Do all people experience your version of consciousness, awareness in the present moment? Or is this overly represented among people debating whether animals have it? Some people don't have an inner monologue.
That's totally true and something I don't know the answer to. But it's interesting to ponder if the experience of consciousness is the same for each individual. We believe that consciousness is possibly an emergent phenomena of cognitive processing, but since there is a wide amount of heterogeneity in the makeup of the human mind, it isn't extraordinary to claim that this 'presence in the current moment' may have different flavors for different individuals.
The claim that certain individuals lack an inner monologue is a testament to this—I can't imagine what that would be like but that is certainly nothing like my conscious experience is. To me, the lack of an inner monologue sounds very much like the 'dark universe' in which the brain is doing all of the processing and there is no conscious observer to witness the unfolding. I'm sure people without a inner monologue are still conscious.. but—it's interesting to think about how different their experience may be like.
Do you ever watch a movie/event or listen to music and notice you're not internally narrating what's happening because you're so engrossed in the action?
In one way, that sounds like more consciously present, in the other way it sounds like less. You are more here and now as you lack distracting commentary, or are you more here if you sit and ponder it?
