Cached Phrases
Recently I’ve noticed that, while introspecting, my internal monologue will state an opinion on a preceding thought, and I will feel an immediate repulsion towards that phrase as something disingenuous or alien. I will then recognize it as what I’ve come to term a “cached phrase”. A variation/subset of cached thought, it is usually a string of words or that one might hear in a movie or something a friend or coworker would say, but comes to mind when you yourself are thinking about a domain associated with the conversation from the movie or friend.
Some (half fabricated) examples:
“Fred should really cut back on drinking; he just started seeing someone too; *like that’s going to last*… wait, I don’t actually have any reason to think that it wouldn’t...”
A few days after watching an episode of Peep Show, and sympathizing with Mark, who is comically socially inept, I go to eat at a local market/cafeteria, and often hear Mark’s internal monologue narrate my own situation, self-conscious about how others judge my actions.
I wonder if it correlates positively to the OCD spectrum. I notice it quite frequently in myself (I’m not diagnosed OCD but suspect a slightly higher than average presence), and sometimes struggle to determine whether it’s an opinion I truly hold, or if my hypothesis is an actual explanation for its appearance, or to what degree one of the two is true. Do I really feel what I think? It is too often ambiguous to myself.
Perhaps it is related to the concept of mentally modeling other people. We have our models of what other people would say in certain situations, but in this case, a random model’s opinion is invoked involuntarily.
Does anyone else experience this? Do you agree with my hypothesis, or are these actually genuine thoughts; subconcious-level emotional reactions? Is there, or can we develop, a heuristic for determining where a certain thought or opinion lies on the spectrum between the two?
Do you need an articulated reason? If your subconscious ran the numbers and reported the result without showing you its reasoning, that doesn’t mean you should ignore it entirely. Perhaps when you notice predictions like that, you should write them down and see how they do?
This may be a product of a bad example; it usually occurs when I have sufficient reason to not believe the opinion, and doubt my subconscious’ influence.
Quite possibly. I don’t have any experience with your subconscious. I still recommend keeping track of such things- they’re a delightful way to learn about your mind. Remember the old joke about the gambler, who stopped writing down his winnings and losses because it was unlucky.
Or could it have been an subconscious emotional response like bitterness or jealousy? Those get in the way of clear and rational thinking a lot. I could be totally off on this, of course, since you did say it was a bad example.
Of course. But those emotions survived evolution, and it’s helpful to calibrate your emotions before you decide what level of trust- positive or negative- to assign them.
I think it would be helpful to list a few explicit examples.
I attempted to for a couple minutes, I actually find it quite difficult to summon examples of things like this. I’ll give it some more thought, or try to catch another instance, and add it to the post.
EDIT: Added.
I don’t even have an internal monologue most of the time...
I actually said to myself, in my head, “I don’t ever have an internal monologue.”
Well, I guess I do now.
Sounds like you’re just pattern-matching for common phrases without getting ones that are true, just ones that “fit.” I’d guess this is probably just a habit, like how some people will say a particular word very often. And usually they get over it and stop saying “point” or “whatever” so often.
Interesting. I’d like to hear about more introspection on thought processes in LessWrong. It’s underexamined in any space, either academically, socially or inbetween. I’m sure there’s lots of interesting things here.
Mark from everybody has a brain says that compulsions lead too obsesions, rather than the other way around as some may infer from the name or from pathological rummination. I recommend his other videos for people with OCD.
Is lowercase-c deficiency one of your symptoms?
never mind, site bug.