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When does a thought quit being just my thought? - Magical Realist - Oct 25, 2026
When does a thought quit being a totally private and subjectively phenomenal state of mind?
When it's spoken? When it's written? When it's proven true? When it gets objectified by our own mind as a "thing" existing outside of its being thought? Isn't that precisely the very opposite of being a thought? Isn't the very thought of a thought as a discrete thing-in-itself that can be replicated and shared with other minds the very denial of its essential mode of being immediately thought and present only in my own mind? All thoughts are private first-person ideational states of the subject. Which raises the disturbing question: what is communicable about a thought if it isn't an objective piece of information but only the subjective and privately-evidenced experience of thinking itself? I suspect this has to do with language itself, which somehow magically turns the subjective ideational state of the thought into the objective perceivable representation of the thought about. The dual nature of articulation rooted in how it consists of both words and concepts at the same time.
RE: When does a thought quit being a thought? - Ostronomos - Oct 25, 2026
Language and thought are interrelated. There is a language of languages called SCSPL. Think of a miniaturized frame of reality that is captured by perception. As observers whose mind is indistinct from reality, our thought can influence reality. This leads immediately to questions of a God and after-life. The logic of the CTMU is inescapable.
RE: When does a thought quit being a thought? - Magical Realist - Oct 25, 2026
I can appreciate Langan's metaphysicalization of language as a sort of unifying dynamic syzygy of opposites. I feel like at our level it demonstrates the symmetrical instantiation of objective physicality and subjective consciousness, two opposite ontic inter-causal states co-presenced from their dialectical interplay in intentional action/feeling expression. On a cosmic level this suggests God would be something like language speaking itself about itself--the reality manifesting Logos of gnostic mysticism. Or else the Tao as the timeless flow between opposites.
You might like this thread I posted yesterday. Lot's of theories and phenomena demonstrating what I call "Timeless Acausal Instantiation"--
https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21668-post-91348.html#pid91348
RE: When does a thought quit being just my thought? - C C - Oct 25, 2026
(Oct 25, 2026 03:04 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: When does a thought quit being a totally private and subjectively phenomenal state of mind? When it's spoken? When it's written? When it's proven true? When it gets objectified by our own mind as a "thing" existing outside of its being thought? Isn't that precisely the very opposite of being a thought? [...]
Like most word-symbols, it has multiple meanings. Synonyms like "idea" and "concept" are probably most often encountered in written, vocal, or pictorial form.
thought (noun): [...] 3. The organized beliefs of a period, group or individual. The intellectual product or the organized views and principles of a period, place, group, or individual
4. Opinion; a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty.
RE: When does a thought quit being just my thought? - Magical Realist - Oct 25, 2026
"thought(n.)"
"act or product of mental activity," Old English þoht, geþoht "process of thinking, a thought; compassion," from stem of þencan "to conceive of in the mind, consider" (see think). Cognate with the second element in German Gedächtnis "memory," Andacht "attention, devotion," Bedacht "consideration, deliberation."--- https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=thought
Of course by the time language takes over this phenomenally subjective state of mental activity has already become objectified into many nouns/verbs/adjectives. "I thought (assumed) you were coming." "The thought (the possibility) occurred to me," "I haven't really thought about it (considered it).""Have you had any thoughts (plans) of suicide?" "She was so thoughtful (considerate) to do that." "I've had lustful thoughts (fantasies) Father.""Here's my thoughts (opinions) on the matter." But it has by then already lost its original sense of being a purely private act of mentation.
I have always liked the word "consider" both for it's etymology and common usage of directing our mental attention to something. It provides a common ground for seeing and thinking--as a purely mental act of examining or taking into account or making oneself aware of something.
"consider(v.)"
"late 14c., consideren, "to fix the mind upon for careful examination, meditate upon," also "view attentively, scrutinize; not to be negligent of," from Old French considerer (13c.) "reflect on, consider, study," from Latin considerare "to look at closely, observe," probably literally "to observe the stars," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see con-) + sidus (genitive sideris) "heavenly body, star, constellation" (see sidereal)."
