What is Thought ?

[china]

We have never questioned the very nature of our thought. We have accepted thought as inevitable, as our eyes and legs. We have never probed to the very depth of thought, and because we have never questioned it, the thought has assumed preeminence.What is the nature of thought??

 

[Curiosity]

China.... more brain cramp lol

Thought is the bringing together of sensory and experiential learning to keep us moving forward in exploration, curiosity, joy, pain, and all the other life forces which bombard us.

Thought keeps us sane (or the opposite) and is the intellect "tidying" our space.

 

[china]

What is thinking and why do you think? Most of us have become second-hand people; we read a great deal, go to a University and accumulate a great deal of knowledge, information derived from what other people think from what other people have said. And, we quote this knowledge, which we have acquired, and compare it with what is being said. There is nothing original; we only repeat, repeat, repeat. So that when one asks: what is thought?, what is thinking?, we are incapable of answering ,and that's what is happening now .... thanks "education".

 

[Curiosity]

China

Ah.....that is a curious mixup you make....

Thought and how we express "thought" verbally may not be the same thing.

Often our deepest thoughts are feelings and not tied to communicating with others either in writing or speech.

Communication I believe trims our thoughts in a desire to be understood - and may not be the complete picture or reality of our thoughts.
(Thought)... I should say something pleasant here because that is what socializing, upbringing and environment teaches me....and of course I want to be regarded as a "nice" person by a peer.
(Speech)....Good morning ..... how are you?

 

[china]

Hi Curious
Ah.....that is a curious mixup you make....
Thought and how we express "thought" verbally may not be the same thing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please Curious , observe yourself ( and you don't need any specialists to help You)and you will find that you are thinking in words and symbols.Obviously you are also using words to describe these symbols.So ,.."when we express "thought" verbaly",( and verbaly meaning "in the form of words" ) these words are an exact copy of our thought.
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Curious :
Often our deepest thoughts are feelings and not tied to communicating with others either in writing or speech.

Agree,sometimes we don't want to communicate , we have that choice.And we also have the choice to express what we want ,,our deepest thoughts or whatever .It all depends on our will to communicate .I also agree Curious that verbaly is not the only way we can communicate.

Curious : Communication I believe trims our thoughts in a desire to be understood - and may not be the complete picture or reality of our thoughts.

The question of the thread is .."What is the reality of thought" not if "the communication trims our thoughts in a desire to be understood"........what is thought,what is thinking what is it?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curious :
(Thought)... I should say something pleasant here because that is what socializing, upbringing and environment teaches me....and of course I want to be regarded as a "nice" person by a peer.

I will not respond to this line ,my "deepest thought" prevents me from doing so.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Curious : (Speech)....Good morning ..... how are you?

I don't know which time zone is your Home .For me ,here in china .it would be more like "good night"
11:20 pm ,Monday.
any how ,Thank you ,and I feel "fej chang bang"........ Chinese for TERRIFIC .

 

[Curiosity]

LOL China!

Good post!!! Fej Chang Bang sounds like a great way to put it!!! English gets boring some days.

I'm in California - looking out over the Pacific where it is tomorrow later for me.... it is 8:30 a.m. and my day is about to start.

Good night to ya..... have a great sleep and see you "tomorrow"....

 

[Grover Station]

What is the nature of thought??

The answer is beer...

 

[china]

We live and behave according to our thinking. We have this government because of our thinking, we have wars because of our thinking – all the guns, the airplanes, the shells, the bombs, all result from our thinking. Thought has created the marvels of surgery, the great technicians and experts, but we have not investigated what thinking is.
Thinking is a process born out of experience and knowledge. Look into yourself,(you are the best learning tool), see if that is not true, actual; then you discover it for yourself exactly "what is", without distortion.The thinking starts from experience which becomes knowledge stored up in the cells of the brain as memory; then from memory there is thought and action.See this for yourself. This sequence is an actual fact: experience, knowledge, memory, thought, action. Then from that action you learn more; so there is a cycle and that is our chain. This is the way we live. And, we have never moved away from this field. You may call it action and reaction, but we never move away from this field – the field of the known. That is a fact . We can only think of what we know ,so obviously we can't think of the "un-known". God is the un known ,"think" about it .

 

[MikeyDB]

China

You are magnificently incorrect. The study of “thinking” of “thought”, “consciousness”, “perception”, all of the mosaic elements that coalesce to produce each individual’s mental state have been studied and continues to be studied exhaustively.

“Thinking” in it’s most rudimentary form, is a bio-electrical phenomenon that occurs predominantly in the brain. Neuropeptides exist throughout the human physiology but we seldom consider the electrical processes taking place in our musculature or our motor systems as “thinking”.

