Quixix

I do agree on that, the questions and words are undoubtly an stimulus input, the words or language used, as well as the concepts expressed, may be associated to particular and personal past experiences, they may have very different emotional charges, which will invariably affect our thought processes. Now about using words to think, I believe it is rather the other way around, we put words to our thoughts, aloud or mentally, but by the time you utter the first word of a sentence, you already know what you are going to say, and innumerable "thoughts", explicit or implicit, have gone through you mind.

I don't believe so. Very few areas of the brain of a new-born show any signs of activity. Not after diverse stimulus have stablished circuits can you visualize or relive experiences

Does it really matter if the correct number is 6 million or perhaps "only" 3 million?. Does it change the meaning of history and the intentions of an organization? The amount only proves the degree of efficiency, the goals are clear. As dreamlord notes, your use of quotation marks is very peculiar. It is used as if to throw doubt on something without need to discuss it. I have never visited the extermination camps used by the nazis, but I do have several friends who have, and have brought photos back, photos that were not doctored or touched up, taken by amateur fotographers. Are you trying to wash someones conscience?

If you had to think in words your thought processes would be tremendously slowed down. Neither is thought necesarily a logical process, I would say that it is mainly the opposite. Logics is an invented human discipline. I would tend to believe that thought is just the concatenated activation of neural circuits, created mainly by associations. ...just an activated circuit. Just

I do not know what your concept of smartness is. If you believe it grows with age, you'll be very dissapointed.

I don't see anything silly in the question. The HIGHEST level, not how many. You may find it useless, but I don't find it silly

You can not force a complete smile. You can simulate a smile or remember something that makes you smile. Some of your facial muscles only move by unconscious parts of your brain. That's why it is so difficult to be a decent actor - and why salesmen smiles look su phony.

Not necessarily, thinking may be just a process of reactivation of established neuronal circuits, be it by an external or an internal stimulus. AN external stimulus may activate circuits that were previously formed, and which activate other circuits. Neurotransmitters, hormones, amines, which are segregated by different parts of the body or brain when activated, regulate the same processes of activation.

I have tended to believe like you for a long time. New ideas or new concepts are just recombinations of past knowledge. That does not take any merit away from "the creative mind". It is not so easy to recombine pieces of knowledge in our mind and not come up with an aberration.

"You become nervous, which causes lots of tension in your muscles" WHen you "become nervous". What is the cause and the mechanism by which you do?. Why and how do your muscles tense? I don't think that these have much to do with emotions.

The James-Lange theory, is rather confusing about emotions and feelings. I find A. Damasio 's (The feeling of What Happens) theories much more developped and credible. The James original quote, is also confusing as far as body changes and body actions go. I believe that LeDoux (The Emotional Brain), agrees quite well with Damasio. First we have an emotion generated by a perception, afterwards we have the feelings of our bodily changes, that may be conscious or not