Any way of thinking is given the name logic. — Agent Smith

Yes, there are different kinds of logic. I see the idea of logic as being the idea of the connectivity and coherence of thought. If thoughts were disconnected (if there was no underlying logic of their associations and relations) we would have nothing. So there is formal, rule-based logic, but I would say there are also logics of metaphor, of painting, of poetry, of music, of athletics, of dance, of metaphysics, phenomenology and so on. — Janus

I'm ok with that, I guess, although it is pretty circular. Earlier, I described possible connections between thoughts based on my personal experience:

So, back to the question of what connects the different elements. First - I'm sure there's probably more than one cognitive science way of seeing this such as, speculatively, the location where the element is stored in the brain or when the memory was created. Maybe there is some sort of tag that allows connection of thoughts, memories, etc. with similarities. Someone help me out here.

Personally, when I create a new thought, idea, memory, I experience it as tagged with a mental image. Letters I sometimes experience as colored. I usually see "L" as white or beige. "D" as a light yellow. Since those colors are similar, when I can't think of someone's name, I may come up with Dan when his name is Larry. Other tags might be a feeling, mood, tone. Of course, there are billions, trillions, quadrillions of connections between neurons in the nervous system, so things are immensely more complicated than this. — T Clark

I guess that describes what the two of you would call a "logic," whether or not you would agree with my particular formulation. If that's the case, then we agree.

In a nutshell, thoughts could be connected in many different ways than just logically and they maybe equally, if not more, important for...you know for what. — Agent Smith

It strikes me that thoughts, ideas, whatever, are not really stored in the brain at all. In my experience, they are created and recreated as needed. So, something is stored, but not fully formed ideas unless they have been memorized.

Yes. Logic is subjective, I have no doubt about this - otherwise we wouldn't be flinging hundred of thousands of words back and forth in this forum. — Hermeticus

In what sense is logic subjective. What I've been told is identifying and avoiding biases (subjectivity) is a critical aspect of logic and rationality. In other words, logic is what objectivity looks like under the current set of circumstances.

That said, many different strains of logic have budded out from classical logic (Aristotle, Chyrsippus, Frege) and we have this rather confusing array of choices that are either simply (mind) games of the benign kind or created out of necessity as classical logic fails to capture the richness of reality and human experience. Would you call this subjectivity or would you consider this a diversification of objectivity?

Would you compare the colour of an apple with the sides of an triangle for me? I'm curious how it would go :P — Hermeticus

Good question. I've always been intrigued by how language seems to have a much greater domain than logic. For instance. I can write/speak a contradiction. Here's one :point: I exist and I don't exist. However, I can't (seem to) think it! I wonder what advantage this give us? What's the upside of being able to utter/pen down "nonsense"? Is this a feature or a bug?

Probably not. — Hermeticus

Probably...

Well, I'm not a defender of the idea that the universe is logical. — Hermeticus

:ok:

I'm ok with that, I guess, although it is pretty circular. — T Clark

Please explain!

I guess that describes what the two of you would call a "logic," whether or not you would agree with my particular formulation. If that's the case, then we agree. — T Clark

It's wordplay I'm afraid.

It strikes me that thoughts, ideas, whatever, are not really stored in the brain at all. In my experience, they are created and recreated as needed. So, something is stored, but not fully formed ideas unless they have been memorized. — T Clark

Memorized and stored where?

Is it that only logical connections between ideas reveal truth/sense/reality? — Agent Smith

What hasn’t been mentioned so far are
1)Phenomenological Intentionality. This is not a causal
logic but an entirely different way of looking at meaning creation.
)Wittgensteinian language games:
This, too, is not a causal logic.

Interesting but what about memory impairment associated with depression and trauma. These have been documented or so I'm told. Funnily, this doesn't seem to happen with emotions at the other extreme (euphoria, ecstacy) or does it? — Agent Smith

I haven't made a study of memory enhancement and impairment. But my general impression is that depression is associated with hormone imbalance, causing overall mood level to go downward from the baseline. That would also tend to diminish the "fixing" of memories. And presumably euphoria would do just the opposite --- up to a point of diminishing returns. If you are interested, you might Google "bipolar studies memory", to see if remembrance matches the mood swings. It's possible that too much of a hormone could be as bad for memory establishment as too little. :sad:

"Studies report that some people with bipolar disorder have complained of memory impairment during high moods, low moods, and at times in between."
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/314328

So, we've arrived at an apophatic understanding - thoughts are not necessarily about logical connections! Now what? — Agent Smith

Like dogs, associations with taste & smell may help humans to embed memories. But, for optimum memorizing, we should aim for the sweet spot between the extremes of emotion. Unfortunately my typical bland mid-range mood doesn't seem to result in a good memory. So, I guess my baseline is already on the low end. :smile:

What you find most interesting is what you will mostly remember.



“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection. And as soon as”
― Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past: Swann's Way & Within a Budding Grove: 1

Very informative. Mind if you have a look at this case :point: Monkey Mind.