Christof Koch and Francis Crick in particular have done a great deal of work in the effort to produce a model of “consciousness” and Dr Wilder Graves Penfield provided some ground-breaking insights into the “mapping” of the brain…i.e. which parts of the brain appear to be associated with both phisologic and mental (psychological) function.

Picture a sponge sitting on a level flat surface. If we measure the electrical activity by any means available what we’d find is that there’s nothing remarkeable about this sponge in terms of its electrical activity…we could characterize our sponge and it’s electrically inactive state as incapable of “thought”.

Take a beaker of ordinary sea water you obtained at the beach today, take a beaker of tap water from your kitchen and take a beaker of distilled water and carefully and as evenly as you can (distributing the liquid) pour these various kinds of water onto the sponge.

Now we could be using a natural or “real” sponge or we could be using an artificial, synthetic sponge. Without any special attention having been given the physical structure of whatever sponge we’re using, we make the assumption that the cellular density of of the sponge is equal and each part or area of the sponge is at a cellular and chemical level identical to every other part of the same sponge. Let’s assume this to be the case although it’s unlikely.

Our “water” has unique properties that we need to understand to form hypotheses with respect to what we will see happening in a few moments as the exercise continues….

Seawater is water alright but it contains a higher percentage of saline or sodium chloride, (salt) that imbues this kind of water with the facility to “appear” less resistant to the flow of electrons through it than does our distilled water or our city water although this depends on where you live and what purification systems are used by your municipality to kill potentially harmful bacteria in your water supply. Distilled water, plain old H two Oh is a natural conductor of electricity but due to the absence of metal salts that are removed through the distilling process, its electical conductivity is less than say that of our beaker of municipally treated water.

Assuming our sponge has a cellularly uniform density it would be reasonable to predict that all the water we pour onto the dry sponge will be absorbed equally and that other than gross errors of concentration of particular kinds of water in some areas that may occur because we’ve inadvertantly soaked one area (failed to distribute the water evenly) to a greater extent than another, the sponge is now equally soaked with our three forms of water.

If we now take a six volt battery conveniently terminated with wires and aligator clips…and clip these leads to various locations on the sponge we will witness something remarkable…..

Different regions of our sponge now exhibit varying degrees of capacity to conduct an electric current. Areas containing salt water will be highly conductive compared to areas predominantly containing distilled water etc.

In the brain, “conductivity” is product of various enzymes and acids, “neurotransmitters” that increase or decrease electrical conductivity in various regions of the brain. Individual receptors at the synapses respond to the presence of potasium sodium etc. and the concentrations of particular salts at particular areas allow one part of the brain to be electrically and chemically more “active” than another part of the brain only millimeters away…..

Please remember this is an extremely crude representation of the neurological process, but as simile it does serve to convey some sense of the essence of the process taking place in “thought” and “thinking”.

We know a great deal about the brain….and we know almost nothing….

How are data collected and routed to the brain transformed or translated into electrical impulses and is a “thought” the electro-chemical differences between one region of the brain and another or are there some other elements in play that the myriad of electrical impulses simply use as “carrier” to deliver to particular areas?

The mystery of consciousness itself is fascinating and I invite you to explore deeper into these mysteries to form an appreciation for how wonderful and to take some literary license ….. "what a piece of work is man"…

 

[MikeyDB]

Curiosity

Your observations and comments regarding the interface between “thinking” (consciousness) and communications are insightful and tell us something about the process of thought and the process of communications.

We may be thinking something completely different than simply collating and evaluating our current experience…..

I’m sure you’ve had many experiences of “multi-tasking” or using many different cognitive and analytical processes simultaneously. Please forgive me if I’m making an erroneous presumption here….but I’ve concluded in my head that Curiosity is a female….

Females demonstrate an amazing capacity to multi-task that is very different in many respects to the male approach to simultaneous demand being made on their attention. Women can be holding a child on one arm, mixing cake batter with the free arm, listening to the radio in the kitchen while etc. etc. and these multi-processes occurring simultaneously in the brain are accepted as “normal”.

As you’ve also pointed-out an interrelationship exists between “feeling” and “thinking”, frequently one being subservient to the other and then only a few microseconds later, the balance is flipped…..

Understanding the process of “thinking” (consciousness and all the cerebral gymnastics that goes along with it…) won’t necessarily provide insight into “feelings”. Feelings tend to be “a priori”…without sublimation or integration within a social paradigm. By this I’m trying to point out that our “feelings” are in many respects more fundamental more basic if you would, than is reason or judgment based on reason.

We are both for the better and for the worse subject to a panoply of influences and pressures brought to bear by significant others, by social authorities, by peer groups by cultural and popular thematics of our surroundings and our social organizing principles. Some influences are approached rationally out of necessity while others elicit an emotional response or reaction that becomes the motivation behind our actions.

