
Why Talking to Yourself Might be The Highest Form of Intelligence - pavs
http://justseventhings.com/2009/01/25/why-talking-to-yourself-might-be-the-highest-form-of-intelligence/
======
boredguy8
Talking is one of many forms of processing. I've had similar experiences while
drafting an e-mail outlining the problem and everything I've tried to fix it.
Hundreds of such e-mails have never been sent because in the process of
writing things out, I realize a new attempt.

I have a coworker who processes everything externally. He even reads e-mail
out loud to himself. He doesn't gain the same...clarity...that people are
talking about in this thread.

So I really think it's a question of walking yourself through everything you
know about the problem and everything you've tried. Regardless of whether it's
verbal or not.

~~~
alextp
I have an agreement with my thesis advisor in which I will send him many
emails as I think through an issue, and he doesn't have to read them carefully
(or at all). I will clearly mark the parts that he needs to answer (like the
time of the next meeting or other silly things), and if I do need an answer to
a question I might send an email just with it.

Then, when it is time for us to meet, all that writing has helped the ideas
solidify in my head enough for it to be very easy to explain to him what I'm
trying to doand how, and then his comments can be very useful. Before we
arranged this I'd block for days without managing to think some detail
through, but now I just start writing him an email about the issue and by the
end of the email I usually have an idea as to how can I solve it.

------
scott_s
<http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking>

------
lmkg
On a related note, hand gestures are usually for the benefit of the speaker,
not the audience, for a very similar reason. I tried holding hands with a girl
during a classroom discussion once, and I couldn't even begin to speak without
bringing my hands out.

I talk to myself a lot. I was an only child, so I never really got socialized
against it, and often didn't have anyone else present to talk to. However,
this usually happens when I'm idly woolgathering, not when I'm working on a
problem. Problems require writing!

~~~
bjplink
I'm also an only child that regularly talks to myself. I would bet that the
percentage of only children who talk to themselves is pretty high.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
Another autoconversing only child here. In my consistent experience, the best
thing I can do to understand something more fully is to explain it to someone
else - even if that 'someone else' is actually myself. :)

------
metamemetics
Good article until it mentioned Jill Bolte, who gave one of the worst psuedo-
scientific TED Talks I can recall. It relied on erroneous analogies such as
'the left brain is a serial processor, the right brain is a parallel
processor' (the whole brain is massively parallel, everywhere) and ignores
facts such as the right brain is capable of learning and taking over language
processing in children who have had portions of their left brain removed (to
treat epilepsy). If you talk about integration of sensory information and
awareness, you want to talk about specific brain systems and cortical columns,
NOT make monolithic statements about left brain vs. right brain that get
overgeneralized into the silly notion of inaccurately labelling people 'left
brain' or 'right brain'.

------
BigZaphod
I talk to myself all the time when working through programming problems. (And
even some other types of problems.) I remember being told at a very young age
that this was some kind of sign of insanity and should be avoided. I ignored
that advice and have been reaping the rewards ever since.

------
forinti
I find it's the only sure way to talk to someone as intelligent as I am.

------
tjmaxal
The real trick here is to try and process things in as many ways as you need
to to work through the problem.

------
JoeAltmaier
I write problems down and draw pictures. That also can help frame it, making a
solution easier to see.

~~~
dazzawazza
This is true but I find actually having to speak the words out loud forces me
to reveal implicit assumptions I was making behind my own back. Drawing
pictures doesn't always tease this out.

Often the eureka moment occurs when I realise that my hidden assumption just
makes no sense at all and I feel stupid but elated at the same time.

Personally I do need someone to be there otherwise my mind carries on hiding
things behind my back.

I don't think my mind and me are on the same team sometimes :)

~~~
calibraxis
An AI researcher (Patrick Henry Winston) once mentioned that psychologists and
AI researchers kept finding that intelligence was buried in two places: our
visual and linguistics systems.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXQtoAyCGA&feature=PlayL...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXQtoAyCGA&feature=PlayList&p=9F536001A3C605FC&playnext_from=PL)

------
sep
A bit unrelated, but this reminded me of a Blackadder quote:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUazM5lm1rk>

------
davcro
Talking to yourself is okay as long as no one talks back.

~~~
Zaak
And definitely don't start losing the arguments.

------
jgrahamc
Just like Turing did: <http://blog.jgc.org/2010/05/talking-to-porgy.html>

------
naba
This article closely describes how it works with me many times..after being
stuck in some problem for a certain amount of time I feel the need to get
another perspective on tackling it..and then just midway while explaining or
after explaining to someone else the answer seems so obvious that I feel dumb
for not being able to get it sooner. Now I know its not just me.

~~~
Maven911
Yes, that has happened to be me a lot of times since I do a lot of support
work. The high-level, low-level symptoms, the trigger of the problem, the root
cause of the issue and the facts/opinion of the support problem all get
jumbled up. I have tried in the past to articulate the issue at hand and
seperate the facts, symptoms, opinions, end-user experience, but nothing helps
better then to try to find the answer from someone else..and then realzing
what you should/could have done extra before they even utter a word...

------
kokofoo
I recently read an article in which they say one can solve problems in their
dreams [1]. I could swear it has happened to me at least a couple times.

[1] <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37926551/ns/health-behavior/>

------
kadavy
Another reason why I have to work alone, from home. I really just have to pace
around and talk out loud to myself sometimes. Sometimes I conduct all-hands
meetings this way - which is easy because I'm the only person in my company.

------
raphar
the picture reminds me World of Goo game. Are we filled with that?!?!?!

------
percept
How about talking to cats?

~~~
babobear
My cats will probably never think I'm intelligent no matter what I do

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
Mine don't even seem to be good listeners. They just leave the room or jump
off my lap in the middle of our conversations...

------
username3
Relation to praying?

------
pasbesoin
I can get a bit foul mouthed at times, when talking to recalcitrant
equipment... err, myself. I have to watch that, a bit, as other people can
come to think I have "attitude", particularly in today's HR-dominated "three
monkeys" culture. But it works for me -- vents a bit of frustration and gets
me motivated to make useful changes when I might otherwise hesitate and get
lost in an overcomplexity of "what-if's".

