Just a thought

[Parodite]

Is it possible to think about thought? (ie. thought as the process of thinking)

Edit: probably indeed a useless question! But that is also the point.

Through the echo box

Thought can be called a subtitler. A visual perception of a green bal generates a subtitle that says: "That is green ball". A pain perception of a bad head ache brings to the fore the reflex: "This is a bad shitty head ache!". Usually the linear train stops there; thought is like arrows that one after the other shoot up in the air.. just to vanish with a boom or a whisper. Sometimes in between those arrows there is soft background noise surrounded by an alert silence; the senses are working but the subtitler is quiet.

But thought can also bite its own tail. You can create sensory deprivation, whilst thought can continue in principle. In the dark in silence you can lay down and just think, listen to your own thoughts and talking back, the dialogue in your head. Not a linear sequence of arrows, but more like a swirling firework hissing and rotating over the ground. Although it can be a very energetic event as with arrows, it doesn't seem to go anywhere much, like this post. It just sits here with a beginning and end, people may read it and shrug their shoulders moving on.

Prayer seems to me the most extreme form of self-talk. Eyes are closed on purpose, hands folded as to not do anything, sit quiet or even move your body towards the ground... as far away as possible from any sensory perception, leaving the motoric system entirely idle. And then try reach through the bottom and beyond the furthest stars, saying things that can never be answered. Or the answer comes with such a time dilation that you don't recognize it anymore as your own.

[Nonc Hilaire]

I think so.

[Parodite]

I think so.

Me too.

[Hoosiernorm]

1 Corinthians 14:14 English Standard Version (ESV)

14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.

[Parodite]

1 Corinthians 14:14 English Standard Version (ESV)

14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.

Can you explain this verse, Ho. If it means that the best prayer is the most silent.. listening one.. it makes sense to me.

[Nonc Hilaire]

1 Corinthians 14:14 English Standard Version (ESV)

14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.

Can you explain this verse, Ho. If it means that the best prayer is the most silent.. listening one.. it makes sense to me.

Paul is talking about glossolalia in this passage. One really needs to read the whole section for it to make sense.

[Parodite]

1 Corinthians 14:14 English Standard Version (ESV)

14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.

Can you explain this verse, Ho. If it means that the best prayer is the most silent.. listening one.. it makes sense to me.

Paul is talking about glossolalia in this passage. One really needs to read the whole section for it to make sense.

I read 1 Corintians 14

Ok. So making random noise is ok, but better is to add sense and interprete.

Now Paul also ordonates in 1 Cor.14 women to be quiet and just listen... does this mean that "a silent prayer" where you just listen (as I proposed) ... is a sissy gay-ish thing to do?

[Zack Morris]

Isn't this about free will? I don't think it really exists. One cannot seem to actively control their thoughts and decisions, they just spring forth and flow naturally. What seem to be decisions are merely thoughts that appear in your head. It's arguably the greatest paradox of existence. A growing body of evidence shows that we feel like we are in control but that our actions, thoughts, and decisions are actually formed by processes we are not consciously aware of (let alone in control of).

So yes, you can think about thought. We are doing it right now... because we read your words.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Prayer is supplication and entreaty, and I think it's unfortunate that English doesn't capture prayer particularly well despite the beauty and depth of the language as crafted by Wycliffe; Cranmer; Shakespeare; Milton; Chaucer; Donne and others.

As for getting caught in thinking about thinking...you are going to drive yourself until you Kant even get over the walls. There is no way to go from thought to extension without embracing that 'things' are real and proceed your thought process. In other words, you can only think of what you know, and that's just my thought.

[Parodite]

Isn't this about free will? I don't think it really exists. One cannot seem to actively control their thoughts and decisions, they just spring forth and flow naturally. What seem to be decisions are merely thoughts that appear in your head. It's arguably the greatest paradox of existence. A growing body of evidence shows that we feel like we are in control but that our actions, thoughts, and decisions are actually formed by processes we are not consciously aware of (let alone in control of).

So yes, you can think about thought. We are doing it right now... because we read your words.

Indeed there is little reason to believe that "free will" is something big: most of what happens in the body, the brain included as well as the motoric behavioral output occurs without the intervention of thought, or at best with an after thought.

On the other hand you can make a case that much behavior simply doesn't happen without conscious awareness. Now itself that doesn't prove causation - it could be mere correlation. That by some freak-ish twist of nature certain behaviors only occur in a conscious state but without a causal correlation in fact. But the correlation is so strong that causation can be said to be likely.

Then if the conscious state of the brain can safely be assumed to be a causal participant needed for certain behaviors to occur that otherwise never do occur.. the question of conscious free will would become as any known causal process in nature: how much "freedom" is there in any natural process as we understand them at this point? Are events totally deterministic or indeterministic?

"Free will" dies if the nature of reality were 100% deterministic, as you'd be chained for life. It would also have no chance if reality was 100% indeterminstic for then any free choice would end in some random result disconnected from the events leading up to it.

