Actually they do exist. For example, a quantum processor developed by Google is discussed here: https://www.tum.de/en/news-and-events/all-news/press-releases/details/exotic-phase-of-matter-realized-on-a-quantum-processor — wonderer1

Thank you, that is the most comprehensive explanation I have read, and I bookmarked it.

I disagree about the breaking the part. I'd say we use science to learn the rules, and learn what can be accomplished by doing things in accordance with the rules. — wonderer1

:lol: Well, we can certainly argue that point. If God wanted man to fly, he would have given them wings. Of course, I agree with you, but some might say that filling the air with carbon dioxide is breaking a rule that should not be broken, and the consequences will lead to regret. This is dear to my heart because of how I understand democracy, and doing "the right thing". Ideally, science leads to better decision-making, not the destruction of the plant, and a few aboriginal people around the world are much more sensitive to living in harmony with nature, than God's chosen people. :brow:

I disagree. An abstraction leaves us with something general and something specific. And their relationship is one of similarity. I consider, on the other hand, following Deleuze, that an idea is a virtual set of relationships and powers that revolve around a nucleus. For example, the Idea of colour is a system of relationships of intensity, light and vibration which, when actualised in a body or object, produces a multiplicity of concrete colours. The Idea is the network of relationships, not the final object. We create the concept of red as a result of this network of relationships and potentials. But the concept of red no longer represents anything neither is something specific to something general. The idea is the relational that creates something concrete. In this sense an idea is something objective and virtual. — JuanZu

This does not look like the thinking of a binary American. Are you from another culture? In my book, that makes you more valuable. Different points of view are important. Especially with a quantum physics future.

I just posted this on another thread. It certainly fits here. Obviously, nobody is going to agree with me. :grin: But this might be my answer.

• The brain is a physical object.
  
• There is activity in the brain.
  
• Our consciousness of - that is, our subjective experience of - the brain's activity is the mind. At least some of its activity. Not, for example, the activity that keeps the heart beating. I'm talking about the activity that perceives, retrieves stored information, weighs multiple options and chooses one over the others, and other things that we think of as mental activity. All of these things are physical activity, involving ions, neurotransmitters, bioelectric impulses, etc. The mind is our subjective experience of that mechanical activity. Brain activity is photons hitting the retina, sending signals to the brain, etc. Our subjective awareness of that is red.
  
• I'm not sure there's a difference between mind and ideas. What mind exists when there are no ideas? Information about past events and thoughts are held in a storage system. At any moment they are being accessed, they are memories, which are part of the mind. What about when they are not being accessed? They are physical structures (I don't know the specifics of the storage mechanisms) just sitting there, not doing more than they would be doing if time was frozen. This idea isn't limited to memories. It applies to anything regarding our minds and thoughts.
  
  Or is there a difference between thoughts and ideas? Are there thoughts that aren't ideas?

Or is there a difference between thoughts and ideas? Are there thoughts that aren't ideas? — Patterner

If you are an objective idealist like Plato, ideas are something external to the subject, and thought simply access to these ideas.

From my point of view, ideas are the objective relationality that takes concrete form in thought. For example, the idea of justice involves human beings, relationships between them, coexistence between them, duties, power and legislation. These things are objectively related, and the subject perceives them as a problem that is decided in the concept. For example, distributive justice is the concretisation in the subject of these virtual relationships.

I guess there are different types of ideas, and some are more complex than others. I think the complexity of the idea of justice is getting in the way of what I'm wondering about, and what I think the OP is about. Can we discuss a less complex idea? Any simple object. A marble. Right now you have the idea of a marble in your head. What is the nature of that idea? What is it, so to speak, made of?

And I wonder if there's a difference between ideas and thoughts. Are there any thoughts that are not ideas? Are there any ideas that are not thoughts?

Any simple object. A marble. Right now you have the idea of a marble in your head. What is the nature of that idea? What is it, so to speak, made of? — Patterner

It is difficult to think about what an idea is made of. According to Platonic tradition, an idea is a sui generis and eternal element, but external to the subject who accesses it. But I do not know if it is legitimate to ask what it is made of. It is like asking what the smallest thing in physics is made of. They are sui generis things.

From my point of view, when we think of a marble, we do not think of an idea. We have a concept, a notion, or an image. But the idea is something external and virtual, constituted by external relationships and encounters. They are immaterial, and cannot be broken down as we break down an atom, for example.

