3 ms·

I don't think the out loud or someone listening / reacting matters at all here. Suspect it's entirely this: >The thought that was comfortable as a vague impr

by slwvx 4mo ago

I don't think the out loud or someone listening / reacting matters at all here. Suspect it's entirely this: >The thought that was comfortable as a vague impression has to become a sentence, and sentences have structure. I often construct full sentences in my head. And have conversations with my mental model of some other person. In full sentences

dgeiser13 4mo ago
I assume your anecdotal experience is rare.
felooboolooomba 4mo ago
> I often construct full sentences in my head I've only ever heard that associated with schizophrenia, but I don't even know if that's true or not.
- unfitted2545 4mo ago
  I think I've got this from growing up with a narcissist. Thoughts are constructed and seemingly endlessly whittled to try and create a sentence that can avoid getting belittled. It's hard to talk in groups, because you have to have a sentence mentally critiqued by 3/4 people in turn, so the topic has usually changed before you can say your piece.
- lazyasciiart 4mo ago
  What? It's never occurred to me that this isn't entirely normal, I've done it all my life. I thought people without an inner monologue were the unusual ones.
  - ubercore 4mo ago
    I'm not wading into the schizophrenia part, but inner monologue doesn't necessarily imply constructing a fully formed sentence you then repeat to yourself.
  - crims0n 4mo ago
    I think there is a difference between having an inner monologue, and imagining a conversation with another person in your head.
    - innerconvo 4mo ago
      Created a throwaway for this, but is this not what people do? Not so much imagining a conversation in your head, but playing through a conversation with "the other side" of the coin (be it an idea, plan, problem, solution etc) which are both yourself if that makes sense. Is this not what the inner monologue to yourself is? Your inner is conversing with your outer monologue. Hard to explain. Would consider myself to be both physically and mentally stable, no conditions etc.
      - crims0n 4mo ago
        I can only speak for myself... but my inner monologue is just a runaway train of thoughts that I vocalize in my head as I work through them. There is no other person in there, abstract or otherwise. Have you ever seen the Death Note anime? Similar to that.
        andoando 4mo ago
        I do what the person you're replying to and for me its just one voice or a faint imagination of them speaking. Its me roleplaying as the other person, not like there is a different entity in my brain.
      - AmazingEveryDay 4mo ago
        > Created a throwaway for this, but is this not what people do? I think it's okay, unless you converse online with your throwaways.
        felooboolooomba 4mo ago
        No, I've hacked other peoples account to do that.
- Jevon23 4mo ago
  It might be correlated with neurodivergence. But it’s also just correlated with high verbal ability in general, presumably. I find it quite natural to think in complete structured sentences, and it’s often perplexed me why other people seem to find this concept so alien. And no I’m not schizophrenic.
  - felooboolooomba 4mo ago
    > And no I’m not schizophrenic. Which of you? :)
  - MaysonL 4mo ago
    Then again, different people’s minds work very differently. My verbal SAT was low 790’s, yet some of my best thinking is purely kinesthetic.
- inglor_cz 4mo ago
  I have done this for my entire life (no diagnosis) ... but I also find it easy to write stories and books. Your comment made me pause in the "wait, other people don't do that?" way.
- Chance-Device 4mo ago
