Questions about Thinking

[Kilyke]

One thing we know about thinking... it is always "about" something.
(There's a term for that, I forget what it was.)

Whether the object of our thoughts is a literal object like a bouncy blue ball or a abstract concept like racism, there is always some object of our thoughts.

I cannot think of an instance in which this is not the case.

So what does it mean to be thinking about something? What does it mean to have an idea?

Physiologically speaking, it means that a certain symphony of electrochemical signals are firing through our brains. Okay, great, but what does it all mean subjectively?

We have a thought, sure, and then do we suddenly stop thinking about one object and start thinking about another object? Or is there some overlap?

Can we tell by looking at the brain?

Is all thought conscious? I would argue that all verbal thought is conscious. Secondary to the meaning of the thought, there is also the sound, or look or, feel of the thought, all of which will happen at the same time as the thought.

Or are they part of that thought?

One could argue that there are actually two meanings to each thought, one subconscious and one conscious. But where does the meaning come from?

What does "meaning" really mean?

[Nachismo]

http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/8/mariobump.jpg

[cellophane]

Most of these questions are unanswerable. Philosophers have spent their entire lives trying to figure this shit out. Good luck getting a straight answer out of Zoklet's brightest minds.

[nshanin]

One thing we know about thinking... it is always "about" something.
(There's a term for that, I forget what it was.)

Whether the object of our thoughts is a literal object like a bouncy blue ball or a abstract concept like racism, there is always some object of our thoughts.

I cannot think of an instance in which this is not the case.

So what does it mean to be thinking about something? What does it mean to have an idea?
Typically, it involves the application of reason or logic to some object; reason is a relational/relative form of analysis (The process of separating something into its constituent elements). This is in contrast to intuition, perception, and imagination.

Physiologically speaking, it means that a certain symphony of electrochemical signals are firing through our brains. Okay, great, but what does it all mean subjectively?
You mean what does it mean for you, the subject, thinking about an object? Plato had some ideas about this that were pretty far-out, but it's reasonable to comprehend thought as a sort of computation.

We have a thought, sure, and then do we suddenly stop thinking about one object and start thinking about another object? Or is there some overlap?
It could be that as a computation of the properties of one object is occurring, a subsequent part of the computation (whether intended or generated on the fly) involves accessing the properties of some other object, and this could be classified as a different object depending on the granularity of the computation. The brain is adept at finding patterns, one of its emergent properties can be thought of as an "engine" for seeking out patterns which can be used to match a needed object to the initial object of thought by any number of different properties. It is well-understood that the mind is a hologram, but some of the details regarding parallel processing of objects and memory access are sketchy. The frontal cortex can only handle of few bits of information per second, so it needs specific instructions, typically acquired by the use of "subprograms".

Can we tell by looking at the brain?
I have not studied this, but I found a link for you to start your research:
http://www.yale.edu/caplab/Main/Publications_files/01-Chap-01.pdf

You should at least read all the paragraphs containing the search fragment "neuro".

Is all thought conscious? I would argue that all verbal thought is conscious. Secondary to the meaning of the thought, there is also the sound, or look or, feel of the thought, all of which will happen at the same time as the thought.
Self-talk and activation of other parts of the brain during cognition are usually separated conceptually but since the entirety of the brain is a hologram-processing machine, one signal affects all other signal-processing centers nearly simultaneously.

One could argue that there are actually two meanings to each thought, one subconscious and one conscious. But where does the meaning come from?
What do you think or feel about this? Few nowadays dispute the idea of the subconscious.

What does "meaning" really mean?
It relates to language and the keys that our mind uses to link objects to each other.

This is known in philosophy as the problem of the criterion, this brief text shows you why it is a very serious problem:
http://www.oswego.edu/~dhoracek/220/Chisholm-criterion.pdf

The above author's approach implies that, as with the mind, we must consider the set of all relations within the system in order to remove the assumption of a pre-supposed "object" or "meaning" from our analysis. By these means, we will be able to deduce the reason for the mechanism as a whole. I know of one philosopher who has done something like this:
http://www.comingtounderstanding.com/
Maybe you should read a review or two.

[nshanin]

What do you think or feel about this? Few nowadays dispute the idea of the subconscious.

Have you had a chance to think about this?

[nshanin]

I found a related post:
http://www.zoklet.net/bbs/showpost.php?p=3274412&postcount=22

[ChimRichalds]

Have you had a chance to think about this?

ha. nigga you funny.

as far as finding out what a thought is made of. there are several devices used today that determine where the electrical impulses happen and to what degree they are pulse modulated relative to brain wave frequency. this, coupled with giving the subject stimuli (such as showing them a certain symbol or odor) can determine how the brain reacts. this may not be a "thought" but there's a lot of science behind the idea that by building a larger base of data (testing more subjects) they can build a general model to isolate where a thought or feeling occurs.
on a more personal note i have always felt that there is no fine line, physiologically or neurologically between unconscious and conscious it seems more likely that it is all part of one singular system made up of a thousands of parts.

[nshanin]

You mean what does it mean for you, the subject, thinking about an object? Plato had some ideas about this that were pretty far-out, but it's reasonable to comprehend thought as a sort of computation.

Sorry, I meant Socrates:

After Socrates confounds Meno by asking for the form of virtue
rather than examples of the same...

