I think it's related to my ADHD. Reading is very difficult because as I read, my voice just completely wanders off, CONSTANTLY. "Oh hey, 'gargantuan' that's a great word. Reminds me of a video game monster... Oh did you just read 2 whole pages without absorbing a single bit of it?"
To add a bit more commentary: this is the one time I consider my ADHD to be a terrible disability. I cannot read. I just can't. Grad school was HELL when I had to read. But my ADHD and associated strong independent inner monologue is immensely powerful when I'm trying to solve problems myself, such as doing software design.
And yeah, I can have conversations with the voice. Yeah, it can help to focus moving my thinking forwards on some problem-solving thing. But, alas, often when I'm doing that it just starts saying obviously-silly things, as if it's a Markov model. Sentences that might sound structurally reasonable but that are obviously not what I meant to say/think, and obviously not true.
But it almost never interferes with reading. Reading is too compelling. Even if my thoughts go off in some other direction while reading and I do the "just read a page but absorbed nothing" thing, there's no voice involved then, it feels like a different process.
The only time I experience the sort of word-based hijacking you're describing is with what I think of as "internal argument". I'll think of a previous or possible future discussion and structure my reply in words. Although since words are slow, often the words will sort of collapse and I'll shift to sort of a mental outline mode, where it's more a feel of structure with occasional words or phrases cropping up.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind Paperback – by Julian Jaynes
I definitely experience it when reading & writing carefully and sometimes in deep thought with conscious effort, but never minute to minute and definitely not compulsively. I'd describe my minute to minute like you, more abstract and intuitive. Yet at the same time I'm very introspective, it just doesn't happen with an inner monologue.
edit: after reading the study, I think I fall into the not having an internal monologue. Fascinating.
When he asked people how they kept track of how much time had passed, he found that people who pictured a number in their heads were able to keep time and read without issue, while those who "spoke" the time to themselves found it impossible to read.
I’ve always kinda suspected people making this claim are lacking introspection to such an extreme extent that they don’t even recognize the inner voice that’s omnipresent.
Your essential point for justifying this skepticism is that you cannot imagine people are this different. In my experience people are always a little bit more different than you can imagine. After all, there are people that tirelessly work to charitable ends on one end and people that run death camps on the other.
> people making this claim are lacking introspection to such an extreme extent
It's perfectly acceptable to you to imagine that you are (essentially) fundamentally better or more complete than them, but not that perhaps they are your equals and merely experience life differently. I think it could be valuable to figure out why one is easy to you while the other is hard.
If you're having a hard time grasping that, try doing or thinking about things while doing a mantra. I think you'll find that you're still able to "think" while the only thing your inner dialogue is saying is some kind of mantra. (It may take some practice)
You can also try speed reading apps which force you to absorb information without the time for an inner monologue.
I find this helps with introspection as you can observe ideas without the (direct) bias of language. Being able to recognize and observe the thing that's making your inner monologue happen is a useful skill, I think. I can't really imagine being bound to language like you're describing, and it often takes me a while to put more complicated ideas into words.
Languages categories are never going to be accurate. Is a whale a fish or a mammal? Well technically a mammal, but if you want to put someone in charge of them it's probably better if it's the department of fisheries than whoever's in charge of buffalo. One of of them has boats. The word is just a word, a pointer at a vague collection of things with similar properties. Being able to think about and work with the things directly without the distraction of language is very important to me.
And now it sounds like a lot of meditation is training to be able to think the way you or I do, haha.
Is there any useful, productive research out there about this stuff? The only time I’ve come across any convincing or scientifically rigorous psychology was when Feynman did some for fun in his spare time and wrote about it
- Maybe!
- Don't accidentally get caught in the fallacy of "how I experience existence must be how everyone does
- Is it possibly just a semantic distinction at that point? If you are completely consciously unaware of an internal voice that speaks your language, does it matter if it's there or not?
It’s not a semantic distinction to me, since the mechanism underlying it would then be the same and it’d just be their recognition of it that varied which is way less surprising.
If such people were not rampant, I do not think these teachers and apps would be so popular.
Instead of a voice I have a constant song playing in my head when I am not focused. The song changes multiple times per week but if I am on idle I have a song.
When I speak the song turns off, but no voice comes on, unless I consciously prepare my words.
Now when typing this comment, I have a voice (which is my own voice) say the words I am about to type milliseconds before I type them.
But I also have an inner voice . I think the music stops when the voice starts, not sure.
For the last week I’ve had “right down the line” by Gerry Raferty (70s pop song) playing.
This hypothesis would explain hearing the inner monologue when reading, as reading actually transcribes visual data directly to their phonetic counterparts.
Thinking of images is also different than thinking of words (since all of us speak the language).
I’m not saying it’s impossible, but that I suspect its more likely a lack of introspection - I’d need to be persuaded empirically somehow and don’t know how to test it.
No more of speak the language than see with our eyes. Personally while I do have some kind of inner voice, my thoughts tend much more heavily to the visual. And memories too. If I need to recall a phone number or spelling then I'll imagine it written.
Like you, I had a hard time believing people were different in this. The whole idea of an internal narrator seemed absurd to me. Why would anybody need a narrator for themselves? They're right there! But enough people claim that this is their real life that I'm willing to believe it, however tedious and exhausting that sounds to me.
Without language and semantic meaning tied to ideas, what does 'thinking' mean at all?
My point is more that there are always thoughts (typically in the form of words, but sometimes images) flowing through your mind all of the time. Meditation and 'mindfulness' is focused on recognizing them as they happen and getting control of that kind of thing (at least enough to reduce thought loops, rumination, unwanted emotional response, etc.).
I get that you have a hard time understanding thinking without words because that's your main experience. But please understand that it's different for other people.
And not just people. Animals can be very thoughtful. Watch documentaries, for example, of animal cognition and problem-solving. From crows to chimps, an awful lot of thinking happens, just not in words.
I also think that an internal voice that doesn't get conscious awareness is likely to become a process that doesn't present as voice. So it's not like someone can just pay more attention and hear something, because it stopped talking a long time ago.
If you can speak, read, and write though?
I think you can get better at quieting the voice or letting thoughts pass, but I don’t think you can really turn it off for longer than a few moments. Gurus that claim they have and have “reached enlightenment” just seem to be lying either to themselves or everyone else (or both).
Obviously nobody is claiming psychic powers here, but I wouldn’t expect brains to operate that differently - so it’s surprising to me.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FaJaCgqBKphrDzDSj/37-ways-th...
Everyone's neurotransmitter balance is different. Of course that will cause brains to sometimes operate wildly differently.
Ultimately this is just a hunch though about what I suspect is more likely, I can obviously be wrong.