Thought Detox
A casual glance at this forum reveals numerous questions people ask themselves and others. Its a sprawling array of topics, and its great to see. All of these questions are predicated on thinking I take this as truism.
Given this fact, I cant help but wonder if what is needed for greater clarity and progress is to occasionally recognize thought as thought, and to basically put the questions aside for a while. In other words, to quit thinking pro tem.
Its a paradoxical suggestion. It says that in order to achieve better thinking and inquiring, one should back away from thought and questions. Seems strange. But as soon as we imagine thinking as an activity as a kind of doing then we can also treat it as habit and, perhaps, not a good one. Suddenly the suggestion doesnt seem as strange.
We often call bad habits addictions. Its an activity done in excess. Substance abuse comes to mind. Where does thinking stand on this spectrum for those who frequently engage in online discussions (myself included)?
Are we addicted to thought? Are we amateur philosophers steeping ourselves in excess?
Therefore, is what is needed for better philosophy actually a fasting and detoxification of thought?
Given this fact, I cant help but wonder if what is needed for greater clarity and progress is to occasionally recognize thought as thought, and to basically put the questions aside for a while. In other words, to quit thinking pro tem.
Its a paradoxical suggestion. It says that in order to achieve better thinking and inquiring, one should back away from thought and questions. Seems strange. But as soon as we imagine thinking as an activity as a kind of doing then we can also treat it as habit and, perhaps, not a good one. Suddenly the suggestion doesnt seem as strange.
We often call bad habits addictions. Its an activity done in excess. Substance abuse comes to mind. Where does thinking stand on this spectrum for those who frequently engage in online discussions (myself included)?
Are we addicted to thought? Are we amateur philosophers steeping ourselves in excess?
Therefore, is what is needed for better philosophy actually a fasting and detoxification of thought?
Comments (52)
1. Thinkers (mind)
2. Feelers (heart)
3. Workers (body)
Collectively, we're balanced; individually, we're unbalanced. Team work? :chin:
A bit like the Hindu caste system, but minus all the superiority/inferiority crap, complementarity instead of hierarchy.
These are interesting points.
I'd like to think that the answer here is a balance (as @Agent Smith has illustrated in a previous comment) between thinking, feeling and doing. Thereby encouraging regular fasting, even if for only a short period of time, for/from each of these modes.
[quote=Numerius Negedius]God never gives everything to one person.[/quote]
That is to say ...
[quote=Benjamin Franklin]We must all hang together or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately.[/quote]
Makes sense, oui?
Sure does. Great quotes.
Yes, we are and this addiction is what you expect from people who don't want to be basic. Whenever you try knowledge for the first you would not stop using it because you feel you are growing as a person. There is a huge difference between the ones who are addicted to thought and the ones who do not think at all.
Quoting Xtrix
Speaking about myself, yes.
Quoting Xtrix
I would not put "better" with "fast" in the same phrase. Quality needs their own time and progress. If we really want a more qualitative philosophy we have to start to thinking a lot then. But if we think fast we have the risk of not thinking so deeply.
What about Jesus Christ or Muhammad or Abraham?
I would give each one of 'em a C+ and, together a B+. The second coming?
I like this. In order to improve philosophy, don't do philosophy.
Non-thinking is relevant to mathematics as well. Long retired, I still conjure up math notes and post them as a hobby. But in doing so I may be harming the subject. arXiv.org receives hundreds of papers a day, every day of the year. Much of this activity is polluting thought and contaminates what is pure, creating a swamp of diversity that drags the discipline into incomprehensible sludge.
This brings to my mind Sherlock Holmes who would sometimes turn to playing the violin. For what purpose? To put thinking aside, to still the mind? To allow the subconscious to process the question? Of course, Holmes is fictional but temporarily abstaining from discursive thought may have concrete benefits.
In my opinion, the problem is not too much thought but too many opinions lacking careful, insightful, imaginative, informed thought.
In order to achieve better thinking, there should be less internal monologue and more internal dialogue.
But sometimes we would do well to quiet the mind.
I think the question here is what is an addiction? As someone who works in the area, one of the views of addiction generally holds that an addiction is when your behaviour interferes with your ability to live a smooth, integrated life and causes harmful distortions (health, family disfunction, relationships, etc). Is truth seeking or altruism ever an addiction? Perhaps when in pursuing these you come unstuck in other ways. I certainly know of social justice advocates who neglect their own families to the point where a child has suicided from lack of attention and care from a parent who was always too busy 'helping others'. I also know of people who are obsessed with 'fighting injustice' but are utter bastards to other people.
