Exactly what is a thought, anyway?

Thoughts are powerful things.  They can make us happy, make us sad, make us feel week or powerful, they can convince us we can do anything, or they can convince us to give up.  As Hamlet pointed out to his good buddies, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."  And Hamlet should know:  he spent so much time brooding on the negative that he worked himself into one humdinger of a depression.

In this series of posts we are exploring the Law of Attraction idea that if we want to change our results, we must first change our thinking.  So what exactly is a thought?  And how is it that they so easily lead us astray?

As a basis for our discussion today, I am pulling ideas out of the second chapter of Steven Pinker's book, How the Mind Works.  In this chapter, called "Thinking Machine," Pinker discusses the computational theory of mind, in which the workings of the human mind are compared to the workings of a computer.  In computerese, computation is the processing of data to arrive at a particular result.  This data is in the form of symbols that have both representational and causal properties.  Let me explain what that means.

We commonly believe that we think in our native language.  Certainly, when words jumble around in my brain they tend to be in English; unless, of course, it is something I first learned in another language.  When I was a graduate student the first time, I studied literatures and languages.  I read all the major works of literature written in French, Spanish, and English.  The French lit classes were taught in French, the Spanish lit classes were taught in Spanish, and the English lit classes were taught in English.  When you study world literatures, you also study a bit about world history and cultures, because literature really only makes sense in the context of the culture in which it was produced.  Having grown up in the American school system, we didn't generally learn about Carlos Quinto  and Juana la Loca.  And even if we had learned those things, we would have given them English names like Charles V and Crazy Jane.  I find that when I recall something that I learned in one of those classes, it comes to me in that particular language, because that is how I learned it.

But in truth, we don't think in language at all.  We think in symbols, which we then convert to language.  Think about it:  if we really did think in words, then puns and other plays on words would be impossible.  For example, when Ted Bundy got a stay of execution and the headlines read, "Bundy Beats Date With Chair," we know what they were trying to say, but we get a chuckle from the double entendre.  That happens because our mind is taking the actual words and connecting them with whatever symbols seem to fit.  When words can be attached to more than one symbol, we end up with double meanings, puns, mixed messages, miscommunication.

Symbols are both representational (they stand for things out there in the real world) and causal (they evoke a response in us).   When a toddler learns to talk, he tends to spit out nouns:  daddy, mommy, doggie, motorcycle, truck, kitty.  He is learning to attach words to the symbols in his brain.  He already fully comprehends the symbol of mommy; he is now attaching a word to it so that he can communicate with others.  When the symbol mommy arises in his mind, even before he has the words to express it, he understands that that symbol represents his mother.  The emotional response he gets when he thinks about mommy is the causal aspect of that symbol.  Some of us, when we think mommy, get all warm and fuzzy; others of us groan.

Regardless of which random word we attach to the symbol that represents our female parent -- mommy, mere, maman, mother, mami, mom, mother -- It is the symbol itself that is the stuff of which our actual thoughts are made.  This symbol is much more than a word:  it is loaded with sensory and emotional memories  that attach to the symbol and define what that symbol actually means to us.  It is precisely all of  the memories and associations we have attached to the representational aspect of the symbol that evoke the emotional response elicited by the causal aspect.  More simply put, whether or not you have pleasant memories of your relationship with your mother will determine whether the idea of mother makes you feel loved or puts you on your guard.

To further muddy the waters of our thinking, the symbols which make up the many thoughts in our mind are not neat little packets of data, either on or off, yes or no, good or bad.  They are complex, and lean more toward probabilities and degrees of intensity rather than absolutes.  Each symbol in our mind has, over time, become attached to other symbols.  We have a symbol for love, a symbol for mommy, a symbol for cuddling.  If those three symbols become attached to each other, so that when one of those symbols is called up it evokes the others, then our symbol for mommy carries with it a positive emotional charge.  If, on the other hand our symbol for mommy has become attached to our symbol for pain and helplessness, loneliness and fear, then the mommy symbol will have a much more negative causal aspect for us.  From this we can see that although both of us may use the word mommy to describe the symbol verbally, we are in fact speaking of two entirely different things.

Both the representational aspect of a symbol (what it stands for) and the causal aspect (the emotional and physical responses it evokes) reside in our subconscious mind.  Our understanding of what they mean and the responses they evoke in us are automatic.  We experience the emotional response long before our rational mind kicks in to process the information.  As brilliant as this process is, one can definitely see where things could break down for us and cause us problems out here in the real world.  For example, what happens if our understanding of what a symbol represents out there in the real world turns out to be wrong.

Pinker gives the example of a cat.  When we think of the word cat or gato or chat, we think of a small, furry, domesticated animal.  Along with our image of cat comes our emotional reaction to cat; we have opinions about cat that color our relationships with and responses to the idea of cat.  But what if we were to find out that cats were actually tiny little evil robots that were dropped off here by aliens for their nefarious purposes?  Once we realized the truth about cats, we would have to admit that everything we had come to believe about them was false.  This would completely shake up our paradigms, or our subconscious view of how the world works.  Yet even with this new representational aspect of the symbol, whenever we saw one of these little evil robot creatures scurrying past, we would still call it a cat.

Let's review:  The computational theory of how our brain works says that our brains are like computers, in that they process data in the form of complex symbols.  These symbols do two things:  they represent an idea or object in the physical world,  and they cause us to react in particular ways.  The causal property of these thought packets takes all the memories and emotions which have become attached to the representational aspect of the symbol and evoke certain emotional responses, which in turn inform our behavior, which then determines the quality of the results we are getting in the real world as we're working, shopping, interacting with our loved ones and not-so-loved ones.

If we accept this Thought Is Symbol definition, then we can see that changing our thinking will require us to radically reprogram the content of the symbols that are giving us trouble, and we will have to make this reprogramming so complete that it moves beyond our conscious mind (where we get to choose our thoughts) and becomes deeply embedded in our subconscious mind (which reacts automatically, before rational thought kicks in.)  In order for that to happen for us, we're going to have to really want it.  We're going to have to apply our Will in a focused, conscious effort.  We're going to have to work for it.

For today, though, it is enough that you simply notice.  The very next person or thing that upsets you, take a step back and entertain the possibility that the irritating thing that just happened, or the words or behavior that ruffled your feathers, may have activated a symbol deep in your subconscious that has a negative emotional causal property but has absolutely nothing to do with what just happened.  In other words, maybe the reason you are angry or hurt has nothing at all to do with the other person, and everything to do with the thought packet you used to process the incident.

Maybe living in a happier shinier world is simply a matter of changing our attitudes, reprogramming our thought packets, and fine-tuning the filters through which all data passes.  Maybe, like with our PC, it's time to clean our disk and defragment our hard drives.