Yes, I agree about what an idea is made of. My bullet points are a general idea of what I think.

So you think to fall into the category of "idea" it must involve relationships and encounters. What we have in our head of a marble isn't properly called an idea. It is only an image.

Do all fall under the umbrella of thoughts?

I have to agree with @wonderer1 who challenged your view that man exists and breaks the rules and is not bound by its rules.

In this case rules are most fairly interpreted as 'laws of nature or laws of the universe' or something similar.

Basically meaning. There's things that are possible and there's things that aren't possible. Doing the impossible would be breaking ''the rules''.
In your response to the other person who replied to you. You change the definition/interpretation. Creating an equivocation fallacy. By method of a shifting the goal post fallacy or so it seems.

In the response you suddenly hold 'rules' to have a definition closer to it's original meaning. Man made things. Or (if he exists) God made things. Suddenly to break to rules means to do things that some being didn't want us to do. (As seen in your use in the analogy of us polluting the air)

But this isn't the most reasonable interpretation of your original comment. Which seemed to imply ''humans do what can't be done" which is a contradiction. (Which the other responder noticed)
So afterwards it's redesigned to mean ''humans do what God (if he exists) didn't want us to do" but was possible to do. Which is vastly different. In the former we have a contradiction. In the latter we're just being independent and disobedient.

I'm not sure there's a difference between mind and ideas. What mind exists when there are no ideas?

Thank you for posting this here. It's interesting.

I doubt the first three bullet points are so controversial?
So I'd like to move on to the fourth.
You said mind is the activity arising from an object. In this case a brain. But a mind exists only if there's subjective experience (which you deem to be consciousness). So a computer calculates but doesn't have a mind. Agree? If so. Now when you say that mind is not different from ideas. Then if they are the same then they are co-referential. As in they have the same properties all the way through.

Argument:
Suppose that mind is the same as ideas
If something is an object or process and has subjective experience then it has consciousness or a mind.
Chat gpt is an object or process but doesn't have subjective experience.
So chat gpt doesn't have consciousness or a mind.
If the mind is the same as ideas then a mind is required to produce old or new ideas.
So chat gpt could not produce old or new ideas since it has no mind. But
Chat gpt can produce old or new ideas.
Therefore it's not so that mind is the same as ideas.

I think if you imagine a marble. It is the image of the idea of a marble. One could say the image is the idea in image form.

The relationships are probably internal/external.

So the relationship of the roundness of a marble. And it's texture or substance.

I think if you imagine a marble. It is the image of the idea of a marble. — Jack2848

But is it not so much more complex than this? Why is a marble a marble and a pebble a pebble? Or for that matter, a stone a stone, and a ball of dough a ball of dough. They're all similar, aren't they?

A child who knows nothing of science or even that the described objects do in fact vary in edibility can determine such. They do this from accessing or utilizing the grand network of sensory interpretation. A blind child might not see the difference between the objects, until they touch said objects. Tangentially, a child deprived of ability to experience taste would not notice said elemental difference between such.

What is a marble, really? A small, round, typically glassy object created for sport or entertainment. That's great. But what defines that, truly? Can we not compare certain types of people using similar definitions? We attribute meaning to words and words to meaning, and through this action, man becomes like a god. A false god, of course. But a god nonetheless.

But is it not so much more complex than this? Why is a marble a marble and a pebble a pebble? Or for that matter, a stone a stone, and a ball of dough a ball of dough. They're all similar, aren't they? — Outlander

A classic way is to play with the object by adding or removing properties until you find the essence of the object. Like a triangle: by removing or adding an angle, suddenly the object becomes something else, a square, and then you realise that a triangle is an object with only three angles. Then you have a general and universal concept or idea that subsumes the particulars. Another way is to make some colours "pass through a convergent lens, bringing them to a single point," in which case a "pure white light" is obtained that "makes the differences between the shades stand out." This second case, on the contrary, defines a differential Idea: the different colours are no longer objects under a concept, but constitute an order of mixture in coexistence and succession within the Idea; the relation between the Idea and a given colour is not one of subsumption, but one of actualisation and differentiation; and the state of difference between the concept and the object is internalised in the Idea itself, so that the concept itself has become the object. White light is still a universal, but it is a concrete universal, and not a genus or generality.