  Haha, I found this genuinely funny. It’s called an internal monologue. Google tells me that it’s the majority position with 30 to 50 percent not having one. Personally, I find it very difficult to understand how people could not think in words, like you were speaking to another person. Obviously you also have mental imagery and sound etc, so not everything is just words. Internal speech is one channel of thought, but for anything complex I would have thought it was mandatory.
  - felooboolooomba 4mo ago
    > Obviously you also have mental imagery I personally don't since I suffer from aphantasia. Perhaps I also suffer from not having an internal monologue?! I do think in words but not in complete sentences, it kind of happens much faster.
    - vonunov 4mo ago
      Look into "worded thinking", "unworded speech", "partially worded speech": https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html See also papers from Hurlburt and others on "unsymbolized thinking" and surrounding topics
      - chrisweekly 4mo ago
        "There is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a depth of formless feeling untouched by thought." - Rilke
- s5300 4mo ago
  [dead]
zenoprax 4mo ago
I'm with you there. I have to either hear the full sentences narrated by my internal voice or see the words flashing in my mind in order to "think". This is great for building and maintaining deep mental models but it is also highly susceptible to "bit rot" (such as forgetting the rationale or evidence for a specific assertion or position) days/weeks/years later. I have a friend who simply can't understand how inter-linked note systems (like the kind Obsidian enables) are helpful. It's just a bewildering mess to them and they think more linearly. Thus, writing things down is a necessity for me: it's not for a need for structure but rather that my "context window" gets filled too quickly. I can counter my own arguments but it's more fun, and often quicker, to do with someone else. Besides, there is such a diversity of thinking out there it would be foolish to not take advantage!
kreyenborgi 4mo ago
Same here. When I was younger I liked imagining having conversations with people from the past like Plato or something, thinking about their reactions to The Future. (Though I guess I only really imagined my own side of the conversation.)
MaysonL 4mo ago
Different people’s minds work very differently. More differently than most people imagine.
- 9x39 4mo ago
  I was reading the parent and thinking the same thing - I can't do that. There's no "voice" in my head like some people describe. If I want to model speaking like a mock conversation, I have to write it or ... speak it, even silently, to convert from the visuals that are my thought. As an aside, I end up having to organize certain types of thoughts through speaking, which requires some adaptations and limiting functions :-)
  - Propelloni 4mo ago
    Agreed. I have to write stuff down, with a pen, on paper, for this to work. Typing into a machine works sort of, but not on the same level.
dwd 4mo ago
There has been many a time where the process of thinking through in my head how I was going to describe the problem to someone else on the way over to them, that a testable idea pops up. Could probably have gone for a walk around the block instead, but the formulation of the problem to be able to explain it to someone else seems to be key.
- japanuspus 4mo ago
  This is what I miss from (the early) Stack Overflow: often the process of writing up a well-framed question ended up solving the problem. I sometimes put out the question anyway and added an answer. Never quite figured out if this was considered bad style.
  - dwd 4mo ago
    Jeff Attwood in his Coding Horror post about Rubber Duck Debugging mentioned that as well. I would think he wouldn't have considered it bad style. https://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/

