Who are you asking? Who is answering?
I don't "visualize" things I think about automatically. I'd need to concentrate on trying to visualize pizza to see it and even then it's a vague visualization with no real defining features. When casually thinking about pizza I don't visualize anything.
Some of my friends couldn't not visualize what they were thinking about. If they think of pizza, they "see" pizza in their head, and could even describe what they were visualizing in that instance in surprising (to me) detail.
We found that we were pretty well split 50/50 with no obvious associations.
Here's two
If people are able to "see" their thoughts in the same way as they see something with their eyes, wouldn't it be difficult to think about a cat while driving a car, because the cat would be in your visual field? Or is the "mind's eye" somewhere else, if so where do you feel it is?
If I think about a cat, it's kind of a concept. If I try to think harder, I can sort of trace its tail and fur and ears, but it seems very different to actually seeing one. Just as when I imagine a taste, it's very different from actually tasting something (otherwise I would just imagine food all day without actually eating as much).
The only time when these seem the same is when dreaming.
(from phantasia, the greek word for fantasy, literally meaning "lack of imagination")
Very interesting posts, thank you for sharing.
I can only liken it to trying to catch yourself looking to the side in a mirror in front of you. Clearly impossible but as a kid I recall trying this. Tantalising.
And in a few minutes I'll forget this other me and he and I will work together in concert until the next time someone blows his cover with a blog post.
Also the thing when experience coalesces into aesthetic taste that makes wrong solutions just feel bad or ugly.
(It's also very possible to develop intuitions and tastes that actually aren't based in reality, kind of like erroneous folk wisdom.)
I'm from a Western country, and understand what you're saying, though I admit I did pick up on the general idea from Eastern philosophy.
If you were interested in sharing the ideas with Western people, perhaps you could do so in the form of thought experiment? For example (and this is only an example, I'm confident this won't be the best example for everyone), you could point out how much of human life exists at the subconscious level. Nobody knows how the mind works, yet the mind works regardless. Nobody consciously tells their bodies how to process food, or repair itself after it's damaged, yet it happens anyway. Considering the myriad of processes that the subconscious undertakes, wouldn't it be fair to say a large part of what makes us 'us' exists at the subconscious level?
That's not to say the 'narrative' side of our mind is not part of us too, but if that's all we know perhaps we're missing the bigger picture.
Yes, we do don't we. Yet reality remains what it is. Perhaps by exploring with an open mind we can stop our preconceived notions from clouding our understanding.
Though I am more curious how you can "turn it off" and be the one who does all the things all the time. Some people suggested meditation but I have yet to try.
Depends how you view your brain and consciousness. If you consider your brain to be made up of many components, consciousness being one of them, then your inner monologue is a way of communicating you intent to those other components. These will then respond back as best they can, and the act of learning trains them to be able to give better responses in the future.
I always come up with good ideas when relaxed, usually when not working on the problem (showering / running).
God why are they working us to death?!
My observation is that whenever you do anything that's unscripted or unplanned - it's "someone else". Say - answering well an interview with questions that you never expected and had relatively less exposure to, writing a blog post when you plan to write something but then all the ideas rush in and begin to write themselves and so on. I'm from India and I find it hard to communicate with western people these ideas directly. A contemporary ideas that's closest is the Dennet's theory of Narrative Self. Essentially, this article is the author's narrative self trying to make sense of the overnight solution the got.
it was interesting when in article he says such ideas come to him sometimes not all the time - one thing he can do to improve this is to subdue this narrative self a bit. A very good video on this point is by Alan Kay in context of Inner Game of Tennis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50L44hEtVos