What defines "thinking"?
I think therefore I am - Rene descartes.
But how does one think? And can one "not think" whilst still being "aware" or "conscious" or "alive"?
If I think does it mean I use an internal monologue of words to apply meaning to my experience? Or am I still thinking if I use a series of images instead? Or sounds, or memories, or emotions to describe my internal state.
Is dreaming thinking? Is sensing thinking? If my brain is processing any information at all and making executive decisions such as whether to store it is it thinking? Am thinking as long as my brain shows electrical waves on an EEG? If I am walking or doing an action which requires voluntary commands am I thinking? At what point is an action un-thought and instead reactionary and impulsive? Are reflexes lower level thoughts and when does an instinct become complex enough to be a thought? Is the subconscious mind thinking and if so how would we know?
If I am not paying attention and them I'm startled by something surprising am i suddenly thinking because I was made aware of an intrusion, or does it require actively thinking to be in a state whereby one can react to new thoughts and sensations?
But how does one think? And can one "not think" whilst still being "aware" or "conscious" or "alive"?
If I think does it mean I use an internal monologue of words to apply meaning to my experience? Or am I still thinking if I use a series of images instead? Or sounds, or memories, or emotions to describe my internal state.
Is dreaming thinking? Is sensing thinking? If my brain is processing any information at all and making executive decisions such as whether to store it is it thinking? Am thinking as long as my brain shows electrical waves on an EEG? If I am walking or doing an action which requires voluntary commands am I thinking? At what point is an action un-thought and instead reactionary and impulsive? Are reflexes lower level thoughts and when does an instinct become complex enough to be a thought? Is the subconscious mind thinking and if so how would we know?
If I am not paying attention and them I'm startled by something surprising am i suddenly thinking because I was made aware of an intrusion, or does it require actively thinking to be in a state whereby one can react to new thoughts and sensations?
Comments (39)
By virtue of drawing correlations between different things.
IMO: Consciousness is a state of entangled, integrated and unified information.
Thinking is a state of entangled, integrated and unified information.
Can you separate the two? I don't think so.
Quoting Benj96
EEG data dose not cease under anesthesia, but there are two patterns which strongly correlate with unconsciousness, whilst the other patterns are largely normal / inconclusive.
Thinking / consciousness is a state of putting together information in various ways. Once the thought is formed, then we consider how best to implement it, or how best to articulate it. These are all activities of entangling, integrating and unifying information. Often we change our mind, as more information comes to hand.
I think therefore I am - is an expression of Descartes consciousness.
It is information about his mind activity / thinking.
He concludes that thought gives rise to his Identity ( I am ).
Spot on, I would say, and i would add consciousness gives rise to his thinking, such that the two are indistinguishable.
Whether conscious or not, thinking is grappling, wrestling with reality. Trying (and maybe succeeding) to make sense of the 'buzzing, blooming, confusion' that presents itself to us.
Some animals think, to a limited extent. They too grapple a bit with the reality presented to them. Granted, it's not high level, but it's an activity that developed before we became sentient.
I wrote something up, saw yours......dumped mine.
What defines thinking, is itself.
Processing information.
Nobody can tell if animals are self-aware or not but I would think the ones nearest to us philogenetically probably have some form of consciousness.
... and knowing that you do. Otherwise a computer can think.
1. Random: No two thoughts are correlated in any way. One moment I'm thinking of bats and the next moment of the Hydrogen nucleus.
2. Associative: I may have seen you once in a gorilla suit and then when I see an actual gorilla in a zoo, I think of you.
3. Directed: The mind connecting the dots - seeing the logical relations between things and arriving at a necessary conclusion
Why would thinking require that you know that you are thinking?
Before humans existed, did life exist even though knowledge of life didn't exist? Does a mosquito need to know it is thinking for it to think?
You seen to be confusing knowledge and what knowledge is about.
A large degree of self-awareness is a feature of human beings. I do not know how self-awareness is generated. I don't know whether and/or to what extent other animals (primates, canines, elephants, etc.) have self-awareness. My assumption (based on reports and some observation, is that other animals 'think' to some extent.
Do computers 'think'? No, not yet -- and maybe not for quite some time, or maybe ever. Computers, for all their electronic complexity, are really simple compared to animal brains. Even insects outperform computers. What makes computers do interesting things are tons of human input (programming). Nobody programs a bee; it operates independently.
