to what extent do thougts exist in your head? i mean, say i close my eyes and visualize a 3d, rotating cube. do i see (i mean see with my regular eyes) the cube? How do i see it in my head if not using my eyes? and am i visualizing a 3d cube? or a 2d representation of a 3d cube? how do thoughts exist?
maybe thoughts are like light, they move very rapidly in the air. as in they are material…yet not… and can be seen, perceived by the brain?
While certain aspects of our brain are active when we conceptualize, i don’t think that the thought resides there. We don’t live in the road, we use our cars on the road, and if you looked, you would see cars driving on the road, but that is a very limited view of the people you are actually trying to see. Consciousness is a mystery itself, and the actual life force in each of us still eludes science.
I do however believe that it is another dimension from our 3-D environment. I have nothing to substantiate this other than my readings on the origions of life, and the fact that at a specific time, an inanimate object began to replicate. This replication required storage of information. This information is carried with us today in our gentic memory, DNA. While this information is like raw data, a discretion is evident in the way the data is assimilated. The “intelligence” behind this assimilation is not evident to us yet, but in observations of animals and social structures, it does not appear to be bound by physical contact.
The idea of light is close i think, but only insomuch as light differs from matter. It is a similar quantum leap of energy-transformation. Thoughts and dreams have been known to be racial, and telepathic experiences have shown thoughts transfering from one mind to another … along an “astral plane”.
Also, a large undiscovered territory in human understanding is faith, and many people stand by the idea that thoughts can influence reality. This suggests that they have an independant reality, and 2-D or 3-D would not accurately define their nature, more like 1-D in the 4th-D, or something.
Our brains, as are the rest of us, are merely like radios able to send and receive signals, another argument for physical reality of thoughts, however other experimaents in telepathy eliminate any physical barrier, including time.
A very good author to read in this line is Lyall Watson.
i hope to see this subject expanded upon.
i have so many questions that i cannot articulate.
what are thoughts? how do we think? neurology baffles me, i dont see how these little transmissions enable our ‘thought’ - ponderings, wonderings, imaginations, dreams, perceptions, opinions etcetc.
how are our thoughts formed?
memory?
i am actually just finishing up a book (tentatively titled Truth versus Reality) in which i hypothesize that thought is actually an integral part of the universe. in effect, all matter is the embodiment of thought properties. due to our limited observational abilities, we only see the effects of these properties. so when we look at a rock, we do not see the thoughts that make up the rock we only see the effects of those thoughts. similarly, when nuerologists study the function of the brain, they do not see our thoughts, they see the effects of our thoughts.
double snowman you must read BERKELEY …that line of thinking (minus the contemporary scientific trappings you’ve invoked) has been used before, with minimal success as far as a comprehensive picture of mind/matter is concerned. my opinion anyway.
these days it seems to make sense to think of thoughts in two ways: 1) neurologically (scientifically) as in the physical and chemical processes in the brain. and 2) phenomenologically as in each individual’s “perception” or “sense” of his or her own thoughts.
personally i think its silly to think that “esse es percipi” (spelling? i have no latin skills) or “to be is to be perceived” as you suggest, double snowman. i think that’s an intellectually arrogant point of view. its also so obviously anthropocentric that it can’t honestly be considered in a comprehensive picture of the universe. certainly our perceptions and intuitions play a huge role in what we (subjectively) consider to be “the reality” of the universe, but come on 
is this last post not relevant to the solipsism thread?
i didn’t intend for that post to be related to solipsism.
I think a good way to understand the human brain is by looking at computers and how they function. Computers are basically primitive brains. Our brains basically a collection of programmed behaviors that tell us what to do in face of contingencies. The exact programming depend on which behaviors were reproductively advantageous during human evolutionary history. You may want to check out groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology/
I don’t though understand the exact physiological functions which manifest itself into human conscientiousness. But, I do speculate that if the process is understood, it can be replicated on a computer: an actual artificial intelligence, like Leutenent Data of Star Trek.
