What does the author mean with "hearing his voice" though? People can have different interpretations of what it means to "hear".
In what sense can it be compared with hearing actual sounds? Does it have the same quality. Does he perceive his mental dialogue like an overlay on top of "external" sound?
I've been wondering the same thing when people say they "see" or "visualize" something: do they actually, visually see it in front of them, or not?
For me, the internal monologue and visualization are all just "mental" events. It doesn't share any qualities with the other sensory faculties: they are all quite distinct for me. Just like seeing and hearing, mental events also have a "spectrum", ranging from nothing at all (no thought), to "quiet" (abstract thinking and forming mental facsimiles of sensory perception) to "loud" (mentally "speaking" full sentences to myself, which I do the least).
Yeah, I'm a bit perplexed on this. I sometimes have conversations in my head, or imagine a conversation with someone else I might run into. But by the same token, there's no "voice" to the conversation; it doesn't "sound like" anyone; sometimes i think through something before saying it, other times i just say things without saying it in my head first.
In what sense can it be compared with hearing actual sounds? Does it have the same quality. Does he perceive his mental dialogue like an overlay on top of "external" sound?
I've been wondering the same thing when people say they "see" or "visualize" something: do they actually, visually see it in front of them, or not?
For me, the internal monologue and visualization are all just "mental" events. It doesn't share any qualities with the other sensory faculties: they are all quite distinct for me. Just like seeing and hearing, mental events also have a "spectrum", ranging from nothing at all (no thought), to "quiet" (abstract thinking and forming mental facsimiles of sensory perception) to "loud" (mentally "speaking" full sentences to myself, which I do the least).
Fascinating topic!