What is thought?

Question

I am only in high school still, and what from what I've been told, everything is made up of atoms, even cells, right? So if all our cells and parts of our body are simply atoms, what makes us think?

I mean, I do understand a bit that it has to do with electricty or something, but is that it? People are just a bunch of atoms put together so that electricity can make us think and all?

Answer 1

This is a really, really good question. The problem is, that you must ask it in several different categories in order to get a really complete answer.

If you ask what thought is in terms of physics, there is no such thing. If all we are is matter and energy, thought may be some kind of energy, but it doesn’t really make any difference because we are not really persons, we are just a collection of matter and energy that thinks it thinks. Matter and energy cannot take any kind of moral standpoint, and if people think they can, they are simply mistaken. This is where we get guys like Stalin and Hitler: they were consistent with their opinion that all we are is matter and energy, so that there is no right or wrong, and they just did as they pleased.

If you ask what thought is in terms of biology, you may get an answer in terms of nervous impulses—electrical signals going through the tissues in our brains. However, most biologists believe that we evolved from inert matter over the course of a long time, so that there is not really any “qualitative” difference between living things and nonliving things. Once more, thought maybe some kind of energy, but there is no purpose to our existence other than what we imagine there to be— and we might very well be wrong. After all, a live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. So, according to biology, we might not be thinking, or it might not matter whether we can think because we might be mistaken. We can’t be sure we are right or wrong.

If you ask what thought is in terms of philosophy, you may get an answer in terms of mind, except that philosophy cannot explain how the mind and the body interact, whether the mind controls the body or vice versa. Although many people—some of them serious scientist in other disciplines—claim to have no opinion on such things, everybody in actual practice has a philosophy. As I have already outlined above, some sciences lead us to think that our minds and thought might not matter to anybody but ourselves, and we ourselves might be mistaken as to whether we are right or not. The problem with that is that it seems to lead to horrible things, like people treating one another cruelly.

If you ask what thought is in terms of theology, you may get an answer in the terms that our thinking capability is a consequence of our being made by someone who is neither matter nor energy. This suggests that our ability to think may have some significance after all. It is not dependent on matter or energy, it does not come from matter or energy, there is a good reason for not treating one another as if all we were is matter and energy. If God thought before he made anything else, then our thoughts, in imitation of Him, can have real value. They have value not only for now (as long as this physical universe lasts) but also when all matter reaches a uniform equilibrium temperature and there is no more energy that can do any work. (That is the so-called ‘heat-death’ of the universe.)

I’d like to suggest that you ask this question again several times, putting it into the religion and spirituality category, the humanities and philosophy category, the pure physics category as well as the biology and chemistry category. You will see that you get a variety of different answers. In particular, ask if morality or meaning can come from any combination of matter, energy, time and chance. Generally people will put in some sort of intellectual disconnect, insisting that human beings and human minds are worth something, even if all they are is a product of matter, energy, time and chance.

24 DEC 06, 0254 hrs, GMT.

Answer 2

Well, to tie in atoms with thinking; neurons and nervous tissue are excitable, meaning they can conduct electrical impulses. All neurons communicate using these electrical impulses by sending action potentials from one to another. In order to generate an action potential, first the neuron must bind neurotransmitters, which are chemical compounds composed of different atoms. The binding of the neurotransmitters open chemically gated ion channels in the dendrites of the neuron, allowing certain ions (either chlorine or sodium ions for the most part) to flow into the cell. Sodium ions are positively charged, so if enough sodium ions flow into the cell, it will become positive enough inside the membrane to generate an action potential, and voltage gated sodium channels open in order to propagate it (if it was the chlorine ions flowing in, it would actually inhibit an action potential from being produced). When the action potential reaches the end of the axon, it opens calcium ion channels in the terminal, allowing calcium to flow into the cell, thus initiating the release of neurotransmitter from that neuron to be received by the next one, thus continuing the chain. Ions are all atoms as well.

Thus, the flow of ions is the electrical impulse, as positive atoms enter the cell and propagate down the axon; and the electrical impulse results in the release of chemical neurotransmitters, also composed of atoms. This is how the cells of your brain communicate, not only producing thought, but also your senses and even the most basic of your functions.

Answer 3

Did you ever think how this computer that uses 0's and 1's as representative of it's own " thought " could actually make hard matter, say your printer, do things. Not to say that the mind is a computer, but this analogy gives you an idea how immaterial representation can actually move things in the material world. This, the problem of mind, is far from solved. As you will find, when you study it. It is a problem, now, though. Not that long ago, before computation, it was far from a problem; it was a mystery.

Answer 4

You mix up cells and Atoms .Atome make a body which is not moving without source But cell making that live body structure.

Answer 5

the brain makes 'thoughts' by sending electri pulses between two or more parts of the brain. the word is just a verbal representation of a complicated response that isnt really one thing but is a neverending slew of electric pulses being sent around all parts of the brain.

Answer 6

Thought is thought to be very very small particles. So small that they are undetected by any know microscope. This is all scientific theory at the moment but really interesting. It all has to do with images and how our brain stores them and the little particles sort of regenerate or create images. It's so complicated!

Answer 7

our brains have developed a "person in our heads" in which we call: "mind" Mind is the central image in which your descisions may be based upon. So we thnk throu our subconcious area in our brain.

Answer 8

cells? i dont know

ps:answer my question plz

Answer 9

that's a really good question....