How do YOU know?

Question

Bacause you thought about it! Until you tackle other individuals' thought, it would be a good idea to tackle your own. Is this impossible due to the whole socialisation process? Or, because no thought can be original and therefore not your own? What if then, hypothetically, a person had no contact with another? It seems apparent that most, if not all, persons have no thoughts of their own. So, without using the predicate of logic or the ideas of other individuals, explain 'thought', and while you're at it, explain existence. Use your own thoughts to explain your own existence. No plagiarism (spelling of this word is uncertain?)

In the words of Cooley (yes-irony) : "don't confuse fluency with competency"

SO WHERE DID THE FIRST PERSONS THOUGHT COME FROM? consider thought before you consider the implications. Existence cannot exist without the thought of it otherwise you wouldnt exist. Explain nothing, explain infinity, but try explaining it without thinking about it "FIRST".

What a ridiculous thing to say. How do you get an answer without a question, and likewise how do you get new answers without new questions? How did Socrates get answers? he didnt, but he asked questions!

I am a free thinker, it's mexican you have to convince.

It is not a premise, it is questionable. now i have your thought on the matter. It is unlikely that it is your thought but this doesnt mean you cannaot have your own, but where are they?

"LEAP-FROGGING TO EXISTENCE". So in YOUR opinion something comes before existence, or just the understanding of something? BUT WHAT? I did say no predicated logic. Remember to assume makes an *** out of U and ME. as i said, tackle your own thoughts first. Confused.

ITS QUITE SIMPLE: INNOVATION IS NOT ORIGINAL. AND ORIGINALITY IS NOT INNOVATIVE. THESE ARE JUST WORDS. WHERE ARE THE THOUGHTS?

"BELIEVE IN NOTHING THAT YOU HEAR AND ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE" WHEN YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR WHAT DO YOU SEE?

Mexican-seafood? If you were not so wrapped up in your own self importance you would have noticed that i had not replied to your question, or any of your edits. Someone did mention leap-frogging and someone did mention looking in the mirror. However i will be expecting edits by you in the future and will look out for them. You have completely misunderstood my thinking. You are again too wrapped up inrelaying the thoughts of others. You use another persons "logic" and claim this to be intellect. Next you will tell me you can come to a logical conclusion, which, being fluent, you will know is a contradiction. I would like to hear YOUR THOUGHTS on the infinity of possibilities. I know how you would look at it-through the use of "logical" thoughts, not of your own. you will give inconclusive answers as a way of answering. But wait! A dead end! It only begins to answer the question and claims the rest as not logical. Wait a minute! What is logical about assumption?

Maybe the best way for you to deal with questions you cant answer is to not answer them. Try thinking about them! I just know you have an answer to "if a tree falls...." Of course this is not to be answered, merely pondered, but still i predict that you have an answer to this.

"Unconfirmed knowledge", that is a good one. And you the logical thinker. Wow, how can "logic" be either "confirmed" OR "knowledge"???? get real (no pun intended).

Answer 1

Even if thoughts are not original, and they come from somewhere else or from somebody else, the time, the place, the imagery attached, the purpose, the sequence and the action that follows after each strand of thinking are absolutely unique to each individual. This I say first of all to establish that this debate can lead to subjective thinking. The fact is that if there were no people, there wouldn’t have been any thoughts either all the way along. And more precisely, if I were not here to think what I am thinking, then what I think would not have been in existence either. The fact of the truth is that our thoughts are unique and absolutely individual.

A simple touch of logic can prove this point of the preceding paragraph. If two things are exactly alike then they are at the same place, at the same time, in a same form and with exactly similar characteristics. But there cannot be one thing exiting twice in the world, neither in space nor in time, or two things exactly and absolutely alike. Things are many things because all things in existence are distinct and definitively peculiar in their form, or in their characteristics.