Heh,heh,heh! If we knew the answer to that, we’d know every single thing in this universe!
Look at this logically,
Thoughts are no quantity, occupy no space, are not seen to exist in any dimension yet we perceive them through images, so they don’t follow the laws of this universe as we know.
Moreover, thoughts is what is in the mind right? So, it’s really where does the mind exist? Now, my mind cannot lie to me only I can. If the mind lied, then I’d be nowhere, how would I think anymore, so the mind just performs. So, that means I can lie but not my mind.
Therefore, the mind is pure completely, whereas I could be impure. Now we know that a spirit has the same properties as the mind does like occupies no space etc., and we also know that the spirit is pure, so does it not mean that mind is the spirit? Which means that our thoughts are the spirit.
So, I feel that we co-exist, that is, I and my spirit and both are distinct entities. Whatever…
Moreover, because our body resides in this universe, so when we die, our body dies, but the spirit does not because it lives in some other dimension and perhaps some other universe. This is possible because thoughts have the property of transmission even over long distances, remember? So this way I believe we never really die but live through the spirit and keep coming back to this world which is why there is fate and so all of us are unique and not the same 
And also, the dimension that spirit or thoughts reside in must be nothing. When we think of dimensions, we think of something like length, breadth, etc., but who is to say that nothing cannot be a dimension? Nothing could be a dimension. If something can be a dimension, then why couldn’t nothing be a dimension. So that’s where the spirit world is, in nothing. And this should make sense because things exist as relative. So, something is there and so nothing is also there. Or rather, nothing is there and so something is there. But then, this nothing being the mind or the collective thoughts has to be the super consciousness. It has to be God. Period! Now how did this nothing come to be and become the super mind is the part I don’t understand and also how did they create us? And most of all, the mind is there only when we think, so we have to be here first or at least simultaneously. But then, if the spirit can live when we die, then the spirit can exist by itself. So, the spirit world must have originated first and created us? That’s the supermind, they can do that, they can do anything with a mind that superior, I can believe that! Guys I just proved there is a God! Whatever…
I just don’t understand how this nothing became the supermind. But whatever, I believe in creation from now on. And I have to change my essays all over again, nothing new you know
To answer the question of where do thoughts exist, we first have to assume they exist somewhere. But perhaps they dont exist in any place. Theyre like concepts (in fact, they are concepts): they exist, but they dont have a definite place. Take the concept ‘infinity’; does it exist in any particular place? But this aside.
If the brain gives rise to thoughts, the brain doesnt have to be identical to thoughts. The cause (brain) and effect (thoughts) dont have to be located close in space. So there’s no reason to think thoughts should exist in our head. In fact, I think all of our thoughts occur in one common place far in the universe. This location has complicated wiring and detects all of our brains’ functions. That’s why some of us can ‘read’ each other’s thoughts or engage in clairvoyance or telepathy. This part of universe gets miswired in these cases, resulting in thought-reading.
Sound far fetched?
People have said similar things but let me babble a bit.
I have a aluminum can on my desk. It has a speicfic location that I can tell you in many ways (GPS coordinates and the like.)
That can is red, where does the redness exist? Well, a bee or some other creature would see the can differently (not red) so perhapse the redness must exist in me somewhere or somehow is emergent from the interaction between me and the can.
Now, I have a computer that has installed on it a program to play SimCity. Where does the city exist? Well there are many eletrical connections in my computer, yet I think none of them can be called a city. Here agian the interaction between the computer and my mind seems to be important, but I think beyond that the interaction between me and society is important- after all that where I learned what a city was, and if that concept changed in society, I would change in suit.
To make this breif, I think ideas are verbs that have been make into nouns like slash or edict. Where is a slash, is it in the object slashing the blade, or in the object being slashed or both? Where is a edict, in the dictator, in the people, both, all, beyond? Location is an essentialy different question for verbs in nouns clothing- there is no need for weird metaphysics here. Ideas are just essentially active.
