Internal Monologues / Apple Visualizers / Cow Rotators - The line between real people an NPCs (?)

[Kept Ya Waiting Huh]

Something I have been thinking about a lot recently is that some scientists estimate that psychologists estimate that 50-70% of people do not have constant (keyword constant) internal monologues (A). This statistic actually fucks with me, because I am now thinking "how do you identify people who have internal monologues vs. people who don't", "are internal monologue-havers more likely to do X,Y,Z thing?", and the darkest one "should we esteem internal monologue-havers higher than those who don't (something they can't control)".

For clarification, I would define an "internal monologue" as hearing voices in your head as you think (not in the schizo way). Kind of like winning a fictional argument against a strawman while you're showering or something. Apparently, internal monologues come from activity in the temporal and frontal motor cortex of the brain (A).

Although there are many cognitive skills, the few that has such high variance between people are inner monolingual, visualization, and spatial reasoning. These can be found in 3 tests:

1. Do you have a voice in your head when thinking? Good, you have an internal monologue
2. Visualize an apple. Are you thinking of the outline of an apple? Does it look like a clipart image of an apple? do you have a 2d apple that is well drawn? Is it a 3d apple with detail and lighting?
3. Picture a cow. Now try rotating it in your mind.

My theory is that most people have these things to some extent, but those who can do these three things proficiently have a high brain activity and therefore are more likely to do great things (this is conjecture, btw)

Recently, this concept is starting to make the rounds on social media (IF I CAN UPLOAD THESE FUCKING VIDEOS GODDAMMIT).

What do y'all think? I'm curious to know.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

Interesting, tell us more.

 

[Secret Messages]

reddit's /r/aphantasia is really funny. It's like a reverse support group where they all huddle up and talk about how subhuman they are because they can't visualize. It has a twin, /r/hyperphantasia, where they all jerk off together and one up each other about how many lens flares they can see coming through the windows of their memory palace.

It must be pretty hard to get anything out of reading fiction if you can't picture anything. Somehow I can't imagine that these people have no visualization skills though. From what I've read of the subreddits a lot of it just seems like autistic misinterpretation of what visualization is, like they expect to literally be seeing pictures on the back of their eyelids.

 

[Ultrapenguin]

It might be a sign of high brain activity, but I don't agree that it's a sign someone's going to do great things because it's also a sign of brain activity that's being allocated to something that isn't necessarily useful. Ideally things should process without needing to be consciously modeled out in detail.

Like as I write this I guess it's being read, but it shouldn't reach a point where there's an actual voice attached to it. Imo that should be seen as a negative symptom.

At least my personal view is that heavy internal voice or modeling is associated with obsessive compulsive tendencies. I'm willing to bet it is related to the frontal lobe, exactly like OCD is. Autistics are also known for having strong, vivid internal fantasy, as well as exhibiting a lot of neurotic tics.

Point is true homies regulate their internal monologues to improve neurological efficiency and reduce stress instead of posting proudly about it online.

 

[Geddy Lee's Fee and See]

Picture a cow. Now try rotating it in your mind.

 

[Fathomless Eminence]

"should we esteem internal monologue-havers higher than those who don't (something they can't control)".

As a member of the Internal Monologue Master Race I think we should be kind to our friends who cannot turn cows in their minds. I have smoked a shitload of weed in my life and it switches the internal monologue off like you wouldn't believe and I must say living as an NPC is super comfy. We need to treasure these precious naive morons and be kind to them they live a pure, unfiltered existence.

 

[888Flux]

I refuse to believe that people don't have some capacity of both an internal monologue and internal visualization.

Herein lies the problem. How do you communicate the nature of human consciousness and qualia? We don't have the proper tools to describe what's going on in our mind and the words in our current language would never come close to expressing the intricate process of human thought.

Consciousness is not material. It can't be measured or described with our current understanding of science and most likely won't be for a hundred years. We can't strap someone in an MRI machine and see what's going on in their head. And similarly asking a question such as "do you have an internal monologue" or "do you see an apple" is not a valid metric to determine if someone has a "internal monologue"; which by itself is completely meaningless and a very loosely defined idea.

