Thoughts and dreams

[tarak]

What is thinking?Does logic and reason have anything to do with thinking?If so,is thinking a purposeful thought process?

What is imagination and How does imagination integrate with thinking process?I assume that dreams are part of our sub-conscious imagination.

My intention was whether thinking should be purposeful and deliberated towards a goal or to solve a problem or lead to an action (based on foundations of human reason??).

[geokker]

What is thinking?

Certainly not my cat, he's a dopey little robot whom I fail to imagine a use for. Yes, I'm talking about you. Get off the keyfsdhigap;

[Boerseun]

The ability to think is an evolutionary advantage over other contenders for the same resources.

 

A paltry few humans can bring down an elephant by thinking about the problem. They don't even have to be armed. They can dig a trap, cover it with grass and branches, and catch themselves a dumbo. A pack of lions have a hard time with this.

 

Humans can abstracise given problems, giving them an immense advantage.

 

Imagination, on the other hand, is a virtual modelling of the results of intended actions, without having to go to the effort of actually doing anything. It's like building a complete 747 on a computer in order to see what it'll look like, and how its flight characteristics will be like. In other words, the humans mentioned above can imagine several different scenarios of how to trap or kill the elephant. Granted, it's a hit-or-miss affair, and what you can imagine depends hugely on past experience. The other, more obvious examples of human imagination obviously include great artworks and such, but in my mind the origin of imagination was to serve as a virtual modelling device as described above. The other aesthetic offshoots is purely an accidental bonus. Sort of like how feathers initially served as thermal insulation, but by accident also gave birds the ability to fly.

 

Dreams, on the other hand, seems to be a learning device. Humans learn through repetition, and dreaming about what you've experienced during the day, enforces what you have learnt - thereby cutting down on your learning time. For example, when the little cave-kid watches his cave-dad kill a deer, and afterwards sit bug-eyed watching the skinning, that night he'll probably dream about it; thereby enforcing what he learnt that day. People working on production lines often complain that they assemble a given product during the day, only to continue with it once they're asleep. It mostly happens when they are moved to a new part of the line and have to assemble a new product. It tapers off after a few days, disappears, and then comes back again when they are moved to another part of the line. It seems to be a very reasonable deduction to me that it is indeed a learning tool.

[saidevo]

What is thinking?Does logic and reason have anything to do with thinking?If so,is thinking a purposeful thought process?

What is imagination and How does imagination integrate with thinking process?I assume that dreams are part of our sub-conscious imagination.

My intention was whether thinking should be purposeful and deliberated towards a goal or to solve a problem or lead to an action (based on foundations of human reason??).

 

Here is a different worldview about thoughts, emotions and dreams. I know it is not favoured by Science, as yet, but I am posting it here because of its compelling logic:

 

1. Thoughts are vibrations created on the mental plane. Thoughts originate in the mental body of a human (which is one of the seven bodies or vehicles of human consciousness). Human mind comprises four parts: manas (sensory, processing mind), chitta (storage of impressions), ahamkara (ego, the I-maker) and buddhi (that part which knows, decides, judges and discriminates).

 

2. The sensory, processing mind usually resides in the physical brain. The storage of impressions, which is the equivalent of a hard disk of a computer system, resides in the mental body. (In fact, all the impressions are stored in the form of Akashic records on the higher mental plane.) The discreminating part resides in the causal body, and works on the higher mental plane. The ego, when it relates to the body and the manas, functions in the astral and lower mental planes, while the higher form of ego, the Self, functions in the higher mental, and makes the real man. The term man itself originated from manas,

meaning that man is a Thinker.

 

3. If thoughts are of an abstract nature, for example, the idea of a triangle, they create vibrations in the higher mental plane where all the archetypes of human thoughts reside. This is the area from where the poet is favoured by the Muse, the artist gets his inspiration, and the scientist a sudden revelation of a solution to a problem. The abstract thoughts percolate down to the physical brain via the lower mental, astral and physical planes, creating shapes of matter gathered in each plane. The shape is concrete, for example, an equilateral triangle, on the lower mental plane.

 

4. If thoughts are of an emotional nature, benevolent or malevolent, they immediately descend to the astral planes, creating thought forms that get charged with immense power to move and strike the target, if there is any, or just hover like a cloud, if they are general emotions like anger. Unselfish Love and Devotion are two emotions that have the highest rates of vibration and connect to our higher bodies and the higher planes.

