[zephyrthenoble]

> I don’t personally think that other animals will have a verbal inner monologue in the way that I do

I find it funny that this article and the quotes within state that humans have a "dense internal monologue" as if that is some requirement of the species. Some quick Googling indicates that people with internal monologues might only make up 30%-50% of people [0].

There are frequent Reddit posts with some variation of "TIL people [have|don't have] an internal monologue" full of comments of people from both sides, and a significant portion of people who don't have the classic internal monologue, but something in between instead.

We can't even begin to truly describe our own minds, how could we possibly know how all species would think?

0: Hurlburt, R.T., Alderson-Day, B., Kuhn, S. & Fernyhough, C. (2016). Exploring the ecological validity of thinking on demand: Neural correlates of elicited vs. spontaneously occurring inner speech. PLoS One, 11(2), e0147932. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147932

[taeric]

Agreed that it is very crazy how shallow projections from humanity to other animals often is. Really gets annoying when folks try and reverse morality in discussing behavior that 'not even animals would do.' Or, heaven help me, discussion of "balance." I've grown to view leaf season as basically trees conducting war on shrubbery.

[Terr_]

Or even shallow projections from humans to other humans, like with fundamental attribution error.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_erro...

[NayamAmarshe]

Inference can bring some compassion.

One doesn't need to think too much to know the only difference between us and other species is the ability to philosophize and as such, it should bring even more harmony and compassion, instead of beliefs that justify exploitation of nature.

I don't know why we assign ourselves so much importance, some of our thoughts allow us to bring harm to others but we don't want to be treated the same way we treat them.

All we really need is education, the education of putting ourselves in someone else's shoes (or hooves).

[prometheus76]

I don't entirely agree that all it takes is education. Many people have grown up on farms, have lived with animals all their lives, and yet have no problem eating animals.

[rickydroll]

They also have a different relationship to eating animals than people who think meat comes on a plastic tray wrapped in shrinkwrap. From what I've seen, the attitude is more mindful of the animal you raised and interacted with. You don't want to waste any part of their sacrifice in becoming food for you.

I take it a step further and say that if you're going to eat animals, make the best possible, best-tasting meal out of them.

[Terr_]

I lean heavily into the "I don't want to feel existentially guilty, so anonymous cubes please" camp.

The flip side is that I also have no quasi-romantic attachment to it being "real" meat.

[NayamAmarshe]

I suppose there are many factors involved but education is the key component. Knowledge, and a culture of knowledge can cause a massive shift in thinking and actions.

[prometheus76]

Essentially, what I hear in your statement is "if I can just teach people how I see the world, then they will see the world the same way." I firmly disagree with that assessment. Someone can be educated and yet see things differently from you.

[dbingham]

I think part of the issue is disagreement about what "harmony and compassion" actually looks like.

One of the sibling comments immediately jumped to the assumption you're referring to veganism and the use of animals in the food system. I'm not going to assume that's what you're referring to, but I will use it as a case study.

The problem with veganism's approach to this is that it's a limited extension of empathy. If you've been following along with the advances in plant behavior, it's pretty mind blowing. There is a growing body of evidence that plants have cognition (using a different system than animal's nervous system), memory, environmental awareness, the ability to learn, and communicate. In other words, it seems increasingly likely that plants are _also_ conscious.

In fact, there are hints of evidence that microbes are aware and making decisions. It may well be that environmental awareness and consciousness are just the defaults of life.

So then, for autotrophs like us, what does harmony and compassion look like? How do we feed ourselves at scale without causing harm or exploiting nature?

[adrian_b]

I do not believe that veganism can be criticized for a lack of empathy versus plants.

Even if we value identically plants and animals, plants are exploited in a much more benign way than animals.

In the past, there were many domestic animals which could be said to have lived quite a happy life for their kind, until the moment when they were slaughtered.

Nowadays, the vast majority of the domestic animals live in conditions that can be hardly named other than torture.

On the other hand, the cultivated plants do not really live in any worse way than in their wild state. The majority of the cultivated plants are either annual plants, which are killed a very short time before the moment when they would have died anyway, or they are perennial plants from which we take only their fruits, which have been developed by the plants especially for being taken by animals, as a payment for being aided in reproduction.

