It's commonly said that one is talking to (in) his- or himself. Does that mean there are two of the person in question: the one who's talking and the one who's listening?
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2If they're talking to themselves, there's only one person involved. – Alex Dec 14 '17 at 09:34
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Of course, but can't there be an imaginary person in your mind with whom you are conversating? Or are there just memories involved? – Deschele Schilder Dec 14 '17 at 09:42
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Nope, it's still just you. And it's not a memory thing. What you're doing is stimulating your brain in the same way that an external conversation would. It's an interesting feature of neural networks that that recursive stimulation can produce a different state at the end than existed at the start but that's all that's going on. – Alex Dec 14 '17 at 09:56
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So you imagine a person with whom you conversate, like in the real world? Doesn't that follow from stimulating your brain in the same way that an external conversation would? – Deschele Schilder Dec 14 '17 at 10:08
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Again no. You're stimulating your brain. It doesn't follow that you're pretending to talk to someone else. Obviously, if you want to fantasize that you're talking to pixies then that's perfectly fine. It's your brain. But you aren't. – Alex Dec 14 '17 at 10:12
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Then what do you mean by stimulating your brain in the same way that an external conversation would ? In an external conversation, your brain is stimulated by another person. So by what is the brain stimulated in the case at hand? – Deschele Schilder Dec 14 '17 at 10:17
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By you. You create the inputs that propagate through the neural network in the same way external inputs would. The outputs are then used to generate new inputs rather than to drive your mouth. Still just one of you. No need for a spooky sidekick. BTW dreaming is the same basic idea but without being directed by consciousness. You can make computer neural nets dream by connecting their outputs to their inputs. It's quite cool. – Alex Dec 14 '17 at 10:42
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(at)descheleschilder and @Alex I believe your disagreement perhaps revolves around how you're each differently defining your "universe of people" set. The op's universe apparently includes "imaginary people", whereas Alex's doesn't. I personally prefer the op's universe, but then again, I'm also an Alice-in-Wonderland fan: "There's no use trying," Alice said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast" – Dec 14 '17 at 11:23
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@JohnForkosh Not sure I agree. The question doesn't refer to imagining a second person. So for us to both be correct we'd have to be using different definitions of 2. Plausible but unlikely. As I say in one comment, I have no problem with one imagining oneself talking to anything. Why limit it to another human? But you aren't, it's still just you. – Alex Dec 14 '17 at 11:57
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@Alex Well, certainly the number of "biological organisms" involved when you're talking to yourself is "one". And I feel pretty safe guessing the op wouldn't argue about >>that<<. So the issue has to involve your definition of "people". For example, as a more extreme case, are there "two" people when somebody exhibits multiple personality disorder? The op would presumably answer "yes", and he's even carrying his "yes" a step further, to the more customary case involving "imaginary friends". – Dec 14 '17 at 12:35
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@JohnForkosh But you'd need to use a definition of "people" that did not include, and was at best tenuously connected to, any common definition of people. If the OP had used the term "personality" then it'd still be no but with some interesting caveats. Even in a field as malleable as philosophy, you can't define people as goldfish without mentioning that's what you're doing. – Alex Dec 14 '17 at 12:51
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There are definitions in question here. When you say that the person talking is
talking to (in) his- or himself.
I will assume the current psychological definition of a self. There are many other definitions, if you meant one of those please let us know. An additional assumption I am considering a healthy individual, so we will not be talking about whether multiple personalities constitute different "self" or not. Further, there is an assumption that the self is a single entity in your question so I will not be talking about conversations between say the ego and the id. Given those constraints, I agree with @Alex there is only one person present.
As for the follow on question, why do it then? I expect that we do this because the act of speaking changes how we think about a topic. It requires more precision and effort. Helps us to clarify our thoughts.
Patrick O'Hara
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From two different approaches, you get something like the same answer.
From traditional psychoanalysis, the personality is always fragmented, we are never completely free of repression or its associated fear, and therefore always have some degree of dissociation. So our point of view is made up of competing beliefs and desires, and one complex with in it is addressing another. "The part of me that owes my father A and B needs to believe X." "The part of me that owes my husband C and D needs to believe Y." "Since X and Y are incompatible, which shall I repress more deeply? Which of these obligations is more central to my identity?"
From a more modern model of thought offered as an abstract by Daniel Dennett, the mind is a parallel process that continually rewrites the stories that explain its behavior. The stories circulate in 'multiple drafts', and talking to yourself is using the serial linguistic mechanism to consciously edit together two drafts that exhibit a potential discrepancy. "I don't know X." "But you do know X, because you have decided Y (a fact from another 'draft') and that implies X." "Ok, so what if I do know X? Then is that consistent with Z, or does Z need reconsidering?" ...