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Thinking

NothingtoSay
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/18/09 - 04:29 PM: Subject: Thinking	#1
What are thoughts? What is it to think? Can we not think? Assuming that they come from the mind, can pain be grouped in with thoughts? Can the senses be grouped in with thoughts? i.e Can we say that to feel pain is to think? I've been thinking about thoughts and where they come from. Do they come from the mind or from the soul or from both or from something else? I'd guess that thoughts, whatever they are, are what make us do what we do. But why do I think this? What could be the cause of our actions if not our own minds? our souls? How does one not think? Is intention required to not think? i.e. if one is born without being able to think, without intending not to think, can we say that he does not think or must we say that he is not able to think?

unenlightened
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/18/09 - 05:01 PM:	#2
There's a lot of questions to go at here; I hope you are not expecting anything in response that is not a thought. I would offer you some cheese, but it is not practical. I usually distinguish (in my thoughts) between thought, as the response of memory that reflects upon things, and sensations, that are immediate, momentary. So pain is a sensation, which almost immediately gives rise to thoughts that 'I am in pain, I do not want to be I must stop this pain...' It is so quick that one doesn't often see that there are two different processes. One sees something - a car, say, and then there are thoughts that identify 'that is a car, it is red, it is expensive, I want one.' I think it does happen occasionally that thinking stops; I see something that is overwhelming, a sunset maybe, and for a moment I am gobsmacked - and just looking without thought. But for sure it cannot come by intention, it is clear I think, that intention is a thought about the future. Perhaps it is the thought that I will stop thinking and experience this marvelous thing directly, but that is another thought, and so it cannot happen that way. But it is possible to look at one's thoughts without intention to stop them, and the more one is looking, the less one is thinking - this is the practice of meditation.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Hanover
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/18/09 - 05:43 PM:	#3
NothingtoSay wrote: What are thoughts? What is it to think? Can we not think? Assuming that they come from the mind, can pain be grouped in with thoughts? Can the senses be grouped in with thoughts? i.e Can we say that to feel pain is to think? Maybe there's an eqivocation fallacy here, but the statement "I think I'm in pain" is not sensical. The word "think" here is used to describe some sort of uncertainty, which can't exist with regard to pain. You cannot be incorrect with regard to whether you are in pain. So, I think it's more accurate to say that pain is an irreducible phenomenal experience, which takes place without thought. I pointed out the potential fallacy because I'm not completely sure I'm using the word "think" consistently here, although I think (note the qualifier) the conclusion holds that pain can precede thought. How does one not think? Is intention required to not think? i.e. if one is born without being able to think, without intending not to think, can we say that he does not think or must we say that he is not able to think? If one intends, then one has thought. I think those go hand in hand.
"Nothing is impossible for the man who will not listen to reason." John Belushi, "Animal House" "I have opinions of my own --strong opinions-- but I don't always agree with them." G.W. Bush

NikAngelo
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/18/09 - 06:52 PM:	#4
Sensations are not thoughts. Humans are the only known animals to have reflective and conscious thoughts. "Ow!" is not a thought. "That knife cut me and it hurts" is a thought. Thoughts are cognitive processes as a result of the advancement of the brain in human beings. And yes we can think. If you are familiar with Descartes: "I think, therefore I am." Not sure how you came to the conclusion that thought may come from a soul... Thoughts don't make us do anything, they rationalize what we perceive and often we react because of them. The execptions of course incluse reflexes, impulses and other subconscious/involuntary/instinctual acts. Humans think because our genetic structure lends us to thought. Without thought, we would be hairless apes without the ability to survive in the wild. Humans with certain genetic defects, or humans who have become "vegetables" do not have the ability to think. This begs the question: "Are they human?" I am tempted to say no.
I am the God of my universe "See? Life has no apples!" --Mawpe (Thanks for the laugh)

wuliheron
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Posted 05/18/09 - 10:13 PM:	#5
NothingtoSay wrote: What are thoughts? What is it to think? Can we not think? Assuming that they come from the mind, can pain be grouped in with thoughts? Can the senses be grouped in with thoughts? i.e Can we say that to feel pain is to think? I've been thinking about thoughts and where they come from. Do they come from the mind or from the soul or from both or from something else? I'd guess that thoughts, whatever they are, are what make us do what we do. But why do I think this? What could be the cause of our actions if not our own minds? our souls? How does one not think? Is intention required to not think? i.e. if one is born without being able to think, without intending not to think, can we say that he does not think or must we say that he is not able to think? Thoughts are a mixture of our emotions, abstractions, and awareness all rolled into one. My computer can handle abstractions, but it certainly is not aware and cannot think. A bacteria can be aware that it is hot, but it cannot think. A dog can think, it can dream of chasing rabbits and even outwitting them by chasing them into the waiting mouths of its companions.

