What is thought?

Discussion in 'Mind Games' started by McLeodGanja, Mar 4, 2011.

  1. McLeodGanja

    McLeodGanja Banned

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    Contemporary scientists say that the brain controls the body. They try to understand our thoughts by measuring our brain waves, so they know roughly when we are thinking and vaguely what about.

    This strongly suggests that thought is premeditated by the transient passing of electrical pulses and waves within our respective cranii.

    However, recent advances in science are starting to suggest that the old paradigm within which science is enthroned is in fact wrong, that mind does not come from matter, but that matter comes from mind.

    the existence of matter and the universe around us is a by-product of conscious awareness, everything from classical material to atoms to galaxies of stars are all products of our collective mind(s).

    So, when the scientists measure our brain patterns and statistically, through experiment with volunteers (humans) and non-volunteers (rats), and we automatically conclude that a thought is the result of electrical impulses flying around our heads are we correct?

    Maybe the electrical impulses are a consequence of the thoughts that go around in the mysterious innard world of our minds?

    Which then asks the question, what physical mechanism (note the deliberate use of the word "mechanism") is responsible for creating thought in the first place?

    Is there any such thing, as either even?

    So with that in mind, having considered all things logically so far to this point, would it be fair to conclude that when we die we can somehow still be present in our own thoughts?
     
  2. spexxx

    spexxx Member

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    No body no brain no language no thoughts imo
     
  3. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    I would not be a social entity without first being given a name. If I were to rely only on my own witness, I am unaware of a time when I was not.
     
  4. Yert

    Yert Member

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dodTNPp12rg"]YouTube - Sam Harris on The Illusion of Free Will -1/3
     
  5. McLeodGanja

    McLeodGanja Banned

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    This does not mean that you weren't though.
     
  6. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    The body is a communication device and the noises it makes depends on it's composition. We may listen and sing along to a composition and we may sing a composition of our own making and those compositions may be harmonious or discordant to other compositions.

    As to the aspect of brain activity beginning before a thought is registered, it could be not a matter of impulses coming out of predetermined space, but that the thought, impulse, comes first. That unbounded impulse is then articulated to correspond to some element of personal or collective perception. Thought may be a common pulse or beat that is expressed diversely as each beat or impulse rises through the column of awareness.

    I just think the facts of the video do not necessarily require the theoretical model put forward by the narrator.
     
  7. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    Weren't what?

    Consider it is essential to be given an article of identification, a name, in order to be any kind of functional entity in a community. The ego that we possess is as much a creation of those around us as it is our own. Ego is a social currency that is negotiated in and amongst our peers. We make bargains putting forward those aspects of ourselves that we think will be most appealing and seek to withhold those things that we think will find us wanting in the eyes of others.
     
  8. reb

    reb Member

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    Mc, i shant comment on the video.

    i am simple; if we agree as our hypothesis that brain waves are electrical impulses, from where do these pulses emanate? for electricity to exist (as far as we know from physics), there must be some sort of generator, or imbalance (such as ground lightning, or a wet cell battery). i could agree that the body, while alive, is the generator of the electricity, but...as in a computer, what is the control process? or is it controlled at all? i highly respect some thinkers...one is edgar cayce:

    http://edgarcayce.org/ps2/innervision_mind_J_Van_Auken.html

    i would submit that, for thoughts to exist post mortem (so to speak-i am unconvinced of the term's veracity as well), to stay within 'known' physical principles, there must be a generator or imbalance to make the electricity....unless....

    thoughts are NOT electricity, we are only measuring them with equipment which can detect them 'as' electricity. which blows the discussion into 'we don't have instruments or knowledge to sufficiently say as a certainty what thoughts actually are'....frankly, i don't know a damn thing, but thought to throw this out for your consideration.
     
  9. willedwill

    willedwill Member

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    Should I worry about that kind of Ego? Naah. Find the love and the ex-nihilo charity. Ghadaffi's view. by the way.
     
  10. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    Seems as though we have met. I would say we might worry over whether to support it at all. I'm for kicking the the money changers out of the temple of human relations. I don't think they represent fairly because to them a bargain is to pay a little and expect a lot in return, whereas in real fundamentals, the measure you give is the measure you receive.
     
  11. deleted

    deleted Visitor

    first we must look to the body as a whole mass and what it is composed of..
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_the_human_body
    subtract unnecessary information, breathing comes naturally, but you can stop it. This though is overridden by another program. Will: The will to live. What is your will to live?.. It is only to collect oxygen? This is one the most important components to living organisms. as is hydrogen. Therefore Thought must be comprised of those...

    Its all fluid, held together by gravity.. :seeya:waves.......

    [​IMG]
     
  12. Sir-.-'nOOBalloT

    Sir-.-'nOOBalloT Member

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    Hmm after we die we probably would not be still present in our thoughts. But our thoughts could very much still be around after we pass way. As u said it ur self we can meager our though do to electrical fields there are even game controllers that can recognize variety of say spatial awareness thoughts. Which would suggest that there is some sort a of reminiscent of our minds flouting in to space in a form of radio waves are they self aware thoughts probably no. But this could explain when someone clause to our heart dies, at that moment we may feel the presents or a sense of something bad in regards of this person. Which may lead one to a believe in an after life.

    As far as what actually is a though well i guess the important question we should ask is it a physical thing or something ells. If we could argue that its physical then we could easily conclude that we do not think after we die or better yet our body does. Of course the reverse is that are thoughts are made of something ells but this would well leave us in a tuff spot first how do we argue about something that is made of something ells that this world is and how does is it answer any question atoll it’s a bit like the idea of god u can answer any question u like but u cant back it up.

    In the end if someone wants some extra comfort within the physical realm sure these ideas help and I don’t see anything wrong with it I do it all the time after all there is a small chance that these ideas have some grain of truth in them. But when u think about it what comfort does an illusion provide when it is seen as one…
     
  13. arthur itis

    arthur itis Senior Member

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    The main question is,,

    "Does one have hope in their soul,,

    ,,or merely soap in their hole?"

    That's the question.
     
  14. I was just thinking about this...

    It's possible that nothing we think is even pertinent to what is actually going on, and we're no more or less a phenomenon, universal in nature, than black holes or quasars. We suck up light at thousands of Gs per second. Really just strange vacuums and our personalities and all this is just the most bizarre abstraction, actually fundamentally separate from our function.
     
  15. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    Our function? The mind, where all that occurs that we consider exceptionally human, is naturally abstract. The ability to deal with abstract symbols allows us to simulate potential environments so we can plan ahead or plan together. It is the very thing that allows us to inhabit almost every earthly environment.
     
  16. Well yeah I am postulating the idea that we aren't actually personal like we take ourselves. We see ourselves as people, but that is just the way we were abstracted.

    Really, from an objective perspective, we'd just be seen as a phenomena of the universe that sucks up light. Why we do this, who knows.
     
  17. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    why do you say, "sucks up light"
     
  18. Zorba The Grape

    Zorba The Grape Gavagai?

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    There is a perspective that could see it that way, but I think the term "objective perspective" is an oxymoron when you get down to it.
     
  19. To make the comparison between us and some objective phenomena like a black hole.

    But I don't know. I'm thinking, there's no telling how abstract we are from what we actually are. There's no telling if there is actually something that it is like to be to be a black hole, if the information it consumes creates such an abstraction.

    Perhaps we are space itself being smothered by matter. But ultimately, when you throw your sense of linear time out the window, there's no way to tell what is going on at all. There's no way of knowing if we even know what our bodies actually look like. Only from a certain angle.
     

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