When I read text or write I hear it narrated by my own voice. Most of my thinking is delineated by conversation-like exchanges conducted in my "inner voice". This is alongside some limited internal visualization, but the internal monologue does the majority of the heavy lifting.

This concept cannot under any circumstances be allowed to fall into some pop-sci TikTok bullshit as it's the most important hard problem that needs to be the collective focus of mankind to figure out.

 

[Gog & Magog]

What a blessing it must be to go through the day without an incessant internal monologue leading and following your every thought.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Newfag needs to learn to lurk moar.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/do-you-have-an-internal-monologue.65784/

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

reddit's /r/aphantasia is really funny. It's like a reverse support group where they all huddle up and talk about how subhuman they are because they can't visualize. It has a twin, /r/hyperphantasia, where they all jerk off together and one up each other about how many lens flares they can see coming through the windows of their memory palace.

It must be pretty hard to get anything out of reading fiction if you can't picture anything. Somehow I can't imagine that these people have no visualization skills though. From what I've read of the subreddits a lot of it just seems like autistic misinterpretation of what visualization is, like they expect to literally be seeing pictures on the back of their eyelids.

For me I think of visualization as being that it's like seeing two things at once (but you always know that the imagination is imagination), or if you could somehow take a "photo" of it, it would look like one of those film scenes where they've got a transparent scene fading out and the "real" scene fading in?

To crib from some video on it, imagine trying to visualize a tree in front of you. As I take it some people would literally see a tree if they wanted to. Some could only imagine the tree in a separate, grainier picture (me?). Some could conceptualize there being a tree there, but wouldn't really have a mental picture of it.

I think it's super gay to jerk off over and probably has little correlation to real intelligence. Kind of reminds me of racism in a way, too. You get these moments in history where some group that's discriminated against, whines about it, gets put in charge of another group and starts shitting on them. Like Liberian colonists shitting on African natives. I don't think these internal monologue assholes believe they're NPCs because they don't experience synesthesia...

And we might as well talk about synesthesia. I don't experience it, but just try questions like "what flavor is this song" on people. Some people can give intuitive answers even if they don't literally taste anything. Other people don't understand the question at all.

I refuse to believe that people don't have some capacity of both an internal monologue and internal visualization.

Herein lies the problem. How do you communicate the nature of human consciousness and qualia? We don't have the proper tools to describe what's going on in our mind and the words in our current language would never come close to expressing the intricate process of human thought.

Consciousness is not material. It can't be measured or described with our current understanding of science and most likely won't be for a hundred years. We can't strap someone in an MRI machine and see what's going on in their head. And similarly asking a question such as "do you have an internal monologue" or "do you see an apple" is not a valid metric to determine if someone has a "internal monologue"; which by itself is completely meaningless and a very loosely defined idea.

When I read text or write I hear it narrated by my own voice. Most of my thinking is delineated by conversation-like exchanges conducted in my "inner voice". This is alongside some limited internal visualization, but the internal monologue does the majority of the heavy lifting.

This concept cannot under any circumstances be allowed to fall into some pop-sci TikTok bullshit as it's the most important hard problem that needs to be the collective focus of mankind to figure out.

The first time I got any exposure to the idea of qualia or psychology of the mind was CGP Grey's video on the Ship of Theseus, teleporters, and philosophical zombies. That's how I explain it to people, is with p-zombies. Some people are too stupid to get the idea but most can understand the idea of something that's dead inside, purely reacts, and that's the distinction to sell the idea of qualia.

I've never read any philosophy (besides philosophy of science) but absolute idealism is, to my understanding, the closest to what I've puzzled out. For my purposes I think consciousness is like a branching tree that has no end and no beginning. I think living things' consciousness sprouts from their parents'.

 

[LurkTrawl]

1. Do you have a voice in your head when thinking? Good, you have an internal monologue
2. Visualize an apple. Are you thinking of the outline of an apple? Does it look like a clipart image of an apple? do you have a 2d apple that is well drawn? Is it a 3d apple with detail and lighting?
3. Picture a cow. Now try rotating it in your mind.