So without giving any preference to cultivated plants or domestic animals, the more ethical choice is to continue to exploit in the current way only the former.

I believe that in the future not even cultivating plants will be the most efficient way for producing food and other organic substances.

The most efficient way will be to use solar energy gathered by photovoltaic cells to capture carbon dioxide and dinitrogen and incorporate them in some simple organic molecule or molecules, perhaps glycine or a mixture of urea or ammonia with a simple carbohydrate or a short-chain fatty acid.

Whatever will be synthesized using solar energy, at a better efficiency than currently achieved by plants, will be used to feed some genetically engineered fungi (or parasitic plants, i.e. non-phototrophic plants), which will produce any kind of desired food or other useful complex organic substances. (A first step in this direction is shown by the recent news about strains of the Trichoderma fungus that have been genetically engineered to produce either whey protein or egg white protein, but in the future it should be possible to make for instance fungi able to grow fruiting bodies that are bananas or turkey thighs).

[catlifeonmars]

> How do we feed ourselves at scale without causing harm or exploiting nature?

Half jokingly, maybe we don’t, and human society develops morality that is not compatible with the continued existence of humans.

[tim333]

>how could we possibly know how all species would think?

Owners of cats and dogs get a reasonable idea from observation. But yeah, doing all species is tricky.

[q7xvh97o2pDhNrh]

> people with internal monologues might only make up 30%-50% of people

It's incredible to imagine there are people out there just thinking in language as they go about their lives.

I wonder how it must work. Are they literally lining up one word after another in their minds? I guess it has to work that way to feel like some sort of "consistent internal monologue"?

At scale, though, imagining a roomful of people thinking in single-threaded monologues does explain a lot about why some teams take forever to get anything done.

[LegionMammal978]

IME, "thinking in language" doesn't mean "thinking exclusively in language". Like, I do think in a linguistic monologue when trying to string together some ideas, or reading some text, or planning what I'm about to say. But there's a simultaneous undercurrent of feelings, reactions, and recollections that aren't in words.

(E.g., if I'm driving behind a car acting strangely on the road, I might be very carefully observing and anticipating the driver's actions, while only muttering a vague "Whaaat...?" Or, for an experiment you can try at home, try thinking of something dumb repeatedly without pause, while at the same time reflecting on how dumb it sounds.)

I suspect that many people are the same, it's just that the monologue is the most immediately noticeable component of one's thoughts.

[neom]

I have sound, pictures and videos, vividly. thinking etc is just having a conversation with the voice in my head.. me! Sometimes it's watching a little movie, sometimes an image pops up. If someone is talking to me and I'm thinking about what they are saying, it's typically my brain's serving me up little "videos" of things I've seen in the past. To actively listen to someone, I have to also actively prevent all that from happening, to make silence in my head, that took years to learn to do. The idea that other people don't think like that, well, I can't comprehend it because it's not how I do it.

[shishy]

Just because someone has an internal monologue doesnt mean they think slow. Its just a voice in your head you can talk to. Its not how you think.

[gnulinux]

It can also be how you think. I think like that (speaking to myself) and I'm not a slow thinker, at least I don't think so... The thing is, when speaking doesn't involve muscle movements, and just a stream of word/concept objects it can be much faster, and also doesn't have to be single-threaded (so to say). But from my subjective experience it feels like I'm talking to myself, one word after the other.

[neom]

I think this is probably how I work too, and people tell me I think very quickly, so I suppose that means I can just talk to myself faster than whatever they are doing, hah. If you don't mind me asking, how are you with math? My mind completely lacks a framework for numbers, so I'm unable to do math (I feel like that might sound insane).

[jochem9]

Not who you replied to, but I can relate.

I'm not great at math, but I've trained myself to do basic calculations in my head. I need to concentrate hard and it goes very slow (I'm also a fast thinker for other stuff). I do this because it's a very useful skill in day-to-day life, so worth training.

I once read that many people basically spin up a virtual machine in their mind to do math. That is how it feels to me too. All simulation, no hardware acceleration, so very slow.

[neom]

I'm really curious what people who are good at math are actually doing. I presume my thinking methodologies are just so far removed from how they think that I'm unable to imagine it, I can hardly even visualize a number never mind manipulate them, it's strange. I couldn't tell time till I was in my early teens, and even then it was a lot of work, and even today I wouldn't exactly call it "automatic".