NikAngelo
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Posted 05/18/09 - 10:51 PM:	#6
Dogs cannot think. They do not have the ability to reflect upon themselves or solve rational problems. Their primative brains can be trained to do tricks or hunt for their masters, but these animals are incapable of thought as we know it.
I am the God of my universe "See? Life has no apples!" --Mawpe (Thanks for the laugh)

Panphilia
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Posted 05/19/09 - 02:46 AM:	#7
How do we reach such dramatic conclusions about the thought processes of other conscious beings? I see a problem with both the statement that they do think and the statement that they do not. Inside our own conscious experience, the only one we can directly access, we have a whole tangled mess of experience. For me this presents a difficulty - perhaps not a logical block, I'm not sure yet, but certainly a practicality issue - for separating out a thought from any other kind of conscious experience. I cannot hold out my sensation to you and say, "Is this what you mean?" It seems easy enough to say that experiencing red is different to completing a mathematical equation, but this is to take two polar extremes and assume that there is a clear division as a result, without exploring the muddled middle ground. I see an oncoming car - no, backtrack, I see colours and shapes and my brain sorts them into an oncoming car, I feel fear, I run to the pavement. No thought in this? If some swear words form in my mind as I run, have I had a thought? There seems to be more than one option for identifying a thought in my own consciousness, as distinct from other sensations. We could consider a thought to be mentally articulated words. Weak, surely. Experience does not point to a constant running monologue in my head (not that I don't talk to myself plenty often enough!). Sometimes I will say, "I've just had a thought" and relay an idea – "We could get her some flowers." Speaking from my own experience, this does not always mean that I have first articulated in my mind the thought, "What about flowers?", merely that the thought has… come to me. Ech Or we could try defining thoughts as mental states with intentionality, ie states that are about something. So rather than just having REDNESS thrust on us, we take a cognitive attitude to it. This seems more promising. It is the process of evaluating and reflecting, however hasty and unconscious. But do we not regularly take the cognitive attitude of belief in situations that don't really seem like thought? By this definition, the instant I affirm unconsciously that the sensations I experience are reliable, I am already thinking by taking an attitude towards them. Which means, judging by animal behaviour, that they think too, as they clearly rely on the truth of their sense experience, thus believe in it. We could argue that to classify such belief as a cognitive attitude is a mistake, but to fear the car certainly is an attitude, and a dog would fear the car. Is that still just a reaction then, and not a thought? I find it very difficult to pin down thoughts, as opposed to anything else, from my own stream of experience. I'm not sure if this is an inherent problem, or just one that I haven't overcome yet. It doesn't help that we use the word loosely. "I thought you were a good person," doesn't mean we had a specific moment of experiencing such a thought, but rather that we constantly held the belief. This use of thought means we can never stop thinking – we can never lose our dispositional beliefs, even when not directly experiencing them. But personally I think this is just a blurring of the lines by language, and we mean something distinct from this when we say "I had a thought". Just some thoughts!

wuliheron
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Posted 05/19/09 - 11:41 AM:	#8
While dogs certainly do not display any capacity for abstract thought that is not the same thing as saying they do not have thoughts at all. They are quite capable of problem solving. In fact, even honey bees are capable of problem solving. Researchers placed a bee hive in a sealed room and put the bees to sleep by lowering the lights and temperature. Then they set up a card table with flower pots in the room. When they woke the bees they sent out scouts who quickly found the flowers and told the others where to find them. The researchers then put the bees back to sleep and moved the table. When the bees awoke they immediately went to where the table had been originally, then they changed course to where it had been moved. The researchers then put them to sleep and again moved the table to yet a third location. However, this time when they woke the bees they went straight to the new location of the table. Such simple problem solving abilities demonstrate a clear ability to think, no matter how rudamentary or far removed from our own it might be.

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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/19/09 - 06:35 PM:	#9
NothingtoSay, I have not read any of the other posts. I suggest you look into research on meta-cognition. It is basically research on thinking about thinking.

NikAngelo
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 05/19/09 - 06:51 PM:	#10
Bees cannot reflect upon themselves OR solve rational problems. If they did as you said, the bees may have been able to solve a rhudementary problem, although I doubt it, but there were no cognitions such as: "The table was moved before, and it moved by this much, so this time the table should be over there." Please show me this test if you want to try and use it to further your argument.
I am the God of my universe "See? Life has no apples!" --Mawpe (Thanks for the laugh)

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