The chaotic home life of some professional activists I have met are as dysfunctional as that of anyone with a substance addiction. I sometimes wonder if people throw themselves into causes because they struggle to make sense of relationships at a personal or intimate level. I also wonder if some people pursue philosophy and speculative work because they find it difficult to manage their personal life with actual human beings. For some perhaps taking refuge behind ideas and abstractions may be not much different than taking refuge in the bottle.
If we consider thinking to be a kind of doing, then were only looking at the allocation of attention and effort towards thought over time. In relation to addiction, this can be considered excessive when the allocation of these resources impairs our ability to function in a healthy way - whether healthy is determined by ourselves or by those who rely on our interaction with the world.
I think we can become addicted to thought in the sense that we avoid the application of thought to our own physical lives, preferring instead to focus our attention and effort on unproven theoretical discussions for their own sake. Its safer to live in a virtual reality, where pain, loss and humiliation are thoughts that cannot really harm us - we could justify, ignore or argue them away at will.
A similar addiction would be gaming - the abuse seems to be not on the body as much as it is on the mind and its relationship with the world.
Meditative practices can be seen as a fasting or detoxification of thought. I think the important aspect of it is recognising that the connection between thinking, doing and feeling is in relation to our personal and ongoing allocation of time, effort and attention - our intentionality. Thinking is not just a kind of doing, any more than feeling is a kind of doing. Thinking, feeling and doing are all temporal reductions of a five-dimensional existence, inclusive of not-doing (wu-wei).
Positivism/optimism! :yawn:
Like a moth to a flame. It's true, moths are attracted to light and, just as biologists say, they do spiral to their doom towards the flame and ... burn to death!
Solutions?
All the scenario's you exemplify are valid Tom. An addiction to a worthwhile cause such as altruism, life or truth seeking also requires wisdom and balance. Not easy to achieve perfect balance but its good to be addicted to trying to achieve such balance and 'prevent' any of the scenarios you caution.
Was that the yawn of a young man who sometimes needs to be a pessimist as that is an addiction he has developed based on his own 'thoughts and musings regarding the human experience?
On another thread, you were expressing your recent positivity/optimism. Are you often 'up the hill and down again?'
Don't act like a moth to a flame! Humans are not moths nor do they have to act like them.
Most perceptive. Did you hear the story of Zhuangzi who was confused about whether he was a man or a butterfly? You must have.
Yes. Well, I think when I wrote those lines I was medicated. I am even surprised how positive it was. Like it is weird that state of mind in my life.
No, I had to rely on google again. My knowledge of China is based on its political, natural and social history rather than its mythical history. From google I got "The Zhuangzi consists of a large collection of anecdotes, allegories, parables, and fables, which are often humorous or irreverent. Its main themes are of spontaneity in action and of freedom from the human world and its conventions."
For me, this strains any personal interest I have and reduces it to whatever interest I can muster for any fairy tale. Hans Christian Anderson, Walt Disney and Chinese Taoism. I find it hard to see anything in such apart from entertainment and possibly some life lessons based on scenarios exemplified in storytelling. Like the wisdom of Solomon examples or any other cautionary tale, wrapped up in a fable.
If any of my friends informed me of their concern that the issue of gender identity was never a problem for them, but they were unable to confirm what species they were, between hominid and invertebrate insect, then I would probably suggest they consult a psychiatrist rather than marvel at their dalliance with Chinese Taoism. I have two questions about Zhuangzi.
1. Did he have memories of time spent as a caterpillar?
2. Did he ever question why they were called butterflies? What have they to do with butter? Why are they not called flutterby's? As that is what they do! They flutterby!
Edit: I looked up the etymology of butterfly and it said the insect often consumed butter or milk left open. So, it could have been named milkfly or buttermilkfly. I think my 'flutterby' is better.
Perhaps you need some 'thought detox,' as the title of the thread suggests. Perhaps you would benefit from retraining yourself out of your possible addiction to pessimism and despair.
You don't of course need to answer this, but are you bipolar?
Please forgive my impudence but I think in today's world, it's very very important that we all try to remove any stigma attached to talking about dealing with depression, despair etc. It needs to be an everyday, expected, normal subject to discuss, as the vast majority (if not all) of people experience such, regularly and for many, excessively.
Feel free to tell me to f*** off and mind my own business!
Indeed, that far back in history the boundary between truth and myth is blurred to the point of being of no real value.