We are constantly challenged to evaluate and assess the appropriateness of our emotional or “feeling” response to events and circumstances while simultaneously as both self-expectation as member of a social group and as individual subject to the approval and acceptance of that group, encouraged to apply logic and reason to this assessment. We “know” that a conclusion based in reason will in the greater span of our experience serve us “better” than will behavior mediated through emotionality alone.

I love the mystery involved!

Why does Handel’s “Messiah” or Beethoven’s Symphony Number 9 make us “feel” the way they do!?

What’s behind the allure of Michelangelo’s Pieta or David?

When I smell lemons I think of summer afternoons and the buzzing of a million gazillion bees all collecting that sweet sunshine in a syrup that will make my tea a little sweeter….

When you think of lemons you will in all likelihood think of something entirely different…

That’s the mystery Curiosity, how we all use the same symbols and construct our individual realities around us but can come up with so many varying and disparate conclusions from a grossly similar apprehension of our existence. The other aspect of course that makes this even more complex is that you’re comprehension and appreciation for X Y or Z isn’t wrong or bad, just different and perhaps it’s the rational weighting of things and events that compels us to define ourselves not by the commonalities we share but by the differences between us.

 

[Curiosity]

China.... more brain cramp lol

Thought is the bringing together of sensory and experiential learning to keep us moving forward in exploration, curiosity, joy, pain, and all the other life forces which bombard us.

Thought keeps us sane (or the opposite) and is the intellect "tidying" our space.

MikeyDB

This is a good exercise for people and China always seems to come up with something interesting to chat about. I have quoted my first post in response to his topic question....

My first sentence: Thought is the bringing together of sensory and experiential learning.... what I was trying to describe is an event will be heard, seen, smelled, etc. (sensory activation), then translated into past events (experiential learning) and we sort it out though intellect (thought) deciding how it affects us.

This does not guarantee correct answers or responses, but the more we do the drills in our lives with repetitive learning (ie: the more good or bad reactions to similar stimuli) we develop thought to guide us.

We are always meeting new events, people, situations unless we totally isolate ourselves, so in keeping ourselves safe from harm, thought serves as our protector in navigating the passages of life.

Thus, as you compliment females and their multi-tasking, perhaps we were geared to begin the first life teaching of our young in survival through "thought"...before they are even aware of it.

Regarding your noting our variant reactions to things which trigger memory and experience I think that is the beauty of humans. We have much to share and waste so much time trying to outdo each other when we should be celebrating all the differing ways with which we view our environment.

 

[MikeyDB]

Curiosity

“We have much to share and waste so much time trying to outdo each other when we should be celebrating all the differing ways with which we view our environment.”

Brava!

If I might add and perhaps expand on your wonderful observation…

Our “thinking” isn’t “whole fabric” or “general” in perspective although we try to empathize and I’m a big fan for spreading as much compassion around as you’ve got…

Because our “thinking” is subject to (no pun intended) one unique individuals perceptions and assessment of their experience from one particular perspective, every means available to us must be used to bring people’s understandings of who they are and who everyone else might be…together!

I’m pleased that China continues to ask her questions but if I might;

Are you a student China? I’ve enjoyed sharing ideas of some other Chinese folk attending university in Beijing (many said that was the only way they’d ever been able to gain access to a computer and the Internet)

Welcome China

 

[china]

Hi MickeyDB,
Thanks for your very informative post .You mus have done alot fo research on the topic.My "scientific" knowledge of the of "thinking" was limited to realizing that it is some kind of a chemical process .I think I've learned that in grade 6-7 ,in the 60's.But that's neither here or there .What makes me very interested is your opinion of my poste.Could you please explain to me what makes my post so magnificently incorrect ? It would also help me if you could reply in your own words .
Thanks Mickey.

 

[MikeyDB]

Greetings China!

China: “We have never questioned the very nature of our thought.”

China: “We have never probed to the very depth of thought, and because we have never questioned it, the thought has assumed pre-eminence. What is the nature of thought??”

These two remarks led me to believe that you’re suggesting that we don’t know anything about how we “think” or about the innermost workings of the human brain….well it’s all mammalian brains actually…

Everything I present here at Canadian Content is written by me and are “my words”. If I make reference to or cite a work I endeavour to make that citation and reference as clearly and as obvious as I can.

I’ve been involved in psychopharmacology and psychiatry all of my professional career and was forced to retire back in the nineties when I suffered two major hemorrhagic infarctions that left me paralysed and unable to work.

I was already more than familiar with a great deal to do with brain function from a scientific and psychological perspective prior to my own experience of brain damage, but having recovered as much as I have, I began researching strokes and many other facets of cranial function including the work of Koch and Crick and many other world class scientists.

If my grade ‘six or seven’ illustration of synaptic function was insulting I apologize.

I will instead try to remember that when China says “What is thought” it may not mean she’s really interested in brain function or physiology and neuroanatomy, but some more ethereal quality that’s suitably malleable in making some undoubtedly very important but utterly esoteric observation of the world.

