I don’t have an internal monologue, it works more like a blackbox releasing thoughts when they are finished, the reasoning stays hidden more or less. I can reject the thought or send it back for further refinement, but it does not at all resemble a monologue or train of thought thing.
Fun story, I was at a Buddhist meditation session once, and while sitting there I discovered that I can turn my thoughts off almost completely. Which includes the processing of sensory information, like leg going numb or the guy next to me farting. These continued to exist but lost any meaning or relevance to react upon. It was a very weird experience, turning my mind completely inwards, experiencing an intense but pleasant void of complete nothingness while being conscious. It took about an hour for me to get back to normal afterwards. I asked the Buddhist guys later if that is an expected experience with this type of meditation, and they had never heard of such a thing.
Odd how different people’s brains can be wired internally. And yet, I am able to communicate with all those fancy “internal monologue” people as if I was one of them.
I think the ugly truth is that a lot of that internal monologue is just froth on the surface; the real processing is done below that. I think not having an internal monologue is disturbing to people because they don’t know what to base their identity on without it.
Someone once described consciousness as like an Operating System UI. Everything is very visible and symbolic but ultimately meaningless without being connected to lower levels that we can’t access, levels where complex things happen automatically.
I don’t have an internal monologue, it works more like a blackbox releasing thoughts when they are finished, the reasoning stays hidden more or less. I can reject the thought or send it back for further refinement, but it does not at all resemble a monologue or train of thought thing. Fun story, I was at a Buddhist meditation session once, and while sitting there I discovered that I can turn my thoughts off almost completely. Which includes the processing of sensory information, like leg going numb or the guy next to me farting. These continued to exist but lost any meaning or relevance to react upon. It was a very weird experience, turning my mind completely inwards, experiencing an intense but pleasant void of complete nothingness while being conscious. It took about an hour for me to get back to normal afterwards. I asked the Buddhist guys later if that is an expected experience with this type of meditation, and they had never heard of such a thing.
Odd how different people’s brains can be wired internally. And yet, I am able to communicate with all those fancy “internal monologue” people as if I was one of them.
I think the ugly truth is that a lot of that internal monologue is just froth on the surface; the real processing is done below that. I think not having an internal monologue is disturbing to people because they don’t know what to base their identity on without it.
Someone once described consciousness as like an Operating System UI. Everything is very visible and symbolic but ultimately meaningless without being connected to lower levels that we can’t access, levels where complex things happen automatically.
The reasoning stays hidden? That’s absolutely wild to me. How do you… Introspect? I’m genuinely curious.