Thought (or thinking) can be described as all of the following: • An activity taking place in a: •
brain – organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals (only a few invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, adult sea squirts and starfish do not have a brain). It is the physical structure associated with the mind. •
mind – abstract entity with the
cognitive faculties of
consciousness,
perception,
thinking,
judgement, and
memory. Having a mind is a characteristic of living creatures. Activities taking place in a mind are called
mental processes or
cognitive functions. •
computer (see below) – general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. Since a sequence of operations (an
algorithm) can be readily changed, the computer can solve more than one kind of problem. • An activity of
intelligence – intelligence is the
intellectual process of which is marked by
cognition,
motivation, and
self-awareness. Through intelligence, living creatures possess the cognitive abilities to learn, form concepts, understand, apply logic, and reason, including the capacities to recognize patterns, comprehend ideas, plan, problem solve, make decisions, retaining, and use language to communicate. Intelligence enables living creatures to experience and think. • A type of
mental process – something that individuals can do with their minds. Mental processes include perception, memory, thinking, volition, and emotion. Sometimes the term
cognitive function is used instead. • A biological adaptation mechanism •
Neural network explanation: Thoughts are created by the summation of neural outputs and connections of which vectors form. These vectors describe the magnitude and direction of the connections and action between neurons. The graphs of these vectors can represent a network of neurons whose connections fire in different ways over time as synapses fire. These large thought vectors in the brain cause other vectors of activity. For example: An input from the environment is received by the neural network. The network changes the magnitude and outputs of individual neurons. The altered network outputs the symbols needed to make sense of the input. == Types of thoughts ==