Do you craft/choose your thoughts before you have them?

[SpeedOfSound]

Bruce Burleson, I get what you're talking about. There have been times when I'm driving, doing gardening or whatever where it feels like I'm just experiencing (or whatever we want to call it). At some point, I can be aware of a thought (i.e. I'm hungry, or I want to go to the store today). It still doesn't diminish the fact (that nobody has wanted to deny so far) that we experience whatever it is that we experience in present time.

It also appears that some people are more conscious than others, and our consciousness can and does change all the time. I have known people and heard about others who genuinely appear to have higher consciousness/heightened awareness. I realize that some people consider this to be woo, but I've seen and experienced enough of it that I accept it as part of reality.

If the brain usually does the work and we experience it afterward, does that mean we experience it in the future? I'd say that we are still experiencing in present time, here and now. We also might consider why it would be that we go in and out of consciousness. Is that a decision we make? Is there a consciousness switch in our heads?

This is probably down to a definition of what thinking is and I think I moved the goal posts on that between my original post and my exchange with you. Originally I said I had only two kinds of thinking. Verbal chatter and imaginings of object construction. Because it's a fuzzy word and applies for some also to the 98% of the brains activity that is recognition, sequencing, prediction, etc that is unconscious we then differed.

Let me narrow my definition again to the verbal and constructive loops and then I can agree with most of what you are saying.

I take exception with a few things things. First is just housekeeping. If neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists are so-called authorities on thinking who are the real ones? Accountants?

Second is this present time thing. We can't experience in the cusp of present time. It isn't that kind of thing. It's more like a remembered present.

If thinking is something like becoming aware that I want an ice-cream cone then 98% of that process that made that thought pop was never conscious in any present.

It also appears that some people are more conscious than others, and our consciousness can and does change all the time. I have known people and heard about others who genuinely appear to have higher consciousness/heightened awareness.

I agree that this sort of thing exists and I think it is not woo at all.

[charlou]

he's SC of SH.

[FBM]

Why does 'moral agent' demand 'singular entity? Can;t a company behave ethically? Can't an institution be held accountable? Doesn't a society police itself in relation to other societies?

It requires an entity, but that entity needn't be singular in the sense you seem to imply. It requires identity and parts that operate under that identity.

Do you dispute that ethics influence behaviour of individual humans and groups of humans?

When we speak of a group or company 'acting', we're speaking metaphorically. Strictly speaking, individuals act, even when they're members of a group. A company can be treated as a singular entity by a court, but that's only nominal, a conventient fiction.

[Bruce Burleson]

he's SC of SH.

Secret guys' code.

[FBM]

My point is that generating thoughts, assembling concepts, translating concepts into language, are not 'conscious' processes. We are not 'subjectively aware' of the processes that presumably must underlie our experienced thinking. It seems clear then that what we might recognise as 'subjective self' or 'I' does not 'craft / choose your thoughts'. That in no way suggests that this is not a function of what we call 'my mind', merely to highlight that the boundary of 'I' is much smaller than 'my mind' and that 'crafting thoughts' is not done by the 'I'. In the other topic the suggestion is that there is nothing 'inside the self/I' and that it is the thinking mind that 'crafts thoughts' about a fictional 'I'.

Well said!

[FBM]

How can you "choose your thoughts before you have them?" That poll premise makes no sense to me. Suggest a better title. Cannot respond to it as it is. Did the tree fall down in the forest before it was there?

Dennis

In the sense that you assemble ingredients in a certain way and bake your cake before you eat it. It doesn't seem to me that my thoughts come pre-assembled. There's a grammar to be obeyed, vocabulary chosen, etc. How and when does all this happen, and if it's an unconscious process, how can it be considered to be volitional?

It's largely a rhetorical question, intended to elicit reflections and discussion on what the mind is, how volition really works as opposed to how many of us tend to assume it works, etc. Neuroscientists will say that the sense of agency is associated with the posterior parietal lobe, volitional thoughts in the frontal lobe, etc. But 'I' don't experience any of that. I've just got this internal dialog going in some imaginary amphitheater in my head. Before I started reflecting on it (years ago, I mean) I assumed that 'I' was consciously thinking what 'I' wanted to think, how I wanted to think, on a topic of my conscious choosing. Now it seems that it's not so cut-and-dried. I started the thread to see how others report their subjective experiences, not to split hairs over this and that theory.

