
What Happens When You Can’t Talk to Yourself? - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/what-happens-when-you-cant-talk-to-yourself
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fennecfoxen
> American philosopher Jerry Fodor proposes an alternative idea, called the
> “Language of Thought” hypothesis. He argues that in addition to our
> consciously perceived internal monologues, we have a second internal
> language that is codified into the brain—a kind of “mentalese,” that we
> don’t consciously perceive.

That's roughly in line with the anecdotal reports from the "tulpa" community
seem to report when trying to train a portion of their brain to operate as a
quasi-independent entity:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tulpas/)

~~~
StavrosK
I can attest to this. I don't have an inner monologue (not that I can't, I
just don't), I stopped in my teens. Nowadays, if I do talk to myself
internally, I can feel the idea forming initially in milliseconds, and then
the internal monologue just puts it in words, but it's just for amusement,
it's not something necessary for thought. Most of the time (like right now,
when writing this comment) I skip the monologue entirely.

It makes sense to me that this is exactly how we talk. We don't think things
out at first in our heads, we just form an idea and then say the words to
communicate it.

I was talking about this with a friend, entirely incidentally, and it turns
out that he does the same thing too. I find it hard to believe we're that
rare.

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hyperpallium
Me too. Thought is more fluid; putting it into words concretizes it, collapses
the possibilities of the waveform. Somewhat, formalizes it.

Words are a serialization format for thought. There are different formats;
there are also different bindings possible for the same information in the
same format. Grammars are used to describe both. Actually, important early
work on regular and context free grammars was done by a linguist.

Of course, none of that shows that thought is analogous to graphs of data
structures. But I suspect if we ever develop direct brain-to-brain
communication (i.e. prelinguistic telepathy), we'll see similar problems to
interoperating programs written by different people at different times in
different contexts for different purposes.

~~~
rvikmanis
> Thought is more fluid; putting it into words concretizes it, collapses the
> possibilities of the waveform. Somewhat, formalizes it.

That is a very good description.

I discussed this topic with a colleague recently, and we both agreed that
putting thoughts into words takes conscious effort. Though I suspect that is
not so for the majority of people, whose default mode of thinking is
distinctly verbal, even when not talking or writing.

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DennisP
A great book on this is _My Stroke of Insight_ , written by a neuroscientist
who had a massive left-hemisphere stroke. Her experience was horrific in many
ways, absolutely beautiful in others.

She also has a TED talk:
[https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_strok...](https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight?language=en)

~~~
delish
I just watched that talk. Wow! She's a skilled public speaker; I felt her
words as she was saying them. This talk inspired me to try meditating again.
Thank you.

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peter303
NPR Science ran a similar piece a while ago. The patient reported a stillness
of mind that meditators seek to acheive. There was an immediate prsence in
sensation, uncontaminated my thinking. This may be what pre-language children
experience. Of course an accomplished meditator can turn this on and off,
unlike an aphasia parient.

~~~
proksoup
This sounds interesting - does anyone have a link? I searched but could not
find it.

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jes5199
My favorite explanation of what the verbal stream-of-concsiousness does is
from this paper:
[http://www.jayhanson.org/_Biology/consciousness.pdf](http://www.jayhanson.org/_Biology/consciousness.pdf)
titled "Conscious Thought Is for Facilitating Social and Cultural
Interactions: How Mental Simulations Serve the Animal–Culture Interface"

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nabla9
Thinking the Way Animals Do: Unique insights from a person with a singular
understanding.

[http://www.grandin.com/references/thinking.animals.html](http://www.grandin.com/references/thinking.animals.html)

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MichaelGG
Meanwhile, I'd love to get myself to shut the hell up once in a while. It
might be really lovely to really have silence. Best I'm able to do is during a
really long massage, maybe, I'll drift into a semi-conscious state. Or perhaps
on certain medicines, a slight loss of identity (but not nearly enough to be
silent internally.) Gonna try a 10-day vipassana course as that's supposed to
help somewhat. Any suggestions?

~~~
zyxley
You could give some binaural audio a try. I've found it useful for relaxing
during the work day.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFlPE6wPIfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFlPE6wPIfM)

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pessimizer
Or a train of thought is an epiphenomenon, and we don't have to speculate
about secret languages. Fodor finds this unacceptable, but without serious
argument.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphenomenalism)

