Spatial Dimensions and Thought

[ParanoiA]

Ok, so my wife and I were talking last night and somehow we got to talking about "thoughts" and what they are. Curious. We were debating, from absolute ignorance mind you, what dimensions they occupy.

 

When you have a mental image, or whatnot, how does it exist? In what dimension does it exist in, if at all? I could see time as one. But I can't imagine they would exist in any spatial plane.

 

She was saying something about memories and proteins, and that thoughts are essentially chemicals interacting with the brain or something like that, and so exist in all 4 dimensions. I thought this sounded more like the background structure that supports "thought". Kind of like the theories that propose more dimensions beyond the 4 we realize - the support structure.

 

So, can anyone share anything scientific about this? What are thoughts and do they exist dimensionally or is that notion just silly?

[zule]

Chemicals interactions allow to have thoughts; however, thoughts are not chemicals, but abstracts entities. So, for me, it doesn’t make sense to talk about the dimensions of the thoughts.

[throng]

I just think of the energy (ie E=mc^2 energy) as primal intelligence, ie potential for thought.

 

All observations are consciously observed thoughts whether they be physical or imaginary.

 

If a thought has relevance, ie coheres to the relative structure of the universe, it is real, and if it doesn't it is imaginary. Real scenerios can be imagined, but not perfectly enough to be material.

[Sisyphus]

I'm thinking ParanaiA's question is more about what is physically occuring when we experience a "thought." Which I'm assuming is something, unless "thoughts" as individual events are illusions. (I don't have a helpful answer, just trying to head off some unhelpful ones.)

[bascule]

One way to model thoughts is as the four dimensional evolution of the contents of the thalamus:

 

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Consciousness_Studies/Table_Of_Theories

 

[insane_alien]

well, if you look at a fMRI of someone who is thinking there is a three dimensional distribution of activity throughout the brain that varies with time so they are 4 dimensional, just ot a specific chemical or anything.

[ParanoiA]

Interesting. So, maybe my question is really about abstract imagery. When I space off, and this happens a bit more nowadays, and imagine myself being chased by a big hairy monster creature, then am I really processing electrical impulses and chemicals which render a big hairy monster creature? How does the big hairy monster creature exist? It takes time to exist, to play out the mental imagery. So can we say it occupies that dimension?

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Consecutive posts merged

I'm thinking ParanaiA's question is more about what is physically occuring when we experience a "thought." Which I'm assuming is something, unless "thoughts" as individual events are illusions. (I don't have a helpful answer, just trying to head off some unhelpful ones.)

 

 

Thanks for that. As evidenced, I rarely know exactly what I'm asking.