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What lies behind thought?

apophenia

apophenia

Well-Known Member
NobodyYouKnow said:
Thak you for that helpful insight. As a qualified yoga teacher myself, I have always thought/believed in the way I previously described. I am just wondering how to translate your perspective into my actual practice of meditation.
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Presence.

Which does not buy into the thought vs no thought judgement.

I have noticed that the internal dialog is strongly related to breath, and also to subtle unvoiced action of the vocal chords. When the breath is suspended between inbreath and outbreath, or outbreath and inbreath, the monkey chatter slows or stops. If you consciously also relax the throat/vocal chords, it is near impossible to think !

But 'presence' is not determined by thought or no thought. I don't see any need to try to enforce a no thought regime.

Presence is the pervasive being. I avoid the loaded dharma words if it can be said in simple secular English :)
 
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DallasApple

DallasApple

Depends Upon My Mood..
I don't think there is any meditation. For most people.

Because when the **** hits the fan all that matters is you get some food and clean water.
 
NobodyYouKnow

NobodyYouKnow

Misanthropist
DallasApple said:
I don't think there is any meditation. For most people.

Because when the **** hits the fan all that matters is you get some food and clean water.
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Yeah, but wouldn't 'most people' already have this?...and by that, I mean people such as ourselves posting on this forum, or the majority of those who are not living in Africa/Asia etc?

We all should have enough clean water and food to at least keep us alive to meditate.

Then one can go down the entire 'Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs' to see which are really 'needed' and which we can do without...because the more we think we need, the less meditation is going to 'work' anyway.
 
NobodyYouKnow

NobodyYouKnow

Misanthropist
apophenia said:
By recognising that one is the space in which thoughts and perceptions arise and dissolve.
Dzogchen takes the goal as the path.
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Thanks again. I can mentally grasp this, but what I am looking for are actual techniques for raising this awareness inside myself....in contrast to Dhyan (concentration), Pranayam (breath retention) and trying to exist in the space 'between thoughts' like I am doing currently. I am looking for a process...'guidelines' if you will so I can subjectify this state.
 
The Bullfrog

The Bullfrog

Member
Copernicus said:
I would define as bodily sensations in connection with memory of past sensations and imagination (or calculation) of possible sensations. Language is an expression of thought, so you can study the properties of language to get a description of its properties. That is why Noam Chomsky has called language a "window on the mind." So it is no accident that all languages embody methods for expressing past, present, and future (actually, irrealis) conditions.
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And do you suppose a deaf person thinks in images? Like sign language?

I could see perception as the first expression of thought, then when we learn them, words.
 
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LuisDantas

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
sandandfoam said:
What do you think lies behind thought?
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Beats me. I know that it involves neural, chemically-based reactions and that it is one of the best arguments for those who want to believe in the supernatural, although I personally do not.
 
MD

MD

qualiaphile
There are two philosophical problems dealing with 'thought'. Qualia and intentionality, both clearly show that the computational theory of mind is woefully inadequate. Noone knows what they are.

Strong emergence is as magical as leprechauns.
 
Caladan

Caladan

Agnostic Pantheist
sandandfoam said:
What do you think lies behind thought?
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Upbringing and nurture. Preconceived social notions and indoctrination. Media, film, fashion industry and consumption and costumer culture in general shaping social minds (including so called 'alternative' sources). And yes, probably natural processes as well.
In fact most people probably never had an original thought their entire life.
Yeap, I know. I had to bring some optimism and materialism into this thread. :p
 
Penumbra

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
There is no current well-evidenced proper explanation for how qualia works, which is the hard problem of consciousness.

The computation behind thought, on the other hand, seems simpler, even if it is incredibly complex. Properly arranged neurons and other neurochemical variables allow for processing of thoughts, not entirely unlike a silicon computer.

In the destruction or absence of neurons in the proper configuration, like a healthy brain, both the ability to think computationally and the ability to be conscious, can be diminished or eliminated, both from an external viewpoint (a person is completely unresponsive to stimuli, or the lack of any evidence to suppose that a rock is conscious), and from an internal subjective viewpoint (like if a person gets put under for anesthesia for 8 hours and wakes up thinking it felt like seconds, and they feel like they basically didn't exist for those 8 hours).
 
atanu

atanu

Member
Premium Member
sandandfoam said:
What do you think lies behind thought?
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atanu said:
The thoughtless.
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The Being (the Self--the Turiya--the fourth) is distinct and separate from the three states of existence but permeates the three states as awareness: the sleep, the dream, the waking. The latter two states have thoughts. The first one of the deep sleep has no thought. But it is said to be the causal state that hosts the seeds (desires) that lead to division of the indivisible being into a subject and objects in dream and in waking states and the consequent chatter.

So, I will put it like this: The Being > Being's nature of deep sleep > Desires as seeds in the homogeneous consciousness of deep sleep> creation of subject and object division in the homogeneous consciousness>constant tiring chatter in dream and waking states.
 
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