Is thinking an action?

[dan020350]

I thought about that thinking can't be an action but only an instrument of solving a problem. Therefore it cannot be a doing. Yet I felt that reason that it is a doing.

the reason I am asking this question, I concluded from Krishnamurti Epistemolgy, that Action is knowledge. So tell me what is the technical problem

[B-Mental]

I believe that thinking is a passive activity, therefore an action.

[dan020350]

would say if a person is not doing anything is an action, if he is thinking? But how can you possible know he is thinking? How can thinking be an action? If a problem requires an action, the person must do something, not thinking that the problem will go away?

thinking is an instrument, it is an enemy and a misery for us all because it creates problems, but it is the only instrument we have to solve problems.

Help me out CuppaJoe. This is question require a technical philosopher.

[dramasnot6]

Our mind is an organ like anything else. It uses a huge amount of our energy intake and controls all other parts of our body and directs any activity that occurs. We think to do, even if our thoughts are not directly linked to actions in the moment(like thinking about walking and then walking) they are the dominant influence over everything else.
We can not "do" without thought, the activity of thought is the most important of the resulting action. Any work achieved by other parts of the body is a result of brain activity.

[dan020350]

When we actually doing or applying thought to action, would you say that is pure thought?

[sharpe123]

Doing ‘something’ and doing ‘nothing’ are both actions. It is impossible for a living human being not to be doing some sort of action. I’d say thinking is definitely an action.

[dan020350]

Thats a strange notion you said Sharpe.

Doing something and doing nothing are both actions. I wondered this morning about that one. Everything in the universe must be doing an action, but that would also mean all machines, metals, and rocks are all doing an action, and they have a thoughts as well as human beings.

Here I infer Thales proposition " that everything has a soul"

furthermore, If you see a person doing nothing, his body, his blood cells, heart are all doing an action. I suppose you might in fact call this passive activity or an inner action. yet inner actions cannot possible solve outer actions.

The aim for this thread is to find a theory of knowledge.

[Dreadnought]

I believe it is an action.

As appreciators of literature, we attribute so much to our precious creations of the mind... Literature is able to contain, inherently, Beauty, Truth, Brilliance, Soul, etc etc etc.

How can we attribute such facets of ethereality to our literature, yet then deny our mind by claiming that an "action" need only be denoted by physical movement? Surely movement of the mind is action.

[Lily Adams]

Thinking is a verb, therefore an action. (Er, right? Heh heh.) But Miss Drame said it perfectly. Our brains are so great.

[bibliophile190]

Hmmmm......This is certainly a difficult question. I do believe it is an action, but not in the same sense as any other types of action. I think it is an action, but only in the fact that it leads to physical action. I can perform the act of thinking about sitting in a chair, but I have to physically move my body to sit in the chair, which is caused by the thought. Yes, I know that was terribly convoluted, but, there it is.

[dan020350]

That is the point I am trying to make Bibliophilie,

Thought/ thinking is an action, only if you can cause a physical movement ( physic power). As long as there is no physical movement, you are just day dreaming of fantasizing.

Thought is a tool. Thought is not a limb.

We cannot look at thought, therefore there is no knowledge we can say about it or what it is.
In the real world not in the thought world, when there is a physical movement then there will be knowledge.

CuppaJone am I right?

[scotpgot]

I believe thought is an action. One often hears of an "active" mind. (Incidentally, dictionary.com specifically mentions mental activity as an action).


Everything in the universe must be doing an action, but that would also mean all machines, metals, and rocks are all doing an action, and they have a thoughts as well as human beings.

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. How does action automatically imply thought and souls?

[sharpe123]

I still think its an action. It's the 'main' action (in a human sence). Without the action of thinking no other (human) actions would exsist. Robots can perform actions but only because of the actions of humans.

[blackowl]

dear sharp,
ref to thinking, firstly, I think, you need to discuss abt culture. How culture impruved and with which instruments. I would like to receive your mail true my e-mail: [email protected]. by

[blackowl]

hello everyone, i am new: BLACKOWL
it is action. refusing action mean refusing to be exist as human being. for years and years i wonder MYSELF that not to stop thinking when i die. if YES after this point i dont care about to phisicaly living from now!!!!!!!

[dan020350]

blackowl I disagree. IF you stop thinking you will still live.

and about scotpot's comment- that Thales inference I used it as a joke of course :)

[Dreadnought]

Everything in the universe must be doing an action, but that would also mean all machines, metals, and rocks are all doing an action, and they have a thoughts as well as human beings.

Well, it appears to me that, whether one would so easily accept this proposition or not, that the basis of one's answer to this question is rooted in "faith", or whatever we would like to call that ultimate knowledge which we establish to the unknown variable.

For instance, it is easily understood that the most esoteric and intangible of theoretical physics rely heavily and largely upon the thinkers own beliefs and faith system, such that we put our hope and faith into our theories and ideas, as if they were a ship to carry the ideas over rough waters.

Having said this, a current (and developing) mode of thought concerning the ultimate nature of the universe deals with something called the "Akashic field"; an underlying structure of the universe, call it a dimension or not at your choosing, which contains within it simply all of the information in the universe that we ourselves know. It is the cosmic record of all information.

So imagine... if such a thing as a particle were to have such multitudinous amounts of information, which it quite easily does when you begin to truly ponder the possibility, imagine what such dynamo's as our minds would do to such a field.

Surely you can't disregard thought as an action, simple because you do not notice an apple fall from a tree when one thinks?

[dan020350]

I agree totally, everything is base of faith on one's own belief. And this is also a false. We need to start with no concepts at all. When two people are looking at each other, what are they doing? Looking. When a person is looking at an object, what is he doing? observing without an observor ( thinking without a thinker) If a person assumes a thinker, he then did not claim what he is doing, that is starting without nothing.

And surely thought can be an action, only if you have physic powers, at least that is what I believe, other then that it is an instrument to know.

thinking and seeing (awareness) is different. I think I may have to give up on this question. Because Action cannot be defined in the english language.