What do you think?

[coberst]

What do you think?

Mammals evolved on this planet about 200 million years ago. One type of mammal, the hominid, began using audible signals to convey meaning about 4 million years ago. Language, as we comprehend that word, began much less than 4 million years ago.

What is thought? The dictionary gives us various definitions of thought; I would guess that it is accurate to say that the actions of neural networks that control our sensorimotor actions can be regarded as thought. In other words, such things as memory, control of movements, and processing of sense inputs are all a process of thinking. Thinking produces thoughts. Thinking goes on all the time even while we sleep.

I guess that we will agree that all mammals had to have the ability to think. This leads to the conclusion that thinking was been happening on this planet at least 200 million years before human language existed on this planet.

Those individuals who accept the science of evolution must then conclude that humans may think in linguistic forms some small percentage of the time but that most thought is not in linguistic form.

“It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought—and that may be a serious underestimates.”

What does all this mean to you? It means that most of the things that you think are true about thinking are pure non-sense. This also applies to many of the things we all believe that are based upon the philosophical attitudes that fills our life are like wise pure non-sense.

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”—Lakoff and Johnson

[SNOWBALL]

this is an excellent post, and it's something I've been thinking about for a long time. Consciousness is part of thought, and thought is part of a long serious of evolution. That means that just like we can't draw a clear line between an eye and a non-eye, we can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious entities. Every entity just represents a different stage of that evolution. Therefore, it can be said that some things are 1% as much of "thinking beings" as us.

I'd very much welcome an enquiry that embraced a broader definition of sentience. By throwing off the prejudice that consciousness is the exclusive providence of human beings, we open up out eyes to the possibility of understanding a very deep connection between the "soul" of an individual and the fabric of the universe.

[Phil153]

It's obvious that we think in non linguistic terms. If you watch your thoughts being formed, you'll realize that there's a "flash" of understanding as ideas link together, followed by a translation process into linguistic terms for the conscious, scratch pad part of your brain. This is a really inefficient and imprecise process, and you can significantly improve your speed and breadth of thought by training to use this sub-language thinking.

[coberst]

[ QUOTE ]
this is an excellent post, and it's something I've been thinking about for a long time. Consciousness is part of thought, and thought is part of a long serious of evolution. That means that just like we can't draw a clear line between an eye and a non-eye, we can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious entities. Every entity just represents a different stage of that evolution. Therefore, it can be said that some things are 1% as much of "thinking beings" as us.

I'd very much welcome an enquiry that embraced a broader definition of sentience. By throwing off the prejudice that consciousness is the exclusive providence of human beings, we open up out eyes to the possibility of understanding a very deep connection between the "soul" of an individual and the fabric of the universe.

[/ QUOTE ]


When written history began five thousand years ago humans had already developed a great deal of knowledge. Much of that knowledge was of a very practical nature such as how to use animal skins for clothing, how to weave wool, how to hunt and fish etc. A large part of human knowledge was directed toward how to kill and torture fellow humans. I guess things never really change all that much.

In several parts of the world civilizations developed wherein people learned to create laws and to rule vast numbers of people. Some measure of peace and stability developed but there was yet no means for securing the people from their rulers. I guess things never really change all that much

Almost everywhere priests joined rulers in attempts to control the population. Despite these continual wars both of external and internal nature the human population managed to flourish. Egypt was probably one of the first long lasting and stable civilizations to grow up along the large rivers. Egypt survived almost unchanged for three thousand years. This success is attributed to its geographical location that gave it freedom from competition and fertile lands that were constantly replenished by the river overflowing its banks and thus depositing new fertile soil for farming.

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop “rational” accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the “Metaphysics” Aristotle wrote “All men by nature desire to know”.

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as “Folk Theories”.

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World
The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

The Folk Theory of General Kinds
Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every entity has an “essence” or “nature,” that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics
Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

The information comes primarily from “Philosophy in the Flesh” and http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/folkmeta.htm

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
What do you think?


[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are looking at the surface of deep waters but are afraid to dive in.

PairTheBoard

[Dale Dough]

For some reason, this is the one thing that came to mind and bothered me watching Heroes:

'I can't read his thoughts! He's thinking in Japanese!'

AAFDJAAKDFJA TILT TILT TILT how does that even work?