How are they not correlated? For example if you understand knowledge that links two individual thoughts for example "all bats are made of organic matter - some of which contains hydrogen atoms with a nucleus".
If I was a scientist investigating the effects of different isotopes of hydrogen in the metabolism of a bat would these two concepts not very much be linked and associated within my studies.
I believe all information is linked and ones level of factual knowledge pertains to their capacity to make accurate associations whatever they may be between any two or more concepts.
Your definition just doesnt work. There only needs to be awareness of thinking to possess knowledge of thinking, not just thinking itself. For thinking, all you need is to process information for some purpose.
It depends on the definition of life. Is life information? What isn't information? If everthing is information then thinking essentially exists wherever it is processed (changed) to achieve some purpose. Panpsychists would say that the universe thinks.
Would you at least agree that thinking involves memory of some sort? Can you think without possessing a memory whether it is working, short-term or long-term memory? Can you think without holding some information in memory over a period of time?
That's why the social term: "think about it" when we screw up makes so much sense to us. We know precisely what the person is talking about.
So it's conscious thought overriding earlier habits and the creation of new information.
I miss the user Apokrisis. He used to give good social-bio explanations for habit-attention.
No, and that's what I am saying. Without some reflexivity, it's not true thinking, it's just mechanical. A true thinker can challenge his/her own thoughts, re-examine them for instance, connect them with other thoughts, etc. To do that s/he needs to remember these thoughts and be aware of them.
Computers have memory - both working memory and long term memory. Computers arent just mechanical either. They need software or else the hardware doesnt do anything useful.
And yet, when people act mechanically and end up making a mistake they often say: “sorry, I wasn’t thinking”, as pointed by forgottenticket.
But their software is also ‘mechanical’ in that it is totally deterministic and unable to reform itself. No spreadsheet ever told me: “I’m tired with mathematics, I want to do poetry instead!”
What they mean is that they weren't thinking correctly, as in being logical. You can't help but think - I think therefore I am. Whether or not your thinking is consistent and coherent is something else.
Quoting Olivier5
A spreadsheet isn't software. It is the product of software and hardware. Brains are mechanical, so I still don't see the distinction you're trying to make.
What Descartes means when saying "I think therefore I am" is: I am conscious of my own thoughts, and thus I cannot doubt my own existence." A computer cannot reason as such because it is not aware of itself.
As for the idea that brains are "mechanical" (as determined as clockwork), it is a bit counter-intuitive, and there is no evidence for it that I am aware of.
:up:
It is reflexivity of attitude that I hold to make an opinion cognitive, apt for being found objectively correct or not. Intentions are cognitive but non-descriptive opinions; in the same way that perceptions are descriptive but non-cognitive opinions. I like to term cognitive opinions like beliefs and intentions "thoughts", and non-cognitive ones like perceptions and desires "feelings".
Sure, some mental activity is unconscious, but I am not sure one would call that "thinking" in plain English. Also, the question is asked in the context of the cogito, which speaks of self-conscious thought.
That's fine. But my point was that you are always thinking. You can never stop thinking. Even in clearing your mind, you are thinking about clearing your mind and focusing on that task. You are always thinking so when you are conscious, of course you are aware of the thinking because you are always doing it even when unconscious.
A computer could be programmed to be aware of itself, just as you are. And to say that you are aware of yourself, what exactly do you mean? Are dogs aware of themselves? Do they jump at the sound of their own bark? Do cats react as if they are being licked by another cat when cleaning themselves? How do you get woken up by external sounds or movements if your body isn't aware to some degree even when sleeping? Awareness of the self and its thinking process comes in degrees as well. To be aware of the self is to be aware of your body and its relationship with the world to some degree, not necessarily only being aware of your mind - which is just one process of many that make you "you". So can a computer be aware that it has been instructed to print out a piece of paper, because it seems to do that when I command it to.
Quoting Olivier5
Well, then I would have to ask what you meant by "mechanical". I thought you mean materialistic and causal. We can't use our ignorance of how the brain works as evidence that brains can never be explained in causal terms. Computers are becoming less and less mechanical and more and more electronic. Hard drives are a great example of this in how going from the spinning disk IDE drives to the fully electronic solid state drives. Brains operate on electricity, as do computers. Throughout history, we've often tried to use mechanistic inventions as examples of how the mind works, but it wasn't until the computer came along that we truly have a good metaphor for how the mind works.