Please continue…

 

[Curiosity]

MikeyDB

I am stunned by your revelation regarding a stroke - have you regained your motor function which was lost ?

This is the folly of forums - not knowing people and their adversities - when they are not entirely as they seem.

I have taken many things you have written as "talking down" when you were in fact writing as you are accustomed....

I need to regroup and offer my sympathy for your "accident" and have to ponder on my own
knee jerk reaction which in this case was way off base. I myself can claim no accident to excuse my impatient behavior. My apologies.

 

[china]

Hi MickeyDB ,Thanks for your fast respond to my post.

(mickey): These two remarks led me to believe that you’re suggesting that we don’t know anything about how we “think” or about the innermost workings of the human brain….well it’s all mammalian brains actually.

China: “We have never questioned the very nature of our thought.”
China: “We have never probed to the very depth of thought, and because we have never questioned it, the thought has assumed pre-eminence. What is the nature of thought??”
_________________________________________________________________________________________
China: My post was directed to a Canadian Forum users , MickeyDB ,so I don,t think I am wrong when I say that majority of us have never questioned the nature of our thought.I also dont think that I am wrong when I say .............
"the thinking starts from experience which becomes knowledge stored up in brain cells of the brain as memory ,then is thought and action.See this for you self.This sequence is an actual fact :,act, experience ,knowledge,memory and action.".And that's a process of thought .Obviously you can try to perform different kinds experiments (outside of ones self) but the conclussion will always be :Mickey DB "We know a great deal about the brain (thought)….and we know almost nothing";.Would you agree Mickey if I said that ..'thought is like a wind,we know so much about it , and we can us it for good or for bad we can even try to "harness it" ,a little , but somehow we can never catch it?.

PS, MickeyDB,I am not a sudent , though I have delivered lectures in a field of Self and Attitude in Shandong Teachers University ,Jinan , Shandong.
ALSO, I am a MAN not a woman .I use the name "China", because I love the country.

 

[china]

MickeyDB ;
The mystery of consciousness itself is fascinating and I invite you to explore deeper into these mysteries to form an appreciation for how wonderful and to take some literary license ….. "what a piece of work is man"… ______________________________________________________________________

I will be very happy to start a new thread ....Consciousness if you would like to participate in the "search".

 

[oneeno]

so i have to agree that thought stems from experiance..which from the start of OUR lives we have had no control. from the very start/our birth, we have been subjected to experiances based on otehrs thoughts/experiances(what our parents teach and tell us) . we grew up with many options of what experiance we wnated , but still all based on the thoughts and experiances given to us by others..
- -
now..thought is still thought..where you would say the very original, FIRST thought came from..what kind of experiance did the first man(person) have who was created have. he/she had no history to base their thoughts on, at least not one that is laid down on his plate for him as we do. so what does the very first thought consist of or where did it stem from..? where was the first thoughts history ?
any thoughts?

 

[The Project Man]

Thought is a Function in Our Processing

I think there are many functions of thought. How many? I guess I’ll find out when I finish this.

Say we have a subject with blinders on and a clean slate, no priors in His/Her head, reduce the process to stages.

---------------------Remove blinder and introduce a stimuli.

1) Stimuli attracts the attention of our subject (thought* what is it?)

2) He /She turns head with the (thought** To focus on what the stimuli is.)

3) Focused (thought*** to gather information)

---------------------put the blinders back on the subject.

4) Rationalize (thought**** categorize, so the subject can store it properly in the brain)

NOTE-Though having nothing else in the brain it still is sent to a specific part with prior knowledge of anything.

5) Re-Assess (thought***** The subject strips down what he/she has stored and rebuild it so the subject can understand totally what was observed.)

6) Define (thought****** Label to have an understanding &/OR “control” of what was assessed)

I would have to say in what I perceive the process to be that #4 would be the most crucial to the human mind. I feel we use thought to rationalize our surroundings, with defining coming in a close second. I feel we do this in the blink of an eye, I know it is faster than that…..

I feel the primary reason behind the process would be survival instinct. Will the stimuli cause harm, is it a source that can be used to the subjects benefit. I believe self-preservation comes before all others in our states of being. Breathing for example; We do it and we say, “We don’t even think about it!” I believe we do and that it is so instilled in us that we just are not so aware. As if the mind says, “Relax you know I have this covered! Forget about it.”

 

[china]

Thought is time. Thought is born of experience and knowledge which are inseparable from time and the past. Time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past. Thought is ever-limited and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. There is no psychological evolution. When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts he will see the division between the thinker and the thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep radical mutation in the mind.When I look in my self ,I see that the total negation is the essence of the positive. When there is negation of all those things that thought has brought about psychologically, only then is there love, which is compassion and intelligence. That brings the question......."what is time"