[tomrod]

I was like you for awhile. Was good with with arithmetic but not much more than that. After learning a handful of new languages via total immersion, I found I could learn math much more deeply!

[WalterSear]

I find listening to podcasts at 1.25-1.5x much easier. I noticed that this speed is much more in line with my internal dialogue.

I also noticed that I need to speed up female speakers more than males. I'm not sure if this is because their cadence tends to be slower, or if it's something about me.

[pfannkuchen]

How do you write without an internal monologue? Is each sentence a surprise as you write it? It wasn’t in your head before you write it down? If it was, isn’t that an internal monologue?

[oersted]

Well I have an internal monologue and I think in language a lot, but I wouldn't say the sentence is on my mind before I write it. It's more like I redirect the stream of language to the page, so instead of saying the words to myself I write the words.

I find writing very useful for thinking. It focuses the monologue and you don't need to strain your short-term memory as much when reasoning about elements in the stream, it's like doing maths on paper instead of in your head.

I'm sure you experience the same thing when talking, you don't say each word to yourself before you say it out-loud (perhaps you do?). Also, where are the words before you say them to yourself, they are kind of a surprise no? Just as you describe writing.

[yencabulator]

Without internal monologue, you can still think about sentences, but no one is talking to you inside your head.

[magicalhippo]

While I sometimes do talk to myself without uttering the words, most of the time it's a tad more abstract than that. It's like when you're discussing something complex or involved, you don't think too much about the exact words, the sentences just form as you go.

It's not "on" all the time for me, but the majority of the day I'd say.

[xdennis]

I'm surprised you find us weird. I always thought of muteminds as psychos. For example, if you spend a day alone, do you just wallow in silent nothingness? Or do you talk to yourself aloud because you can't do so silently?

[swat535]

I also learned that some people are missing the "mind's eye" and don't have the ability to play music in their head.. I always thought everyone could do those things but then found out that's not case!

[dleslie]

My internal monologue is much, much faster than verbal or written communication. It's never been a source to give me pause when replying or engaging with others; in effect, I run parallel discussions through my mind while others are speaking, allowing me to anticipate and respond to potential changes in the conversation before they occur.

[gnulinux]

Yes I literally line up one word after the other. As I think, I converse to myself. "Should I do it this way? No, well that's overkill and too difficult. Can I get away with just that? Yeah that's likely fine" I think there are definitely extra-verbal aspects to my thinking e.g. sometimes when I tell myself "how about this" "this" refers to a thought or graph or concept or whatever. Other than that, my thinking is like speaking.

[pesus]

I can think far quicker than I can speak. Like how most people can read much more quickly in their head than out loud.

[WalterSear]

The words line up themselves, and I can usually 'feel' the idea before I hear the word in my mind, or the words might be just a part of the idea I'm addressing. Sometimes there are multiple lines of thoughts happening at once.

I also think and dream in code, fwiw.

[saghm]

> It's incredible to imagine there are people out there just thinking in language as they go about their lives.

> I wonder how it must work. Are they literally lining up one word after another in their minds? I guess it has to work that way to feel like some sort of "consistent internal monologue"?

> At scale, though, imagining a roomful of people thinking in single-threaded monologues does explain a lot about why some teams take forever to get anything done.

As someone with a particularly strong inner dialogue (who often struggles to think about things in a fully non-verbal way), I definitely struggle at times with feeling like my brain is not concurrent enough for being good at multitasking, so I don't think you're completely off. To put it in programming terms, I feel less that my brain is "single threaded" as it's read/write locked in the sense that if I'm speaking or typing, I'm much less able to process properly listen to anything being said to me. For example, if I'm typing up an email (or a decently sized comment here) and someone tries to talk to me, I'll often not be able to formulate a response without completely losing my train of thought about what I was writing, which leads me to ask if it's okay for me to finish what I'm writing before responding.

As for "lining up one word after another in their minds", I don't think it's quite as tedious as it sounds like you might be thinking. When speaking out loud, it doesn't take any conscious thought for me to "line up words" as they come out of my mouth; if anything, I talk much more quickly than average. It hadn't occurred to me beforehand, but I wonder if this trait is correlated with having an internal monologue.

