Hacker News Reader

I spend a lot of my time writing, and when I'm ready, stuff just pours out. I'm always thinking the words as I write them, but there's not lots of intervening internal dialog.

Often it's like I have no clue what I'm going to write, until I write it.

But maybe that's just that I've trained myself to write my internal dialog down, instead of just thinking it. And when I'm stuck, I definitely talk to myself more. Sometimes to the point that I can't write anything.

When I'm really focused on something, on the other hand, it's very hard to stop. I'll be so tired that I can barely think, and yet I can't clean my teeth and wash my face without scribbling notes on scraps of paper. Which, by the way, I dispose of securely ;)

Also, it's obvious that there's a lot going on that I'm not at all conscious of. I can stew over stuff for days, or even weeks. And then, out of nowhere, it's there to be written. Or done, as the case may be.

### GIBSON SPOILER BELOW (ROT13) ###

V yvxr Crgre Jnggf' qrfpevcgvba bs ubj Inyrevr'f zvaq jbexf va Rpubcenkvn. Onfvpnyyl cnenyyry cebprffvat bs ahzrebhf ernyvgl zbqryf. Nyfb Jvyyvnz Tvofba'f qrfpevcgvba bs Rhavpr'f oenapu cynagf va Ntrapl, juvpu fur qbrfa'g xabj bs hagvy gurl vagrtengr.

Fb Inyrevr vf n inzcver, naq Rhavpr vf n uhzna/NV uloevq. Ohg znlor jr jbex ng yrnfg n yvggyr yvxr gung. Naq onpx gb gur cbvag, znlor vagreany qvnybtf, zhfvp naq vzntrf whfg ersyrpg yrnxntr bs qvssrerag zbqhyrf vagb pbafpvbhfarff.

Damn, this is so weird. I had the same experience, and was desperate and sad by how many years went by without me "actually living" (as I so thought at the time). I went to an extreme of really thinking with this internal monologue for everything that I did, even going to the bathroom. Otherwise I would feel like a robot from the cartoons I watched.

Not the parent, but the general process would be: form a kernel of a thought, this is largely subconscious process. This thought is made up of meaning-and-context-rich symbols specific to my mind. Refine this thought, resolving contradictions and various logical weakpoints. Translate this thought into speech, losing much of the information content because language is a tool created to holler at your fellow hominids as you hunt African game and backstab each other when competing for high value mates.

I'm not lacking internal monologue, but this resonated with me.

Often I can feel that I have a complex idea more or less nailed down, but it's an effort to stop and put things into words, even internally.

Other times though even an internal monologue isn't enough to tease out the edge cases or weigh the tradeoffs, and I need to write stream-of-consciousness style.

Different styles of problems lend themselves to different approaches, I think

Language is a way of communicating abstractions from one abstraction machine to another; of course information content is lost, but that is only because it must be transformed and compressed to fit into the narrow channel of audio signals that humans are capable of both producing and detecting.

Well said. And in relation to primal psychology (hunting game on the African savannah and hollering at fellow hominids), our ability to convey abstractions and stories through language is an integral part of what makes us human. So the view that language is just a utilitarian tool and not much more is myopic to me. We are social creatures, and whether you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert, sharing thoughts with others is inextricably woven into your biology. A rejection of this concept is, to me, a rejection of a deeply important part of life and what it means to exist as a sentient being. It often bothers me to interact with people who have this attitude; it's like trying to talk to them through a glass barrier that they refuse to take down.

This fascinates me as I remeber this moment too - I was about 5 or 6 though and it was going into my grandmothers back garden through an arch and I was like fully 'awake' for the first time - I had vague feelings of memories prior to this but I do remember the voice becoming aware.

I've never had anyone else remember or experience this before and I think its important.

I was browsing the thread, trying to recollect my oldest memory of me having an internal monologue and remembered one time in my grandmothers back garden when I was 5/6, then read this :)

My story was that I was playing around in the garden. I was messing with a pile of stuff placed against the garden wall and as I'm touching something, suddenly I feel a huge electric shock. There was an old electric socket there, probably for pluggin a grass cutter. I remember the strong tinge around my whole body and how it pull me into it. I quickly twitched and jumped back. I remember telling myself "Wow, I could have died there". And, "electricity really gets you stuck" (I remember when I was that age adults would warn you about touching electric sockets, saying you could "get stuck to it", I guess not grounding installations was common).

That's really cool, thanks for sharing! Based on your and another poster's response, it seems like there is some wide variation in the age at which this moment might occur (I'm skeptical that the other poster who said they were 3 had the 'same' moment you and I are talking about, but it seems similar enough in this particular context). This begs the question - are there people who never experience this event??

I recall very specifically, when I was 3 or something, walking out onto the playground and realizing sentences are made out of words.

Learned myself to read before getting to primary school.

Also can bypass verbal thought. Can internally hear and visualize mostly anything. Don't recall not being able to internally hear or visualize things.

Words are like symbols in a programming language. Sentences pop into my head like a while loop construct might.

Interesting. Just curious, are you able to have a conversation with yourself in a mirror without speaking out loud (something that the article says at least some non-internal-monologue-having people say they can't do)?

Yes I can but it sounds somewhat false to me. It's hard to capture in words the real truth of what I am thinking. If I start talking to myself it starts to sound like someone else's voice - my fathers or someone famous

This makes sense. You can't have an internal monologue until you learn a language.