Yes. Some people report thinking very much like a character would do do on a sitcom: they "hear" their thoughts as if they were speech. Others do not, but they are obviously aware of their thoughts and are introspective and deliberate etc.
I, for one, have never "heard" my thoughts and do not think in words unless I force myself to. For example if I "write" a paragraph in my head as an exercise without actually writing it in real life. But my thoughts normally consist of emotions, spatial relations, sounds, images and sensations. If there is such a things as hearing your own thoughts as language, I can safely say I've never experienced it.
Since I really know very little about this phenomenon, I shouldn't talk too much. I guess that some would define thinking in emotions and images as a kind of internal monologue. But if you check out online discussions among lay people, you will usually find a bunch of people that are absolutely SHOCKED that other people do not experience internal monologue. Like, their world is rocked and it's quite funny.
I am SHOCKED by this, yes. I think strictly in language and thought that everyone did. Can I ask how you make decisions? I play out an argument internally until I'm satisfied with the conclusion.
Hm, it's hard to explain. To be honest I've made some big decisions based on gut feeling without fully understanding how serious the cons were. On the other hand, I can spend time agonizing over absolutely inconsequential decisions like choosing between one thing or the other in the grocery store. Most of the time I want to get the decision over with, to me that seems a much bigger concern than actually making the right decision.
The "arguments" do not present themselves as language to me. It's more like I "know" the pros and cons of each position and pull them out of a mental drawer to look at them. In some cases, I have strongly held principles that automatically shuts down the decision. For example if I'm ever tempted to start smoking again, I have a "principle" based on the absolutely devastating feeling of disappointment that has accompanied every relapse. Another "principle" is based on avoidance, for example there are some situations I know I will never, never put myself in again because the experience was either too painful or taxing in some other way.
However, as you have noticed these "principles" are more like the result of conditioning rather than convictions based on logic. And I have to say that rational arguments do not "persuade" me, in a way. Despite having read my fair share of philosophers and political commentators, it always feels more like "collecting" their points of view for future reference rather than engaging in a dialogue with the text. I've read texts I thought were brilliantly argued and spot on but they didn't change my real convictions, in a sense. In real-time interaction, I don't feel as if I care that much for being consistent or logical. This all changes when writing though, because when I write a paper, I can easily see the weak spots in my argument. *That's* probably the best example I have of making a "choice" with language: when the language is right in front of me.
I am actually pretty bad at long-term planning and making decisions for the future, as I often put things off until the very last minute. Like, a situation doesn't feel real to me until it's actually here. So, for example, repaying my student loan, finding a job after university, finding a place to live etc., these things are not even "things" to me mentally, right now. This despite being almost 29 and the fact that I have, at the very maximum, just 18 months left of university. This doesn't mean I am carefree about these things, on the contrary. When the agony hits, it really hits. Maybe I would be better at it if I wrote out the dilemma in Word or something, I would probably benefit from verbally processing such choices.
Thank you very much! You explained to me how my brain works, and I just came across this topic by chance. I vaguely knew that most people think in words but I was not fully aware of how the fact that I don't do that influence my life. Now it is more clear to me. I have to understand what to do with that.
Maybe I'm somewhere in the middle: I can think in words only if I imagine to speak to someone else. That's why sometimes I realize I look like someone who speaks to himself.
I do the internal monologue most of the time but to me it is rather distinctly not actual thinking, but sort of mumbling to myself, something deliberate, like I think it would be useful for me to subvocalize this and that.
So if there's a puzzle of some kind I'll be mumbling to myself (inside my head) various aspects of the puzzle and possible approaches while also thinking about it, until the solution pops in my head (or a sequence of partial solutions which are to be mumbled to myself to keep hold of where I am).
I think most people just sort of imagine that thinking is done by a sequence of lexical operations on text, which was how early AI was supposed to work, but that approach of course completely failed to produce anything even remotely useful.
I think by now we can conclude that thinking is only very tangentially related to text manipulation; hence people can have very different experiences with regards to text manipulation, and very different degree of belief that thinking is about text manipulation, without affecting their actual thinking.
edit: little kids are fascinating in that regards, because they think things long before they can say them.
not op but someone w the same deal; this is a very unsatisfying answer but I just think about it and then I decide something. it’s just that the thinking occurs without narration
To be honest I was surprised to find this out. I’ve always had at at least as long as I can form memories a combination of internal monologue and like you describe spatial - whatever - modes of thinking. On one hand it’s nice - in a world of text and language - to be able to arrive at the keyboard or on the phone with an idea already mostly fully formed in your head, on the other hand the persistence of those ideas while you’re going for a walk can be absolutely maddening.
