Thought

What is a Thought?

Because thought underlies almost all human actions and interactions, understanding its physical and metaphysical origins, processes, and effects has been a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including, among others, biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

Thinking allows beings to make sense of or model the world in different ways, and to represent or interpret it in ways that are significant to them, or which accord with their needs, attachments, objectives, plans, commitments, ends and desires.

the product of mental activity; that which one thinks: a body of thought.

a single act or product of thinking; idea or notion: to collect one’s thoughts.
the act or process of thinking; mental activity: Thought as well as action wearies us.
the capacity or faculty of thinking, reasoning, imagining, etc.: All her thought went into her work.
a consideration or reflection: Thought of death terrified her.
Because thought underlies almost all human actions and interactions, understanding its physical and metaphysical origins, processes, and effects has been a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including, among others, biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

Thinking allows beings to make sense of or modelthe world in different ways, and to represent or interpret it in ways that are significant to them, or which accord with their needs, attachments, objectives, plans, commitments, ends and desires.

In common language, the word to think covers numerous and diverse psychological activities. It often refers merely to the act of being conscious of something, especially if that thing is outside the immediate environment It made me think of my grandmother. It is sometimes a synonym for “tending to believe,” especially with less than full confidence I think that it will rain, but I am not sure.

At other times it denotes the degree of attentiveness(“I did it without thinking”). Many other mental activities many of which may shade into each other can be covered by the word, such as interpreting, evaluating, imagining, planning, and remembering.
In common usage, “thought” is often attributed to animals, machines, other non-human objects, and phenomena. The exact meaning of such usage varies as well. The attribution of thought or thought processes to non-human objects and phenomena especially computers could be considered anthropomorphism, though such categorizations have been contested by such computer scientists as Alan Turing see Computing Machinery and Intelligence. As regards animals, to what extent different animals think depends on the exact definition of the word that is given, so it may be taken literally or regarded as anthropomorphic

Thinking Machines

by Jack Carpenter

As scientists adapt computers to be more like ‘thinking machines’, and as we learn how to plant electrodes in the brains of the disabled to re-enable them, and Matel adapts the same technology to a board game that allows the player to move a ball with just his thoughts, we are moving toward thought to thought communication  aka telepathy.

Right now some electrode enabled patients can send Email using a keyboard image on a computer screen and focusing on one letter at a time. The next step will be Word speak software programs which for most uses bypass the keyboard. The form will not be in ‘choose from a list on the screen’ but rather drawn from the known vocabulary in the user’s head. This will be awkward at first, but in a few years we will be communicating thought to thought with our computers or anyone online.

As computers get smaller and smaller (Ipod, magic rings) and Bluetooth and Wifi become ubiquitous, and with your headband / implant / ear bug turned on, you will not only be able to ‘think speak’ with your friends, you could translate English to Thai and back on the fly
And imagine! A quiet school bus!
And will our thoughts be subject to external mind control ?
Borgs one mind controlling / directing another And telepathy one mind controlling the action of a ball over a board game, or filtering those electrodes in your headband or implanted in your brain all without wires.
And then will come telepathic messaging  my brain to another  all without wires. Censored, of course
Suppose a thought could be visualized as a cloud, having visible outlines and shading. And like the common water clouds that we see every day, they would vary in density and size, merge and separate, build and fade away. In Chemistry there are clouds of many gases, some visible and some not. Some have special properties like “radiation clouds” that project beyond their cohesive mass. It is within this framework that I perceive the concept of a “thought”. And just as rain clouds can form from moisture and changes in temperature or pressure, so thoughts can spin off from ideas, forming in the (electromagnetic?) fields around our brains.



Could the thought exist without the brain? Yes, but not without a field of reference or recording, such as this text.

The bigger question then becomes whether the “total field of reference” is what we call “self”; the collection of all the thoughts ideas by which we define ourselves as separate from every other person  above and beyond our biological bodies.
NOW lets consider this self consciousness, this “total field of reference”, without the biological body  free from attachment to physical form.
First, when I read something on the internet, I do not think much about the writer, but rather focus on the idea presented. Turn this around, and the idea is trying to influence me, without knowing or caring who I am. And if that idea takes root in my mind and prompts an action, has not some sort of telepathic control taken place?
Metaphysics

I picture a room full of monitor screens. On each screen there is a line with a sine wave crossing it, sometimes evenly, sometimes varying heights and lengths. All elemental matter can be represented thus. I now know that there is no such thing as “solid” matter. It can all be broken down and represented by frequencies on those monitors. From hydrogen to the radioactive isotopes at the dense end, it can all be represented, clocked and counted , and atoms of even the densest are by far  mostly empty space.

And so our perceived reality, our physical baseline, is not absolute and does not preclude other realities from existing in overlapping regions. for example, think of the many radio frequencies to which we listen.
This brings us to - free floating, non physical conscious entities, with the power to create & influence people, cultures, & the seeds of whole civilizations.
As we approach the threshold of elevating and separating our consciousness from our physical bodies by mechanical means computers, AI etc we may find that we have gone full circle, and meet our maker not face to face but thought to thought and we may find our true identity as avatars of spirits.
Note that I hold this thesis to be within the physical framework of the universe  suns, stars, planets, black holes etc and probably not affecting biological eruptions and evolutions, or the collisions of matter in space.
FISH

Consider the collective consciousness of a school of fish. Watch as they turn. each individual fish turning exactly the same degree at exactly the same instant. This would seem to indicate a “cloud” consciousness directing the actions of each fish. The lemmings, too, on their march to the sea are clearly directed by a collective consciousness. In these two examples, note that there is no leader, no charismatic or fearsome figurehead to follow, only “instinct” - a cloud consciousness.