Thought

It may come as a surprise - but the fact is that we do not think consciously. Our thinking is entirely non-conscious and very little filters down to our consciousness with a half a second delay. However, our consciousness through its "veto" powers may direct our non-conscious thoughts in a chosen direction.

Although in the above illustration I use lingual elements, our thought should be considered in non-lingual terms, i.e. in terms of sketchy images our brain sees. Sketchy images should not be considered in visual terms only, but in terms of combined sensory "input" and our reactions to it. I would suggest that the sketchy images are built from sketch-elements that invoke other sketchy images in a perpetual chain of associations based on patterns, feelings, emotions, sense of beauty, humour... A "parallel", also largely non-conscious world of symbols established by our language and the culture we grew into is in a constant dynamic interplay with our non-conscious thought, so much so that it is often difficult to notice a difference. However, I would suggest that there is a difference - an important difference that enables our thought to address our experiences that are outside of boundaries established by our language and culture. (This is particularly noticeable in cases when we are searching for words to express something.)

As we sleep - we dream. Vivid dreams, full of visual effects are caused by significant activity of our eyes (rapid eye movements or REM). But we also dream when our eyes are inactive and such dreaming state is often experienced as a kind of dialog with "somebody" or monolog that sometimes "loses" its verbal component and continues in a "sub-verbal" mode that is later difficult to recall. I would suggest that this is the closest we can get in directly experiencing our thought in action.

"Our description of the world and ourselves within it" is incomplete and full of contradictions that need to be resolved. I would suggest that our non-conscious thought is a "mechanism" that does exactly that - roams through (parts of) "our description..." identifying contradictions (tensions) and their patterns and altering parts of "our description..." in order to remove or minimise identified contradictions (tensions). This "mechanism" should be understood in terms of the stabilising impact an emergent property (thought) has on its "parts" (sketchy images).

Whenever our consciousness intervenes (with a half a second delay), our thought pauses for a moment and then starts again with its rapid pace in attending contradictions within an area of "our description of the world and ourselves within it". Interventions "tame" our otherwise wild thought, by restricting it to an area and "direction" of associations, but as soon our consciousness stops intervening, it flies on its own. The "parallel" world of symbols (that should be considered in terms of sketchy images of our speech) also interferes as soon a sketchy image of our speech is touched upon with its own chain of associations. However, there is always an underlying rapidly paced activity that gradually forms sentences of our spoken language.

The written form of our language requires even more (largely non-conscious) effort to form a coherent sentence. This is easy to notice when we simply write down what is said during a conversation. Although we do not notice this as we speak, the recorded conversation yields very few coherent sentences.

The page you are reading now, just like any other page on this site, did not just come out of my head. A general idea based on "subjective" experiences and some scientific findings were there - but it did not have this shape and structure. Many sentences were started and scrapped even before they were written. After they were written, they were read and reread again and again. Whole paragraphs were scrapped or rewritten and new ones were added. When it looked complete checks were made to see if there are any contradictions with other pages on this site as well as related scientific findings - again resulting in some changes to establish a satisfactory level of coherence. A skilled professional writer may have internalised this process up to a degree, but the basic outline is probably the same - and this outline indicates well internal workings of our thought.