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Given many people don’t have an inner monologue and function just fine, it’s more likely inner monologue is a product of the reasoning process and not it’s mech

Given many people don’t have an inner monologue and function just fine, it’s more likely inner monologue is a product of the reasoning process and not it’s mechanism.

CooCooCaCha 2y ago
I think you’re using “inner monologue” too literally. It could be a progression of pictures, emotions, etc.
- ajuc 2y ago
  With that definition even bacteria have inner monologue.
  - CooCooCaCha 2y ago
    Can bacteria imagine pictures? Do they have emotions? Why does this matter? Stop being so pedantic. We're talking about a progression of ideas. Talking in your head is one form of ideas, but people can easily solve problems by imagining them.
    - IlliOnato 2y ago
      Hmm, looks to me like just trading some words for others. Do bacteria have ideas? Does the navigating system in your car? How do you know? We need to be at least somewhat pedantic, otherwise it's impossible to know what we are even talking about, and no way to establish anything.
    - ajuc 2y ago
      Initial thesis was - inner monologue is required for reasoning. If you define inner monologue to include everything brains do - the initial thesis becomes a tautology.
- IlliOnato 2y ago
  To make any progress on this question at all, we need first to come up with some definition of internal monologue. Even if we may need to modify it later, there has to be a starting point. Otherwise, nothing can be established at all, because for any statement there always will be someone's understanding of "internal monologue" for which the statement is true, and someone's else understanding for which the statement is false...
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago
    I'm sure inner monologue just cashes out into the ability to reflect on your own thoughts. And for one to say that they're not having that experience also involves a claim about what they think other people are having which would make me doubly skeptical. In practice, when you see people arguing about whether they have an "inner monologue" or can "mentally picture objects" on social media, it's more of a contest of who is the most unique in the world rather than anything that sheds clarity on our subjective experience.
layer8 2y ago
It’s commonly conjectured that the emergence of human-level reasoning wouldn’t have been possible without the development of language. Personally, I’m able to suppress “word thoughts” in my head (for a short time), but then I lose almost all of my reasoning ability. I could imagine that reasoning is language-based even when it’s not conscious for some people. An internal process being there, and being conscious of it, are two separate things. We would be happy with an AI using an internal monologue without it being conscious of that monologue.
- IggleSniggle 2y ago
  Maybe, but symbolic thought can get pretty far away from what we generally call "language." I bet you can reason 1+3x=22 pretty easily without any words whatsoever, or the sound of one ascending octave after another, or the approximate G-force induced on your body if you take the next turn without applying the brakes. All of these forms of reasoning are true and useful calculations: when we talk about "intuition" what we usually mean is that we have a lot of experience and internal reasoning about a subject, but we struggle to translate it to and from the "language" part of our brain. Nonetheless, any social dancer will tell you that a dialog is possible just by receiving and inducing g-forces alone. You can reason this way about abstract concepts like orbits without ever touching a single word or concrete symbol. Edit: the key aspect of reasoning, imho, is the ability to make predictions and introspect them against a database of other predictions, using an adversarial heuristic to weight the most plausibly useful results. Perhaps our pattern matching AIs of today just lack sufficient "experience" to do what we call reasoning.
  - layer8 2y ago
    Regarding “1+3x=22”, I’m actually not sure, the number words certainly appear in my head when solving the equation. But even then, I would count “1+3x=22” as constituting language. Perception of sound, G-forces, and dancing don’t perform type-2 reasoning by themselves, so I don’t think your argument applies there. Regarding your edit, no, I think the key aspect of the kind of reasoning we are missing in current AI is the ability to hold the reasoning in your mind, and to iterate on it and evaluate it (judge it) within your mind.
kveykva 2y ago
Have there ever been studies that demonstrate that those individuals don't simulate possible state transitions they'll go through in a different modality? I'd be curious if they visualize actions they'll take still, just not verbally.
ElevenLathe 2y ago
The existence of an "inner monologue" isn't really a falsifiable claim. Some people claim to have one while other people claim not to, but we can't test the truth of these claims.
- glitchc 2y ago
  In this particular case, is there any reason why we simply can't take their word for it? This is not a case of where if I say "weak" or "strong", most people pick strong because no one wants to be weak, even if the context is unknown (nuclear force for example).
  - GeoAtreides 2y ago
    > is there any reason why we simply can't take their word for it? because if we give them a problem to solve in their head and just give us the answer, they will. By problem I mean planning a trip, a meal, how to pay the mortgage, etc. It's impossible to plan without an internal monologue. Even if some people claim theirs is 'in images'.
    - glitchc 2y ago
      Perhaps there's confusion in how we are using the word monologue. I took it to mean a conversation, a dialogue where the problem is perhaps solved using a dialectic method, or simply a conversation. Since one can solve a problem by following some memorized steps, no conversation required, this is perhaps not a good test, or we mean different things when we say "monologue."
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - rprospero 2y ago
      > It's impossible to plan without an internal monologue I once had a teacher claim that people who claimed to have aphantasia were lying, because those people have read books and it is impossible to read a book without picture the scene in your mind's eye. Are you citing the same source that she was?
mbesto 2y ago
The fact that we don't actually have an understanding and framework for reasoning (e.g. whether inner monologue is a cause or an effect) means we are VERY off from general AI. https://youtu.be/QGYbbLWn-IE?t=72 https://youtu.be/QGYbbLWn-IE?t=72

Given many people don’t have an inner monologue and function just fine, it’s more likely inner monologue is a product of the reasoning process and not it’s mechanism.

