Thoughts

[sound]

Originally Posted by Redchic12

Where do thoughts come from and where do they go?

Hi Redchic12 :)

Thoughts seem to be directly related to whatever I am experiencing, at any given time ... it seems to be an integral part of my conscious experience, and maybe, at times, a reaction to my experience, both externally and internally.

Like a few other members have expressed, thoughts and emotions, for me, are intertwined ... now to be able to stop those pesky thoughts/running commentary, and overwhelming emotion from time to time lol ... to still the mind ... that reveals to me, that I am somewhat independent from my thoughts, and while they are very useful, I have proven to my self, that I can manage without them for a bit lol ... and in saying that, I realise I also experience my thoughts ... its a rabbit hole, that's for sure!

I do rely on my thoughts and emotions for the most part, during this crazy journey, but I am discovering there are other tools in the shed!

[BigJohn]

Originally Posted by AngelBlue

My thoughts are many and varied and I can't stop them.
Sometimes I wonder if my brain is going to explode with it all !!!
But for whatever reason they are there !

Gee.... Blue Angel,

you should be like me. I am a 3D cardboard facimile running under AI (Artificial Inteligence) version 42.9.

Next week, I am going to get an upgrade so I will be a 5D carboard facimile running under AI (version 47.3)

[AngelBlue]

Haha John.
Well I can promise I won't be laid awake thinking about all that you just said.
I honestly just don't understand all this AI stuff.
I'm that gormless that I only just discovered it's actually " Ai" and not "AL " as I've been thinking all this time.

[Miss Hepburn]

For what it's worth, somewhere in the Bhagavad Gita there is this:
Perceive Me in every thought.

[AngelBlue]

" perceive me in every thought "...
Miss H , I think that really IS what happens with me!!....
I'm a nightmare of "thoughts"...

It starts with a single word, then a sentence, then a book , then a volume , then a second , third, fourth series ....
Then all the remakes forever Amen !!!

From little acorns great oaks grow.
I experience this every single night .
( Not that I'm bragging ! )

[DaneA]

"Where do thoughts come from and where do they go?"

Difficult to answer because there are many possibilities, stimuli internal and external - a worry, an external inspiration for an idea, a problem to be solved, a sound, a sound remembered, a creative spark - all starting a process of expansion that becomes a thought.
More interesting is where do dreams come from? Through the night they move from (often) highly abstract toward clarity of vision, chunks of which often make sense but joined in a sequence, don't. What triggers the imagination, if that's what it is, to come up with coherent bits and pieces often in an incoherent context?

[J_A_S_G]

Want a radical take?

Thoughts are a product of fundamental deterministic processes at the smallest scale, winding their way up through the quantum to the classic, and due to genetics, experience and neuroplasticity play around in the subconscious until a threshold is reached and they then appear in consciousness as recognizable patterns of thinking.

Okay, so it's not really a radical take except this line of thinking implies both consciousness and free will are illusion because it's pretty much determined before we are consciously aware. In other words consciousness and free will are emergent and not fundamental.

This is pretty much what neuroscience and psychology investigates - the 'Easy Problem' of consciousness.

[Unseeking Seeker]

I’d say thoughts arise when heart is not quiescent. Heart is the source, an intent wave is set up and then mind creates thoughts in symbols. If heart is still, no thoughts arise an₹ we abide in silence, in stillness.

When head melds with heart, our default orientation becomes thought rested silence.

[Nathaniel]

What a thought provoking question Redchic.

The question ‘what is thought’ obviously can’t be answered with thought, because thought can only produce more thought, even if it’s a thought of stillness or silence.

A thought based personality is created by the experience and subsequent knowledge accumulated since birth and it’s this thought based personality, or person, (commonly referred to as the ego, or the thinker) that thinks, because it itself is a product of the past, a thought, appearing to temporarily obscure the present, and as I said thought can only produce more thought. Try it out.

In other words thought is memory, or time.


By the way, to me an idea and a thought are not the same thing, which I suppose is a whole other discussion.

[Maisy]

The brain makes thoughts. In humans, it consists of about 100 billion neurons, making on the order of 100 trillion connections. The brain does a billion billion calculations a second when deciding what thoughts to present to consciousness second to second. "Old thoughts" are stored in memory and scientists have recently discovered the brain actually references these "old thoughts" when calculating new ones. Thus why people repeat sayings etc over time. Habitual thoughts.

It's a very complex thing as the brain has access to everything we have thought and heard and seen and experienced and said since before the day we were born. The brain has even stored voices and sounds and even thoughts and experiences before we were born while still in the womb.

We could be thought of as robots that believe themselves to be not robots. Most of us "think" or believe we are the ones thinking and not what is probably true, which is the brain makes the thoughts and "we" (conscious awareness) is merely fed this content. But seems to me the brain is actually designed to create the illusion we exist. Obviously we exist as we are consciously aware of all this internal and external content, but the brain is programmed to make us somehow identify with this content as a person or self. It's a very complex thing but we are said, (awareness) to only be able to be aware of 4 things at once when basically the brain is aware of trillions of things at once, so we pretty much believe whatever the brain is designed to make us believe.

But then what is "enlightenment?" Basically is an awareness waking up to the realization it is not the thought based person nor the body.