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I'm fascinated by people's inner monologues (I don't have one), so forgive my curiosity: is what you describe a bad thing? Have you noticed changes in your patt

I'm fascinated by people's inner monologues (I don't have one), so forgive my curiosity: is what you describe a bad thing? Have you noticed changes in your patterns of reasoning?

feverzsj 3y ago
No, not much. It may make you feel foggy for a while, but when you get used to or just ignore it, nothing actually changed. My understanding is inner monologue is just some side effect rather than necessary part of thought.
jventura 3y ago
And I am fascinated by people _not_ having inner monologues, as I do have a very active inner voice. For me having inner voice is like one part of me does the talking, the other does the listening. If other people could listen, they would probably say that I'm a crazy dude, doing all that talk. When I see people talking loud, I call them crazy, thank god I do not project my voice outwards! But sometimes, things come to my mind without talking at all, and it is usually more profound things, or things that trigger a more profound emotion. Regarding self-knowledge or when doing introspection, I confess that having a inner monologue is not effective at all, at least to me. Can I ask how you "work" mentally? For instance, supposing you're a software developer, how do you go thorough learning a new thing about a programming language? I usually talk to myself things like "suppose I do this here, and..". It is like I am pair-programming with the other half of my brain. Hope you don't mind me asking! Is just curiosity (and the fact that the inner monologue sometimes may do more harm than good)..
- fellerts 3y ago
  Of course, happy to discuss. You have me stumped though, I actually can't articulate how I work. If what I'm doing requires extreme care, such as pushing configuration updates to production, I will mentally say out loud what I'm planning to do (probably something similar to [0]), but calling that voice is a conscious effort. Normally I'll follow a vague "feeling" of what needs to happen. I think my mind works directly with abstract concepts or mental representations of what I'm focusing on. > "suppose I do this here, and.." Sure, I will follow the same pattern, but the drive to fiddle with something bubbles up from some abstract place. Words don't even come into play. Do you also subvocalize when reading text? This topic is a fickle beast. The only baseline I have is my own cognition -- I can't say "yeah it's like what you're doing only..." -- I am fundamentally unable to experience your way of thinking. We are blobs of fat oxymoronically trying to explain our subjective experience in an objective way through our 2nd languages (lossy doesn't even beign to describe it). It's absurd but oh so fascinating. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
  - mlrtime 3y ago
    Wait, you have no "inner voice" at all? I don't understand. Thought experiment: You go to a wall and there is a picture hanging on the wall. You like the picture. Can you "say" in your head without using your voice/mouth "I like this picture"? If you have to use your voice, can you mimic the tongue movement without moving your mouth and "hear" the words without making a sound?
    - fellerts 3y ago
      I can conjure up a voice in my head and make it say anything I want, such as "I like this picture", but it's a contrived and unnatural thing for me to do. It takes effort and "takes over" my whole brain. If a picture on the wall catches my eye, I will just enjoy it. Maybe that's why I struggle to answer "oh, what do you like about this picture?", because nothing about my experience had any relation to words at all. I normally don't talk very much, maybe that's why? Maybe my though process is further removed from language than that of most other people?
    - NathanKP 3y ago
      For me it's like my head has a large cluster of art that I've seen, all organized. It is the "memory palace" basically, if you've heard of that approach to memorizing things. Except my memory palace is very, very large, and it has an area for art that I've seen. If I appreciate a piece of art then it goes into my memory palace collection in a room that groups it together with other similar pieces of art that I had a similar appreciation for. As I appreciate the piece of art my memory palace branches out from there in many directions. I'm recalling other similar pieces of art (how does this art rank compared to other pieces I've appreciated). I'm recalling other pieces of art by the same artist (how did this art compare to their other works). I'm recalling similar artists of the time period (how did this work compare to art by contemporary artists). I'm imagining the techniques that were used to make the art, whether dramatic and physical (splashes of paint in a modern art piece) or precise and delicate (such as the fine brush strokes). This is the process of appreciation I feel. Basically, the "I like this picture" is a very visual experience for me, not a vocal experience at all. If I did not like the picture then I just look at it, have an internal feeling of "meh" or "boredom" and do not put any effort into memorization or related recall and connectivity of the memory.
- NathanKP 3y ago
  For me my internal monologue is replaced by almost entirely images. For example, if I'm learning about something in a programming language I'm mentally diagramming components and imagining how data structures are laid out as a network of items. To the extent that I do verbal thinking while programming it's usually just a internal vocalization for an interjection I would otherwise be tempted to say out loud like "why the fuck is this not working, this SDK is trash". And I only say it to myself internally so as not to interrupt other people around me. For other things that are less abstract, with a concrete real world appearance, I'm constantly visualizing the outcome like I'm looking at a picture or watching a movie. This also applies to the "things that come to my mind without talking", which you mention. They drift into appearance in my mind as images as well.