As for Zhuangzhi needing a shrink, it was only a dream and nobody is considered mentally sick for having surreal experiences in dreamscape although a case can be made that one's dreams are a rough indicator of one's character and mental health. Was Zhuanghzi mad? Possible, an indictment in my book of reality - some of us havta lose our minds just not to die. Imagine!
So, what is the life lesson or point behind Zhuangzhi's dream that you were trying to use in response to what I have typed so far in this thread?
Was it your words:Quoting Agent Smith
I don't think I need to explain that to someone of your caliber. Absit iniuria of course.
I don't know... that's a good question. I never went to a psychologist or psychiatric because I always thought they will never understood me.
Nevertheless... I am remembering now that one day of April the public workers of the hospital call me to just ask what is going on in my life. I answered with all my problems and insecurities.
They just answered "You have crippling depression" and they prescribed me some pills that I am currently taking every morning
[snip]
Quoting Xtrix
Observation, [consideration], question. Such is the structure of a thought, that invites further thought, even as it questions the value of thought. So let's think about it.
It's kind of odd, in a away, to be looking a a site like this, obscure minority place, and of course made of nothing but verbal constructions of thought, and finding significance there. One cannot know how many folk read the op and have no thought to answer the question or consider the matter; one only sees the thoughts of those others provoked to more thought.
I look through the fridge and the food cupboards, have a think and make a list of groceries, gather the necessaries money, bags, coat, and not forgetting the list, and head for the shops. Thought ends with action. That is simple, and sometimes it may end with inaction because the purse is empty, or the car won't start. and then there is the further question of how to fill the purse, or how to fix the car.
The op ends with a question, but does that question need an answer? If it needs an answer, then the answer is "No, fasting is not required, but more thought, and here is some more thought that answers the question.
If the answer were yes, there would be no replies. If the answer is yes, then our replies are foolish refusal. Is there more to said?. There's always more can be said, and probably someone will say some of it, because that is what the site is made of, but personally, do you need to think some more, or does your thought reach an end wherein is satisfied to leave this question, or another one, unanswered?
Very enigmatic Mr Smith. Your full back story becomes more and more intriguing. I would like to know the details, but I think you won't do that as you prefer the enigmatic label.
Quoting Agent Smith
Very kind words! I hope I am worthy of them at some level. Like you sir, I fight to try to be wise and make sense of my experience and existence as a human being and my compulsion remains to celebrate life and reject the notion that life is a curse. It seems to me that you fluctuate between the pro and anti life celebration camps. I would love to convert you fully to a complete positivist/optimist with no pessimistic undertones at all. But ah don't fancy ma chances! :smile:
At least I can cite you as someone who is determined to keep Latin 'Vivus!'
This might be worth reading, not for just you but anyone who can fully recognise themselves in this:
[i] Causes
The exact cause of bipolar disorder is unknown, but several factors may be involved, such as:
Biological differences. People with bipolar disorder appear to have physical changes in their brains. The significance of these changes is still uncertain but may eventually help pinpoint causes.
Neurotransmitters. An imbalance in naturally occurring brain chemicals called neurotransmitters seems to play a significant role in bipolar disorder and other mood disorders.
Inherited traits. Bipolar disorder is more common in people who have a first-degree relative, such as a sibling or parent, with the condition. Researchers are trying to find genes that may be involved in causing bipolar disorder.[/i]
[b]Symptoms
Symptoms can last over a few weeks, months, or even years. The symptoms vary during the manic and depressive phase. And without any symptoms, in between episodes of mania and depression.
The manic phase is characterised by:
Extreme happiness, hopefulness, and excitement
Irritability, anger, fits of rage and hostile behaviour
Restlessness
Agitation
Rapid speech
Poor concentration and judgment
Increased energy
Less need for sleep
Unusually high sex drive
Setting unrealistic goals
Paranoia
The depressive phase may include:
Sadness and crying
Feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, and guilt
Loss of energy
Loss of interest or pleasure in everyday activities
Trouble concentrating and making decisions
Irritability
Need for more sleep or sleeplessness
Change in appetite
Weight loss/gain
Suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide[/b]
[b]Treatments
Bipolar disorder lasts for a lifetime, with treatments aiming at managing the symptoms by psychotherapy and medication.
Medication
Mood stabilizers: Helps control extreme mood variations.
Carbamazepine · Lamotrigine · Valproate
Antipsychotic drugs: Help reduce symptoms of psychosis such as illusion, hallucination, etc.
Olanzapine · Quetiapine · Lurasidone · Cariprazine
Antidepressants: Helps stabilise the mood swings.
Sertraline · Fluoxetine · Citalopram · Desvenlafaxine · Duloxetine · Levomilnacipran · Venlafaxine
Antianxiety drugs: Reduces anxiousness.
