If a scupltor sculpts with clay, and a painter paints with paint, what do you think with?

Question

What is the medium of thought? Language? Images? Something else?

Creative answers please!

Answer 1

People think in all number of abstract terms/ways: Langauge is the biggest former in how human beings think, but I'd personally subscribe to Marx's historical materialism: What we can think of is limited by what material reality surrounds us. We can only think in terms of the things that we see/hear/experience around us, and extrapolations of those things. Language is just a neat way of compartamentalizing those images and notions, though I do think there is a definite gap between what we think and what comes out in terms of words and sentences.

Answer 2

This is a great question, and one of the greatest parts of being human. Thought is not a tangible thing like paint or clay. I sense it's more that just electrical impulses in the brain as well, though a doctor might say differently. Your question goes to the essence of what it means to be alive and conscious. I think therefore I am, Descartes said. Yet thought exists independently of the thinker. The laws of mathematics are always available to be thought by anyone who needs them. Thought can never be destroyed or taken from you, with good health at least.

There are lots of books that explore the possibilities of your answer, but it's fundamentally a mystery.

Answer 3

Ummm, perhaps thoughts are tangible, but not visible to the naked eye.
Most ppl do think in words and images (visualize). So, maybe it is some kind of energy force, that depicts the words or images in your mind/head/soul… and helps you mould them in forms (words/images) you know.
Like you think of an image of a rock only you have seen, and then while explaining it you use a language that the audience would understand to describe it.
Similarly, maybe an energy force `thought’ imbibes various energies and transcribes it back in a form familiar to you... be it words or images. *phew*
so much thinking! So much energy used! :-)

Answer 4

Most people say my tongue... I kind of have to say a lot of things out loud in order to understand them.

It's probably different depending on your learning modality.

For instance, as a writer I am a very linguistically oriented, so I tend to think in words. Sometimes I see the words as I am saying them, in fact, which is about as visual as I get.

Ultimately, the medium of thought is electrical, with synapses and neurons firing. My conveying method is language. I have written characters who think in images, though.

Answer 5

I tend to think as if I were talking to myself or someone else. It sounds odd, but I have whole mental conversations and debates. If I'm not paying attention, I'll start saying what I'm thinking to myself. So I'll be standing in line at the grocery store having this whole little conversation with myself about, well, whatever I'm thinking about. Nothing scary weird, like arguing with myself, but it's beyond embarassing...

Answer 6

Consciousness, perception, attention, appreciation, desire and expression. It's my understanding that thought is or travels on faint electrical impulses.

When I paint, I use various tools as well.

Answer 7

We think with "memes" (units of thought) <--- term invented by Richard Dawkins as analogous to genes.
Defined by Wikipedia as:
refers to a replicator of cultural information that one mind transmits (verbally or by demonstration) to another mind. Dawkins said, Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Other examples include god(s), concepts, ideas, theories, opinions, beliefs, practices, habits, dances and moods which propagate within a culture. A meme propagates itself as a unit of cultural evolution analogous in many ways to the gene (the unit of genetic information). Often memes propagate as more-or-less integrated cooperative sets or groups, referred to as memeplexes or meme-complexes.

Answer 8

When something so inspires me to think deeply about it, i think with my passion. Passion that I feel in the pit of my stomach. Whether its fear, love, anger, anxiety, a passion wells up in me to make a change....

Answer 9

Electrical and chemical responses.
Perhaps the soul. Knowledge.
The answer to this question is truly intangible.
I really have no idea. beautiful question.

Answer 10

Electricity and chemicals