[rustcleaner]

It's more like a self conversation, one in which I must internally LARP as the other party. It's like I am using some theory of mind stuff to simulate earnest and good faith debate.

[rayiner]

Yes, it’s a sequential voice in your head. I’ll literally sit down to do something and tell myself in my head “okay, I need to focus on figuring out this intro sentence first” or whatever I’m trying to do. if I’m coding and for example, I’m running a switch statement I’ll have to verbally describe to myself each of the cases.

[BrandoElFollito]

When I think about tangible problems (coding, physics, ...) as a hobby, I usually start with a verbal expression "funny that this and that" or "if I code this that way" and then switch to non verbal - imagining interactions through pictures or something like that.

I think that the main reason is that thinking in words slows me down.

[tomrod]

For me, it's more like a check and balance that isn't always engaged. When I catch a baseball, it is totally decoupled and the catch is automatic. But if I am composing a class, debugging, and similar, it is heavily engaged in thinking through edge cases, etc on the fly.

[metalspoon]

In my case, some vague idea worth a few words comes up to my mind, I turn it into a monologue, and continue. This is what I feel is happening in my head.

But the process is also too automatic. Maybe what's actually happening is completely different from what I described.

[tekla]

> Some quick Googling indicates that people with internal monologues might only make up 30%-50% of people [0].

That probably explains so much.

[mc32]

Count me as one of those people. I don't know what the hell people mean by inner monologue. Maybe I have one, but I wouldn't know what it is. I feel like it's trying to explain to a blind person what sight is.

[alephknoll]

Do you have regret? Ever asked yourself why did I do drink coffee just before bed. Have you ever played a game and thought if I do this, then my opponent will do that, so maybe I shouldn't do that. Have you ever had a meeting or interview and you went through how to introduce yourself or conduct the interview in your head?

I have a hard time believing that there are people who have no inner dialogue. Especially in modern societies. I think it's something we all do, it's just that we didn't know there was a word for it.

Ever ask yourself, why did I waste so much time on HN or other social media? Then you probably have an inner dialogue.

[Jensson]

You aren't able to express those concepts in your head without making them into words? Our minds are made to work with associations and feelings, if I regret my time spent doing something that is expressed in my mind as me feeling regret when I think about when I did that thing, there are no words needed for that, same with everything else you talked about. Only time I add words is when I communicate with people, like when I write this post, then I translate those internal concepts into words so it comes out a bit different every time and not exactly how I thought.

If you are mostly thinking in words, how do you even fix or see when you have misunderstood a word? To me that is easy, that word isn't how you think, but to you that words definition seems to be critical then, how do you even manage to parse text then? You must also parse them down to these core concepts that are lower level than words without knowing, or else I don't see how you could function as a human.

[RoyalHenOil]

I don't have an internal monologue, but I do still experience regret; I just experience it as an emotion, not as words. I have thought about what my opponent would do in a game, but I think about it by imagining them doing it, not by verbally describing it.

If I am preparing for some kind of speech or trying to get the phrasing of something just right for an interview, then yes, I do practice saying those words inside my head (or, as often as not, aloud). But it is not exactly an internal monologue because I am not thinking in words; I am just doing memorization work. It's little different from imagining song lyrics in my head, which I can do without really parsing their meaning.

I have never thought something like, "Why did I...?" I have said things like that in order to express the sentiment of self-disappointment to someone else in my company, but it's not a thing I would ever think or say on my own. Internally, my experience is an emotion, not a rhetorical question.

[mc32]

I don’t have a dialogue with myself. I might express something like, that was stupid, or go on a an expletive rant when I hit my thumb, but it’s not directed at myself.

With games, I do take mental notes, but it’s not personal. It’s more like looking at a historical battle, for example and thinking of different options. It’s not personal.

I’m not going to be absolutist. There could be times I’ve had internal monologues but I may not think of them as such. In other words maybe I have the behavior but because I haven’t classified it as such, I remain unaware of it.

[pmarreck]

I occasionally talk to myself (or to "the powers that be", humoring the idea that we're in kind of a super-advanced-VR classroom sim), but I wouldn't qualify it as an "internal monologue"

[zamber]

Weren't these TIL's about hearing an imaginated voice VS imagining the meaning?

[machiaweliczny]

Yeah I uses to have these but currently don’t