Alprazolam · Clonazepam · Diazepam · Lorazepam · Oxazepam
Therapies: Psychotherapy · Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) · Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)[/b]
Good for you. :up:
Thanks for sharing and yes, I recognise myself in the symptoms.
Quoting universeness
I am doing it good with the exception of going to therapy.
Personally, I probably would go to my doctor and say something like.
"I am worried I might be bipolar or something, what do I do about it?"
I think I would do so because my curiosity would overwhelm me if I strongly recognised myself in a particular list of symptoms for an ailment but then I could be a bit of a hypochondriac as well.
As long as you feel that what you are doing now, allows you to live a life that is significantly far away from one of horror, terror and a compulsion to become an unhappy, awkward, socially isolated hermit.
A socially isolated hermit is fine, but only if you can exist as a 'happy' one.
Agreed. Nonetheless, I see isolation as a cause of happiness but it is true that I never really tried myself.
This topic has been split up into this and the other thread about excessive thinking. So I'll just quote what I wrote there since it covers both topics:
Quoting Christoffer
True. Our default mode is to be thinking in the sense of reverie and other types of non-philosophical thought. What Im specifying here is philosophical thought, however.
Has what we call philosophy simply become another addiction? It often seems that way. And not the good kind either. Still, I think your suggestions apply equally to philosophical thought as to any thought.
Quoting Possibility
Thinking is an activity that can (sometimes) be controlled. Were doing something when were thinking. I mean it in this general sense. Its not an action on par with running, but perhaps similar to speaking.
:100: :fire:
Quoting Xtrix
No. We're "addicted" to beliefs.
Hmm interesting... :eyes: :sparkle:
There are worse things to be addicted to, by far. If someone can manage to live the much touted "balanced life", well, good for them. I haven't figured that one out.
However little we know about thoughts, we can't help having them. Maybe you can meditate and see your thoughts as things, or whatever else this entails. Nevertheless, thinking, for human beings, is much like breathing, if we stop doing it, we die. Cue in Descartes joke.
I think proof of all this comes from this very strange occurrence that has likely happened to all of us a few times at least. You are doing nothing in particular, maybe washing dishes or swimming, and BAM all of a sudden you gain an insight, seemingly out of nowhere. All the while you had the impression you were only doing an activity unrelated to thinking.
I rather someone addicted to thought harming no-one, than someone addicted to action without measuring consequences. Though there are all these options between these two extremes.
I wouldn't put it that way. I don't see beliefs as something like speaking or thinking, which I see as activities and, thus, can be analyzed in terms of habits and addiction.
But as far as our beliefs remain fairly consistent and (usually) immovable, I see what you mean.
Quoting Manuel
Sure. I'm talking more about a specific kind of thinking, which I differentiate from the "default mode" type of thinking that occurs all the time.
Quoting Manuel
Certainly.
Sure - sometimes - which is why I said its not just a kind of doing. When we talk about thinking we are commonly referring to the attention and effort we commit to particular thoughts. My view is that there is more to thinking than activity, and that its not so similar to speaking as it is similar to the potentiality or conditions in which speaking does or does not occur.
Speaking is always an activity: it occurs in time, or it doesnt occur, and the difference is observable in time. But this is not necessarily the case for thinking. Thinking seems more like the notion of energy as more than just work: in many instances, we determine that thinking must have occurred prior to an observable action, or we presume that thinking is occurring when action (such as speaking) is not.
What is common to both forms of thinking is the perceived potentiality or conditions in which thinking is deemed to occur. Without this potential, there can be no thinking. Yet we often imagine/assume thinking where there appears to be evidence, but no potential.
Quoting Possibility
Thinking occurs in time as well. Where do you think it takes place? Outside time?
Thinking takes place in the brain. It's a product of the human nervous system. It's not well defined, but it's certainly a human activity.
Unless of course it's magic. But I don't think it's worth discussing that possibility.
"Philosophy does not need answers. It needs a cure."
Maybe it said "Philosophers", not "Philosophy".
I agree with the proposition of the OP. We are addicted to thought. Everyone gets addicted to what gives them pleasure.
Heard someone say, ever, of another person, "He (or she) is only happy when s/he is miserable."
Philosophers, on the whole, are not miserable; only when they fail to convince someone else of their own argument. Which is, by and large, 100 percent of the time.
What Im saying is that, like energy, what we name thinking is evidence of thinking, based on perceived potentiality. I agree that its not well-defined and not magic, but I cannot agree that thinking is either physically confined within the brain or directly observable in time as an activity. These are probabilistic conclusions at best - a reductionist account.
