ability to think abstractly. It's not totally baseless, because I can force myself to have an inner voice, but it's a conscious effort. Sometimes useful if I need to clarify my thoughts. On the same note, not having a inner voice makes it really difficult sometimes to put my emotions and thoughts into words. But I'm really jealous about anyone that can clearly conjure images, "videos", and sounds in their mind, I feel like I have a big disadvantage if I want to learn to draw, 3D model, or play an instrument.
        im3w1l 3y ago
        People speak of these things in term of identity, but I wonder how true that is. I could easily imagine (pun intended) these are more akin to skills, that can be improved with practice. Actually now that I think about it, I do know that this is a well-known phenomenon in the chess world. Newcomers are unable to to play blind-chess. But experienced players say that they gradually learned how to do it. How it started as a really blurry picture of just a small part of the board, and how they gradually got better at remembering and visualizing the whole board at the same and were able to play full games with a blindfold.
    - HKH2 3y ago
      You're referring to thinking proactively. Is your inner narrative proactive or reactive?
- HKH2 3y ago
  In Chinese, if you just put 'big' and 'small' together, you get 'size', and if you just put 'big' and 'not big' together, it means 'Is it big?'. By the same token, juxtaposed memories are questions or suggestions. I think it's the logic before logic.
  - bondarchuk 3y ago
    That's a really interesting tidbit about Chinese. Can't think of anything similar in any language I know, though. Does remind me of those primitive languages where the word for "forest" is just the word for "tree" repeated two or three times.
    - HKH2 3y ago
      In English, we have 'oxymoron', and 'chiaroscuro' from Italian, but Chinese has a lot of words with contrasts, the yin and yang etc.
    - HKH2 3y ago
      > Does remind me of those primitive languages where the word for "forest" is just the word for "tree" repeated two or three times. Come to think of it, Chinese does that too: 'forest' is '森林'.
yetihehe 3y ago
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 something. It's just a figure of speech, not used in some languages (like polish, we say "I see" ONLY when we actually see something).
- cl3misch 3y ago
  This may be surprising, but I indeed can "ask myself" (aka. think about) things, without explicitely verbalizing the question in my head. "Thinking" is more abstract, but it can be faster that way.
  - yetihehe 3y ago
    I also don't always explicitly verbalize things. The whole problem seems to be more of disagreement about a definition of inner voice and what it means for different people.
    - cl3misch 3y ago
      Maybe not the whole problem, but yeah, I also wonder about what people mean with "inner voice" respectively. I do think though that I verbalize less than other (maybe most) people.
- bhaak 3y ago
  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?
bondarchuk 3y ago
It's an interesting question, since learning that some people have visualization and internal monologue I've been paying attention to how writers/philosophers describe thought processes and based on that whether they are visualizers (and monologue-havers) or not, and whether they are aware that the other thing is also possible. One really gets the sense that a lot of writers/philosophers[1] are visualizers and monologue-havers and are completely unaware of the other possibilities. An exception was Musil (The Man without Qualities) who goes quite deep into the thought processes of his characters and describes both varieties. Also interesting to read in this respect is Julian Jaynes, who purports (quite controversially) to trace a development from a primitive type of mentality that obeyed something like command hallucinations to the current type of mentality that can think freely. But (even though his theory seemed deeply involved with internal monologue) I couldn't really get a grip on what he actually thinks of how people think these days. [1] it does seem that it is much more common among "humanities-type" people and the general population, and more common to have no visualization among "exact sciences-type" people. This was also the observation of Galton https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm (ctrl-f "men of science")

But what is the experience of "asking yourself something" like for you if you don't literally hear a question being asked in your head?