Meno then acts on the maxim that the best defense is a good
offense. He challenges Socrates with a dilemma: if you
know the answer to the question you are asking, then
nothing can be learned by asking. If you do not know the
answer, then you cannot recognize a correct answer even if
it is given to you. Therefore, one cannot learn anything by
asking questions.
The natural solution to Meno’s paradox of inquiry is
that the inquirer has an intermediate amount of knowledge—
enough to recognize a correct answer but not
enough to answer on one’s own. Consider a student confronted
with a multiple choice question:
Meno’s
paradox can be solved for cases in which the inquirer has
some pieces of knowledge that he can bring together to
identify the correct answer.
This solution does not apply to situations in which the
inquirer has no knowledge with which to start. For instance,
newborn babies seem perfectly ignorant. If an infant boy
begins as a “blank slate,” he has no clues to exploit.
Extreme skeptics deny that adults know any more than
babies know. If these skeptics were to follow through by
ending their questioning, then these self-professed knownothings
would be free of the inconsistency. But Socrates is
trying to end his total ignorance by asking questions.

Extreme skeptics deny that adults know any more than
babies know. If these skeptics were to follow through by
ending their questioning, then these self-professed knownothings
would be free of the inconsistency. But Socrates is
trying to end his total ignorance by asking questions.
THE DOCTRINE OF REMINISCENCE
Socrates salvages the Socratic method by scaling back Socratic
ignorance. He concedes that there is a sense of know in which
people know much—indeed everything! He demonstrates
this sense by shepherding Meno’s slave boy into the deduction
of a geometrical truth. Although the slave boy has never been
exposed to geometry, Socrates facilitates the boy’s recognition
of the theorem by asking him questions. The boy sometimes
responds incorrectly but soon spots his mistake when Socrates
draws attention to the consequences of his answers. Socrates
concludes that the slave boy had dormant knowledge of the
theorem before he was questioned. Instead of teaching him
anything new, Socrates merely revives the boy’s knowledge.
Where did the slave boy’s knowledge come from? Socrates
infers that the boy is remembering facts that he explicitly knew
in a state before he was ever born. The boy had the knowledge
because he dwelt among the forms. This knowledge was
forgotten during the trauma of birth. But he recovered the
knowledge when Socrates prompted the boy’s memory.
Socrates generalizes: We never learn anything new. We
relearn what we formerly knew by encountering objects that
serve as reminders. The form of a horse comes back to mind
when we see particular horses. A particular horse is an
imperfect reflection of the form for horse and so is not the
sort of thing that could give us knowledge of horses on its own.
Socrates denies that any one can teach any one anything.
(Maybe this is why he will not teach for money!) All Socrates
can do is prompt memories. Socrates’ mother, Phaenarete,
was a midwife and Socrates regards himself as continuing the
family business: “The only difference is that my patients are
men, not women, and my concern is not with the body but
with the soul that is in travail of birth. And the highest point
of my art is the power to prove by every test whether the
offspring of a young man’s thought is a false phantom or
instinct with life and truth.” (Plato’s Theaetetus 150) The
midwife does not produce the child on her own. Similarly,
Socrates merely helps others reanimate knowledge that they
must have first acquired in an earlier state of existence.
Mental midwifery is hazardous work. Most people do not
question the ordinary world of appearances. They resent the
suggestion that there is a further reality behind this realm of
appearances. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates dramatizes the
perils of philosophy with the allegory of the cave.




Through regular traffic with the shadows, the prisoners
become adept at predicting the patterns. What would happen
if one of the unwitting prisoners were released from his
shackles and permitted to turn around? Would he not be
shocked by the scene behind him? Suppose he ventured out of
the cave. He would ascend clumsily up unfamiliar steps. He
would emerge into sunlight that would leave him painfully
dazzled. If he overcame the impulse to withdraw back into the
familiar darkness, he would eventually acclimate to the real
world of objects. He would be delighted by the colors and
richness of reality. He would marvel at the sun that illuminates
everything and is the source and sustenance of all there is.
Eventually the liberated man would feel obliged to rescue
his friends back in the cave. Reluctantly, he would return to
the cave in the hope of freeing them from illusion. Since he
would now be used to sunlit conditions, his descent back to the
cave would be as clumsy as his earlier ascent. As he resumes his
seat with his friends, they will notice that he has lost his knack
for predicting the behavior of the shadows. When he tells them
that the shadows are mere effects of real objects blocking light,
his companions will be amazed by his impudence. If he persists
in denigrating their learning as mere familiarity with an
illusion, then they may even slay him for his heresy.

I marvel at the astuteness of the comparison between the one who leaves the Cave and modern parallels to enlightenment (which can be thought of as understanding mind, of which thought is a part or function). Even this ancient view of the mind is very similar to the idea of thought consisting of holographic computations until the answer is re-cognized.

[Vizier]

OP, is this the first time you smoke the marihuanas?

[nshanin]

Some think that judgment and sensation are carried out by separate consciousnesses.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Penrose-dreieck.svg/192px-Penrose-dreieck.svg.png
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/images/eps-gif/PenroseTriangle_500.gif
Psychologists think the dissonance of a visual paradox (a specific type of illusion) is irresolvable because our visual systems are compartmentalized. We humans have the remarkable ability to say that a statement is nonsense because we resolve it with our cognition, but this cognition is as seemingly-human as sensation because the same consciousness that is capable of sense can discern truths both human and physical, we are more than logic gates. Hence, knowledge is inevitably a result of being, i.e. what you have sensed. Meno says he feels numb when he can't respond to Socrates' request for the form of virtue (i.e. a definition) because (according to psychologists) this is another homunculus as you can see from the powerful arguments of C.S. Lewis for the extraordinary properties of man's moral faculty. We can see that philosophers judge paradoxes the same way people judge conflicting information from the homunculi that make up their senses: typically, they take the rational approach even though there are other advisers.