Discussion
It’s interesting, I feel like the voice in my head intuitively feels like it is *coming from* inside my head, like between my ears.
But is that just a societal thing because I know what the brain is? I was just randomly thinking about ancient societies with a cardiocentric point of view like Ancient China and Egypt, and how they might’ve experienced it. I suppose it probably has to be, but never thought about it before.
@jonah Cool thought! I had a heated discussion with a South Korean student many years ago. I am European. Thought experiment was that my head is transplanted onto their body and their head on my body. Where is South Korean ‘Kim’ and European ‘Johanson’ after we switched heads? This South Korean position was that the identity of Kim does not travel with the head. Kim remains with the body (the heart). European Johanson was convinced that the head (brain) is the seat of identity. Of course we know that a heart transplant does not (may not?) change a person, but knowing and feeling can be worlds apart.
@jonah That's a really interesting thought, I've never thought about that before. I have also never heard of the word "cardiocentric" before, and I'm in love(lol!) with it! It's a brilliant word! Is that an academic/official term?
@meow_67 indeed (and I just discovered it myself when looking up whether there was a term to describe this theory I knew those societies had lol)
@jonah Super interesting that China isn't even mentioned in this article, because what your post made me think of was how in Mandarin Chinese today, the word for heart means both "heart" and "mind" (and "soul")!
@jonah I'm pretty sure they thought of that voice as a guiding spirit.
@StumpyTheMutt it also occurs to me that perhaps it’s possible some/many/most people don’t experience thoughts as being perceived internally at all and I’m still the weird one lol
@jonah I discovered recently that a friend does not have an inner monologue or hear her thoughts as a voice at all but rather catches thoughts from an amorphous stream of consciousness. I honestly can't wrap my head around it and she doesn't really have any vocabulary to describe it