 

5. Imaginations are concreate shapes given to an abstract idea. For example a ghost is a shape in imagination, from the abstract idea of an evil or dark force or energy. As Boerseun has pointed out, imaginations arise out of past experience, whose impressions are stored in (the chitta part of) our mind.

 

6. Dreams are of two types. When we 'sleep over' a problem and get the solution in a dream or in sleep, this kind of revelation comes from the mental plane, not necessarily because of the thinker himself, but may be due to help from another being. We have to remember that the 'stream of consciousness' created by vague and idle thoughts are always pulsating around us. Our etheric brain absorbs some of them when we sleep, and dramatizes them into a world of its own. This accounts for the illogical, incoherent and often ghastly dreams that we have, which have nothing to do with either the surroundings of ourlife or with our own personal nature.

 

7. The second type of dream is the actual life the astral body leads on the astral plane, during sleep of the physical body. When we sleep, our consciousness gets focussed on this plane, releasing our astral body for action and experiences in this world. Such experiences are hard to translate to the language of the physical world, which is why we are unable to recollect our dreams clearly.

 

The ideas presented here are the worldview of Theosophy, Hinduism and other ancient traditions. Science may scoff at them in its current state of progress, but they are there, the legacy of our ancient civilization, which is as logical as (if not more) the explanations given by Science.

 

Regards,

saidevo

[Tormod]

...which is as logical as (if not more) the explanations given by Science.

 

You are comparing religious philosophical thought with "Science", which is like comparing apples to submarines.

 

But...which "explanations given by Science" (why do you use a capital S?) are you thinking of?

[Boerseun]

You are comparing religious philosophical thought with "Science", which is like comparing apples to submarines.

Would that be a Granny Smith, in the case of the 'Yellow Submarine'? :hihi:

[emessay]

Try this link :

 

http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~temmy/seminar/04/Human_and_Machine_Intelligence_II.pdf

 

Omar Wing thoughts and dreams : "How can China catch up with the US in IC design and manufacture?"....... :hihi:

[tarak]

Sai

You had put a wonderful overview over my understanding of this process.I think the taxonomy and systematics part of the thought phenomena are relative specific to their organization in individuals or societies and the distance from neutrality.

Regarding imagination, which I feel is an effort made by an individual to collage his random thoughts to arrive at something he never aims for.My proposition was generally an individual starts to think deliberately under the exisitng patterns of logic and reason to arrive at a solution or to solve a situation in which there is some activity.therefore should thinking lead to an activity and solve a problem?How different is the colloquial thinking process from imagination(may be part of the thinking process) and dreams.If there is a scientific basis for differentiating between these streams of thought.Like a computer has a binary code and DNA has a ATGC code,what is the basic unit of human thought process?

A psychology/neurobiology specialist's point of view in this regard would be helpful

[tarak]

Should imagination be intended action and dreams be tutorials???I liked the way Boersun has eloborated...

[saidevo]

But...which "explanations given by Science" (why do you use a capital S?) are you thinking of?

 

The explanations of science (I capatalize the word whenever information from this field of knowledge is compared against info from other fields.) I was thinking of are those offered by neuroscience, which tries to explain mind in terms of the matter of the brain, as a result of neurochemical processes. I think this is like saying that computer software is a product of, and evolved out of, computer hardware; or, in other words, the computer thought up the software! In actuality, you know, it is the software that drives the hardware and the hardware is only a medium of expression for the software.

 

Please check up this link for a very interesting essay that examines mind and brain, perhaps more scientifically:

http://www.hyponoesis.org/download/Mind_and_Brain_Relationship.pdf

 

And in this link Donald J. DeGracia postulates a Global Workspace Theory for dreaming and consciousness (the paper is too technical for me):

http://www.geocities.com/octanolboy/Dreams_GWS.pdf

 

Donald has written an interesting book titled "Beyond the Physical", wherein he strives to unite the four fields of knowledge: science, philosophy, occultism and mysticism. This book is available for download at his home page:

http://www.geocities.com/ddegraci/

 

I have oftentimes assured in this forum that I do not seek to discredit the findings of science. My purpose is only to find how far science offers a holistic view of the world and how it explains the postulations of spirituality.

 

Regards,

saidevo

[Qfwfq]

I think this is like saying that computer software is a product of, and evolved out of, computer hardware; or, in other words, the computer thought up the software!

No, it isn't like saying this.