Monkey mind or mind monkey, from the Chinese compound xīnyuán and the Sino-Japanese compound shin'en 心猿 [lit. "heart-/mind-monkey"], is a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable". — Wikipedia

Method to madness?

This is, I'm certain, too obvious to state but for the sake of clarity, thoughts have, for good reasons no doubt, been 99% of the time, viewed with a rational/logical lens; humanity has, for most of its history, been (pre)occupied with the logical link between thoughts (ideas/concepts/theories). — Agent Smith

Western-world humanity maybe. The western ideal wants people to be 100% (scientifically) rational machines. With 100% rational thoughts (whatever that may mean). I can be 100% rational without thinking scientific though. What rationality you refer to? Only when you know that you can decide if you think rational.

In what sense is logic subjective. — Agent Smith

In the sense that it's us who invented it.

What I would really like to do is explore the possibility space on the matter of thought connections. Is it that only logical connections between ideas reveal truth/sense/reality? — Agent Smith

What would happen to this endeavor if all thought consisted of connections? We would be exploring the possibility of connections connections...

See the problem?

What would happen to this endeavor if all thought consisted of connections? We would be exploring the possibility of connections connections...

See the problem? — creativesoul

Can you think of any thought which is not associative, or in other words, "connective"?

Cannot. That is exactly the point. Talking in terms of "thought connections" like the OP chose to do is an inadequate method for better understanding what thought is and how it works.

Cannot. That is exactly the point. Talking in terms of "thought connections" like the OP chose to do is an inadequate method for better understanding what thought is and how it works. — creativesoul

Can you explain how thought works other than in terms of association, whether logical, metaphorical, magical, poetical, or whatever?

Well, in Hume's famous Appendix to his Treatise, he concluded that:

"In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou'd be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding."

Bold letters inserted by me.

He's probably right.

See the problem? — creativesoul

No. What is the problem?

The issue is random thoughts but according to Ramsey theory, true randomness doesn't exist.

:clap:

In the sense that it's us who invented it. — Raymond

Is mathematics invented or discovered?

See the problem?
— creativesoul

No. What is the problem?

The issue is random thoughts but according to Ramsey theory, true randomness doesn't exist. — Agent Smith

The 'problem' amounted to conflicting understandings is all. I mean, yours and my own, respectively. We have two very different notions of what counts as thought at work. It's as if we're working from two incompatible definitions of the term "thought". Oh, and apologies are on order here. The problem actually wasn't one with what you wrote, per se. Unless of course, I'm right. You see, I am of the belief that all thought consists entirely of correlations, and since correlations are akin to connections such as they are, when I see another write something like "thought connections", I cringe because, on my view, that would be like saying "correlations connections" or even "connections connections". So, my apologies for failing to spell that out clearly enough in muh first post.

Now, to this 'issue'...

We cannot say what a random thought even is, unless we first know what a thought is, for the former is a kind of the latter, a sort of sub-species, so to speak. So, circling back to the differences of notions or definitions here, I'm curious to know what you mean when you use the term "thought".

I don't know enough about "Ramsey theory" to comment about that aspect of your issue.

Well, in Hume's famous Appendix to his Treatise, he concluded that:

"In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou'd be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding."

He's probably right. — Manuel

Well, as astute as Hume was regarding some things, his notion of thought is found sorely wanting. His understanding worked from the notion of perception commonplace at the time. "Perception", as was used historically, was fraught.

Can you explain how thought works other than in terms of association, whether logical, metaphorical, magical, poetical, or whatever? — Janus

I've explained my objection above, for the third time. Yes, I can explain how thought works. I would not talk in terms of "thought connections" for all the reasons mentioned heretofore.

Sure, one need not agree with Hume's account of perception or the mind, to find merit in his thinking.

What he could not do, given his philosophy, is to find a "real connection" between thoughts, it was beyond him, unless he postulated what he calls a "fiction", meaning, more than is warranted by empirical evidence.

But putting aside his empiricism, he could not find a way to connect thoughts, he had to assume a connection. Sure, we can say that Kant might have solved this, or that connections are innate.

But his powers of reasoning was extremely sophisticated.

Point being, I don't see that we've improved on his reasoning in this topic, we don't know what it is that connects our thoughts.

Point being, I don't see that we've improved on his reasoning in this topic, we don't know what it is that connects our thoughts. — Manuel

I think we have, considerably. The notion of "what connects our thoughts" is problematic itself. It's based upon an understanding that led itself to a question about our thoughts that it could not answer because of the inherently deficient framework underwriting the question itself(because of the fact that Hume worked from a misunderstanding, an inherently emaciated notion of human thought/understanding).

To be more precise, I should've said what "principle" connects our thoughts, or even hazard to say what law. Of course, there's something in the brain that does this, but it seems to me we are in the dark here, because very little is understood about the mind/brain relation, outside of a dependency relation.

Who do you have in mind or what school of thought or theory do you have in mind when discussing these topics?

I've no particular conventional understanding in mind. Indeed, philosophy proper hasn't gotten much right at all as far as human thought goes.