Epholys 3y ago
I don't have an inner voice, it's just completely abstract thoughts. I "feel" the interrogation about a subject, just without words.
- thinkingemote 3y ago
  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 grey beards singing it in a convention. How easy was it to change this image? Did changing it affect the clarity?
  - Epholys 3y ago
    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".
    - thinkingemote 3y ago
      I got and adapted the questions from a survey about these issues but I've been trying to get the question right as we tend to use language which presupposes things. I like this one as it asks to form an image and asks about clarity. The image is about hearing. So it crosses both parts. Another example would be to form an image of a telemarketer on the telephone. Change the accent. Introduce line distortion. For me it's in the middle. Happy birthday is clear to visualise and I can follow the tune. it's not very vivid but it's like I'm singing to myself with my mouth shut. I don't have a mental "visual" image of the song by default. When changing it the imagery appears a bit more but the focus is on the sound. I can easily change it to children's voices, the unix greybeards is more difficult as it requires me working out what they would sound like including spatial echoes from the auditorium. I find the resulting image (which is clearer than the children) is amusing.
      - Epholys 3y ago
        Ha, interesting! I don't have the control you have on my inner hearing. For a song I love, I can like sing along with my mouth shut, not only the voices, but also the instruments. Strangely, it's hard to have the complete song at the same time (voice + instruments), but I suspect it's more of a skill issue, as I seem to be able to do it faintly. I'm not envious of the people who have an inescapable inner voice. I think it would hinder my thoughts, the speed of it, and the ability to think abstractly. It's not totally baseless, because I can force myself to have an inner voice, but it's a conscious effort. Sometimes useful if I need to clarify my thoughts. On the same note, not having a inner voice makes it really difficult sometimes to put my emotions and thoughts into words. But I'm really jealous about anyone that can clearly conjure images, "videos", and sounds in their mind, I feel like I have a big disadvantage if I want to learn to draw, 3D model, or play an instrument.
        im3w1l 3y ago
        People speak of these things in term of identity, but I wonder how true that is. I could easily imagine (pun intended) these are more akin to skills, that can be improved with practice. Actually now that I think about it, I do know that this is a well-known phenomenon in the chess world. Newcomers are unable to to play blind-chess. But experienced players say that they gradually learned how to do it. How it started as a really blurry picture of just a small part of the board, and how they gradually got better at remembering and visualizing the whole board at the same and were able to play full games with a blindfold.
  - HKH2 3y ago
    You're referring to thinking proactively. Is your inner narrative proactive or reactive?
HKH2 3y ago
In Chinese, if you just put 'big' and 'small' together, you get 'size', and if you just put 'big' and 'not big' together, it means 'Is it big?'. By the same token, juxtaposed memories are questions or suggestions. I think it's the logic before logic.
- bondarchuk 3y ago
  That's a really interesting tidbit about Chinese. Can't think of anything similar in any language I know, though. Does remind me of those primitive languages where the word for "forest" is just the word for "tree" repeated two or three times.
  - HKH2 3y ago
    In English, we have 'oxymoron', and 'chiaroscuro' from Italian, but Chinese has a lot of words with contrasts, the yin and yang etc.
  - HKH2 3y ago
    > Does remind me of those primitive languages where the word for "forest" is just the word for "tree" repeated two or three times. Come to think of it, Chinese does that too: 'forest' is '森林'.

yetihehe 3y ago

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 something. It's just a figure of speech, not used in some languages (like polish, we say "I see" ONLY when we actually see something).

cl3misch 3y ago
This may be surprising, but I indeed can "ask myself" (aka. think about) things, without explicitely verbalizing the question in my head. "Thinking" is more abstract, but it can be faster that way.
- yetihehe 3y ago
  I also don't always explicitly verbalize things. The whole problem seems to be more of disagreement about a definition of inner voice and what it means for different people.
  - cl3misch 3y ago
    Maybe not the whole problem, but yeah, I also wonder about what people mean with "inner voice" respectively. I do think though that I verbalize less than other (maybe most) people.
bhaak 3y ago
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?

bondarchuk 3y ago

It's an interesting question, since learning that some people have visualization and internal monologue I've been paying attention to how writers/philosophers describe thought processes and based on that whether they are visualizers (and monologue-havers) or not, and whether they are aware that the other thing is also possible. One really gets the sense that a lot of writers/philosophers[1] are visualizers and monologue-havers and are completely unaware of the other possibilities. An exception was Musil (The Man without Qualities) who goes quite deep into the thought processes of his characters and describes both varieties. Also interesting to read in this respect is Julian Jaynes, who purports (quite controversially) to trace a development from a primitive type of mentality that obeyed something like command hallucinations to the current type of mentality that can think freely. But (even though his theory seemed deeply involved with internal monologue) I couldn't really get a grip on what he actually thinks of how people think these days. [1] it does seem that it is much more common among "humanities-type" people and the general population, and more common to have no visualization among "exact sciences-type" people. This was also the observation of Galton https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm (ctrl-f "men of science")