Thinking involves the brain and nervous system, and is a collaborative result of their ongoing interaction and change, but is a product of neither. Just as energy can be exchanged between events regardless of whether or not any change appears to take place, so thinking can occur between brain and nervous system without any observable change in activity to locate this occurrence in time. When we do observe change, we deduce that thinking must have occurred prior. When we expect intentional activity but are yet to observe any, we presume that thinking is occurring, as a potential cause for the delay.
But the idea that thinking occurs in time is an assumption, based on observable evidence - and/or lack thereof. I would argue that how we experience thinking as humans can be simultaneous, reversed, non-linear, jumbled, fast, slow, circular or even amorphous as far as temporal order is concerned - if were honest. Thinking, like energy, is not well-defined as an activity, but I believe it may be more accurately determinable as a potentiality.
The good news: If you have to get addicted to something, inshallah let it be to thinking.
[quote=Archimedes]Noli turbare circulos meos![/quote]
[math]\uparrow[/math]Last words of Archimedes.
Theres nothing probabilistic or reductionist about it: thinking either occurs in time or it doesnt.
You can also observe your own thoughts. You can observe your feelings, too. These are actual phenomena,
Again what is the alternative besides magic?
Quoting Possibility
Perceived potentiality doesnt mean much to me. What we label speech is evidence of speaking, too. That we do that in our heads sometimes without making noise doesnt strike me as requiring becoming spooky.
I guess I really dont see your point.
We can perceive thoughts and feelings - what we observe are the internal changes some can effect on our brain and nervous system. But not all thinking leads to actual change.
Magic is what we name something we cannot understand, which is different from what we cannot explain. Im simply making a distinction between actual and potential, observation and perception. The human mind makes sense to me as a five-dimensional structure in which thinking, feeling and acting exist as aspects of perceivable potentiality, undefined in time. You can call it spooky if it makes you feel any better, but its as real to me as energy, and no more actual a phenomenon.
Phenomena are objects of our perception, pieced together in potentiality from the interaction of internal and external observations. Thats not to say phenomena arent real, but it is what we observe that is actual, not the phenomena themselves.
But my point, I guess, is that much of our thinking amounts to nothing actually occurring. Theres nothing wrong with that, but the assumption that thinking is doing is false, and can lead us to this addiction to thinking, a distortion that prioritises thinking over feeling and acting.
Any thinking is an occurrence. Its a happening. We can observe it, we can be aware of it. When Im imagining something or talking to myself, something is happening. When Im sitting and planning out something, Im doing something. Its a non-physical activity.
Its just a way to talk about thought. I wouldnt get hung up on that.
As for the rest of your response theres too many problems I have with it to go on about, as itll derail this thread. But I agree with almost none of it.
Quoting Xtrix
You may find this from William James to be relevant.
Direct acquaintance and conceptual knowledge are thus complementary of each other; each remedies the others defects. If what we care most about be the synoptic treatment of phenomena, the vision of the far and the gathering of the scattered like, we must follow the conceptual method. But if, as metaphysicians, we are more curious about the inner nature of reality or about what really makes it go, we must turn our backs on our winged concepts altogether, and bury ourselves in the thickness of those passing moments over the surface of which they fly, and on particular points of which they occasionally rest and perch. ([1909]
James tells us that the clamor of our own practical interests makes us blind and dead to all but our narrow success and makes it impossible, as he puts it, to have any perception of lifes meaning on a large objective scale ([1899] 1983, 141). Only your mystic, your dreamer, or your insolvent tramp or loafer, can afford so sympathetic an occupation, an occupation which will change the usual standards of human value in the twinkling of an eye, giving to foolishness a place ahead of power, and laying low in a minute the distinctions which it takes a hard working conventional man a lifetime to build up ([1899] 1983, 141). In the twinkling of an eye we become aware of the intense interest that life can assume when brought down to the non-thinking level, the level of pure sensorial perception (James [1899])
James mentions a certain Hudson, who writes
of daily spending the noon hour in a quiet grove, listening, as he says,
to the silence and feeling strangely grateful (James [1899] 1983, 148). Hudson writes: My state was one of suspense and watchfulness; yet I had no expectation of meeting an adventure, and felt as free from apprehension as I feel now while sitting in a room in London. The state seemed familiar rather than strange, and accompanied by a strong feeling of elation; and
I did not know that something had come between me and my intellect until I returned to my former self,to thinking, and the old insipid existence (in James [1899])
I like that -- thanks.