But is it not so much more complex than this? Why is a marble a marble and a pebble a pebble? Or for that matter, a stone a stone, and a ball of dough a ball of dough. They're all similar, aren't they? — Outlander

But if they form a sphere - one of marble, another of stone, etc - then we recognise the sphere, irrespective of the matter from which it is formed. That is why, in Aristotle's form-matter philosophy, the 'form' is what makes an object intelligible. If it's a lump or has no particular form, then it is not any thing, in that sense.

I have to agree with wonderer1 who challenged your view that man exists and breaks the rules and is not bound by its rules.

In this case rules are most fairly interpreted as 'laws of nature or laws of the universe' or something similar.

Basically meaning. There's things that are possible and there's things that aren't possible. Doing the impossible would be breaking ''the rules''.
In your response to the other person who replied to you. You change the definition/interpretation. Creating an equivocation fallacy. By method of a shifting the goal post fallacy or so it seems.

In the response you suddenly hold 'rules' to have a definition closer to it's original meaning. Man made things. Or (if he exists) God made things. Suddenly to break to rules means to do things that some being didn't want us to do. (As seen in your use in the analogy of us polluting the air)

But this isn't the most reasonable interpretation of your original comment. Which seemed to imply ''humans do what can't be done" which is a contradiction. (Which the other responder noticed)
So afterwards it's redesigned to mean ''humans do what God (if he exists) didn't want us to do" but was possible to do. Which is vastly different. In the former we have a contradiction. In the latter we're just being independent and disobedient. — Jack2848

Hum, I 100% believe in universal truths about how things work (logos), and I am opposed to any notions of a mythical god that has human qualities. It is obvious that humans hold more knowledge than they did in the past, yet they continue to do things that are harmful to the planet. So I do not understand what seems to be an attempt to have an argument. Where do we disagree? Would the concept of "paradoxical" help?

We seem to be going a bit off topic. I was about to start another thread so we didn't hijack this one. Then I realized it's your thread. :rofl: So all good.

My position is such that most of what you're saying just doesn't fit. I'll be as brief as I can, although I know it's still so long that I can't blame anybody for not reading it. Also, my position is relatively new to me, having taken various ideas for granted for so long, without having put much thought into them. Hopefully, I am not contradicting myself because of automatically saying things the way I did for so long.

1) My position is that consciousness is fundamental. It is a property of particles, just as things like mass and charge are. So there is always subjective experience.

Everything experiences its own being. For the extreme majority of the universe, it's only particles that are subjectively experiencing. Particles don't have any kind of mechanisms for mental abilities, perception, or anything else I can think of. Their consciousness is of simple existence.

Not that existence is simple. I'm just saying consciousness is there even when things like thinking, sentience, and awareness are not. The phrase I use is:
The things we are conscious of are not what consciousness is.


2) I think groups of particles are conscious as a group when information is being processed. The system that's processing information is a physical unit, and the act of processing information allows the consciousness of all the particles to subjectively experience as a unit.

I would guess the beginning of information processing was DNA synthesizing protein, although I'm sure there would have been precursors. But DNA has no mechanisms for things like mental abilities and perception. (At least the protein synthesis system, itself, does not. Obviously, once the body is made, which is the end result of protein synthesis, the mechanisms are there, and, at least in our case, so are mental Abilities, perception, and awareness.)


3) MINDS
I've quoted it several times, most recently just a few days ago in another threat. In Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam write:

A mind is a physical system that converts sensations into action. A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body. This process of changing inputs into outputs—of changing sensation into useful behavior—is thinking, the defining activity of a mind.

They then beginning discussing the simplest minds - molecule minds:
All the thinking elements in molecule minds consist of individually identifiable molecules.
It seems quite a stretch to say archaea or bacteria are thinking when photons got they're eyespots, and their flagella nice in response. And humans think in ways that have nothing to do with changing inputs into outputs in order to influence the welfare of the body. But I do think their definition is where thinking begins. Thinking would not have come to exist if the entities where it began in this extremely basic way were not interacting with the environment in ways that helped them survive. Thinking can be abstract now, but it couldn't have originated that way. It needed solid footing. Maybe the solid footing didn't have to have anything to do with the physical, but the physical did the trick. It offers consistency. So response to stimulus can be counted on to do what it's expected to do. That's needed, because thinking needs to make sense.