CooCooCaCha 2y ago

I think you’re using “inner monologue” too literally. It could be a progression of pictures, emotions, etc.

ajuc 2y ago
With that definition even bacteria have inner monologue.
- CooCooCaCha 2y ago
  Can bacteria imagine pictures? Do they have emotions? Why does this matter? Stop being so pedantic. We're talking about a progression of ideas. Talking in your head is one form of ideas, but people can easily solve problems by imagining them.
  - IlliOnato 2y ago
    Hmm, looks to me like just trading some words for others. Do bacteria have ideas? Does the navigating system in your car? How do you know? We need to be at least somewhat pedantic, otherwise it's impossible to know what we are even talking about, and no way to establish anything.
  - ajuc 2y ago
    Initial thesis was - inner monologue is required for reasoning. If you define inner monologue to include everything brains do - the initial thesis becomes a tautology.
IlliOnato 2y ago
To make any progress on this question at all, we need first to come up with some definition of internal monologue. Even if we may need to modify it later, there has to be a starting point. Otherwise, nothing can be established at all, because for any statement there always will be someone's understanding of "internal monologue" for which the statement is true, and someone's else understanding for which the statement is false...
- hombre_fatal 2y ago
  I'm sure inner monologue just cashes out into the ability to reflect on your own thoughts. And for one to say that they're not having that experience also involves a claim about what they think other people are having which would make me doubly skeptical. In practice, when you see people arguing about whether they have an "inner monologue" or can "mentally picture objects" on social media, it's more of a contest of who is the most unique in the world rather than anything that sheds clarity on our subjective experience.

layer8 2y ago

It’s commonly conjectured that the emergence of human-level reasoning wouldn’t have been possible without the development of language. Personally, I’m able to suppress “word thoughts” in my head (for a short time), but then I lose almost all of my reasoning ability. I could imagine that reasoning is language-based even when it’s not conscious for some people. An internal process being there, and being conscious of it, are two separate things. We would be happy with an AI using an internal monologue without it being conscious of that monologue.

IggleSniggle 2y ago
Maybe, but symbolic thought can get pretty far away from what we generally call "language." I bet you can reason 1+3x=22 pretty easily without any words whatsoever, or the sound of one ascending octave after another, or the approximate G-force induced on your body if you take the next turn without applying the brakes. All of these forms of reasoning are true and useful calculations: when we talk about "intuition" what we usually mean is that we have a lot of experience and internal reasoning about a subject, but we struggle to translate it to and from the "language" part of our brain. Nonetheless, any social dancer will tell you that a dialog is possible just by receiving and inducing g-forces alone. You can reason this way about abstract concepts like orbits without ever touching a single word or concrete symbol. Edit: the key aspect of reasoning, imho, is the ability to make predictions and introspect them against a database of other predictions, using an adversarial heuristic to weight the most plausibly useful results. Perhaps our pattern matching AIs of today just lack sufficient "experience" to do what we call reasoning.
- layer8 2y ago
  Regarding “1+3x=22”, I’m actually not sure, the number words certainly appear in my head when solving the equation. But even then, I would count “1+3x=22” as constituting language. Perception of sound, G-forces, and dancing don’t perform type-2 reasoning by themselves, so I don’t think your argument applies there. Regarding your edit, no, I think the key aspect of the kind of reasoning we are missing in current AI is the ability to hold the reasoning in your mind, and to iterate on it and evaluate it (judge it) within your mind.

kveykva 2y ago

Have there ever been studies that demonstrate that those individuals don't simulate possible state transitions they'll go through in a different modality? I'd be curious if they visualize actions they'll take still, just not verbally.

ElevenLathe 2y ago

The existence of an "inner monologue" isn't really a falsifiable claim. Some people claim to have one while other people claim not to, but we can't test the truth of these claims.

glitchc 2y ago
In this particular case, is there any reason why we simply can't take their word for it? This is not a case of where if I say "weak" or "strong", most people pick strong because no one wants to be weak, even if the context is unknown (nuclear force for example).
- GeoAtreides 2y ago
  > is there any reason why we simply can't take their word for it? because if we give them a problem to solve in their head and just give us the answer, they will. By problem I mean planning a trip, a meal, how to pay the mortgage, etc. It's impossible to plan without an internal monologue. Even if some people claim theirs is 'in images'.
  - glitchc 2y ago
    Perhaps there's confusion in how we are using the word monologue. I took it to mean a conversation, a dialogue where the problem is perhaps solved using a dialectic method, or simply a conversation. Since one can solve a problem by following some memorized steps, no conversation required, this is perhaps not a good test, or we mean different things when we say "monologue."
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rprospero 2y ago
    > It's impossible to plan without an internal monologue I once had a teacher claim that people who claimed to have aphantasia were lying, because those people have read books and it is impossible to read a book without picture the scene in your mind's eye. Are you citing the same source that she was?

mbesto 2y ago

The fact that we don't actually have an understanding and framework for reasoning (e.g. whether inner monologue is a cause or an effect) means we are VERY off from general AI. https://youtu.be/QGYbbLWn-IE?t=72 https://youtu.be/QGYbbLWn-IE?t=72