The foundation of knowledge is thought, not concepts dreamt up by thought. Any system of explanation we build (concerning existence) must have the start point “thought exists”. Anyone disagree ?
Very good. This is what interests me too. Less the content of thought, more thought itself. The stuff that philosophy is actually made of. Seems like this could merit more attention.
Don’t disagree exactly but…
If we were to focus on the nature of thought (as opposed to the content of thought) we might observe that thought doesn’t always exist, and that during these times we get on quite well without a system of explanation. Instead of explaining existence, we more fully exist. A shift from the abstract to the real.
First off you would need to explain the difference between ‘thought’ and ‘concepts dreamt up by thought’.
Consider water. What are it’s properties, what is it’s nature? Now consider all the things made of water: the ocean, ice cream, brains, clouds etc.
Whatever the properties of water are, they influence everything made of water. By understanding water, we understand something about the fundamental nature of the ocean, ice cream, brains, clouds, and a million other things. Shifting the focus of an inquiry from the periphery to the center might be seen as reaching for a point of greatest leverage.
Next, thought is the tool we are using to conduct the inquiry. It seems a good reasonist would first understand the tool they are using, so they can account for any limitations or biases the tool may introduce in to the data.
If the nature of thought is XYZ, then probably all of our theories and conclusions will be XYZ flavored. If we haven’t bothered to investigate the nature of thought, then we’ll think XYZ is a quality of whatever we’re investigating. If I’m wearing pink tinted sunglasses, everything I look at will appear pink. If I don’t realize the pink is part of the sunglasses, I’ll conclude all of reality is pink.
If we don’t understand “the foundation”, we don’t understand much.
Two things come to mind.
Water is already a high level abstraction. The foundation is subatomic. If you were to consider oceans, etc. in terms of the most fundamental elements, then you would probably get very confused indeed. I don’t think it would lead to greater understanding.
Thought also seems to be more like language or software. Does software exist if it is not being used? It makes itself manifest as a specific pattern of interaction. Similarly, ‘concepts’ are manifestations of thought.
Is this going to be another “Only thought exists and we live in the mind of god” kind of thread ? 
Yep.
The “foundation of existence” is affect/experience.
From affect comes intelligence.
From intelligence comes thought.
From thought comes concepts.
From concepts comes epistemology (organization of knowledge/concepts/experiences).
“Thought exists” is irrelevant to understanding existence.
Thought must project an image of its own operation onto itself in order to proceed. This image of thought is less like a concept and more like the ground into which concepts are to take hold. This image of thought is not preceded by thought; rather, the two work in tandem, contemporaneously. An image familiar to the Western tradition is, of course, representation. Everything happens as if thought represented its objects to itself. It is the image that precedes the concepts, by necessity. So, yes, I do disagree with you, Chester. Your opening post is infantile and naive; it’s the equivalent of the claim that since all living beings are formed matter, then we must presuppose matter without form as their ultimate ground. No.
Good point! Yes, of course, the thought is electro-chemical. So a shift from the content of thought to thought itself is a movement one level up so to speak, not to the ultimate foundation. Discussion of ultimate foundations probably belongs in the religion section. 
Well, until Chester weighs in on where he wants to go here, we could try it and see. Or not, as members wish.
Um, well, sure it does. In the perl software language, the software exists in the form of text files on your hard drive.
Let’s trace it up the chain.
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At one level, all thought is a complex pattern of chemo-electrical on/off switches, right?
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This biologically based “on/offness” gives birth to the inherently divisive nature of thought. Thought inherits the properties of it’s source.
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To see this in action, we can go up the next level to language a product of thought, which also shares this fundamental “on/offness”. Consider a noun. The word “tree” divides all of reality in to “tree” and “not tree”. Tree is on, or tree is off. Language inherits the properties of it’s source.
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And now up another level to the day to day process of philosophy, where this post will be declared right or wrong, on or off. Philosophy inherits the properties of it’s source.
Starting at the biological level, we can trace the dualistic essence of thought up the chain all the way up to that urge someone now has to yell, “You’re wrong!” That is, off.
Why does this matter? The tool we are using to make our observations, theories and conclusions is fundamentally dualistic in nature, and the reality we are observing is all one big thing, ie. not dualistic. Thus, the tool introduces significant distortion in to our calculations.
Before we dive in to using any tool, we should probably first consider the tool itself. If we don’t understand the essence of hammers, we may never understand why our hammer continually fails to fix the broken pane of glass, and thus we may get stuck in an endless loop of making the same mistake over and over and over again.
???
Not at all…
Very briefly… Until we have evidence that somebody is in a position to come to meaningful answers about ultimate foundations, all beliefs on the topic can be labeled faith, thus, the religion section.
What I am trying to get across is the importance of thought as the starting point of an explanation of this existence. The easiest way is to consider thought as a substance, a medium that produces and exchanges information regarding reality and other ideas.
Thought is the only thing we know directly, let’s use this solid fundamental knowledge as a foundation for concepts regarding the nature of existence.
Rather than individual ideas (concepts dreamt up by thought) , we should treat thought itself as a substance, the foundation of existence on which all else stands .Thought should be promoted above all other considerations when it comes to where our concepts of reality need to start from. It’s the only thing we really know after all.
I’ll try and keep the Big Fella out of this. This is about what we really know for sure and why that knowledge must be the foundation of any of our explanations of reality.
How did the IQ test go, fairly low score was it? 
“Thought exists” is the only thing we know for sure, so I’m astounded that you think it is irrelevant to understanding the nature of where we are.
Wait a minute ! This is about what we really know for sure? So you’re not sure that god exists and we shouldn’t be sure?
God damn. Someone should screenshot this shit.
Treat thought as a ‘substance’? You better have some good reasons why we would do that. It’s about as insubstantial as anything gets. 
That’s not the software - it is a representation of the software. The same way that, on a hard disk, a jpeg of a painting is not the painting.
Software is only software if it is running.
Thought is only thought is it is being thought by a mind. 
Observation is just as important. Observation itself is not a thinking process, but it feeds the thought.
I disagree that thought exists.
It is better to say: Thought consists.
It consists in the mind.
Empirical things exist. Things external to the inner life exist. Things beyond the Self-image/Self-identity exist. But thoughts only consist. They are constructs of the mind. The mind correlates with brain states. Neurologists can measure brain states. Cognitive Psychologists can measure certain outputs of the mind. Measurement is very helpful for knowledge to advance.
Knowledge may be defined as "awareness of processes or events in relation to one another.
Chester ought to justify why any idea he selects is the “foundation.” Sure we are thinking about the topics of this thread. We are also conceptualizing about them. We are perceiving the words printed here. We are experiencing all of it. Why not say “experience” is the foundation? To Hume, it was “sensation.” Why not “perception”? Etc.
For the philosopher the “concept” is an adequate foundation. I shall explain why: as I understand the notion “concept” it connects the mind with reality, because every concept has both a meaning and an application. The meaning is mental; the application is empirical [except in the case of math symbols or logic concepts, where the intension and the extension are identical. This is also the case for imagination figments such as unicorn, Santa Claus, tooth fairy, etc.]. Hence the concept provides a relation between physical nature and human nature. Every concept has examples that are members of the concept’s class. It has cases or instances. They posses properties. So a concept is richer in meaning than a mere thought, and hence is more valuable. Meaning serves as the measure of value.
Neither the mental part of a concept, nor the example (or instance) of it, by itself, would be adequate - but when related together, which is what a concept does, then we get a fuller picture. And this is to be desired.