I have never seriously gotten into this, but I'm pretty sure from my own personal experience that I don't think in any particular language, unless I do it on purpose. And 99% of the time I do it on purpose is if I have to do some kind of calculation. The logic just seems to go faster if I think in my native language - mixed with some English terms that I never learned the Dutch equivalent of.

However, sometimes a random thought just comes to my mind. Strangely enough, as long as I know (or think I know) a few basic expressions of a language, any single thought I have can be in that language, provided that I know the expression. This leads me to believe that we must think in some sort of universal language/basic logic, and whenever my brain wants to spend more cycles 'actively' thinking something over, it pops to the front and gets put into words.

EDIT something else: I'm pretty sure that in my vocabulary, there are a lot of concepts (e.g. obscure body parts?) don't have a name. Yet I can somehow think to myself 'I'll do x with my y', even though I can't really put it into words. (I'm pretty sure my brain doesn't try to use some kind of elaborate description for words it doesn't know while thinking).

EDIT2: I'm pretty sure that even if I form a sentence in my head on purpose, the real thoughts going on aren't limited to that sentence. Kind of like how if you write something, you really think about more than the words/sentences you write. You just kind of put that thought on the white board to think about it some more. If that makes any sense.

[coberst]

I would say that the basic facts that we have, with which to start the search for the cusp of instinctive and reasoned behavior might be:

1) Somewhere in the chain of life, from its mysterious beginning to the present, there exists a point when the behavior of creatures is influenced by something we call reason rather than something we call instinct.

2) Using computer lingo, we can classify instinct as behavior caused by hardwired algorithms.

3) Reason is a means to control behavior based upon real time assessment of real time circumstances.

4) Reason requires that data from the senses be ordered into some fashion that will facilitate real time inferences, this is called conceptualization; followed by inferences made from these concepts.

5) We have, from computer modeling technology, empirical evidence that the neural system that control perception and mobility have the capacity to conceptualize and to infer. In other words, the essential elements of sensorimotor control are also similar to the essential elements of reasoning.

6) If biology has created the structure that has the elements for reasoning, it is logical to conclude that such a system would not be duplicated for reason but that this very same system would be modified in whatever manner is necessary for it to function also as an instrument that can reason.

Instinct controlled the behavior of creatures until reason kicked in and now humans are controlled to a large extent by reason rather than instinct. Throughout time the evolutionary process, which includes instinctive behavior, maintained some form of equilibrium in the world. With the introduction of rational creatures this evolutionary process has been drastically disrupted.

As reasoning creatures that have disrupted the evolutionary process, we must replace this evolutionary process with a rational process that can duplicate or improve on the natural evolutionary process. If we cannot perform this prodigious task adequately the whole shebang will be flushed down the toilet.

Secretary of State Powell said in regards to the Iraq war that “if we break it, we own it”. I think we can say the same thing about our human activity and natural evolution. We break natural evolution and thereby we own the problems caused by that action.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
We break natural evolution and thereby we own the problems caused by that action.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds like a decent principle to replace the outmoded one of original sin.

PairTheBoard

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
What does all this mean to you? It means that most of the things that you think are true about thinking are pure non-sense. This also applies to many of the things we all believe that are based upon the philosophical attitudes that fills our life are like wise pure non-sense.

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”—Lakoff and Johnson

[/ QUOTE ]

Dear coberst, I "think" the above statement really does apply to you. It is congruent with the other posts I have read from you, many quoting "Lakoff and Johnson", which, in "my" "mind" are phonies.

My suggestion is that you try to observe your own mental processes, catch them, so to speak, as they happen, and, in the process, allow evolution to catch up with you too. It may be much more enlightening to report, or post, on that, than endlessly quoting Lakoff & Johnson.

Good luck,


MidGe

[coberst]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What does all this mean to you? It means that most of the things that you think are true about thinking are pure non-sense. This also applies to many of the things we all believe that are based upon the philosophical attitudes that fills our life are like wise pure non-sense.

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”—Lakoff and Johnson

[/ QUOTE ]

Dear coberst, I "think" the above statement really does apply to you. It is congruent with the other posts I have read from you, many quoting "Lakoff and Johnson", which, in "my" "mind" are phonies.

My suggestion is that you try to observe your own mental processes, catch them, so to speak, as they happen, and, in the process, allow evolution to catch up with you too. It may be much more enlightening to report, or post, on that, than endlessly quoting Lakoff & Johnson.

Good luck,


MidGe

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have some reasoned explanation for your charge against Lakoff and Johnson?