I was thinking about the nature of thought last night as I was falling asleep and those words combined in my head and jumped out to me as something important... so I thought I'd try to post something about it and try to work out the meaning. If for instance, and this is highly tentative and just to make a point, we think of all human action as the result of instinct (as it is in most mammals?), it seems to me that thought itself fits into this as a means of adjusting instinct to compensate for percieved circumstance. IMO, this is taking the notion of instinct to the "next level", and explains what is apparently a pretty successful survival strategy. Thought thereby allows a "flexible instinct" function rather than fairly static as it is in many creatures I presume (perhaps incorrectly). While this is a pretty unrefined idea to me at the moment, I post in here in hopes of food for thought to refine or reject the idea completely. Thoughts?
I wouldn't necessarily do so. What I'm doing is putting it in an evolutionary context by spinning the point of view about what "reasoning" may be. Reasoning is a subset of thinking. I'm saying that as assumed: action is from instinct, then thinking is an active feedback system to shape instinct over time.
Maybe it is about a hiërarchy between biochemical systems? If take instinct in such a broad spectrum of meaning, then I think the explanation power of your postulate is reduced by its own premisses. It tries to boil down everything to one principle, without explaining much that principle itself, no? Aren't thoughts way too complex in relation to survival (which can be accomplished by fairly simple systems that require no thinking). Thus, is it instinct when I think about my dvd collection? We'll need some more brain storming about this ... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
By the explanation in the OP, no, your thought itself is not instinct. Your action is. If you go get a DVD, that is instinct. Your thought modifies your instinct to that action. You see, once mind is involved, survival is not so much "staying alive" as "what I percieve I must do to stay alive". You need to pass the time and not kill yourself from boredom, so you do whatever... perhaps think about your dvds. The details of the thought don't really contradict the premise at all.
I don't see the relevance, but hmm. "prove"? To what standard? Proof, in the way I presume you mean it - scientifically... well I don't know for sure what tools are available at this juncture to explore the issue, but I'd think that current techological limitations would yield "not yet". I'd think to know if thought is active or reactive, you'd have to be able to compare the content of the thoughts to known stimulous. You can therefore "prove it" to yourself, but since you are the only one at this juncture who has access to the contents of your own thoughts, it's likely that you can't "prove it" to anyone else, nor they to you.. unless of course you're willing to believe someone else, and then that's not really scientific evidence in the way I presume you intend.
Hmm.. this still seems insightful to me. Is this perspective of no use to anyone but me? Maybe it's just that this sort of fills in a piece of the big picture puzzle for me.
