You can’t hear your own voice?

I can "hear" your voice when I read your response. Every time I read a book or anything in language I have a voice in my head reading it aloud to me. There's a technical term for it in psychology or cognitive science which I can't find at the moment. Sometimes I engage in a dialogue in my own head when doing philosophy.

But, in all this there's a part of me that listens to this voice in my head. What is it?

Feeling a little Zen'ish.
If the voice in your head is you, then who is the one listening to it? — Wallows

Who is this 'little Zen' ? And are you still wallowing in your bed?
Context matters.
Tell me more about 'the voice in your head'?

And are you still wallowing in your bed? — Amity

Always.

Context matters. — Amity

There isn't much to provide.

Tell me more about 'the voice in your head'? — Amity

It's anyone's inner voice. But, there's some sort of duality here. When you read this text, don't you "hear" yourself reading it to yourself? That inner voice. I do. The part I'm interested in is the part of you that does the listening to hear that voice. What do you make out of it>?

there's some sort of duality here. — Wallows

I think you answered your own question.

There is more than one self.
Isn't there ?

There is more than one self. — Amity

Isn't that a performative contradiction?

What do you mean by a 'performative contradiction ?

What do you mean by a 'performative contradiction ? — Amity

Well, that might not entirely be a performative contradiction. What I meant to imply is that the self seems to be a unitary entity. When someone speaks about oneself, it's usually in the singular and not plural in ordinary language. So, I thought that talking about having 'multiple selves' as a performative contradiction if you assume this unitary stipulated definition of the self.

Every time I read a book or anything in language I have a voice in my head reading it aloud to me. There's a technical term for it in psychology or cognitive science which I can't find at the moment. Sometimes I engage in a dialogue in my own head when doing philosophy. — Wallows

Notice that this isn't the only way to read. With English, a foreign language to me, I do the same, but with text written in my own mother tongue I don't have to do this as I can read faster than the writing can be spoken. It's basically just excersize.

I assume that when you drive and see a STOP sign or a speed limit, there doesn't have to be a voice to say "Stop" or "speed limit sixtyfive" in your head before you understand the meaning of the sign and what you have to do. You can react immediately to the sign.

Hence the "voice in your head" is more like a way to concentrate. Some have to concentrate by speaking out loud and I presume that the "voice in your head" is just a more subtle version of this.

the self seems to be a unitary entity. When someone speaks about oneself, it's usually in the singular and not plural in ordinary language. So, I thought that talking about having 'multiple selves' as a performative contradiction if you assume this unitary stipulated definition of the self. — Wallows

Yes. We talk about ourselves as a singular entity. I hear you.
But who are 'you'?
Context matters, doesn't it ?

The concept of 'self' provides for endless speculation. How many theories and definitions exist in philosophy, psychology, science, neurology...?

When I think of a philosophical self, my mind comes up with a few memories of previous learning.
Quotes jump out at me.
Know Thyself.
I yam what I yam.

Also, thoughts of a higher and lower self. Related to mastering one's base desires.
Who talked of this ? I can't remember but a previous self would.

Fascinating.

If the voice in your head is you, then who is the one listening to it? — Wallows

Couldn’t I be “voicing” to myself? Cartesian theater with the exclusivity of a single paid admission.

It's no more mysterious than driving a car and being aware you're driving a car. Who's driving the car and who's observing the car being driven? You, in both cases, because the word "you" refers to the subject of actions and awarenesses of different forms that can sometimes (and very often do) occur simultaneously.

You, in both cases, — Baden

While I quite agree this appears to be the case, we inevitably arrive, after all the philosophical reductions, flying headlong into the face of the Aristotelian Law of Identity, to the one and only permissible occurrence of subject and object being the same thing at the same time.

The weaving of tangled webs run amok, methinks.

If the voice in your head is you, then who is the one listening to it? — Wallows

The voice is your mind (whether consciously or subconciously prompted) 'thinking' out loud. The listener is your awareness, which is separate. The label 'you' is too vague to be pinned to one or the other. In Zen there is no 'self' or 'you' separate from your mind functions - of which these are two.

