[ShaunZero]

What are thoughts exactly? When I ask this question, the natural response is to give a physical explanation of what causes thoughts in the brain. But in truth, this is only half of it. Think of an apple in your head. That's a thought, and any physical explanation of that thought, such as neurons making a specific pattern, would not look like the actual experience of the thought at all. "The shape of our thoughts does not quite resemble the configuration of the neurons responsible for them, so where are they?" It would essentially only be saying what caused the thought. Every single thing in the universe is physical, can be probed, tested and understood by these methods, exept for the thoughts. One example I read about a while back was if a person grew up in a completely black and white environment, they could still learn all the laws of nature and understand physics, but they could not know, for instance, what the color red looks like. They could however, know the laws of light refraction. This "red" a person can experience is a subjective experience just as a thought, but it has absolutely no location in reality and can not be experienced(This instance of it that person "x" experiences) or detected by anyone else.

[Researcher27]

Hey, Shaun. How are you?
I think Phenomenology explains what you are wondering. People tend to supose that when we think of an apple, there's a little picture of an apple that pops up in the brain so that we can "see it" in our minds, however, according to phenomenological studies, it's more likely that the apple that we imagine, is just a mix of present and absent, full and empty intentionalities. When doctors scan our brains and see different colors in different areas what our heads, indicating what part of the brain is more active at that moment, what are they really seeing? They are only seeing the mechanism of the brain, but they can never see the content, that is, they can never know if we are thinking of an elephant or an apple because the "shape" of our thought doesn't depend on the brain area. What does that mean, then...? It means that, the world is unique to each person, the world that each of us see is not the same world that another person sees. It seems that the world the way I see it only exists in my brain as the world the way you see it only exists in your brain. At the end, this is what makes gnostics and agnostics argue over and over....
The thoughts are physical? Indeed. There's nothing that isn't physical, the thing is that people made a convention to determine that from X to Y is considered physical (the range that we can touch) and everything before and after is named something else. Crazy, huh. I could spend my whole life thinking about that too....

[ShaunZero]

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is just a mix of present and absent, full and empty intentionalities.

That sounds fancy, and I'm not really comprehending what you mean. What is this as "substance"? It sounds more like an idea.

This post has been edited by ShaunZero: 28 October 2009 - 06:18 PM

[Pinx]

When you think of an apple, you don't just think of how it looks like. You might also think of of how it smells, feels, tastes, the sound it makes when you bite into it, the way you felt when eating apples at grandma's apple farm, etc. You might even be remembering a particularly good one you once ate. That's much different than just seeing a picture of an apple and should look different under testing equipement.

This post has been edited by Pinx: 28 October 2009 - 06:31 PM

[ShaunZero]

Pinx, on 28 October 2009 - 01:29 PM, said:

When you think of an apple, you don't just think of how it looks like. You might also think of of how it smells, feels, tastes, the sound it makes when you bite into it, the way you felt when eating apples at grandma's apple farm, etc. You might even be remembering a particularly good one you once ate. That's much different than just seeing a picture of an apple and should look different under testing equipement.

And there lies the problem. The question is what is experience, essentially. You experience the thought. The thought itself is NOT the neurons. Like I've heard someone else say: Think of a simply thought, a thought of the color blue. If you look in the brain at the neurons, no where will you see blue, and thus neurons can not equate to thought.

This post has been edited by ShaunZero: 29 October 2009 - 12:19 AM

[.i.]

ShaunZero, on 29 October 2009 - 12:19 AM, said:

And there lies the problem. The question is what is experience, essentially. You experience the thought. The thought itself is NOT the neurons. Like I've heard someone else say: Think of a simply thought, a thought of the color blue. If you look in the brain at the neurons, no where will you see blue, and thus neurons can not equate to thought.

Maybe colors are something very fundemental like just being aware. Not like having some kind of knowledge.

[Researcher27]

well, it means that when we remember the shape of something, like an apple for example, what makes the shape of the apple "appear" in our minds is a sum of intentionalities and NOT a picture of an apple taken by the brain in the moment we were actually seeing it. A brain doesn't take pictures of objects. The brain has a bunch of information about what an apple is and the image is created in our minds based on how much information we have about the apple. So we can say that the thought is the result of a sum of information. The physical part of it, that is, the substance of the thought, is electric but nobody can guess what we think because although it's possible to see parts of the brain more active than the others in the process of thinking, it's not possible to know how much information we have about a given object and the associations we make with other informations to produce an image. Absent and present, full and empty intentionalities are just a fancy name that Phenomenology gives to indicate the amount of information we have about something.