Among the changes evolution brought about was the addition of information processing systems. More and more were added, all tied together in the same physical unit. Therefore, all subjectively experiencing as a unit. Enough information processing systems and feedback loops are subjectively experienced as what most would say is true thinking, awareness, and self awareness.


4) As I said, human minds are far beyond simply changing inputs into outputs for the benefit of the organism. We have all manner of abstract thoughts. This is what I'm talking about when I ask if a mind exists if there are no thoughts. (I think "thoughts" is a better word than "ideas" in this.). I think people who arrive at the human mind in entirely different ways might be able to ask the same question. Certainly, there can be a lot going on in a human mind without anything abstract. We can and do "think" in the way Ogas and Gaddam describe. But for those who only consider the more abstract to be proper thinking, what do you have when there are no such thoughts taking place? The extreme example being under general anesthesia. Is there a mind present?

Those who say the mind is exactly and nothing other than the brain might say the mind is present, since the brain is. It's just not thinking.

Those who say the mind is a certain kind of brain activity might say there is no mind, since that activity is not taking place. I'm in this camp. I don't think there is a mind separate from brain activity. (Our consciousness - our subjective experience - of that mind is another matter.)

Those who say the mind is something different from the brain (soul?) would have to say whether or not there is a mind when someone is under GA.



So, as I said, much of your post doesn't apply to my position:

If something is an object or process and has subjective experience then it has consciousness or a mind. — Jack2848

There's always consciousness, since it is fundamental. There is not always a mind.

But a mind exists only if there's subjective experience (which you deem to be consciousness). — Jack2848

There's always subjective experience, since it is fundamental. I say a mind exists only if there's activity of certain kinds taking place. And, again, our consciousness - our subjective experience - of that mind is another matter. I suspect the abstract thinking is only possible when sufficient information processing systems, feedback loops, and consciousness are all present. Consciousness is always present. But we are the only things we are aware of that have sufficient information processing systems and feedback loops. Archaea's subjective experience of its mind, if we're willing to call it a mind for the sake of argument, is nothing like ours, and it doesn't not have abstract possibilities.

Chat gpt is an object or process but doesn't have subjective experience. — Jack2848

If my position or right, it does. Everything does. At least the particles do. And there is probably information processing taking place, so it may be subjectively experiencing as a unit. And I think we can probably give AI the "solid footing" that interacting with the physical world gave naturally-occurring thinking, just as we gave it information processing. But we need to give it a lot more, and feedback loops.

So I said if you have the image of a marble in your head. It's the image form of the idea of a marble.

You said there's an essential difference between other round objects and a marble. Ofcourse. I agree. And doesn't the image of a marble differ from the image of a ball of dough? It's true that the blind person only understands the difference between a small ball of dough and a marble after some sensory experience. (and given their lack of vision they would see a resembling image of a marble rather than the full image of a marble. But close enough to make one) and for all of us the experiences help us understand the meaning of the words used to describe such an image. And once these words translate into the image of a marble vs the image of a ball of dough + they "feel" that way when observing the image in our mind.
Then do they have the imagage form of the idea of a marble or ball of dough.

In other words. Yes the marble image is the idea. And only when you understand what a marble is through experience and reason. Does that idea become the full or really close to idea image of a marble. Before that it would be the image of a round thing. And if you never saw or felt a material substance then it would be the image and idea of a non material round thing.

Do all fall under the umbrella of thoughts? — Patterner

It is difficult to answer that question. We would have to define what a thought is. In my view, a thought is a relationship with an idea where the idea is actualised, but the idea is a diffuse problem, so the thought does not represent the idea. If we think of something as simple as a football, the thought extends to consider football as a sport, the players, how a ball is thrown, how it is kicked, a whole context that nevertheless remains virtual, waiting to be actualised as the thought progresses in its determinations. Thought is that mental phenomenon such as an image, a notion, a concept that is constantly being determined. But the important thing is that this is not a representation of something outside the mind. A football does not represent the kick or the throw; both are a virtual objective that happens to the ball and is determined as a concept in our thinking.