The voice is your mind (whether consciously or subconciously prompted) 'thinking' out loud. The listener is your awareness, which is separate. — Tim3003

Interesting. I take it that the goal of Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and others is to quiet down the mind and focus on the awareness part or listening part. Do you know where I can read more about this? I am quite interested in this view of matters or taking this perspective.

People experience different kinds of speech when alone.
For myself, the readiness to punish myself sounds like me when talking to myself but it has its own spirit. The spirit is not enough not me to allow me to pass it off as some other being, as is done in the fashion of demons and autonomously performed actions of habit.
On the other hand, I never taught this spirit what to do. Why does it know where are all the things that hurt people are located?
I hear Kafka in his Reflections when he is skeptical of the sense of victory over this sort of thing.

Interesting. I take it that the goal of Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and others is to quiet down the mind and focus on the awareness part or listening part. Do you know where I can read more about this? I am quite interested in this view of matters or taking this perspective. — Wallows

Yes, that's it. You will have heard of mindfullness, this is much the same thing without the philosophical baggage if that's more to your taste. Meditation is the route to quietening down your mind. 'The Power of Now' is a good starter; and Thich Nhat Hanh's books on mindfullness. For Zen I recommend Charlotte Joko Beck's books. Good luck!

People experience different kinds of speech when alone.
For myself, the readiness to punish myself sounds like me when talking to myself but it has its own spirit. The spirit is not enough not me to allow me to pass it off as some other being, as is done in the fashion of demons and autonomously performed actions of habit.
On the other hand, I never taught this spirit what to do. Why does it know where are all the things that hurt people are located? — Valentinus

It's your subconscious either directly, or more subtly (via emotional triggers) influencing your conscious mind's thoughts. Your mind is like an iceberg, the 90% underwater is the subconscious. Animals only have that - ie no conscious mind. The subconscious stores all information you consciously give it, and as it is based on instinctive animal fears and desires, it feeds back the opinions you have taught it (often via emotions) to prompt you to conscious survival-based action. If it's prompting you to punish yourself you must over time have given it a low opinion of your self. Every time you say 'I'm weak' it remembers, and if a test of strength comes along in your life it says 'Hang on, you're weak - best to run away'. So really, you did teach it what to do. Time to change tack?

I have changed tack. I have other routines than the self destructive one. There were so many opportunities to die that I somehow learned to not take advantage of that I am now 62. No one is more surprised than I am. Put less dramatically, I stopped hurting myself so much and found I hurt other people less as a consequence. I am trying to make the most of my new lease on life.

I hear your narrative of why those routines appear and they make sense of a particular mode of development. There are other ways to frame it that are touched upon by many kinds of psychology. The games people play in the Eric Berne scheme is different from the stages of being a human being as given by Erik Erickson or Abraham Maslov. And then there are thinkers like Nietzsche and Freud, and Reich who focus on elemental drives. Cognitive Behavior therapy dances with Constructive Psychotherapy. Those inform and help me but I decided to respond to the OP question about voices to emphasize the immediacy of any answer. By citing Kafka, I am not signalling defeat. He is encouraging me to continue as I am.

Eh, I've thought about this a bit. Not sure it's worth mentioning, but..

The true "you" is unconditional. Never wrong. Purely logical. It's underneath your emotion, your intuition, your reason, and your logic. There's a "you" beneath everything. And it's absolutely mystical, and it's absolutely not philosophical, in any way whatsoever. Meh

That works for me except for the absolutely part.

The "you" can be the horizon of the philosophical;
Sartre talking about consciousness where the ego can always show up but whose attendance is not required.
Zhuangzi showing the limits of the language of control by placing it side by side with the conditions that teach more directly.
Lacan's mirror stage pointing to necessary preconditions that are not explained by development.

To say what are the grounds of experience in an absolute fashion would not be listening to many who say there is something to heard by not talking that way.

Taoist and Buddhist practices have many important divergences regarding the nature of the being who lives "before" the one who deliberates. They do agree, however, that the one who deliberates tends to talk so much that they cannot hear other things.