Yet another Hacker News

36 points ibobev 2 days ago 13 comments

1auralynn 1 hour ago | parent

We use this in my science education platform: we make students talk out loud about what they're thinking. Not a chatbot, but guided inquiry that's designed to make them actually mentally engage with what they're seeing

Waterluvian 1 hour ago | parent

Witnessing a candidate’s thought process is probably the most valuable part of the interview process for me. Nothing else comes close. Just let me listen/watch you solve problems.

drivebyhooting 52 minutes ago | parent

Verbalizing my thoughts as I try to solve a problem drops my IQ down by like 20 points at least.

purplepatrick 40 minutes ago | parent

As someone with zero exposure to my own thought processes, I find this always so discriminatory! ;)

algoth1 1 hour ago | parent

I wonder if the author is one of those people that doesn't have an audible inner monologue?

idiotsecant 1 hour ago | parent

I am such a person and I've always done 'chain of thought' in a notepad in order to think through complex things, well before LLMs were a thing. There are certainly tasks I can 'one-shot' but I've learned from experience that for some problems that just results in me focusing on irrelevant things.

apt-apt-apt-apt 46 minutes ago | parent

Curious whether the lack of audible inner monologue is a benefit for you?

I feel like I'm the opposite, where most of my thinking is done in inner English, which feels slow. I.e. as opposed to instantly realizing the result of deep subconscious processing or something, I usually go the slow language way, if you get what I mean.

thanhhaimai 48 minutes ago | parent

I'm not the OP, but I think everyone might have a different definition of what "audible inner monologue" mean.

For example, I don't talk to myself in "monologue". But I can close my eyes or stare at the screen and visualize the solutions. The words that I usually tell myself during that are "what?", "why?", "strange!", "really",... not a monologue or sentences.

pulvinar 19 minutes ago | parent

That's my impression too, that my thoughts are a hybrid, where I'll think in a rapid sequence of whole concepts and visual flashes, and then summarize that in my inner voice "for the record", as a jumping-off point for the next batch of thoughts. But I don't have much control over this, as my inner voice is hard to shut up for any length of time, always giving a running narrative.

FuckButtons 8 minutes ago | parent

Yeah I’m the exact opposite, thought is almost entirely auditory.

purplepatrick 43 minutes ago | parent

The author says they could narrate their own thought process out loud.

I couldn’t do that. I have no insight into my thought processes whatsoever. There are no semantic (or any other) processes to witness. It’s complete crickets at all times…

My wife is the opposite - constant chatter in her head. And she can trace every thought exactly. (No idea how people like her can focus or even function!)

cnees 35 minutes ago | parent

We focus/function via the inner monologue. It doesn't just do its own thing while we're trying to focus or get something done, it walks through the issue and comes up with solutions and then criticizes them and iterates, and as far as we're concerned, that's us solving the problem.

senectus1 1 hour ago | parent

holy shit this would break my ability to think completely.

I think and chase alternate chains of thought way faster than i can speak.