RE: When does a thought quit being just my thought? - Yazata - Oct 25, 2026
(Oct 25, 2026 03:04 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: When does a thought quit being a totally private and subjectively phenomenal state of mind? When it's spoken? When it's written? When it's proven true? When it gets objectified by our own mind as a "thing" existing outside of its being thought?
That's an excellent philosophical question.
At least some thoughts would seem to not be totally subjective, if as you say, they are true. If we accept a correspondence theory of truth, then the true thought would have to correspond to the objective facts in some way. Making sense of that sort of representation is going to be very hard.
And what does it mean to say that you and I had the same idea? Literally numerically the same? Or similar in some relevant ways? How does that work? The problem of universals arises here.
When I write down a thought, what I literally produce are some ink squiggles. When I speak it, I produce some sounds. How do ideas inhere in sounds or ink squiggles? Maybe they don't. Maybe the ink squiggles or the sounds are merely stimuli, that induce somebody else to have the same (or similar) thought that we do (whatever that means).
Quote:All thoughts are private first-person ideational states of the subject.
That seems to be a definition derived from phenomenology. I'm more inclined to think of thoughts as functional states in an information processing system.
Quote:Which raises the disturbing question: what is communicable about a thought if it isn't an objective piece of information but only the subjective and privately-evidenced experience of thinking itself?
What is public and transmissible, like the words I'm writing right now, might be stimuli that induce the reader (whether human, alien or AI) to enter into cognitive states sufficiently similar to my own.
Quote:I suspect this has to do with language itself, which somehow magically turns the subjective ideational state of the thought into the objective perceivable representation of the thought about. The dual nature of articulation rooted in how it consists of both words and concepts at the same time.
In some of my moods, I think that the idea that words somehow embody ideas might be problematic. What are 'ideas'? What kind of metaphysical/ontological reality do they have? How does linguistic text contain them?
So I guess that I'm more comfortable thinking of words as stimuli. And thinking of ideas as states of a cognitive system. So how do those states get their meaning within the system? I'm inclined to think perhaps functionally through their relationships with our actions and our sensory experiences. And then through liberal use of simile and metaphor.
RE: When does a thought quit being just my thought? - Magical Realist - Oct 26, 2026
Quote:I think that the idea that words somehow embody ideas might be problematic. What are 'ideas'? What kind of metaphysical/ontological reality do they have? How does linguistic text contain them?
The reason I propose the dual nature of the spoken as word and concept is phenomenological.
When I say the word "brown cow" to you what do you immediately experience? The sound of the word itself? Or the concept of a brown cow? The acoustic representation in your ears or the phenomenal presentation in your mind? Probably the latter. That suggests to me if not a simultaneous occurrence of mental conception and physical pronunciation then at least a concurrent or parallel one. It's how I originally experienced the words myself when I mentally intended to say them and then heard myself saying them. It's as if we somehow perceptually blank out the sounding of the word to allow its conceptual meaning to surface. A certain given interchangeability between them allowing them to immediately serve as a sensory signal and semantic idea at the same time.
RE: When does a thought quit being just my thought? - confused2 - Oct 26, 2026
Can you think a thought you don't have words for? Certainly for me, there's a planning a plan stage .. the initial 'plan' is a concept that may or not be realisable so I'd go with being able to think without words .. but I'm not entirely sure.
RE: When does a thought quit being just my thought? - C C - Oct 26, 2026
Quote:When does a thought quit being just my thought?
When it becomes public instead of private. Although intellectual property rights can legally extend ownership even after ideas enter community space. But the latter is an invented social contract. Whereas externally acting out a thought was an organic development (like feeling the need to dig a burrow and doing just that). The conversion of private thoughts to public (interpersonal) communication or even transcribing or drawing them for someone to find later might arguably being something in between. Since the animal capacity to signal each other (limited information exchange) emerged long before the complexity of culturally spawned human languages.