by slwvx 4mo ago

dgeiser13 4mo ago

I assume your anecdotal experience is rare.

felooboolooomba 4mo ago

> I often construct full sentences in my head I've only ever heard that associated with schizophrenia, but I don't even know if that's true or not.

unfitted2545 4mo ago
I think I've got this from growing up with a narcissist. Thoughts are constructed and seemingly endlessly whittled to try and create a sentence that can avoid getting belittled. It's hard to talk in groups, because you have to have a sentence mentally critiqued by 3/4 people in turn, so the topic has usually changed before you can say your piece.
lazyasciiart 4mo ago
What? It's never occurred to me that this isn't entirely normal, I've done it all my life. I thought people without an inner monologue were the unusual ones.
- ubercore 4mo ago
  I'm not wading into the schizophrenia part, but inner monologue doesn't necessarily imply constructing a fully formed sentence you then repeat to yourself.
- crims0n 4mo ago
  I think there is a difference between having an inner monologue, and imagining a conversation with another person in your head.
  - innerconvo 4mo ago
    Created a throwaway for this, but is this not what people do? Not so much imagining a conversation in your head, but playing through a conversation with "the other side" of the coin (be it an idea, plan, problem, solution etc) which are both yourself if that makes sense. Is this not what the inner monologue to yourself is? Your inner is conversing with your outer monologue. Hard to explain. Would consider myself to be both physically and mentally stable, no conditions etc.
    - crims0n 4mo ago
      I can only speak for myself... but my inner monologue is just a runaway train of thoughts that I vocalize in my head as I work through them. There is no other person in there, abstract or otherwise. Have you ever seen the Death Note anime? Similar to that.
      - andoando 4mo ago
        I do what the person you're replying to and for me its just one voice or a faint imagination of them speaking. Its me roleplaying as the other person, not like there is a different entity in my brain.
    - AmazingEveryDay 4mo ago
      > Created a throwaway for this, but is this not what people do? I think it's okay, unless you converse online with your throwaways.
      - felooboolooomba 4mo ago
        No, I've hacked other peoples account to do that.
Jevon23 4mo ago
It might be correlated with neurodivergence. But it’s also just correlated with high verbal ability in general, presumably. I find it quite natural to think in complete structured sentences, and it’s often perplexed me why other people seem to find this concept so alien. And no I’m not schizophrenic.
- felooboolooomba 4mo ago
  > And no I’m not schizophrenic. Which of you? :)
- MaysonL 4mo ago
  Then again, different people’s minds work very differently. My verbal SAT was low 790’s, yet some of my best thinking is purely kinesthetic.
inglor_cz 4mo ago
I have done this for my entire life (no diagnosis) ... but I also find it easy to write stories and books. Your comment made me pause in the "wait, other people don't do that?" way.
Chance-Device 4mo ago
Haha, I found this genuinely funny. It’s called an internal monologue. Google tells me that it’s the majority position with 30 to 50 percent not having one. Personally, I find it very difficult to understand how people could not think in words, like you were speaking to another person. Obviously you also have mental imagery and sound etc, so not everything is just words. Internal speech is one channel of thought, but for anything complex I would have thought it was mandatory.
- felooboolooomba 4mo ago
  > Obviously you also have mental imagery I personally don't since I suffer from aphantasia. Perhaps I also suffer from not having an internal monologue?! I do think in words but not in complete sentences, it kind of happens much faster.
  - vonunov 4mo ago
    Look into "worded thinking", "unworded speech", "partially worded speech": https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html See also papers from Hurlburt and others on "unsymbolized thinking" and surrounding topics
    - chrisweekly 4mo ago
      "There is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a depth of formless feeling untouched by thought." - Rilke
s5300 4mo ago
[dead]

zenoprax 4mo ago

I'm with you there. I have to either hear the full sentences narrated by my internal voice or see the words flashing in my mind in order to "think". This is great for building and maintaining deep mental models but it is also highly susceptible to "bit rot" (such as forgetting the rationale or evidence for a specific assertion or position) days/weeks/years later. I have a friend who simply can't understand how inter-linked note systems (like the kind Obsidian enables) are helpful. It's just a bewildering mess to them and they think more linearly. Thus, writing things down is a necessity for me: it's not for a need for structure but rather that my "context window" gets filled too quickly. I can counter my own arguments but it's more fun, and often quicker, to do with someone else. Besides, there is such a diversity of thinking out there it would be foolish to not take advantage!

kreyenborgi 4mo ago

Same here. When I was younger I liked imagining having conversations with people from the past like Plato or something, thinking about their reactions to The Future. (Though I guess I only really imagined my own side of the conversation.)

MaysonL 4mo ago

Different people’s minds work very differently. More differently than most people imagine.

9x39 4mo ago
I was reading the parent and thinking the same thing - I can't do that. There's no "voice" in my head like some people describe. If I want to model speaking like a mock conversation, I have to write it or ... speak it, even silently, to convert from the visuals that are my thought. As an aside, I end up having to organize certain types of thoughts through speaking, which requires some adaptations and limiting functions :-)
- Propelloni 4mo ago
  Agreed. I have to write stuff down, with a pen, on paper, for this to work. Typing into a machine works sort of, but not on the same level.

dwd 4mo ago

There has been many a time where the process of thinking through in my head how I was going to describe the problem to someone else on the way over to them, that a testable idea pops up. Could probably have gone for a walk around the block instead, but the formulation of the problem to be able to explain it to someone else seems to be key.

japanuspus 4mo ago
This is what I miss from (the early) Stack Overflow: often the process of writing up a well-framed question ended up solving the problem. I sometimes put out the question anyway and added an answer. Never quite figured out if this was considered bad style.
- dwd 4mo ago
  Jeff Attwood in his Coding Horror post about Rubber Duck Debugging mentioned that as well. I would think he wouldn't have considered it bad style. https://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/rubber-duck-problem-solving/