Are you me?
I thought about this a while ago. My entire life, I’ve been drawn to activities that allow me to quiet my brain.
When I was young, it was playing the drums and rowing. As I got older that turned to triathlon. I think one of the reasons I enjoyed carpentry as a career was because it was so physically demanding and required intense focus, and you would be exhausted and calm at the end of the day.
I think we all may be much more similar than we care to admit.
Sure, that other sport brought us all here, but for those of us that gave that stuff up, there’s some reason that keeps us all coming back…
BJJ and motorbikes quiet my brain basically because in both instances all you do is concentrate on not getting killed (metaphorically and literally)
They do say about BJJ that it’s A activity where there’s no scope when on the mat to think much about things off the mat.
I’ve seen that before too. I feel like I generally have something going on in my head, but not really robost. A lot of it isn’t beneficial and I could do without it.
I am somewhat jealous that 99 percent of the time you can have music going on in your head.
"I think therefore I am " is as meaningful today as 400? years ago when Descartes said it.
The mind is deeply sensitive of itself. The conscience speaks to thoughts of the mind at least in my head and I believe in the vast majority of peoples. Consciousness is deeply mysterious and we may never know its intimate workings.
Most of the time I am arguing with myself about what is the thing to do. I am ashamed to admit that often I don’t make the most altruistic choices. Often I submit to fear of consequences or missing out.
I think it was Jonathan Edwards who said to be human it to be a moral being. I think it is as satisfactory and explanation as any other.
Is their a system of self deception that hides what is often selfishness?
Certain Neo Darwinists account for Altrusim as a remnant of our evolution whereby we benefited from helping others of our kinship groups which benefitted us.
So the argument goes when we extend charity to those who have no probability of helping us we are being animated by our genetic past rather than a moral sense. I prefer the moral sense argument. If it is just my genetic past I can argue myself out of helping out anyone other than those who can reciprocate.
Too much inner thought is exhausting at times and flow states are helpful and even necessary so that we can be refreshed and move forward.
The end
Inner voice and thinking are two different things. A world class speed chess player is engaged in thinking, but I assume they don’t use an inner voice as part of that thinking. Converting your positional calculations into some form of words, etc., for the inner voice would be too inefficient.
As someone who has a strong inner voice, I don’t know how people with no inner voice think about an ethical issue like altruism. But, surely many of them do think about it. Their thinking just uses a different process than people who rely on an inner voice to help reach a conclusion.
I’d guess the difference in someone with schizophrenia is that the “voices” aren’t your own but seem to be coming from elsewhere, to the extreme of not even recognizing that they are being generated by your own brain.
I’ve been in IT for 25 years. I’m good at it, but it lends itself to multitasking and wandering thoughts. I’ve often wondered if doing a more physical job that was more straightforward in the tasks would have been more satisfying. Most of my hobbies tend to be that way.
And my brain is my worst enemy on the golf course.
I do not have a particularly wordy inner monologue. There’s…something going on in there, but I guess it’s a bit more abstract because I don’t intuitively assign words to it of the time. I do have to think a bit to communicate stuff verbally sometimes, which I am not great at, though I’m alright at writing if I’ve got a bit more time to figure it out.
For a bit of personal colour on auditory hallucinations: I have schizophrenia, though most of my psychotic symptoms are well-managed by medication. It’s a bit different for everyone (I had a lot more visual stuff, which is perhaps related to the above), but yeah it definitely felt ‘external’ to me. Like hearing a TV voice, but in your own skull so you’re not quite sure if you heard it or not, if that makes any sense. Or i’d be walking through the train station and my brain would twist all the advertisements into messages, like someone’s trying to actively communicate with you specifically. (I remember taking photos of them at the time, as, you know, proof of concept.)
Fascinating. Thanks for explaining.
Does that happen even if your brain is otherwise engaged — like when you are having a conversation with someone?
Yep, though probably more significant when I was alone. There were a few times when I was sort of aware that what I was experiencing was out of place based on context, or at least that the other person wouldn’t ‘get it’ and somehow managed to play it cool, which is funny to look back on if not at the time. Other times you just look weird.
Honestly though with the super intense stuff you can just shut down a bit. (I guess maybe the brain gets a bit overloaded trying to do both at once) Some people will appear entirely catatonic and unresponsive- I haven’t experienced anything that severe, but I was pretty much down to single-word robot mode at points.
I would say that inside my head is active as well. Sometimes (more like many times) I am calling myself “an idiot” for making generally harmless mistakes that make my actions inefficient. Keys? Unlocked door. Forgotten workout gear, etc. Third me, is reinforcing #2 me by repeating… “Oh ya, you’re an idiot.”
#1 me doesn’t ever quite know how to convince the imaginary MAGAt whom I am confronting that he’s really lost in the tall grass.
Sometimes there is music from my playlist playing 100x or so in a day. I am far more fluent in Italian, and glad that #2 me keeps working with #1. Both #1 and #2 really enjoy the Italian music lyrics.
Mostly, I’m glad that red letter Scripture runs through and frequently repeats.
Mostly this.
Music. Visiting the past. Planning for the future. I studied physics and still think about spacetime or quantum mechanics pretty frequently. It is nuts that the world really does work that way and thats what I often think about.
While training I usually chair fly to stay sharp and hopefully not kill myself next time I go up.
Best watched with subtitles turned on.
