If we were designed to think solo, monologue would be easier than dialogue. Dialogue involves INCREDIBLY complex acts of prediction, coordination, task-switching and mind-reading--yet we find it MUCH easier than monologue. Why? Maybe thinking is a bicycle built for 2. https://t.co/NNK2OYgWX9
When we are capable of self-awareness, it’s usually for very brief periods of time: the ‘window of consciousness’, during which we can hold a thought or work out a problem, tends to be open on average for roughly seven seconds. What neuroscientists (and it must be said, most contemporary philosophers) almost never notice, however, is that the great
... See morethread – all these depend crucially on being able to read the other person’s mind correctly, to anticipate what might interest them, to know what would follow logically on from what the speaker has just said
maintaining the thread of a conversation is much more taxing cognitively than most people imagine, because you have to know what might interest the other people in the conversation and figure out how your next contribution will facilitate the conversation rather than stop it dead by an inappropriate remark.
But starting in the 1960s and ’70s, a surge of interest in the practical aspects of spoken language revealed just how elaborate and subtle the processes are that govern turn-taking, interruption, and composing a sentence or story on the fly while being attuned to a listener’s reactions every step of the way.
Perhaps the most important constraint on the size of conversations, however, is our limited mentalising capacities. Being able to keep a conversation flowing requires us to monitor each of the members and keep their respective desires to contribute in mind, so that we can judge when to speak and when to let someone else have the floor, as well as w
... See moreOur language-based theories of how our minds work don't often succeed in explaining how our minds actually work, for so many layers of the mind's operations occur prior to the stories and explanations we offer with language. Neuroscience is helpful in capturing more subconscious processes.
the human brain devotes significant resources to two different major networks that work together toward the goal of mentalizing: helping us understand other people’s minds, including how they are feeling and their intentions. Something as simple as a casual conversation with a store clerk requires massive amounts of neuronal computational power to
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