And since thoughts are things, thoughts are unique too. They are unique to us all as they come into existence completely anew. The thoughts are the cause of all existence to exist at the first place, including all materially distinct forms and their specific functions. I can for example think of a strange creature into existence. But I do not see it assuming a realistic form however hard I may try. The reason is that there are already materially realised things all around us. Things that are connected to each other according to fixed laws of matter. If there were an absolute blank, or gap, anywhere around me in existence I could have been able to think things right into their actual existence. Contrary to this is a thought of an object that is in compliance with the laws of the material world. I can, for example, think of a chair but a material version of a chair would not come into existence until I have done certain things according to the laws of the matter and material world. Only then the thought in my head turn into an actual reality.

The thoughts are, in fact, the proof, or realisation of ‘I’ - the transcendental self that stays invisible during the act of thinking. This is just like the eye that stays unseen while seeing. The interface between our transcendent being and physical being cause observations and peculiar impression as a result. The bridge between our inner self and the world around us is ‘I’ that cannot be realised without thoughts that are purely personal, original and unique.

Answer 2

The emergence of thought is a natural step to mere reactance to the environment. If you put food out for the birds for the first few days they won't take it until they discover it is there. Then they will come to take it if they remember it was there. Then they will come and see if any is there as they learn it is a feeding spot, and if you put food out at a regular time every day will learn those times too. Ergo the bird is now capable of making a rational decision based on empirical data. It's the same with men, only on a higher scale. Once a fact is learned then it can be processed; consider the hunter-gatherer who first thought to put a fence around land where animals roam. This is the logical step: blockade the prey, it has nowhere to go, it is easier to catch. Enclose the prey in a pasture it is easier still. Enclose the prey and allow it to breed and you'll have food on tap. But if you enclose the prey it can't get to it's natural feeding grounds and so you must provide for it, so you need to grow a sufficient ammount of crop to feed it and close to the prey so you don't have to look for it.Whilst doing that you can grow crops to feed yourself too.
With the basic need satisfied the period of reactance is over and the mind can be turned to developmental issues. Now you're fed you need shelter, can these stones be piled in a way to keep the rain out? How can we stop them falling over? Fairly soon the needs of life are fulfilled and you can start posing metaphysical questions and experimenting on improving what you have. There are no cases where any one person has no contact with another and so the progression of ideas is a shared social event and this is confirmed of course by the simple development of technology: the Wright Brothers were the first to make sustained dirigible flight in a heavier than air craft, this was handed through the generations and now we have the Airbus. Whittle added the jet, Fokker the monowing, and so on. Of course the Wright Brothers could not have made their contribution had not Benz & Daimler found the internal combustion engine, and similarly had not Volta, Faraday et al done their experimentation with electricity Benz would have been snookered from the start.
There had to be an original thought somewhere that inspired other thoughts but it's hard to pin down where the original thought was. Everybody uses the ideas of other individuals even in the animal kingdom. One bird in our garden discovered how to crack open the groundnuts we left out for the squirrels by watching the squirrels do it and now they all do it. The magpies used to carry them off one at a time until one discovered it could fit a smaller one at the back of its beak and a larger one at the front, now they all do it too, which does of course mean that I now have to buy half a hundredweight of groundnuts per month.
It isn't true to say that no person has thoughts of their own
because if not the species could not advance. A thought is a development on a pre-existing given and nothing can think outside its frame of reference because there are no anchors. If you watch Star Trek it's just Jason and the Argonauts transferred to outer space and the science is the modern equivalent of magic. However the thought is the development of the process, and by thinking of our known facts and experimenting upon them we come up with a new IDEA which is the end result of thought.
Existence is a different kettle of fish. Either we evolved after a big glob of nothing exploded or we were created by God, in which case our existence is either a statistical anamoly or as vassals of a supreme being; neither can be proved beyond shadow of doubt so pick your own credo there.

Answer 3

You're starting with a questionable premise. You assert that no thought can be original without any support. Why can no thought be original?

While ideas build upon other ideas, innovation is evidence of original thought. I guess a better question is what makes innovation unoriginal, whether it builds on some pre-existing discovery or not? Maybe you should start with that argument before leap frogging to "existence".