So, the identity of thought isn’t to be externally sought for &, thus, revealed, but it’s to be discerned by way of personal observation; such that observation or perception, in general, is what Descartes identifies as “thinking,” rather than just conception in particular (which is what a lot of people get wrong about Descartes). As Descartes himself put it, in the ninth article of the first part of his “Principles of Philosophy,” “I take the word ‘thought’ to cover EVERYTHING that we are aware of as happening within us, and it counts as ‘thought’ because we are aware of it. That includes NOT ONLY understanding, willing and imagining, but also sensory awareness.”
In common language: there’s always some mental activity happening.
Quoting Harry Hindu
In theory it can be done, but current ones can’t so by my definition they are not “thinking”. What I mean by aware is: I can hear myself thinking. I have some knowledge of what I think while I think it.
The brain is not an electric machine, for the most part it is an hormonal machine with a bit of electricity to speed it the signals.
Would you categorize some mental activity as not thinking, as opposed to thinking? Would dreaming qualify as thinking?
Quoting Olivier5
You can "hear" yourself think? How were you able to accomplish that?
To say that you have knowledge, is knowledge dependent upon thinking? Isn't saying anything dependent upon some sort of thinking before saying it? Can you think about thinking? isn't this just an information processing loop that we can program a computer to do as long as the information being processed in the loop is about itself to some degree? Again, what would the information need to be about for it to qualify as thinking? Do the thoughts necessarily need to be about the self - reflective - to qualify as thinking? Are ants self-aware? Are ants capable of thinking?
Quoting Olivier5
Do you have any citations to support this assertion? Even if you did, are you saying that thinking is dependent upon hormones? We can write a program that emulates how our emotions impact our thinking.
Hey Harry, you ask a lot of questions. Can you prioritize a bit? To take a simple one:
Quoting Harry Hindu
The meaning of words is only a matter of convenience and convention. You can define thinking as inclusive or exclusive of dreaming, depending on what you want to say. I am just pointing at the common English use of the term, which in my humble opinion does not cover all dreaming but one can think in a dream of course.
As much as possible, it is useful to stick to regular language when doing philosophy. Popper said something like that in his introduction to the Open Society And Its Enemies: don't use more complicated language than you need to.
That's just my answer to one question.
Let me take another one. A visit to the Wikipedia entry on "Brain" would answer the first question. Yes, the brain is a very elaborate system of hormonal information management. Such systems are universal in life, they go way beyond emotions. For instance your body temperature is regulated by a thermostat-like hormonal information management system referred to as "homeothermy", and emotions can factor in your temperature but homeothermy is not in essence an "emotional system". The same applies to pretty much everything that happens in your body: it's about using chemicals as support for information exchange and management.
The brain is just a bunch of specialized cells, doing better and faster what any cell can do i.e. manage information through chemistry, and bringing it to the next level: symbolic thought, emotions, artistic creativity, etc.
I find it difficult to believe that pre-language babies or animals don't think. How does one learn a language without the ability to think prior to learning it?
So emotions wouldnt be under the umbrella of thoughts? They dont necessarily assert any opinion or view they can just be reactive and instinctive. Nor would imagery or any other "wordless" concept as they are depictions not assertions. Nor any idea that you dont have an opinion, assertion or judgement on. I think to assume that thoughts are only propositional limits them to linguistic in quality -a thought made of words or a "narrative/monologue etc" or to even having a sensibility/rationality to them that could be attributed to proposition. Nonsensical or discordant/ disjointed or psychotic thought is still thought of a kind but I cant see the proposition these ppl would be making. Sometimes thought has no particular agenda -so how could it propose?
Because "propositional" refers to a statement or assertion that indicates ones opinion or judgements. I think thought goes far beyond that. This disregards subconscious thought or unconscious thought (dreams) as how could they be an opinion or judgement if they are uncontrollable and spontaneous?
Consciousness defines thinking.
To understand thinking you have to understand consciousness.
Until you do, you cannot define thinking.
Except as a function of consciousness