Phl 251 - Nature of Thought Paper

Nature of Thought Paper

Rebecca Quick

PHL/251

November 23, 2015

Dr. Michael Newman Myers

Nature of Thought Paper

        Before one can understand the nature of thought, they must first understand what it means to think.  Thinking can be described as a way of reasoning, the process of thought, or even one's opinion or judgement.  One must also be familiar with the different contributors of thinking; the most important of these contributors are the sensory process, memory, and the medium or language.  However, there are also factors that can get in the way of how we think such as personal barriers, thoughts, or even perceptual blocks.

The five senses seeing, smelling, touching, hearing and tasting is what makes up the sensory process that feeds us with the majority of the information we use to form our thoughts.  "There is nothing in the mind unless it is first in the senses" (Kirby & Goodpaster, 2007), simply put the better we sense, the better we think.  As babies, our senses are used to form thoughts, and as adults they are linked with thinking. Meaning that as one performs we sense, and as one sense's we perform.  As an adult a good example of this would be that we may read, write, or listen to what one has to say, therefore; we are sensing.  On the other hand when one cooks, drives, or even types a text message we are thinking.  Our senses may not function properly from time to time, especially if we are sick or even tired.  For the most part, they can be pretty accurate.  As infants, we are all born with these senses, with some knowledge already intact, and as we grow so does the knowledge.  Therefore, the knowledge that we gain over the course of our life then gets stored in our memory.  Our memory is a unique tool that we use every day in our thinking process; it is used to preserve and remember past experiences.  The way in which our memories are recorded can be influenced by our family upbringing, religious beliefs, environment, and prejudices.  These memories can be impaired if they are malnourished, smoking, mental retardation, or even the use of drugs.  Just like our bodies the brain needs nourishment as well to work properly.  If the brain is like a muscle, it must be worked to reach its greatest potential through stimulation and intellectual work.  Therefore, the language that we use to express our memories is done so through our thinking medium.

Our thinking medium (or language), is the understanding of how one interprets the information received.  Although, no one person perceives anything exactly the same, the foundation of the thinking medium is the same.  Because it consists of the remembering, arranging, judging, decision, and creating.  For instance, when I first started taking classes I was worried about how difficult they would be, and I didn't think I was going to be able to write all of these papers required of each class.  I had psyched myself out about writing the first few papers, not thinking that I was going to do any good on them.  But as time went on I am finding out that writing the papers is not as bad as I originally anticipated.