Answer 4

Your questions seem to be geeting stranger & stranger. There hasn't been a unique thought in philosophy in years, so how possibly this question can be answered without refering to another individuals thought is impossible. Philosophy is based on people refuting others arguements, so to even make a statement of philosophical worth requires citing an individual.
I personally think you are shooting above yopur station, as you have provided a question, whereby even your self could not answer, & thats not philosophy. Philo-sophia- the love of wisdom. Where is your wisdom?
In reference to your question; try justified true belief, or Plantinga's warrant of justified true beief. Alothough it could be possible for aperson to form a belief on their own, the majority of statemenat are based on some sort of foundational knowledge. this knowlegde is socially created, mush like a priori knowlegde (classic Foundationalism). Although these beliefs that a person upholds are created by knowlegde that does not presuppose other knowledge, it is still sonfirmed ona belief created by other people, if only to check if this belief is real... take hallucinations for example. this is not a common occurance, why? because everybody else doesn't. therefore any beleif based on a halluncination is wrong. why? because no one else hallucinates. I agree it is possible that a person could create false beliefs on the basis of halluncinations, but this is a mere thought experiement. Most foundationalist beliefs are checked with other persons beliefs, if only to confirm or disregard them.

Edit: you have to convince me? I didn't ask for it. i'm sorry if logic (which it seems you hate) destroys your argument, but live with it. Welcome to the world of intellect. ps. Did you even read my post or just assume (correctly) i was tearing you a new hole, whereby the only reaction you have is to react in a negative way?

Edit2: no one has used the words leap-frogging

Edit3: Looking in the mirror?
perhaps you are an absurdist. i have told you this before. You should read Camus; The myth of Sisyphus.

Edit4: seriously; you say no plagarism, but like it or not, all you are doing is dragging uo an old argument in the hope that people will find you intelligent. It's really not working. considering your entire arguemnt is based on contradictions & un-confirmed knowledge.

Edit5: now your just writing in capitals. what? run out logical things to say? what you wrote "innovation is not original" "oringinality is not innovative" I am honestly doubting you truly comprehend what you are saying.

Answer 5

To have known.
Knowledge is the past added to indefinitely.
Thought is that knowledge manifest in form, idea concept etc.
It is a collective pool of knowledge and thought.
To exist means to stand out.
To have an insight and then to act on that insight is the only way to be original. Insight is, when all thought and thinking is in abeyance. In that space originality comes, which can then be expressed through careful use of words and meaning.
Thought then is the instrument of insight.

Answer 6

hmmmm, on the odd chance that you are being serious, we do have our own thought. logic dictates that if we don't have an original thought, then there is no thought at all. on the contrary, after spending much time in the bush alone over the year, I can say I have come face to face with someone few meet............. themselves. I thought. in that thought you suggest, we start with our own and build from there. hence growth, individually and socially. too bad the homosapien can't think more about peace instead of ways to do each other. we might actually have a nice world to live in.

Answer 7

There have been instances in history of children being lost in the wilderness as babies and bought up by animals there behaviour is exactly the same as the animal that fostered them . so it follows we ape what we see and experience as we grow, the most important being survival , real thought only comes when we confront something different to our normal experiance. Note all the children in the example did not try to break out of what they knew. only when captured and after a great deal of teaching did they recover, all wanted to return to what they knew, one never recoverd

Answer 8

It is possible for a human to live completely without socialization. Feral children have been studied in several instances. Their development, as a whole, was extremely strained, but they did exist nevertheless.

Their existence necessitated their ability to have thoughts without the benefit of any other humans. Such thoughts may have been pragmatic in nature, e.g. how to find food, water and shelter, but they were thoughts.

Explaining my own existence is a matter of confirming my own empirical observations of seeing a living carbon based life form in the mirror.

Answer 9

Wait ok this question is so confusing. Let me think. Ok i'm ready Thought: begins merely as emotions that are triggered in the brain by hormones, these emotions are classified by your brain until they become ideas and thoughts. You want a connection from emotions to outside world so in order to connect them you form thoughts. Ok 2nd question: Existence: concentrated energy in the form of matter

Answer 10

Maybe you should see a head doctor or lay off the mind altering drugs. Preferably both.