So "Free will" needs both of them. And lo-and behold: so far all science suggests that both aspects, the deterministic and the indeterministic participate in the same reality. Or: the certainty of what happened (classical/newtonian physics in as far as it allows us to predict the past) with the uncertainty of what might happen (quantum physics where the future is the virtually "empty source" that causes a present to collapse into its past), are the axis of this supernova that jetstreams our lives into existence, as creation, destruction and free-will everywhere as a force to change the past.

The function of free will as we know it, applies especially to longterm planning and modelling realities such as guesstimated futures. The shorter the action is from the now-point, the more reflexive it is. But if we plan a holiday for next summer...using free will, why not? At one point free will is just what we mean it to be... nothing more nothing less. No need to turn it into something absolute or beyond-ish.

[Parodite]

Prayer is supplication and entreaty, and I think it's unfortunate that English doesn't capture prayer particularly well despite the beauty and depth of the language as crafted by Wycliffe; Cranmer; Shakespeare; Milton; Chaucer; Donne and others.

Yes, I'm sure for many people praying is much more than : "Please you Motherf*cker Creator, gimmi some of that peaceful lavender and blessing, I prayed long enough for it now".

As for getting caught in thinking about thinking...you are going to drive yourself until you Kant even get over the walls.

Kant again...who was both right and wrong IMO.

There is no way to go from thought to extension without embracing that 'things' are real and proceed your thought process. In other words, you can only think of what you know, and that's just my thought.

Indeed my thoughts, or visual image of my PC screen that is proven to be a brainprocess occuring in the visual areas of the brain in the back of my head, are as real and really what they are as also is my PC screen "an-sich" really what it is still there resting on my desk, faithfully waiting untill I return the next day.

An Sich not a bad idea..

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Prayer is supplication and entreaty, and I think it's unfortunate that English doesn't capture prayer particularly well despite the beauty and depth of the language as crafted by Wycliffe; Cranmer; Shakespeare; Milton; Chaucer; Donne and others.

Yes, I'm sure for many people praying is much more than : "Please you Motherf*cker Creator, gimmi some of that peaceful lavender and blessing, I prayed long enough for it now".

As for getting caught in thinking about thinking...you are going to drive yourself until you Kant even get over the walls.

Kant again...who was both right and wrong IMO.

There is no way to go from thought to extension without embracing that 'things' are real and proceed your thought process. In other words, you can only think of what you know, and that's just my thought.

Indeed my thoughts, or visual image of my PC screen that is proven to be a brainprocess occuring in the visual areas of the brain in the back of my head, are as real and really what they are as also is my PC screen "an-sich" really what it is still there resting on my desk, faithfully waiting untill I return the next day.

An Sich not a bad idea..

Well, I think Kant was 'useful', particularly in showing the knots one ties themselves into trying to explain extensions by starting with the brain. You become too passive. Going back to your prayer-as-nothing in particular- the body gesture itself, folding hands, sitting quietly or being splayed on the ground are active gestures of docility and humble submission. They are actions, even if they don't seem it.

As for its passiveness and the form prayer takes today- I think we underestimate [in the sense we underestimate a lot of very influential people] the message Erasmus had. He envisioned the world as monastery with a totally interior life and a lot of what we experience is what he envisioned.

[Parodite]

Well, I think Kant was 'useful', particularly in showing the knots one ties themselves into trying to explain extensions by starting with the brain.

No knot to me. Just a scientific fact one occasionally needs to take into account during certain philosophical discussions.

You become too passive. Going back to your prayer-as-nothing in particular- the body gesture itself, folding hands, sitting quietly or being splayed on the ground are active gestures of docility and humble submission. They are actions, even if they don't seem it.

You mean the attention turns inward?

As for its passiveness and the form prayer takes today- I think we underestimate [in the sense we underestimate a lot of very influential people] the message Erasmus had. He envisioned the world as monastery with a totally interior life and a lot of what we experience is what he envisioned.

Maybe you can expand on that some. I'll admit with shame I know very little of Erasmus.

[Nonc Hilaire]

1 Corinthians 14:14 English Standard Version (ESV)

14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful.

Can you explain this verse, Ho. If it means that the best prayer is the most silent.. listening one.. it makes sense to me.

Paul is talking about glossolalia in this passage. One really needs to read the whole section for it to make sense.

I read 1 Corintians 14

Ok. So making random noise is ok, but better is to add sense and interpret.

Now Paul also ordonates in 1 Cor.14 women to be quiet and just listen... does this mean that "a silent prayer" where you just listen (as I proposed) ... is a sissy gay-ish thing to do?

I doubt it. 1 Cor is written to a particular church. I read it as advice on how to conduct a dignified and proper church meeting. I don't think Paul is teaching prayer. I think he is discussing behavioral irregularities in the Corinthian church.