So it seems your saying:
1. Consciousness is fundamental.
2. Subjective experience is fundamental.
3. Both are thus an essential property of fundamental particles or whatever is fundamental in the universe.
4. The fundamental particles have no mind even though they have consciousness and subjective experience. And this is because at that level , consciousness is simple existence.
5. When fundamental particles become a process, from its configuration emerges one shared subjective experience and consciousness (i.e. in an apple or a chair or a human or a bacteria).
6. At some point such a configuration can bring about a mind and as a result necessarily thoughts.
7. If there are thoughts there must be a mind. If there is a mind there must be a thought.
8. Thoughts aren't necessarily ideas, nor necessarily abstract (i.e. don't necessarily are in language form)
9. So what you say are thoughts isn't necessarily in word form
10. Chat gpt has an emergent shared subjective experience and consciousness arising from the fundamental particles. And because it takes inputs from the environment and outputs data in order to sustain its usefulness and thus its existence. And because it has cognition (thoughts) it's said to have a mind.

It was definitely interesting. So a few things came to mind. The first is obviously that you're attribution of consciousness to fundamental particles contradicts current knowledge and not just current knowledge but also expectations of future knowledge, possibly even up until eternity. So it's almost a religious move.

I think you sense this. And this is why the second issue arose. Namely the definition you use for consciousness and subjective experience for fundamental particles and everything else as a result. No longer requires the usual abilities. Such as a living real-time changing awareness rather than a dead one.
You even define consciousness at the fundamental level as 'just existing'. Which makes sense because there's not much there at that level.

But that means that consciousness and subjective experience now mean ''existence''. Later when a more complex thing forms like a chair or a human. Given that subjective experience and consciousness arise from the fundamental and are merely existence. Then when they combine. Their consciousness and experience is also merely existence. It's then mind that emerges from the human configuration and the configuration that gives rise to awareness and so on.

So since consciousness and subjective experience are always present and are just existence. And chairs have consciousness and subjective experience. So in other words chairs exist.

But animals and humans have respectively cognition, and high level cognition (mind activity, thoughts, abstract or not abstract) such that they can feel pain and enjoy pleasure. Which we used to call subjective experience. (Which now is deemed existence). We then need a new word for this activity. When animals and humans feel, and laugh, or cry and so on.

.....

But then we are just changing words but it won't change the content. It won't change that a fundamental particle doesn't feel pain or pleasure.
If you were to make a new claim that fundamental subjective experience isn't merely existence, but rather that it is really feeling, sensing. Then how can we prove this? That would mean my chair is hurt by my sitting on it?

Well, I certainly appreciate you trying to understand me! Let me try to make things a bit more clear.

1. Consciousness and Subjective Experience are the same thing. Or maybe better to say the definition of Consciousness is Subjective Experience.

2. Consciousness is fundamental.

3. Consciousness is thus an essential property of fundamental particles or whatever is fundamental in the universe.

4. The fundamental particles have no mind even though they have consciousness (subjective experience). Consciousness isn't simple existence at that level. Rather, all that is subjectively experienced at that level is simple existence.

5. An information processing system (not just any old process will do) is not only a unit in regards to processing information. It is also a unit in regards to consciousness. Information processing unifies consciousness. Or maybe information processing is the environment in which consciousness merges. Or something...

Now all that can be internally consistent, but it's still speculation.

Mind is another matter. There are minds. We just don't necessarily have a good definition of it, know it's true nature, or all agree on the definition.

I can understand why Ogas and Gaddam say what they say. And it's surely the beginning.

A mind takes in a set of inputs from its environment and transforms them into a set of environment-impacting outputs that, crucially, influence the welfare of its body.

Surely, that describes minds. Even ours, at least in part. But it's still difficult to say a bacterium has a mind. It may have been inevitable, though, that, once there was information processing, sensing and acting upon what is sensed would come about.

At some point such a configuration can bring about thinking off the kind we do. Can thinking take place without a mind? How is "mind" defined such that it exists, but does not think?

I'm not clear about thoughts/ideas. Can we have an idea other than by thinking it? Has there ever been an idea that wasn't thought? I don't see how that can be.

But does that mean all thoughts are ideas? Are there types of thoughts that are not ideas?

There is surely thinking in non-word form. As I recently said somewhere, Ildefonso is a great example.

ChatGPT... I don't know. Is information being processed? I think the information processing has to be for - "in the eyes of" - the system doing the processing. DNA and some other molecules turn the information in DNA into proteins, which house the DNA, allowing it to keep synthesizing protein, and reproduce. Photons hit the retina, signals of that event are sent to the brain in a different form, *insert a thousand more steps*, the brain can act accordingly.

