alt Hacker NewsI don't think the out loud or someone listening / reacting matters at all here. Suspect it's entirely this:
>The thought that was comfortable as a vague impression has to become a sentence, and sentences have structure.
It's not unlike what people like PG say about writing improving thinking...it's the being forced to go from fuzzy directional notions to something you can put on paper in that will stand up to critique.
Same with rubber duck debugging. The verbal part means you need to articulate it clearly but it's not the speaking that helps. Same with writing a detailed spec/prompt for an LLM - I know if its too fuzzy ("set an appropriate timeout") the LLM will spin it's wheels so it forces clarity.
Also suspect that a big part of who we consider intelligent is linked to this. Maybe their internal monologue is just more crisp - closer to what they'd tell a rubber duck.
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I don't think the out loud or someone listening / reacting matters at all here. Suspect it's entirely this:
>The thought that was comfortable as a vague impression has to become a sentence, and sentences have structure.
I think there are tradeoffs though, and this has been a thorn in my side during technical interviews where you are expected to think out loud because:
1. Sometimes you have a vague sense of the shape of the solution, and ime it can be helpful to sit with it for a while before trying to shape it into words.
2. Talking out loud forces structure but it also rate-limits how quickly you can iterate through ideas to find one that plausibly solves the problem at hand