[Marsha]
I have the 'activity of thinking' connected to language, which would be
but one type of mental fabrication within consciousness.
[Arlo]
In your opinion, is language something we "think with", or is thinking
itself the very use of language?
[Marsha]
There are all types of mental experiences that fall outside of this
definition.
[Arlo]
Well, that was my question, a way to differentiate between "thinking"
and "non-thinking" states, a definition that allows you to say "that is
thinking, but this other thing is not thinking".
You mention thinking being "connected" to language, I'm wondering if you
could elaborate on the nature of that connection? Are they synonyms? Can
you ever have one without the other? Can you have thought without
language? What about language without thought?
[Marsha]
Within the MoQ, I think 'the activity of thinking' included within both
the social and intellectual levels.
[Arlo]
Well this is definitional, if you define "thinking" in such a way as for
it to apply to social and intellectual patterns, then yes it would be
included in both. I do, by the way, so I agree with you and Ian. I also
further agree with Ian (and this puts me at odds with Pirsig's MOQ) that
"thinking" is most valuably defined to include certain activities we
experience in non-human species (since I do not agree with Pirsig's
restriction of the social/intellectual level to just humans).
But yes, the value of a definition is pragmatically valuable for its
usefulness in describing experience. For example, a neurobiologist may
indeed define "thinking" as the detectable firing of neurons in certain
areas of the brain, in which case our society holds this as having value
in making terminal decisions about brain-damaged or comatose patients.
On 8/3/11 2:04 PM, MarshaV wrote:
Hello Arlo,
On Aug 3, 2011, at 1:20 PM, Arlo Bensinger wrote:
[Marsha]
I agree that the concept of 'thinking' is an intellectual pattern. But I
thought it was stated, somewhere, that the activity of thinking indicated the
intellectual level.
[Arlo]
How would you define "thinking"? Or, what "activity" would you witness and point to and say "that's
'thinking'"? What has to occur to differentiate, in your opinion, "thinking" from "not thinking"?
Marsha:
My point was that I thought someone (maybe Dan, maybe someone else) had stated
that the Intellectual level was thinking.
As for a cultural, common use, I think we tend to use the term loosely to refer to some degree of information
processing embedded in some bio-neural mass. It's outside the cultural norm, for example, to use "thinking"
to describe the activity of the sun, or a computer, or a tree. If I say, "that tree is thinking about the next
rainfall", would that make sense (within the cultural use of the term)? What evidence would I point to in a tree
to differentiate a "thinking" from a "non-thinking" state?
Granted, there is an inherent reductionism in defining "thinking" as the firing of neurons in a brain mass,
but this tends to be the evidence we look for to support our shared cultural understanding of the term. Interestingly,
if we equate "thinking" in some way with neural activity, we may have to grant that "computers
think", since a similar "firing" of nodes occurs within computer processors when it processes
information.
For example, if I ask the person sitting next to me "what is two plus two?" and he responds "four",
is that evidence of "thinking"? If so, why would I not say my calculator was "thinking" as well
when it gives me the same answer?
I've read some post-Peircian work that speculates that abduction (or hypothetical inference, which ties into Pirsig's
works) may be a differentiator between human and machine information processing in determining "thinking". So
"thinking" isn't JUST the processing of information, or inducing or deducing, or making input-output
decisions, but rests on the ability of the "thinker" to abduce, or hypothesize, or (maybe too simplistically)
the generation of something "new".
What do you think?
Marsha:
I have the 'activity of thinking' connected to language, which would be but one
type of mental fabrication within consciousness. That would be as' talking to
another person' (an external experience), or 'talking to oneself' (an internal
experience). There are all types of mental experiences that fall outside of
this definition. Science of Mind and Philosophy of Mind are very active fields
right now, with many diverse opinions. At the moment, I know very little of
the current thought on the subject. Within the MoQ, I think 'the activity of
thinking' included within both the social and intellectual levels.
Marsha
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