[LaMont Cranston]

SOS, I happy to admit that neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists are much more qualified to be authorities in this area than accountants or ice cream scoopers at Baskin-Robbins. That being said, I can only wonder about how much agreement there actually is among those people who are experts. Do these people agree on this subject, or is there a great deal of uncertainty? Just how much of all of this do they admit that they do not know?

What is the "cusp of present time?" Is that the same thing as "present time?" If we experience something now, why would it have a cusp. I get it that we bring a set of memories, ideas, viewpoints, preferences, beliefs, etc. to present time, but we are still having the experience here and now. It's like that every moment of our existance.

I also have a problem with the idea of a "remembered present." Like I said, we do bring memories and all of those other things with us to each moment, but it still comes down to the fact that we experience the thought, the enjoyment of the ice cream, the fear of being attacked by a bear or whatever else it is in present time. Rather than a "remembered present," I'd call it an "experienced present."

[SpeedOfSound]

SOS, I happy to admit that neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists are much more qualified to be authorities in this area than accountants or ice cream scoopers at Baskin-Robbins. That being said, I can only wonder about how much agreement there actually is among those people who are experts. Do these people agree on this subject, or is there a great deal of uncertainty? Just how much of all of this do they admit that they do not know?

What is the "cusp of present time?" Is that the same thing as "present time?" If we experience something now, why would it have a cusp. I get it that we bring a set of memories, ideas, viewpoints, preferences, beliefs, etc. to present time, but we are still having the experience here and now. It's like that every moment of our existance.

I also have a problem with the idea of a "remembered present." Like I said, we do bring memories and all of those other things with us to each moment, but it still comes down to the fact that we experience the thought, the enjoyment of the ice cream, the fear of being attacked by a bear or whatever else it is in present time. Rather than a "remembered present," I'd call it an "experienced present."

There is much agreement these days in neuroscience. The famous guys still duke it out but it's over little twists and details. The science and the model is solid. While the details still to be worked out are astronomically complex the overall is not going to change.

All we have is the remembered present. We live in a reality that is not momentary but is on the order of about 200 msecs. and it would be meaningless if it were not in continual flux. Next time you want that icecream see if you can narrow that want down to the infinitesimal moment or just one singular feeling. Then describe it to me. Good luck with that.

[LaMont Cranston]

SOS, While I think about all these things, I find myself thinking "Is something a thought if I don't think it?" Do neuroscientists or anybody else have a way to identify when something actually becomes a thought? Just how do they do that?

[SpeedOfSound]

SOS, While I think about all these things, I find myself thinking "Is something a thought if I don't think it?" Do neuroscientists or anybody else have a way to identify when something actually becomes a thought? Just how do they do that?

Science can't account for the things we think we feel that aren't actually real scientific facts. We are made of meat and we have the experience of meat. When we try and catch the moment or even define exactly what a thought is we get pretty confused fast.

But it's not hopeless. When you start to look at and understand the physical mechanisms it all starts to make more sense. For starters the things that happen in your brain that feel like something always stick around for longer than 1/5 of a second. When they do they become very short term memories and they remain just outside the fringe of consciousness for minutes or even hours. One little tidal current in your mind brings them to the top again. This is why it has been called the remembered present. It's like a little basket of current events.

[GrahamH]

Why does 'moral agent' demand 'singular entity? Can;t a company behave ethically? Can't an institution be held accountable? Doesn't a society police itself in relation to other societies?

It requires an entity, but that entity needn't be singular in the sense you seem to imply. It requires identity and parts that operate under that identity.

Do you dispute that ethics influence behaviour of individual humans and groups of humans?

When we speak of a group or company 'acting', we're speaking metaphorically. Strictly speaking, individuals act, even when they're members of a group. A company can be treated as a singular entity by a court, but that's only nominal, a conventient fiction.

But it is the group that is held accountable, the company that pays the fine, the company image at stake. My only point there is that we don't require a singular entity to employ ethics and we can hold a group accountable for the actions of the group. Doing so tends to influence the behaviour of the group. I think a collection of neurons interacting in a group can reasonably be held to account for the actions of the group. We don't have to identify singular causes. We only have to apply influence in a way that produced a desired result.

[GrahamH]

SOS, There is a point I've been asking about that neither you or GrahamH seem to want to address. I can tell the difference between river banks, state banks, sperm banks and other kinds of banks, and it does require thinking about it. Or, I wasn't aware of this word until you asked me to be.

The point I'm making is that you, I and others are aware of those things and think those thoughts in present time. If I'm eating ice cream right now...or even thinking about it...I'm doing it here and now. If I think about eating ice cream in the past, I'm doing it here and now and thinking about a time that happened there and then.

