Can science pinpoint the exact origins of our thoughts?
2006-07-08 10:12:38 · 9 answers · asked by Scott O 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Are they made of atoms? If so are they solid, liquid or gas?
2006-07-08 10:18:34 · update #1
Well, since girls are made out of sugar, spice and everything nice while boys are made out of snips, snails and puppy dog tails, you'd have different answers depending on the sex of the thinker.
Okay, more seriously, I am of the understanding that thoughts are not a "substance" but a process, an ongoing one.
First, we need to have a sensory stimulation. Of course, this would come from one or more of our five (known) senses, which in turn sends a rather instantaneous signal of this sensation along our nervous system until it reaches our brains which (to simplify), creates a synaptic pathway that serves as an impermanent 'imprint' of this multil-sensory experience with which we can clumsily 'reassemble' this disparate, discontiguous 'imprint' as a memory. As we're doing this, we are "thinking". What we refer to in present tense as "thinking" in past tense we refer to as a "thought"....
And this is where I believe you got hung up--but you're not alone: it is actually quite common for people to use the word "thought" as a 'noun' (person or thing) when properly, it should only be used like a verb (action) of some sort, as it's no "thing". Running is not a thing, right? You may hear people saying 'Running is a good thing for your health', but that would be an incomplete sentence, functionally. Instead, 'Running is an good thing To Do for your health."
It's kinda like a computer's processes: the circuitry electric currents travel on is not the process, the currents themselves are not the process and the "0/1" commands are not the process. The process isn't a process unless all of these things are happening at the same time.
If the computer is turned off, there are no processes; equally, when a person dies, there are no more thoughts (at least in this corporeal form), as the brain no longer has neural synaptic activity.
Finally, concurrrent workings of the mind and body do not function in a stoically linear way, despite how poetically you phrase it, "Can science pinpoint the exact origins of our thoughts?" do you mean, like, create a "mind reading" device, maybe one that can flash our "thoughts" on a screen where others can see the contents of our 'mind's eye'?
Likely not: because even we ourselves are not completely sure what we're thinking and instead work with our interpretations of a fiery choreography of an electrical-magnetic chemical synaptic pathway that is proprietary to our own systems, meaning another person "just wouldn't get it".
2006-07-08 12:07:50 · answer #1 · answered by deidonis 4 · 2⤊ 2⤋
Science deals with matter, energy, space and time. But if thought is not from the realm of matter, energy, space and time, science will miss it.
They say God created Man in his own image. It doesn't seem right that God would have a body - how limiting and boring for a being of such infiniteness. And if God created everything, then before he created it, there was nothing, i.e. no matter, energy, space or time. Or to say it another way, God's native realm is nothingness and he created somethingness (i.e. matter, energy,...)
If we are created in God's image, we don't have a body and we don't exist in somethingness (but our bodies do). So if our thought originates outside of somethingness or outside the physical universe, science won't catch that because it deal only in somethingness.
2006-07-08 18:26:26 · answer #2 · answered by Jeff 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope. If you worked within the medical and scientific community you'll discover just how little people understand about the human body. They can skim the surface but underneath one set of knowledge lies a universe of mystery. This is just another reflection of the creator, His fingerprints if you will.
2006-07-08 10:20:29 · answer #3 · answered by foxray43 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
caloric, possibly phlogiston.
better: what substance are questions made of? not everything is a thing. thoughts emerge, apparently, from physical substrates. how and why, neuroscientists and philosophers are still working on.
2006-07-08 10:19:29 · answer #4 · answered by fishphinder 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Electric energy and chemical responses.
2006-07-08 10:16:21 · answer #5 · answered by animalmother 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
brainwaves?
Like microwaves, from your brain? I dont really know, I thought that sounded good.
2006-07-08 10:15:36 · answer #6 · answered by sweetiepie 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Consciousness is the substratum of all and everything.
2006-07-08 13:05:18 · answer #7 · answered by aeneas09 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
pure energy
2006-07-08 12:43:52 · answer #8 · answered by angel 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i sure hope not......mine come from a very naughty section of my mind.........my imagination plays a fun characteristic in it all.....
2006-07-08 10:16:23 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