Comment by dorkwood | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dorkwood | Hacker News Reader

> "I think most people are mistaken about it," said Hurlburt. "People are hyper-confident. 'Yes I have inner monologue.' And other people say, 'No I don't have a monologue.' And the chances are pretty good that both sides of the debate are mistaken."

I think this is the answer. I think it's likely we're all experiencing something similar, but we're all describing it in different ways. People in the article who seem shocked at the idea of an internal monologue are getting hung up on this assumption that people are hearing an audible voice commenting on their every move, but I don't think anyone is actually experiencing that unless they're schizophrenic.

Some people reading this will say "no, I really do hear a voice!" But I'd ask if the audio of that voice is capable of drowning out the noise around you. I'm guessing it isn't. And if that's the case, we've discovered we're both working with different definitions of what it means to hear.

I think the more likely explanation is that many of us have developed a habit where we activate this pseudo-voice in order to have pretend conversations in our head, and others just didn't develop that same habit -- although they could probably do it if they tried.

I don’t generally think in words at all. I predominantly exist in a state of "unsymbolized thinking” according to the terminology in the article. Even when I’m doing difficult things like reasoning about/problem solving with code. Almost everything I do happens “behind a curtain” im my subconscious.

Me too. If I'm writing code or working with my hands, it's more instinctual. I'm not thinking the words "I need to connect this piece here to this piece over here". I'd never get anything done that way.

But I would still describe myself as having an inner monologue. As I was washing my hands a moment ago, I found myself rehearsing this reply in my head, speaking the words internally, because it's a habit I've developed over the years. My guess is that people who claim they don't have an inner monologue simply never developed any such habits.

> But I'd ask if the audio of that voice is capable of drowning out the noise around you

Yep, to some degree. It's usually called "getting lost in thought", and traditionally in movies and media someone else snaps you out of it by yelling your name a few times.

I agree it's possible to distract yourself with your inner monologue, but I wouldn't say it's due to the volume of your inner voice.

I liken it to people who claim they can visualise a photorealistic image right in front of them, superimposed over the real world (yes, I've met such people). If you ask them to visualize a black box that grows to take up the entirety of their vision, blocking everything else out, they have to admit that they can't do that. Because while they've identified what they're experiencing as "vision", it's not that. It's something else that kind of feels like vision, but they lack the language to articulate it.

Hm. I mean, you're right it's for sure not the same as vision, but it's also reasonable that if people say they can do this sort of thing, even weakly, and others say they can't, there is likely some sort of fundamental difference between them. Regardless of what, exactly, that difference is.

I think this “vision” they see or the “sound” we hear in our heads is literally the deeper mechanisms of those parts of the brain being either more or less strongly connected to our overall perception system. We can’t override the direct sensor feedback, but we can cause enough self-induced “backpropgation” to affect the overall result we experience. In this case I also think it’s totally reasonable for some to not even have a “inner monologue” as there are stranger perception based mutations such as the one where you can’t recognize faces. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/face-blindness/#:~:text=Prosop....

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