 

It's a very stretched comparison. However, the brain could be thought of as hardware and also a lot of firmware, while software and data are also comparable to experience that came in through senses.

[saidevo]

No, it isn't like saying this.

 

It's a very stretched comparison. However, the brain could be thought of as hardware and also a lot of firmware, while software and data are also comparable to experience that came in through senses.

 

I don't think the comparision is stretched. Firmware is software built into the hardware, which is why it is small and limited; whereas software is a world by itself, created by the thinking human, and expressed in terms of the hardware, so it can understand and run or play it. Data doesn't become hardware just because it is stored as magnetic patterns in a hard disk. Flow of data through the computer circuitry might be compared to the flow of impressions through the senses, which add and assist our thinking process. At least in the case of data we are sure that is stored exclusively in the hard disk. Can we say the same of the impressions and thoughts about the brain? I think brain is only the memory, the RAM, and that the hard disk is elsewhere in trans-physical space.

 

God created man in His own image, giving him the vital distinction from other living beings: thinking. Man created the computer in his own image, but couldn't make it think like him.

 

Regards,

saidevo

[Qfwfq]

Firmware is software built into the hardware, which is why it is small and limited; whereas software is a world by itself, created by the thinking human

Firmware is software on a ROM. That's the only difference between it and other software. Firmware is typically low-level basic stuff, but only by practical choice. I've seen compact servers that have Linux as firmware and that boot almost instantly.

 

and expressed in terms of the hardware

Software is executed on the hardware.

 

Data doesn't become hardware just because it is stored as magnetic patterns in a hard disk.

Did I say such a silly thing? ;) I can't remember that anyone else here did, either.

 

Flow of data through the computer circuitry might be compared to the flow of impressions through the senses, which add and assist our thinking process.

What we get through our sense is what we can think about, or base our thoughts on. With no experience at all, we could hardly know what to think about.

 

At least in the case of data we are sure that is stored exclusively in the hard disk.

It's in RAM during processing. In any case there's no point in this distinction, concerning the brain-computer comparison.

 

Can we say the same of the impressions and thoughts about the brain? I think brain is only the memory, the RAM, and that the hard disk is elsewhere in trans-physical space.

The brain is an electrochemical system, unlike a digital computer, and learning works also by the great adaptability of neural circuits. Anything from learning to becoming a circus acrobat implies adapting the synaptic connections so as to automatically have the appropriate reactions to situations.

[Tormod]

God created man in His own image, giving him the vital distinction from other living beings: thinking.

 

I think you're on the wrong path here. Animals are thinking, too. You may be talking about contemplation/reflection, but animals are known to show empathy and understanding.

 

As for computers not thinking like people...thank heavens for that. ;)

[HydrogenBond]

Thought processing involves blocking the natural flow of energy within the brain. The neural energy naturally flows toward lower potential and the ego sets up a dam. For example, if one is thinking of an answer to a forum question, one dams up a part of the natural flow of brain potential, i.e., neuro chemical potential, while also visualizing ideas for a response. When the creative juices start to flow, the potential is released down a neural path that is lined with the ideas (memory data) that one was focusing on. With imagination the channeling ideas are left more open instead of being narrowly defined with specific data points or specific lines of reason. When the dam is open and the neural potential is released, it has a wider path in which to flow down, allowing more meandering. Sometimes the meandering can go thhe range of outside hard data.

 

Dreams are slightly different in that the dams are unconsciously set up. One can use ununatural behavior or be dammed up by external circumstances. The dreams, will attempt to release many unconscious blockages at various potentials all at the same time. It is like many dams opening up together and/or in various sequences, and all the streams meandering, converging and separating causing it to appear irrational. Irrational or not it gets the job done, which is to lower the brain potential.

 

What makes humans different from animals is that we can willfully dam up the brain potential. This adds to internal dams created by instincts and to the external dams created by nature and culture. Animals are restricted to internal instinctive potentials and external circumstances to create dams.

[Qfwfq]

Animals are thinking, too.

True. May I also add that they dream too.

[tarak]

Like the river finds its natural course meandering through rocks and vales, carving its own path towards the sea,nuerochemical potential should move in a similar way.If ego sets up a dam and stores a lot of this potential in a resorvoir what happens to the stored energy-

Ofcourse it may get polluted or evaporated or get percolated.the river and sea could be akin to Atma-Paramatma analogy.

Hydrogen bond! your dam analogy is damn good and looks like a signal transduction pathway.