What is Thinking? - part 2 of 3
Theories of Thought
Transcript
Yes… What is Thinking anyway?
At nine years old, I thought about Thinking this way:
THINKING = an ever expanding series of thoughts - one thought generates more thoughts, and these in turn generate more, in a rather linear fashion.
At eighteen years old (beset by raging hormones & general confusion) I thought of Thinking this way:
THINKING = a wild sea of conscious and subconscious thoughts - on which my consciousness is a mere vessel, being tossed on the waves…
At 27 years old, when I got the hang of meditation, I thought of Thinking this way:
THINKING = a veil between us and our true consciousness - like a cloud that obscures the sun, the clear light of True Consciousness
Now that I am 36, I have formulated the following model:
The brain consists of a load of containers of impressions, emotions and memories… Consciousness zips through them as an electrical current. The connections that are made are our thoughts (I think).
I distinguish between three kinds of thought:
OBSERVATIONS - perceptions
CONNECTIONS - associations
CONCLUSIONS - deductions
For example:
“The sun is out” is an observation.
“Sun = warmth” is an association.
“I’ll wear shorts today” is a conclusion.
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I wish I had discovered meditation in my 20s! It would have saved a lot of angst. Although it might have led to me staying in the pharmaceutical industry for longer… Perhaps it’s better that I didn’t discover it then. It is immensely helpful to me now and I’ve only been practising it for a year.