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Reviews
The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves by Charles Fernyhough
da7id's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting stuff, but a little bit too pop-y for my taste, I found myself wanting more than what was presented in this book.
shawnwhy's review against another edition
5.0
this is a terrific book that investigates the evolutionary advantages of interior dialogs and also when they surface as the phenomenon of speaking to one self. its seems that interior voices are abbreviated versions of speech, and children use it as a self regulatory device as well as a second opinion and outside observer/instructor. the Author explores Julian Jaynes' idea of the abscence of interior thought in ancient man, as during the time of homer, but also counters Jaynes' theories using the Homeric texts,( although this might also be the qualities of modern interpretations of teh text, who knows, I didnt check the references) . the author then goes into exploring the activation of different parts of teh brain, as as oftern been taught, the interior voices are likely due to the errors in communication between the two hemispheres. I still feel like interior voives are just ways that the unconcious communicates to the concious mind about over-all surrounding happenings that the concious mind is too focused on individual things to pick up.
motherbeetle's review
May come back to it at some point but currently too destabilizing & not interesting enough to risk it
ederwin's review
3.0
Raises many interesting questions, but can't answer many. Studying our inner perceptions relies mostly on self-reported introspection, which is too unreliable to get much solid data. It would take a really gifted communicator, like Oliver Sacks, to make this actually fun to read.
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