I don't think a calculator is processing information. It's just a tool we use. Is ChatGPT otherwise? I'm not arguing that it's not. I'm just thinking it might be a Chinese Room? It takes input, and outputs something. But is any of it relevant to ChatGPat? Or does it only mean something to us?

So a few things came to mind. The first is obviously that you're attribution of consciousness to fundamental particles contradicts current knowledge — Jack2848

What knowledge does it contradict?

Namely the definition you use for consciousness and subjective experience for fundamental particles and everything else as a result. No longer requires the usual abilities. Such as a living real-time changing awareness rather than a dead one. — Jack2848

I don't understand what you mean.

You even define consciousness at the fundamental level as 'just existing'. Which makes sense because there's not much there at that level. — Jack2848

I don't define consciousness as "just existing" at that level. I'm saying that's all there is to subjectively experience at that level. I'll try my vision analogy again. If i look at a ball that's just sitting there, that's all i see. A ball just sitting there. That doesn't mean I define vision as "just sitting there".


There is no information processing going on in a chair. So the particles are all subjectively experiencing, but they are not experiencing as a unit. And what they are experiencing is simple existence. They have no mechanisms or processes that could be subjectively experienced as things like feeling.

I'm talking about the activity that perceives, retrieves stored information, weighs multiple options and chooses one over the others — Patterner

Isn't weighing options and choosing among them a mindful activity? How does that work on a physical basis alone?

Do you think an idea X is a specific configuration X in the brain? — Jack2848

I am not sure what you mean. If X is the idea, yes, I think it is specific to the configuration. But then I ask myself how does this work. I am trying to think in terms of qubits. I am coming from a tiny understanding of sacred numbers, which are more than the quantity of a thing. I am anticipating the arrival of a math book that I ordered. It explains math as tools. I hope to make a better argument with information from that book.

As I understand it, a number can represent the quality of an idea. The number 3 has the quality of the triad, or triangle. Its strength is its form. That is so for all forms of matter. As is so of all sacred numbers. The rule against using AI really needs to be trashed. It gives a better explanation of the relationship between quantum computers and the triad than I can give. There is no way my small and limited brain can match AI, and short of a nuclear war, I don't think we are returning to the limits of binary thinking.

Our consciousness of - that is, our subjective experience of - the brain's activity is the mind. At least some of its activity. Not, for example, the activity that keeps the heart beating. I'm talking about the activity that perceives, retrieves stored information, weighs multiple options and chooses one over the others, and other things that we think of as mental activity. All of these things are physical activity, involving ions, neurotransmitters, bioelectric impulses, etc. The mind is our subjective experience of that mechanical activity. Brain activity is photons hitting the retina, sending signals to the brain, etc. Our subjective awareness of that is red. — Patterner

I think the discussion would go differently with a better understanding of math. What do you know about using math to discover things or explain how things work?

Isn't weighing options and choosing among them a mindful activity? — RogueAI

It is.

How does that work on a physical basis alone? — RogueAI

It doesn't. The world is filled with things people chose to make that would not exist if not for our minds. This is why we have always differentiated between natural and man-made objects. We can usually tell the difference at a glance.

I think the discussion would go differently with a better understanding of math. What do you know about using math to discover things or explain how things work? — Athena

I don't know exactly what you have in mind, but consciousness seems outside of the scope of mathematics.

Do all fall under the umbrella of thoughts?
— Patterner

It is difficult to answer that question. We would have to define what a thought is. In my view, a thought is a relationship with an idea where the idea is actualised, but the idea is a diffuse problem, so the thought does not represent the idea. If we think of something as simple as a football, the thought extends to consider football as a sport, the players, how a ball is thrown, how it is kicked, a whole context that nevertheless remains virtual, waiting to be actualised as the thought progresses in its determinations. Thought is that mental phenomenon such as an image, a notion, a concept that is constantly being determined. But the important thing is that this is not a representation of something outside the mind. A football does not represent the kick or the throw; both are a virtual objective that happens to the ball and is determined as a concept in our thinking. — JuanZu

I think you are making my point. "If we think of something as simple as a football..." We're thinking. Doesn't thinking involve thoughts? Can we think without thoughts?