[ShaunZero]

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image is created in our minds based on how much information we have about the apple.

The image is created in our "minds". Where is this? The image exists, because we can "see it in our minds", yet we can not quantify it or see it objectively(ie: someone else seeing the it). According to data and science, my thoughts do not exist to anyone else, because there is no actual quantification of my thoughts for others to examine.

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So we can say that the thought is the result of a sum of information.

Yes, the thought is the result of the sum of information, NOT the equivilant of the sum of information.

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The physical part of it, that is, the substance of the thought,

The physical "part" of it? Everything is physical right, and if the physical is only one part of it, what and where is the actual thought? The "physical part" that we currently know of (Neural activity) is the cause of the thought, but not the thought.

This post has been edited by ShaunZero: 30 October 2009 - 03:42 PM

[John A Spera]

ShaunZero, on 30 October 2009 - 11:41 AM, said:

The physical "part" of it? Everything is physical right, and if the physical is only one part of it, what and where is the actual thought? The "physical part" that we currently know of (Neural activity) is the cause of the thought, but not the thought.

As I understand it, everything is not physical. For all physical things there is an underlying energy that is non-physical.

The consciousness that creates thought(s) is an energetic essence that is non-physical. It is the essence that continues after the physical no longer exists.

John

[ShaunZero]

John A Spera, on 30 October 2009 - 11:37 AM, said:

As I understand it, everything is not physical. For all physical things there is an underlying energy that is non-physical.

The consciousness that creates thought(s) is an energetic essence that is non-physical. It is the essence that continues after the physical no longer exists.

John

I'm pretty sure that's not verified by science. Consciousness is still a mystery, and we havn't pin pointed it's energy.

[G3N0M3]

Nice thread here, I've avoided it for a lil bit, then I figured I'll read it, so here is a couple questions I have for you, followed by what I agree with.

First off on the discussion of one person "seeing" an apple that will be different from another. So if you've seen all the different colors, shapes, and tasted the different apples, which apple do you think of, see, and why?

On thoughts, I would like to point out the largest thing that intrigued me, and I'm sure your going to love me mentioning. How does a baby know how to breath? Does it not take a brain responce to the lungs to make it breath? Also on the subject of breathing, have you ever "forgot" about breathing?

A thought on the brain, and how it differs the thought... So how does the brain process short term to long term? How does it not know short term is not long term from the begining?

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The image is created in our "minds". Where is this? The image exists, because we can "see it in our minds", yet we can not quantify it or see it objectively(ie: someone else seeing the it). According to data and science, my thoughts do not exist to anyone else, because there is no actual quantification of my thoughts for others to examine.

Totaly agree with you here, and I think about it whenever I'm trying to prove something paranormal. How can I show the scientific community, that what I experience is true, past my own recolection, and perception of the event.

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The physical "part" of it? Everything is physical right, and if the physical is only one part of it, what and where is the actual thought? The "physical part" that we currently know of (Neural activity) is the cause of the thought, but not the thought.

Same thing I think about when determining thoughts, and feelings while dreaming, which I'm going to make a thread when I get home about... Feelings and dreams, a connection? Where how do we know to feel a way when all were doing is thinking, where are those emotions comming from? I have dreams every night about flying, how do I get that feeling of flying? I've never felt it physicaly, but I've felt it while I was dreaming. The same with emotions, where I started crying in my dream, I woke up with tears in my eyes, and my pillow wet...

This could realy get people thinking, and I'd love to get more research done in this area... all stuff I'll do when I get home, well lets hear what you've got to say

This post has been edited by G3N0M3: 30 October 2009 - 10:18 PM

[G3N0M3]

Also dude, what do you play COD4 on? Computer? If so what server you play on and your tag?

I play on [HEX], [ATSR] and [HITMAN] servers, under the name [ATSR]T0H14U...

[123er]

I don't know where thoughts come from why do you ask?

[Researcher27]

Yup, indeed everything is physical. What I meant is that there's not an image stored in our minds, BUT only information that is translated as what we believe to be an image. the "image" is a translation, like a software: I type "color red", "edible", "fruit", "yummy" and press the button "form an image" and the software gives me an image of an apple as a result of all these informations. The more information, the more accurately the software is capable of transforming info into an image. The brain also tends to fill the holes, so if there's not enough information, it invents some to be able to form an image, but it won't be as accurate. What this "image" is made of? probably it's an electric phenomenon, the translation of electric pulses. Mmmm... I don't know more than this, really.....

[Mattshark]

Shaun, I'd suggest neurology and endocrinology to examine this best. All evidence points to thoughts being the result of electro-chemical reactions in the brain.