I'm fascinated by people's inner monologues (I don't have one), so forgive my curiosity: is what you describe a bad thing? Have you noticed changes in your patterns of reasoning?

feverzsj 3y ago

No, not much. It may make you feel foggy for a while, but when you get used to or just ignore it, nothing actually changed. My understanding is inner monologue is just some side effect rather than necessary part of thought.

jventura 3y ago

And I am fascinated by people _not_ having inner monologues, as I do have a very active inner voice. For me having inner voice is like one part of me does the talking, the other does the listening. If other people could listen, they would probably say that I'm a crazy dude, doing all that talk. When I see people talking loud, I call them crazy, thank god I do not project my voice outwards! But sometimes, things come to my mind without talking at all, and it is usually more profound things, or things that trigger a more profound emotion. Regarding self-knowledge or when doing introspection, I confess that having a inner monologue is not effective at all, at least to me. Can I ask how you "work" mentally? For instance, supposing you're a software developer, how do you go thorough learning a new thing about a programming language? I usually talk to myself things like "suppose I do this here, and..". It is like I am pair-programming with the other half of my brain. Hope you don't mind me asking! Is just curiosity (and the fact that the inner monologue sometimes may do more harm than good)..

fellerts 3y ago
Of course, happy to discuss. You have me stumped though, I actually can't articulate how I work. If what I'm doing requires extreme care, such as pushing configuration updates to production, I will mentally say out loud what I'm planning to do (probably something similar to [0]), but calling that voice is a conscious effort. Normally I'll follow a vague "feeling" of what needs to happen. I think my mind works directly with abstract concepts or mental representations of what I'm focusing on. > "suppose I do this here, and.." Sure, I will follow the same pattern, but the drive to fiddle with something bubbles up from some abstract place. Words don't even come into play. Do you also subvocalize when reading text? This topic is a fickle beast. The only baseline I have is my own cognition -- I can't say "yeah it's like what you're doing only..." -- I am fundamentally unable to experience your way of thinking. We are blobs of fat oxymoronically trying to explain our subjective experience in an objective way through our 2nd languages (lossy doesn't even beign to describe it). It's absurd but oh so fascinating. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
- mlrtime 3y ago
  Wait, you have no "inner voice" at all? I don't understand. Thought experiment: You go to a wall and there is a picture hanging on the wall. You like the picture. Can you "say" in your head without using your voice/mouth "I like this picture"? If you have to use your voice, can you mimic the tongue movement without moving your mouth and "hear" the words without making a sound?
  - fellerts 3y ago
    I can conjure up a voice in my head and make it say anything I want, such as "I like this picture", but it's a contrived and unnatural thing for me to do. It takes effort and "takes over" my whole brain. If a picture on the wall catches my eye, I will just enjoy it. Maybe that's why I struggle to answer "oh, what do you like about this picture?", because nothing about my experience had any relation to words at all. I normally don't talk very much, maybe that's why? Maybe my though process is further removed from language than that of most other people?
  - NathanKP 3y ago
    For me it's like my head has a large cluster of art that I've seen, all organized. It is the "memory palace" basically, if you've heard of that approach to memorizing things. Except my memory palace is very, very large, and it has an area for art that I've seen. If I appreciate a piece of art then it goes into my memory palace collection in a room that groups it together with other similar pieces of art that I had a similar appreciation for. As I appreciate the piece of art my memory palace branches out from there in many directions. I'm recalling other similar pieces of art (how does this art rank compared to other pieces I've appreciated). I'm recalling other pieces of art by the same artist (how did this art compare to their other works). I'm recalling similar artists of the time period (how did this work compare to art by contemporary artists). I'm imagining the techniques that were used to make the art, whether dramatic and physical (splashes of paint in a modern art piece) or precise and delicate (such as the fine brush strokes). This is the process of appreciation I feel. Basically, the "I like this picture" is a very visual experience for me, not a vocal experience at all. If I did not like the picture then I just look at it, have an internal feeling of "meh" or "boredom" and do not put any effort into memorization or related recall and connectivity of the memory.
NathanKP 3y ago
For me my internal monologue is replaced by almost entirely images. For example, if I'm learning about something in a programming language I'm mentally diagramming components and imagining how data structures are laid out as a network of items. To the extent that I do verbal thinking while programming it's usually just a internal vocalization for an interjection I would otherwise be tempted to say out loud like "why the fuck is this not working, this SDK is trash". And I only say it to myself internally so as not to interrupt other people around me. For other things that are less abstract, with a concrete real world appearance, I'm constantly visualizing the outcome like I'm looking at a picture or watching a movie. This also applies to the "things that come to my mind without talking", which you mention. They drift into appearance in my mind as images as well.