So, if it is true that 98% of our thinking is unconscious, does that mean that we are only experiencing 2% of what we are experiencing in present time? Or, if you know a way that we experience things in any time other than present time, will you please explain how we do that?

We don't experience thought construction. Some simple consideration of your own 'thought processes' should make that clear. The words you write 'come to mind' and are not assembled in an experienced process. You can ride a bike without experiencing every muscle contraction and motion of the inner ear. You recognise faces 'without a thought' of discriminating features and accessing memory of what people look like. How could all that happen without a thinking machine working unseen to construct the thoughts and know the knowledge?

GrahamH, How could that happen? Gee, I never promised you a definitive answer, but simply because you think things should be a certain way doesn't make it so. We really don't know the limitations of the human mind. SOS said that there are many so-called authorities who say that 98% of our thinking is unconscious.
If it's unconscious, is it actually part of our thinking? Does something become a thought only after we think it, or are there all of these unacknowledge thoughts lurking under the surface of which we are not aware? If we aren't aware of them, how do we know they exist?

As for that 98%/2% thing, if it should turn out that we are only experiencing 2% of an experience, does that make it a complete experience for us? I get it if I'm riding a bike that I'm not aware of every muscle fiber, nerve ending and blood cell that's a part of my body. It turns out that we are aware of whatever we are aware of, and, once again, we only have that experience in present time. Or, if you know of any other time we experience anything other than here and now, please tell us what time it is.

I was asking you to think about it, and think about thinking about it. If you do that it becomes obvious that our subjectively aware self is not constructing our thoughts, simply because we have no awareness of doing it. We are aware of having thoughts, but not of forming them. Since thoughts do have form, and we can recognise parts to them (e.g. 'ice cream' and 'later today') something must form them, don't you think? Isn't whatever is forming thoughts the thing that is doing the thinking?

[FBM]

But it is the group that is held accountable, the company that pays the fine, the company image at stake. My only point there is that we don't require a singular entity to employ ethics and we can hold a group accountable for the actions of the group. Doing so tends to influence the behaviour of the group. I think a collection of neurons interacting in a group can reasonably be held to account for the actions of the group. We don't have to identify singular causes. We only have to apply influence in a way that produced a desired result.

As a matter of practicality and convenience, yes, but it is nevertheless a reification, a convenient fiction. You seem to be (correctly) answering the question 'What should we do?', but I'm asking a different question, 'What is the actual state of things?'.

[SpeedOfSound]

But it is the group that is held accountable, the company that pays the fine, the company image at stake. My only point there is that we don't require a singular entity to employ ethics and we can hold a group accountable for the actions of the group. Doing so tends to influence the behaviour of the group. I think a collection of neurons interacting in a group can reasonably be held to account for the actions of the group. We don't have to identify singular causes. We only have to apply influence in a way that produced a desired result.

As a matter of practicality and convenience, yes, but it is nevertheless a reification, a convenient fiction. You seem to be (correctly) answering the question 'What should we do?', but I'm asking a different question, 'What is the actual state of things?'.

You said earlier that you didn't want to split hairs over theories. I'm confused. Do you want to know how things really are or how we experience them and think they are?

[SpeedOfSound]

There's a grammar to be obeyed, vocabulary chosen, etc. How and when does all this happen, and if it's an unconscious process, how can it be considered to be volitional?

There is a bunch of painstaking studies that show the processes of speech and reading are completely unconscious until something goes wrong. Most of these studies are boring as hell and I haven't read them. I'm mostly taking other neuroscientists at their word here.

There was one study that Baars talks about that I am desperately trying to find. It goes with a little anecdotal story. They created a machine with a computer and eyeblink sensors and gaze trackers that presented sentences to the subject and then completely changed the sentence that the subject just read. They did it during a blink so that they evoked the change blindness syndrome.

So mid-sentence the beginning of the sentence changed completely. The researcher who was in charge wanted to test the equipment the night before the study so he used himself as the subject. He became extremely pissed at the graduate students that set up the computer because his sentences weren't changing. He thought the equipment was defective.

But it wasn't. It was working perfectly and changing the sentence he had just read to something entirely different. So he read something and had no conscious experience of it at all or any conscious experience of having re-read it and found something new. Yet he had complete conviction that he had experienced the latter sentence in the recent past but not the one he had actually read.

I'll keep looking for that to see if I explained it right. It was pretty stunning. It seems like we backfill our conscious recollection of things so they make sense to us. Words on pages don't change so we refuse to experience them changing even if they really do change.