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Wittgenstein's "The Beetle in the Box"
https://philosophyterms.com/the-beetle-in-the-box/
Privacy of experience: This part is about how each person’s feelings and sensations are their own secret. No one else can actually get inside their heads to see or feel exactly what they do. So when we say ‘pain’, we might each feel something different, but we agree on calling it ‘pain’.
Ideas about language: The Beetle in the Box teaches us that the words we use, like ‘beetle’ or ‘pain’, don’t get their meaning from our secret feelings. Instead, meanings come from how everyone in a group uses these words together.
[...] The Beetle in the Box is like a puzzle from a famous thinker, Ludwig Wittgenstein. He wants us to think about our own feelings and how we talk about them. Imagine everyone has a box only they can look into, and inside is something they call ‘a beetle’. No one else can see inside anyone’s box. We might all think we know what ‘beetle’ means, but since we can’t see everyone else’s beetle, we might all have a different idea of what a beetle is. This puzzle shows us that when we talk about our feelings, what matters is not the actual thing inside the box, but how we use words with others to talk about it.
This idea comes from a book Wittgenstein wrote called “Philosophical Investigations,” which came out in 1953 after he died. He believed that a lot of confusing ideas come from not really understanding how we use words everyday. So he came up with the Beetle in the Box to show that when we talk about stuff like pain, what’s most important is not the thing causing pain inside us, but the way we all agree to use the word ‘pain’.
Private language argument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_language_argument
The private language argument is of central importance to debates about the nature of language. One compelling theory about language is that language maps words to ideas, concepts, or representations in each person's mind. On this account, the concepts in one's head are distinct from the concepts in another's head.
[...] In his later work, Wittgenstein argues that this account of private language is inconsistent. If the idea of a private language is inconsistent, then a logical conclusion would be that all language serves a social function. This would have profound implications for other areas of philosophical and psychological study. For example, if one cannot have a private language, it might not make any sense to talk of private experiences or of private mental states.
RE: When does a thought quit being just my thought? - Magical Realist - Oct 26, 2026
(Yesterday 12:00 PM)confused2 Wrote: Can you think a thought you don't have words for? Certainly for me, there's a planning a plan stage .. the initial 'plan' is a concept that may or not be realisable so I'd go with being able to think without words .. but I'm not entirely sure.
I think we can. Every now and then I experience a very strange sensation radiated thruout my torso and arms. It's not even a pain or ache but just a very vague inner discomfort with no location and no known cause. It usually goes away in about 5 minutes. I believe it's something vascular as when it stops it's like something is released inside--like maybe a pressure. Anyway, I have no word for this sensation nor hardly any distinctive quale I can attach semantic meaning to. I certainly have the thought of it, especially when its happening, but only as an awareness of a recurring typical change in my felt body that I only know tacitly but not semantically.
Quote:We might all think we know what ‘beetle’ means, but since we can’t see everyone else’s beetle, we might all have a different idea of what a beetle is. This puzzle shows us that when we talk about our feelings, what matters is not the actual thing inside the box, but how we use words with others to talk about it.
I was just pondering this last night. That because all qualia are innately private and mental, we have no ability to know if they are representative of anything real at all. Because all humans have the same bodies and brains and sensory organs, the color red MAY be consistent across all humans, but that doesn't mean its objectively true or representative of any objective thing or state. While our common language seems to coin that "what it's likeness" as a true reference and public fact of the world, it's really just accepted as such because it works at helping us get along and to live successfully in the world with each other. Like how we all agree our money represents the same thing for all of us even though it isn't really representing anything objective at all. It's real or true functionally or pragmatically but not necessarily objectively or semantically. Words then more like tokens objectified only in how they are being exchanged and used instead of as objectively faithful representations of or true references to objectively real states or objects.