Oh yes, some of the ideas won't leave you alone. I've had periods where an image or a piece of music won't leave my head at all, that's when the brain feels sort of hyperactive. Thinking about nothing at all is bliss, to be sure. I wish I could do that more often.
I’ve lately been sardonically calling my internal monologue “having visions” in reference to William Blake, because the repetitive strain of living in The Plague Era has basically turned my internal thoughts into The Book of Revelations
I also habitually count and multiply on my fingers as a sort of coping mechanism for my anxiety disorder which, again, has intensified while living under lockdowns and curfews
The combination is apt, given that I’m trying to be a writer on some level and that both Blake and Revelations/John do more or less the same
I'm the exact same but will try not to armchair-psychologize beyond my own experiences.
I generally think in associations, concepts, and experiences rather than full, grammatical sentences. If I'm trying to understand why someone did something, I'll usually do something like moving between the connected ideas of (them seeming angry) to (a reason for that) to (me saying something rudely) rather than internally speaking it out as a real sentence. On the other hand, if it's something actually related to language like imagining a conversation or reading some text, I'll process it through language, but it definitely feels different.
Association is a big thing for me as well. As a child I would imagine an object and "morph" it into something else, and it would go on endlessly. For example I would imagine a spider and I would turn it into a sword, a steak, a star, a car, etc. That was just something I did naturally, but from time to time I still do it because it's kind of fun, and it feels good to be in a mental space that has nothing to do with routine and responsibility and so on.
I think rehearsing arguments ahead of time is another exception where I think in language, but it feels incredibly unnatural and sort of forced. I have only done this on the few occasions where I've genuinely had to be the bringer of bad news, I sort of run through what I'm going to say the same way you practise something on an instrument.
By contrast, my internal monologue won't shut up and I have a hard time falling asleep. My brain is constantly "chattering." I even end up mumbling to myself sometimes, which entertains my friends.
Oh, me too. I come from a family of self talkers. I used to make fun of my father and his father for talking to themselves, but now I do it too. It's actually how I react to self-cringe/thinking about embarrassing events of the past. If I recall something embarrassing I just blurt out a non-sequitur phrase involving some colorful language. I only began doing that in the last couple of years I think, I try not to do it outside lol. I think talking to yourself is also a way of releasing pent up energy, just like when people are tapping their fingers on the table or have restless leg syndrome. If you check out the [Wikipedia article on Stimming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimming#:~:text=Some%20common%20examples%20of%20stimming,snapping%20fingers%2C%20and%20spinning%20objects.), "repeating noises or words" is listed as a "stim". It's sort of like a pressure valve. The only difference is people will think you're a lunatic if you talk to yourself, but it's really just a form of language production. If you think you're actually talking to someone when you do it, that's when it becomes a problem lol.
I also talk to myself all the time if I'm doing manual work, which is almost never to be fair. But it's like running commentary to whatever work I'm doing. Like my father does.
How does this affect in-person verbal communication? I know a guy with it and he says it can make it a bit difficult to formulate his thoughts, so he'll speak impulsively and sometimes lose his train of thought. He also claimed it made writing difficult. But he appeared outwardly normal to me.
I have social anxiety so it depends very much on who I'm speaking to and my mood. If I'm comfortable with the person and the situation there is no problem, there have been a couple of occasions where it felt like words were just flowing out of me and I've been kind of surprised by the things I've said. But in other situations I can barely relate even simple concepts. But that has nothing to do with a lack of internal monologue I think, it's just the social anxiety.
yep, I have no mental imagery and no internal monologue. imagine not thinking in pure concept and not thinking in language until ur forced to articulate thought. could not b me
I do talk to myself a lot though, but it’s literally talking (or muttering) and if I don’t do it, then the thoughts just occur as emotion/concept
Yes, the term is "Pristine Experience," though it doesn't have much currency yet. I've searched for a more specific term analogous to aphantasia but haven't found one yet.
Therefore, the cure for mental illness is reading
/r/brandnewsentence
(/r/thanksimcured)
(For the record, it’s somewhat ironic Eliezer’s tweeting this when
his most widely-read publication is a fanfic of Harry Potter fanfic, a
derivative work of derivative works.)
This seems like an impossible scale to base any metric on. How would
any psychologist have ever tracked this phenomenon in order to build a
correlation?
Is he simply misunderstanding something, or did he straight pull this
out of his ass?
> How would any psychologist have ever tracked this phenomenon in order to build a correlation?