I work from a strong methodological naturalist bent. Dennett's work is impressive, however, I do not think that everything is physical. I would, however, readily agree that everything - including thought - depends on the physical. I also reject many another historical dichotomy, on the same grounds of inadequate explanatory power. For example, the subject/object dichotomy, the internal/external dichotomy, the mind/body dichotomy, the physical/immaterial, the physical/mental, etc.

For nearly twenty years(when I first began studying and reading philosophy), I've been developing my own understanding of human thought and belief and all that that includes and/or leads to.

It makes no sense to me to wonder what 'connects our thoughts'. Very very roughly put:Our thoughts connect us to that which is not as well as ourselves, by virtue of leading up to an initial understanding of the world and ourselves("worldview" is more palpable to me).

Some of our thoughts are products of a process commonly characterized or described as thinking, imagining, pondering, wondering, remembering, envisioning, etc. However, those are much more complex thoughts than the much more simple ones we first began with; those that the capable beasties still have in spades. Human thought has evolved over time as has everything else. It began simply and grew in it's complexity over time. A proper adequate notion of thought ought be able to adequately take all that into account; it ought be readily amenable to be rendered in terms of it's evolutionary progression.

I work from a strong methodological naturalist bent. Dennett's work is impressive, however, I do not think that everything is physical. I would, however, readily agree that everything - including thought - depends on the physical. I also reject many another historical dichotomy, on the same grounds of inadequate explanatory power. For example, the subject/object dichotomy, the internal/external dichotomy, the mind/body dichotomy, the physical/immaterial, the physical/mental, etc. — creativesoul

It's terminological at this point. I think being a naturalist monist would be liable to least offense, depending on how you think of "the natural". If by the natural, you have in mind, everything that is, then fine, no problem. If by natural you mean, everything discovered by the sciences, then I think we restrict naturalism unnecessarily.

I believe I can understand, to an extent, that everything "depends on the physical" to mean that, the stuff that science describes, is fundamental and often provides the basis for which to proceed: neuroscientists study brains, cognitive scientists study photons hitting the eye, everything is made of the stuff physics describes.

Very very roughly put:Our thoughts connect us to that which is not as well as ourselves, by virtue of leading up to an initial understanding of the world and ourselves("worldview" is more palpable to me). — creativesoul

Replying very roughly too, I'd think we could say that we are frequently thinking, sometimes what we call "ideas" follow each other. If I'm thinking of fixing a wall, the ideas I may have of a hammer, a tile and glue, follow from this situation. Is this order necessary, in some manner? I think so, but it's hard to provide an explanation for this.

Other times, in ordinary life, I find that ideas simply "flow", thinking about say, Palestine, followed by thinking about perception and then thinking about my phone that just ringed, etc. There seems to be no order here.

I agree that thoughts connect us to ourselves and to the world. The problem is how to account for the thoughts I have and how do they connect to "me" and the world. On occasions an "physical objects" prompts an idea. The "me" is never too far off, in my experience.

That's my initial approximation.

It's terminological at this point. — Manuel

What we're attempting to describe existed in it's entirety long before we began attempting to take it into account. Sure, the terms we use are pivotal to our success, but I do not see how any more focus upon that is helpful, unless we're somehow violating our own prior use, or some other issue resulting from our use arises...

How to account for thoughts...

All thought consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things. Memory is but a repeat of correlations previously drawn.

thought — creativesoul

Ideas, concepts, hypotheses, theories, dreams, words (their meaning), and so much more, are thoughts.

Ideas, concepts, hypotheses, theories, dreams, words (their meaning), and so much more, are thoughts. — Agent Smith

That's odd...

We cannot sensibly swap these words whenever and wherever we chose. That inability to remain sensical when doing so tells me - quite clearly- that all those things you mentioned are not the same.

Here's the thing, I've repeated this too many times here, I don't want to bore people. Very briefly "materialism"/physicalism made sense back in the time of Descartes, it was mechanistic materialism, the world - heck the universe - worked like a gigantic clock.

But Descartes could not account for the creative aspects of language use, nor thinking in general, based on materialism, which is why he postulated the res extensa. This was believed by many, including Newton, until, to Newton's own dismay, he discovered that materialism is false, the world does not work according to mechanistic principles:

"It is inconceivable, that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else, which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance, through a vacuum... is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it."

With that, "materialism" collapsed. And hasn't been restated in an intelligible manner. Chomsky details this very lucidly.

You can say physicalism is whatever physics says. That narrows outlook not focusing on physics.

All thought consists entirely of correlations drawn between directly and/or indirectly perceptible things. Memory is but a repeat of correlations previously drawn. — creativesoul

Sure, this follows when dealing with "ordinary objects", what about between thoughts? How do we account for correlation here?

I believe I can understand, to an extent, that everything "depends on the physical" to mean... — Manuel

What I mean is that all thought is existentially dependent upon physical things. The periodic table of elements and all that that current conventional understanding entails. Physical stuff was first, and other stuff(not simply physical) came after... simply put.