Do you craft/choose your thoughts before you have them?

[Hermit]

In the words of Ludwig Feuerbach: Der Mensch ist, was er isst. (Translated into English the pun is lost. You are what you eat.)

So: No.

[charlou]

Another thing I love about the brain is how easy it is to fool yourself and manipulate your own emotions.
Any time I walk through Dublin city there are always college students doing work for various charities asking can they speak to you for a sec and then proceed to try to get you to sign up for their charity and they take a lump sum every month.
Now I hate being accosted. If I'm going to do something I'll do it out of my own... eh,, volition (?) so it used to make me really angry, angry with guilt, when I had to say "No thanks" and pull away from them.
But then I was walking down the street with my friend and some girl approached and he said "I'm already a contributor" (which he was) and she smiled and said "Thanks for your support" with a thumb up.
So now when they come near me now say "I'm already a contributor" and get the same warm "Thank you" and I end up walking away smiling feeling good about myself even though I know I'm lying and then when I point this out to myself I smile even harder knowing I just pulled a fast one.

Even young children are good at this form of self preservation ... Telling fibs to avoid consequences that make them uncomfortable, for example. They know from how adults behave when the adults are displeased with them. They may even know what this will mean in terms of consequences, but it may just be the displeasure itself that is enough to cause a child to lie in an attempt to make things 'better' ... I never like to see a child in this position and am always quick to reassure them that they are safe with me, encouraging honesty.

[FBM]

Hm. I used to occasionally call in sick to work when I really just didn't feel like letting the company grind another day off my life. In order to make it convincing, I'd have to psych myself up to play the role of a sick person when I made the call. Without fail, I'd be sick before noon. wtf.

[GrahamH]

Even when 'I am thinking about the question' it is more like attention is focussed on a topic in a way that keeps pertinent ideas at the top of the pile. I imagine it to be process of randomised combinations, or links, between concepts that gets sorted by a filter that recognises salience. If a combination fits it gets attention and "an answer comes to me".

The crafting / choosing / constructing /thinking of thoughts is not something we are aware of, that is, they are not events represented within 'subjective experience'. Only the results that get through to attention count as 'conscious thought' and that occurs after the thought has formed. There are some famous experiments that demonstrate the time lag.

[SpeedOfSound]

Even young children are good at this form of self preservation ... For example, telling fibs to avoid consequences that make them uncomfortable, for example. They know from how adults behave when the adults are displeased with them. They may even know what this will mean in terms of consequences, but it may just be the displeasure itself that is enough to cause a child to lie in an attempt to make things 'better' ... I never like to see a child in this position and am always quick to reassure them that they are safe with me, encouraging honesty.

When your kid tells his first lie you should throw him a party and take pictures just like for his first step. It shows a major milestone in the development of his brain. Give your lying little brat a hug today!

[SpeedOfSound]

Thoughts are a tangled mess. I can identify roughly two modes that are conscious. Verbal and what I call 'blocking'. Verbal seems fast and fluid and arises without effort from some hidden place.

Blocking is roughly visual and geometric. It involves a vague imagining of doing things like building shapes with blocks.

I think there are many other types of thoughts but they are too abstract to visualize and tack onto physical things we know or do so they remain unconscious. Every now and again as I fall asleep I catch a few of these strange non-sensical abstractions but they scintillate away when I try to remember them and make sense of them.

Nevertheless there have been times when these things turned into valid intuitions that led to entirely new ways of thinking about a problem.

The only thing I can find in my head that resembles having thoughts on purpose or carefully constructing them is that I seem to be able to store contexts (overlords?) in my brain that then become unconscious but still rule the course that my thoughts will take. That is something Bernard Baars takes off with and creates a whole theory of consciousness with.

Mostly, As one can tell from my posts, my thoughts are like a bunch of wild masturbating monkeys in the back of a banana truck.

[FBM]

OK, I take back my invitation in the other thread. Y'all please stay the fuck out of my thread. I can't understand a word you're saying, and now I can't get the image of masturbating monkeys and banana trucks out of my head.

[SpeedOfSound]

Early nervous systems developed the ability to learn and execute movements in sequential programs that, while automatic in general, were still highly informed by intent and feedback.

The next step was to plan to do these movements prior to doing them. This was probably the origin of consciousness. Now instead of getting feedback from your muscles and senses you had to have imagined feedback 'as if' you were moving and changing the orienting of your head and senses. We had to develop a new reality in our heads. It's called consciousness.

This sequencing involved the development of things like our phonological loop and other short term memory tricks.
In humans we developed huge forward swellings that allowed not just one level but 3 or 4 levels of abstraction on top of this. These abstractions are also maintained in loops of a sort.

In this mire is nested the mechanics of our thinking and verbosity. It is no accident that what is conscious thought to us has some analog in the physical world.

Buried beneath all thinking or blabbing or planning of movement are intentions and goals that remain mostly unconscious. When you want to go over there and get that book this becomes a context that guides you. You can let it out of your conscious loop and your body will still walk over and get that book.

(my AA sponsor makes me do this sort of thing as a meditation. He tells me to get the book but not think about getting the book while I'm walking over)

[SpeedOfSound]

OK, I take back my invitation in the other thread. Y'all please stay the fuck out of my thread. I can't understand a word you're saying, and now I can't get the image of masturbating monkeys and banana trucks out of my head.

I'm sorry. You see the monkeys are making me do this. You will have to talk to them about me leaving the thread.

[SpeedOfSound]

Hey all. If I'm not clear about something I will be glad to elaborate and give references to some damned good books.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I learned to filter my thoughts a half century ago. Ayaan only hears 1% or so, and that much seems to scare her.

[FBM]

Early nervous systems developed the ability to...not think about getting the book while I'm walking over)

(Accidental juxtaposition, btw, but oddly fitting.)

I don't see a problem with the model you describe, insofar as it is a model and largely speculative. My OP is more aimed at your subjective experience, though, sans theory. Do you have the feeling of being the architect of your ideas?

[FBM]

I learned to filter my thoughts a half century ago. Ayaan only hears 1% or so, and that much seems to scare her.

I've found it wiser to simply not talk about my ideas with people in RL. Makes for healthier relationships.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I learned to filter my thoughts a half century ago. Ayaan only hears 1% or so, and that much seems to scare her.

I've found it wiser to simply not talk about my ideas with people in RL. Makes for healthier relationships.

There's no way I could verbalize as fast as shit goes through my head. So I have to filter to that extent. Then there's the "WTF factor" to consider.

[FBM]

I learned to filter my thoughts a half century ago. Ayaan only hears 1% or so, and that much seems to scare her.

I've found it wiser to simply not talk about my ideas with people in RL. Makes for healthier relationships.

There's no way I could verbalize as fast as shit goes through my head. So I have to filter to that extent. Then there's the "WTF factor" to consider.

I'm curious as to how you voted...