====== Thought ======

{{tag>Inexplicable}}

It seems clear that thoughts involve brain-neurones, because damage to (or a reduction in the number of) neurones makes rational thought more difficult. But, like [[content:psychology:general:memory|memory]], the  exact physical and/or biological micro-mechanisms which lead to the formation of ‘thoughts’ are completely unknown.

>Though thinking is an activity considered essential to humanity, there is no general consensus as to how we define or understand it."\\ \\ Source :[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought|Wikipedia]]

Although current scanning technologies (fMRI, EEG & etc) are able to detect tiny changes in human brain activity - to the extent that external machinery can now be [[https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22730392-900-brain-controlled-smart-home-lets-you-turn-the-tv-on-by-thinking/|'controlled by thoughts']] - the instruments are in reality detecting minute but measurable changes in the brain (electrical activity, increased blood flow etc) //which are caused// by the process of thinking, rather than the thoughts themselves.

==== Supplement on the 'pain' of thinking ====

Many people find thinking in order to resolve complex problems uncomfortable, even 'painful'. This aspect is under-researched and as yet unexplained. A groundbreaking experiment published in //Science// journal, 2014, found that groups of experimental subjects who were simply asked to sit alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes, preferred, in general, to self-administer painful electric shocks instead (in return for the termination of the experiment).

>[...] what is striking is that simply being alone with their own thoughts for 15 min was apparently so aversive that it drove many participants to self-administer an electric shock that they had earlier said they would pay to avoid."\\ \\ Source : [[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/75#login-pane|Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind]] {{:oa_padlock_red.png?16}}<sup>[ paywalled ]</sup> //Science//, Vol. 345, No. 6192

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