Mind

Could thoughts and thinking be considered as some kind of an element or energy source? If not then what exactly are thoughts and thinking; how do they come to be?

Comments

It really depends upon what you mean by "element" or "energy source." If you mean by these what these terms mean as they are used in contemporary science, then at least in principle we could understand and explicate thoughts and thinking wholly in the terms of contemporary natural science. But there are a number of reasons philosophers have given for doubting that a full explanation of thoughts and thinking can be given in such terms. Let me just mention a few:

The problem of qualitative content or qualia: Thoughts have aspects that seem as if they would, in principle, resist wholly physicalistic explanation--for example, the experiential properties of what it is like to have such thoughts. Conscious beings who are thinking understand that the experience of thinking is a certain kind of experience--different, for example, from the experience of having an itch or the experience of being about to sneeze. Even if we can correlate these experiences with certain states of the brain, it is correlation only--not identity--as biochemical states do not of themselves include experiential properties.

The problem of privacy: My thoughts are in me; your thoughts are in you. Even if we agree about something, my thoughts themselves are not accessible to, or observable by, you. You might in principle observe my physical states (energy or elements); but it doesn't seem that you can observe thoughts.

The problem of ownership: My thoughts are mine; your thoughts are yours. Elements and energy sources can go from one system to another. My thoughts cannot become your thoughts (even if, as I am now trying to do) I can get you to think something that has the same content as what I am thinking. Yours will still be yours; mine will still be mine.

The problem of intensionality: This is a difficult one to explain very briefly, but I'll try. Thoughts have a peculiar logical property--when we say what the actual content of a thought is, we cannot "substitute equals for equals," as it were. So, I might think that Muhammed Ali is the greatest boxer of all time. But I might not think that the boxer who defeated George Foreman in a title fight in Zaire is the greatest boxer of all time. (I might suppose that Joe Frasier fought in and won that fight.) But of course, Muhammed Ali is the fighter who defeated Foreman in that fight. So just because Muhammed Ali = the fighter who defeated Foreman in Zaire, you will not describe my thought that Ali is the greatest if you substitute "fighter who defeater Foreman in Zaire" for "Ali" in describing my thought. The two expressions refer to the very same man (Ali), but only one can be used to describe my thought. Even if I actually knew that Ali defeated Foreman in Zaire, the thought that the boxer who defeated Foreman in Zaire is the greatest boxer of all time is a different thought than the thought that Muhammed Ali is the greatest boxer of all time, because it has different content. So, philosophers say that the contents of thought exhibit a logical property (of non-substitutivity, as well as other features) called intentionality. Scientific descriptions of things like elements or energy sources do not seem to exhibit this property--substitutivity seems to hold in such descriptions.

For these reasons (and others I have heard), many philosophers doubt that thoughts and thinking could ever be understood wholly in terms of elements or energy sources, at least as these are presently understood.

These same considerations, by the way, have led some philosophers (those most impressed by scientific knowledge as it is now configured) to propose that such terms as "thoughts" and "thinking" are really just "folk psychological language," which we would do well to jettison, because they bring in mysterious and what they regard as bogus features such as those I mentioned above. In other words, the very fact that "thoughts" have intentional features is a good reason for thinking there are no such things as "thoughts"! I leave it to you to decide what to think about such a proposal! ;)

Read another response by Nicholas D. Smith

Read another response about Mind