Is Thinking a Voluntary or Involuntary Action?

I don't think one can will a thought, for it appears to arise before the willing happens. Besides what or who would will it?

Can thought will thought?

[edited]

Doesn't make it untrue. To me it's a no-brainer that thought can provoke thought.

Just watch....

Answered before the edit.

Well if thought cannot be willed, then it would appear that thoughts are not a choice.

I didn't say, 'provoke', I said, 'will'. It's not a question whether thought can provoke thought. The question is whether a thought can will a specific thought. I don't think thought is a choice, for who's choice would it be? I think they just happen.

truth
Repression is willed unconsciously; but suppression is done consciously. At least that's how I define the two terms.
I don't know that we can choose not to think. For ten years I tried in vain to stop my thinking, believng incorrectly that that was the goal of meditation: to stop the mind. I've concluded that thinking is what the brain does just as secreting digestive juices is what the stomach does.

twyvel,

What do you mean by "will"? What does "willing" a thought constitute?

When you explain it, I will probably say it can be voluntary.

I can will myself to think something. I shall will myself to think of an aardvark and its life.

There - done. My mind is populated with aardvarks.

It is also populated with many other, unwilled, semi-willed and attempting not to will thoughts. Such is thought.

I will myself to think of something every time i have to write an essay, or do a report, or solve a problem.

A lot of unwilled thought goes on about these things too, semi-consciously - but it is, I suppose, the result of the willing.

You will to think, but the thought devoid of sudden intuitions, or inspirations, is dull.
Homer calls the Muse.

Sure.

They are not mutually exclusive.

dlowan wrote:

dlowan wrote:

Twyvel is really thinking on my level.
Dlowan, you read what others had written which created a response in your brain. And then you claimed that you created that response through pure will? I refuse to believe that any ideas or thoughts are completely unfounded.
JLNobody, you are completely correct about how thinking is just a process in the brain. I believe that when we aren't thinking constructively, our brains are compiling and reviewing everything that has happened in the past. That is where daydreams come from.

But the willing was done nonetheless.

What does this mean?

" I refuse to believe that any ideas or thoughts are completely unfounded."

I mean, I know what the words mean - but I don't know why you said it.

And what about when I sit down, despite great reluctance, and decide to think of a present for Auntie Mary?

or, when treating post traumatic stress disorder, I get a client to use their will to not avoid thinking about a traumatic scene, and to focus on it in great detail?

I know the dictionary definition twyvel. I was, however, hoping you could do something to make your comment make sense.

I will parody your argument below:

Machines can't create anything. Even if you demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt a machine creating something the machine had to be created in the first place.

No duh!

dlowan, I probably used the wrong word but what I meant was that I completely believe in the idea that the mind only responds to stimuli and doesn't just create thoughts out of thin air.

When you sit down, you relax not only your body but your brain too. This gives you time to think about things such as your family, then you think about Mary, and then her birthday, then you decide what present to get her. Do you see what I am saying? The thought about what to get her was triggered by the stimulus of the thought of her birthday which was itself a response to another stimulus...the chain goes all the way back to a biological need for social interaction and that need is unconscious.

And the client didn't decide to think about a traumatic event, you decided for them.

Craven



Sorry, I guess I know you know,