I could use your own argument to prove otherwise. You say, “That can is red, where does the redness exist?” ‘I see it as red but the bee could perceive it otherwise.’
So our perception which is really our thoughts and which can be different even within the same context, does that not suggest a higher consciousness? Specially if you consider the fact that thoughts don’t really reside anywhere in us or outside of us but are everywhere or nowhere. Moreover, when a writer writes something, you can actually sense the writer’s voice in there even after the writer may be long gone. If this voice that speaks through the words is not the spirit that lives on then how does this voice not become dead after the person is gone, it should, but it doesn’t. And where exactly does this voice reside, the words are there we know in the book, but which domain does the voice come from or live on? I feel that our spirit lives on in those letters and words, that’s why there’s a voice even after we’re gone in our written words. I just feel that our thoughts are the spirit and it’s everywhere and it lives on. I don’t believe in heaven and hell above, they are all down here on earth. The spirit keeps coming back to this world. Whatever…
The can is red due to the interaction of the reflected light from the can with our eyes, and our brain then translates this data into ‘red’. Although there is no way to tell whether we all see red in the same way. If for example our mind went on holiday into someone else’s brain, then imagine what wierdness would ensue - things would be very alien I suspect. Our conceptualisation is surely just an amalgamation of what has been taught to us by our surroundings (especially other people). Would someone who has been raised by wolves, for example, even concieve of the idea of different colours? What I’m saying is, is that the ‘higher conciousness’ is simply the society in which we find ourselves born into.
I think you are mistaking between behaviour and perception. There was a child in India I heard who was raised by a family of dogs far away from human inhabitation. When he was found and brought inside a home, he used to hide underneath the table and behave exactly like a dog. That’s because he was conditioned like that because of his upbringing and so his behaviour reflected likewise. But his perception of everything would be exactly the same as another human, just his behaviour was different because of a different conditioning. So, don’t mistake behaviour with perception, they are two different things. And don’t give me some physics and properties of reflection please! I’ve studied science and have a higher degree and besides, this is philosophy. As for someone being raised by wolves and not conceptualizing the idea of perceiving colours differently, all I can say is that they can have limited knowledge about things and so rationalisation and as such higher thinking might be affected because of that, but perception cannot change, because what a human perceives is because his own senses and not using the senses of a wolf. But the behaviour could be wolf-like if that’s what he has learned. Learning is different from perceiving, you’re mixing the two.
What evidence do you have that the wolf-boy would see things like a normal human? I bet if we were able to sit him down long enough to take some test things would come up quite interestingly. If I had to hypotheise I’d say he would probably be much better at tracking motion. Have higher distiction in colors that were usefull to him, and lower distintion of colors that were not. And he will probably be less able to distinguish between all these tiny letters. The brain (which does all the perciveing) is higly maliable, especially in a child. I’m sure it would adapt to fit its new task.
First of all, alot of people are talking about ‘thoughts’ being able to travel through space and are backing up their arguments by making reference to telepathic abilities. I’d like to see some evidence to support these claims.
Dimension is usually defined as something that can be measured along a line and that measurement can be used to find cooridinates on a grid things like length, height, width and duration/time. I don’t see how ‘nothing’ fits into the same category.
I know you’re referring to literary voice, but I want to get this out of the way first. When you read, don’t you hear you’re own voice in your head, do you even hear a voice in your head or do you just ‘scan’ over the words.
As to a literary voice one can interpret art in very different ways. My idea of the meaning of a certain passage by a certain writer is probably very different from yours. It is true that an artist leaves something perminant of themselves behind when they die, but to say that what ever it is that remains exists outside the realm of perception is fallacy. Especially when the issue of translating texts comes into play.
I liked LostGuy’s red can/thoughts as verbs point though. To think of thoughts as something that exists externally and can be defined in terms of space is as absurd as saying that unicorns don’t exist.