I mean its just baseless navelgazing, and should be treated as such. Ofc since its EY he probably *does* suspect it could be some huge duh moment for some psychiatrist, but he's only posting it because he thinks its a neat observation.
It's pretty damn superficial to notice that yes, sad people think about being sad a lot, anxious people think about things they're afraid of a lot, and traumatized people think about their trauma a lot. Its essentially completely lacking in any value clinically. I think that's obvious.
It's less obvious why its not useful at a personal level: it seems pretty intuitive that an anxious person could recognize that they are anxious by thinking "have I thought about this more than other things of a similar threat?" but that works for only the mildest of mild cases of a subset of mental illnesses. Like, have you *met* someone with anxiety? Their whole thing is that they will rationalize any threat and how much they think about it. It just doesn't work if you can't distance yourself emotionally. Same with depression, OCD, trauma etc.
When it comes to things like many personality disorders, schizophrenia etc this guideline would be downright harmful. NPD, BPD, BD, SD all involve wildly varying thoughts or at least thoughts that all *feel* original, so this would only drive them deeper into it.
I think? [I can never freaking tell with him.](https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1356761497913880578)
E: [Okay, maybe I got whooshed, too.](https://twitter.com/maxefremov/status/1173664805229645827)
He linked to this post recently because he just noticed a reply to it
with some Chesterton quote about how chess players and logicians are
more prone to insanity than creative types (both Chesterton and Yud
should maybe leave this [empirical psychology] to people who are going
to actually collect data rather than just idly speculate on whatever
collection of things/people happen to come to mind)
As though he is pioneering mental health and the studies proving the
negative effects of rumination never happened.
It’s great when people say things that are so common and obvious and
act like it’s some profound message. Not to mention the blatant issues
in his generalizations :/
He heard about bad intrusive thoughs and just generalized that? Wait
why am I asking this, of course he did, it is the same rationalist flaw
rationalist fall for every time. The extreme love for ‘meta’ rules.
The thought keeps occurring to me of late: A key metric of relevance
is how many of your thoughts are worth a shit (sentences based in
understanding or expertise in the field under discussion) vs. horseshit
(opinions that bubble up from the depths of your nakedly self-serving
subconscious)
This is an old topic, but I just want to chime in and say that this
is just wrong: many devastating mental illnesses are associated with
highly unpredictable, unstructured cognition. Bipolar mania,
disorganized psychosis, etc.
Plenty of very, very sick people think thoughts that they’ve never
thought before.
Bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off for him.
Those of us who do not have an internal monologue simply do not have mental health at all! Yay!
Therefore, the cure for mental illness is reading /r/brandnewsentence
(/r/thanksimcured)
(For the record, it’s somewhat ironic Eliezer’s tweeting this when his most widely-read publication is a fanfic of Harry Potter fanfic, a derivative work of derivative works.)
This seems like an impossible scale to base any metric on. How would any psychologist have ever tracked this phenomenon in order to build a correlation?
Is he simply misunderstanding something, or did he straight pull this out of his ass?
He linked to this post recently because he just noticed a reply to it with some Chesterton quote about how chess players and logicians are more prone to insanity than creative types (both Chesterton and Yud should maybe leave this [empirical psychology] to people who are going to actually collect data rather than just idly speculate on whatever collection of things/people happen to come to mind)
This is really dumb
It’s funny especially how the thought keeps occurring to him.
Come on everyone. This is a self-referential joke. “The thought keeps occurring to me…”
Mantras are a sure sign of mental illness. Gautama Buddha - just a mental, am I right?
As though he is pioneering mental health and the studies proving the negative effects of rumination never happened.
It’s great when people say things that are so common and obvious and act like it’s some profound message. Not to mention the blatant issues in his generalizations :/
He heard about bad intrusive thoughs and just generalized that? Wait why am I asking this, of course he did, it is the same rationalist flaw rationalist fall for every time. The extreme love for ‘meta’ rules.
He is safe because although he keeps having the same thoughts, he thinks they are novel
On the verge of suicide because I keep thinking the same thought over and over again: “I am a good person deserving of fair treatment.”
The thought keeps occurring to me of late: A key metric of relevance is how many of your thoughts are worth a shit (sentences based in understanding or expertise in the field under discussion) vs. horseshit (opinions that bubble up from the depths of your nakedly self-serving subconscious)
Let’s just say he’ll have the same thoughts running through his mind a lot once I’m in charge.
This is an old topic, but I just want to chime in and say that this is just wrong: many devastating mental illnesses are associated with highly unpredictable, unstructured cognition. Bipolar mania, disorganized psychosis, etc.
Plenty of very, very sick people think thoughts that they’ve never thought before.