I like sometimes thinking in text against a colored background along with my internal monologue. In different fonts, too.

I don't know what that says about me but I have a preference for Times New Roman and comic sans. Black text on white background.

 

[SNU]

My inner monologue is in braille but I can't read braille so it's pretty useless

 

[Shidoen]

Here's my inner monologue in his natural habitat:

 

[Toolbox]

Like as I write this I guess it's being read, but it shouldn't reach a point where there's an actual voice attached to it. Imo that should be seen as a negative symptom.

Lol this guy has no internal monologue, point and laugh

 

[Ingmar Aspergman]

You should have a poll on this for the site

 

[The Cunting Death]

I don't make a big deal out of mine tbh.

 

[Kaktus Kompot]

The idea of not having an internal visualization ability sounds strange and hard to imagine (how ironic). I've thought about having two distinct modes of thinking - instant one that operates in concepts (like how when I think that I have to buy some bread today, I don't separately think out every word, but get a lighting-fast chain of conceptual "buy-bread-later" accociations. And the second is the active thinking that allows to imagine any image or sensation (image of an object, whether real or imaginary, text on a colored background, the flavor of cherry, the feeling of an ice cube on your foot, new melody or some text read out in anybody's voice. Obviously, those aren't 100% realistic, but they're quite vivid). That mode of thinking allows the different kind of internal dialogue - actively imagining linquistic information word by word and it's different from the former. If some people really have no imagination, and there's no way to somehow train it, I feel genuinely sorry for them and the experience they're missing.

 

[Pedophobe]

I once described drawing a picture as "tracing on paper the existing picture in your head" and the person reacted like I was explaining how to fly by throwing yourself at the ground and missing, so maybe there is something to the visualization stuff at least.

 

[Otterly]

I feel that this has to be people misunderstanding. There’s no ‘running commentary’ that you physically hear. It’s a way of internally and linguistically processing info. Like visualisations aren’t (usually) physically seeing it, it’s your ‘minds eye.’
If I read in my first language I don’t ‘read out loud in my head’ becasue that is slooooow. I kind of snapshot half a page or so and it is like an immersive experience. BUT if I’m reading something in my second language (which I’m not good at) then I more often read aloud in my head, as I do if it’s technical info.
If I’m doing arithmetic I don’t do it verbally. I do it in a way I can only describe as geometry based.
So I think there’s multiple ways of internal reflection which is what they are getting at when they ask?
How do they reconcile dreaming? If you can dream, you can visualise.
The thought of people having no internal reflection, or being unable to reflect verbally internally is bizarre. Surely people are misunderstanding the question and thinking they mean ‘a voice all the time talking to you.’
Fwiw, yeah to internal monologue, apple visualisation is just an apple as it looks in a photo and yes, I can rotate a cow.
I also asked all the kids, and they said ‘yes of course’ they have one.
I find this really fascinating

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The idea of not having an internal visualization ability sounds strange and hard to imagine (how ironic). I've thought about having two distinct modes of thinking - instant one that operates in concepts (like how when I think that I have to buy some bread today, I don't separately think out every word, but get a lighting-fast chain of conceptual "buy-bread-later" accociations. And the second is the active thinking that allows to imagine any image or sensation (image of an object, whether real or imaginary, text on a colored background, the flavor of cherry, the feeling of an ice cube on your foot, new melody or some text read out in anybody's voice. Obviously, those aren't 100% realistic, but they're quite vivid). That mode of thinking allows the different kind of internal dialogue - actively imagining linquistic information word by word and it's different from the former. If some people really have no imagination, and there's no way to somehow train it, I feel genuinely sorry for them and the experience they're missing.

Smoke some dope/eat some dope and just lay around. Note the utter emptiness of your head. That's what I assume normalfags are like all day every day.

My parents have said since I was little that my mind never stops running. And it makes quick connections to other things that make sense when explained, but catch people off guard.