I believe the answer to this conundrum is that the brain has an intimate link with consciousness. The brain sees consciousness as itself (that's why my brain produced thoughts saying "I am my consciousness/awareness"). From the brain's perspective, the brain = the self = consciousness.
So consciousness is a part of the brain that the senses, including thought, communicate to. I understand consciousness as a computer-monitor-like device that actually has several monitors for all of the senses. This monitor is where all the senses are drawn together to create a sensory-data-image of the present moment. Trees are drawn in consciousness, ruffling leaves are heard, thoughts are heard, scents are smelt, etc. Essentially, the brain recreates the outside world inside consciousness (a monitor of the outside world). Thought is also thrown into this recreation of the world. Don't you hear your thoughts as you pass by an attractive person or look at yourself in the mirror (goddamn! lookin' fine.)?
So my question from the last post was: why would the brain insert thoughts into consciousness? What is the purpose of hearing thoughts? Why not just react to the senses without hearing thoughts?
Humans think in language, in labels, in words. We also think in images and other senses (daydreaming). Thinking constitutes drawing data in consciousness that was not observed with the five external senses. But why think?
Thought has many extraordinary benefits. The ability to think has allowed humans to suffer in the present while expecting returns in the future. Thinking allows us to learn from mistakes and analyze scenarios in depth. Thinking is expanding upon what is sensed. Thought is the combination of memory and senses. What is sensed is recorded in memory. Thought is recalled from memory after the memory is triggered by that which is sensed. A thought is essentially a fragment of one's memory.
Humans have the ability to combine the past with the present, but also the ability to conceive of a future. If thought is merely memory (past) plus sensory data (present) then how do thoughts about future come about? I'll leave with this question; I've got physics homework to do.
_S E X Y B A C H E L O R_
Cool posts. I wrote these quite a while ago, and it was a very interesting and enjoyable time of my life living in this perspective. I was thinking a lot about thought, and I (either closely before or after) just finished reading the book "Understanding Zen" which motivated much of this thought.
ReplyDeleteI still see things practically the same way, but with a subtle yet large difference: I am all my physical components--not just my consciousness. This means I am the hand touching, the nervous system processing the touching sensation, the consciousness perceiving the touching sensation, the (some set of components in the brain) constructing thought as a result of the touching sensation, and the consciousness perceiving that thought. The concept of consciousness seemed super vague after reading back through these two posts about thought. To me as a physicalist, consciousness is an extraordinary experience produced by purely the physical machinery of our brains. So to reduce things further, I am just my body (including the brain).