I guess that's probably related to the way people internally vocalize or not when they read. Teaching people to read probably scars many minds at a young age.
People who vocalize are working with the slow side of the mind. You are not vocalizing your thoughts when you need to drive fast.
Imagine for a second having the focus of your thoughts being forced into being single-threaded vocalized process. Having to serialize your thoughts so you can hear them. Horrible isn't it ?
It's like having to make SQL queries to get your memories back, instead of just letting them flow in, interact and transmute together.
I think some people are just wired to be super verbal/auditory and don't have as strong pattern or visual/symbolic skills.
For example, a friend of mine who is a fantastic poet - VERY skilled verbally - told me that she was one of those kids who had to move their lips when reading, and she never actually learned to read the way I do (where words are just visual symbols that form patterns and have not that much to do with sound - I can read very quickly), she just trained herself to stop moving her lips. Just something I've always found interesting.
I looked at your VR expression platform (not yet tested in VR) I see it as a kind of non-linear language experience, where you pick objects and conjure them to express yourself, that I would have greatly enjoy when I was a kid instead of reading/writing. (I'm not yet sure the UI is still mature enough to not get in the way of the thoughts).
Snapchat with its way of communication with pictures also got this right.
My inner feeling is that we new technology we should be able to alleviate the need to speak in a serialized/sequenced form between people that was kind of imposed by nature and exchange mental pictures directly.
Hey, thanks! Yeah, my main talent is translating written information into symbolic/visual content/mental models... One of my goals is to allow people who have different brain styles access to the same models. Particularly in biology, where the prerequisite to understanding is to first learn a bunch of jargon - I think this is totally unecessary and shuts a lot of brilliant people out.
>I think some people are just wired to be super verbal/auditory and don't have as strong pattern or visual/symbolic skills.
I think it depends on the context. I internally vocalize when I read and I'm not entirely sure how anyone is able to not do so. To me reading fast means hearing myself talk fast, which I just can't comprehend. But it also means reading for me is hard because I need to take breaks in reading to visualize what I'm reading.
But I'm also a graphic designer so I certainly have strong pattern and visual skills. But when I'm designing I'm not trying to comprehend words on a page, so it's quite easy.
Agreed, it's definitely a spectrum - there are times I'm reading and I can definitely hear myself vocalizing. But, when I get really deep into a book, that voice almost completely goes away.
Another interesting note is that I have a VERY hard time reading poetry in my normal reading style, and have to stop and pretty much sound it out in order to comprehend it.
Translating thoughts to language does seem like a major bottleneck. But if your goal is to implement thoughts in socially communicable concepts (spoken word or text), or in mathematical or programmable concepts (algorithms, software), an internal monologue is a rough draft of the implementation that is continually refined during the reflective process.
Further, the internal monologue is just one representation in mind, it does not replace the full (non-verbalized) thought. Both are present and complement each other.
My objection is mostly with sequential languages. It turns people into effective but linear thinking automaton following task-lists.
There is this inner monologue orchestrating the actions occasionally listening to intuitions and random thoughts popping in your mind.
Whereas the mind in its natural form is highly non-linear, like a multitude of information processing filters, and independent processes. For example you can train your mind to set a mental clock. You can put some things in a corner of your mind to have it being sorted to make sense out of it. You can orchestrate it, but you can also let your mind orchestrate itself. You can let it fly.
Some kids have imaginary friends, some people see auras, others have Spyro the dragon roaming their room as they type. Every day now with neural networks we can have a glimpse of how machines thinks and visualize things, and with a little training and imagination, most of these techniques are.
Our languages today are bad! They are thought limiting! They are not there to express our thoughts but to communicate effectively between people, and that's the fundamental bottleneck.
Don't let a bad language ruin a good mind, have this monologue orchestrate in silence like a good conductor.
People who vocalize are working with the slow side of the mind. You are not vocalizing your thoughts when you need to drive fast.
Imagine for a second having the focus of your thoughts being forced into being single-threaded vocalized process. Having to serialize your thoughts so you can hear them. Horrible isn't it ?
It's like having to make SQL queries to get your memories back, instead of just letting them flow in, interact and transmute together.