Posted by boBB on June 2, 2000, at 13:04:24
In reply to more science, Adam? bob? anyone?, posted by CarolAnn on June 2, 2000, at 8:49:27
Thought is more like momentum. Quantum physics deals with the difficulty of measuring mass and momentum at the same time, and the same paradox likely applies to thought.
Thought is a quantum of various momentums, likely inside your brain and outside.
For example, you might think it is hot outside by seeing heat waves rising from pavement, or from actually feeling heat on your skin. At any rate, an inclusive view of thought (this might be an eco-psychologists view, but I think others hold it without calling it that) would embrace the subject of the thought (heat) as well as the process and perception (being hot and feeling hot).
From there, we get into the familiar mechanisms of thought - the processes of intricately networked neurons. Thought involves electrical activity - actual movement of electrons, and release of neurotrasmitters - most activity across synapses involves neurotransmitters or some kind of hormone, but some have said there is some raw electrical activity across some synapses, I think. Things also occur inside the brain cells that are part of thinking - proteins move about and recombinate in reaction to stimulus of various receptor sites at the synapse. These "pre-synaptic" activities are part of both thinking and learning. Learning is actual thinking, I would say, but there is the part of perceiving new information, processing, collating and integrating information, then later, maybe even while you are sleeping, filing the information away.
Another element of thought is the "brain language", whatever that is. It has I think to do with patterns of electronal and neurochemical activity that comprise the letters, which then form the next level, similar to a word. I don't mean actual words - the brian has a language that it uses to compile symbolic representations including spoken and written words.
For example, if your thinking "apple" you might be firing neurons in various spoken and written language areas, maybe for the phonetic sound of apple, and for the written appearance of the word, and maybe getting help from neuron networks that understand each individual letter, you might be firing neurons in taste areas, you might even have some neurons firing in speech areas even though you are not speaking - they are like anticipatory firings. And you won't have one neuron or finite group for "apple" you will have red information coming from here and childhood experiences of apples coming from over there and all these signals and more will be kind of forming a collective idea, which is a thought.
The billions and billions of neurons in the cortex is layered and if your are thinking of an apple, the "thought" might be electro-chemical impulses moving from the bottom layers toward the top layer, whereas if you are seeing an apple, the "thought" will be spreading from the top layers out and down through the bottom layers. The same when you dream - aminergic neurotransmitters are overpowered by cholinergines and the same neural networks that think when you are conscious sort of run backwards, with ideas coming from the inside out along the same networks that actually see, hear and feel. That is why dreams seem so real, but they are not as organized because conscious thoughts are ordered along networks connected by aminergines. Especially dopamine. too much or too little of that (about 20%) and you might get pretty disorganized in your thought, like dreaming, but awake and more like just crazy.
But there are basic, simple perceptual thoughts, like the imprint of a visual image on the occipital lobe (the back of the brain) and there are complex thoughts, such as in the frontal lobes where parts of thoughts and anticipated future actions from all over the brain can be pulled together and compared. In the association "lobe" of the cortex might be like an index, referring to "files" found all over the brain. Then there are deep thoughts, way below the cortical level - more like influences because they are not organized in the highly symbolized language the cortex uses to relate to the outer world. These deep "thought" (some will likely say they are not thought, but emotions or feelings) are imprinted in the limbic system - especially the thalamus, hypocampus and amygdala.
That is about the best I can compile from immediate recall and without getting out any books. I attended a few months of college, but never finished high school. I didn't learn any of this in school, but I didn't *think* it up on my own either. At least I don't think I did. And this is a very generalized compilation of some of what I have read. Brain language and brain mapping are vast fields of study but far from complete.
Darn, how do you reserve a copyright for a pseudonym?!@#&!!
poster:boBB
thread:35642
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000526/msgs/35681.html