Yes, but not wanting to think about apples also constitutes thinking about apples. However, if I do want to think about apples, I’m going to think about apples more than if I didn’t want to think about apples. Perhaps a better example: if I think to myself, “I want to calculate 33 + 28”, I will. Something’s going on here; do you not agree?
Yes, but not wanting to think about apples also constitutes thinking about apples. However, if I do want to think about apples, I’m going to think about apples more than if I didn’t want to think about apples.
That’s not entirely true: look up Wegner, “Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression”, 1987.
If my own experience is typical, people don’t usually think “I want to think about apples” unless it’s part of a thought experiment or something. A behaviorist model might work here: You get a stimulus: something that activates your brain’s concept of apples. It may be a sense impression, like seeing an apple, or it may be a thought, for example a long train of thoughts about gravity and Isaac Newton eventually gets by a train of spreading activation to “apples”. This stimulus gets processed by various different cognitive layers in various different ways that are interpreted by your conscious mind as “thinking about apples.”
If you want to not think about apples for some odd reason, the natural tendency is for this to activate your apple concept and cause you to think about apples. If you’re smart, though, you’ll try to distract yourself by thinking about oranges or something, and since your conscious brain can only think about one thing at a time, this will probably work.
The breakthrough for me was realizing that “I think about apples” is more a peculiarity of the English language than a good reflection of what is happening—about as useful as “I choose to produce adrenaline in response to stress”. It suggests that there’s someone named me with a flashlight illuminating certain thoughts at certain times because I feel like it. I find it less wrong (though still a little wrong) to imagine the thoughts percolating up of their own accord, and me as a spectator. This might make more sense if you meditate.
Wanting to think of apples already constitutes thinking about apples.
Yes, but not wanting to think about apples also constitutes thinking about apples. However, if I do want to think about apples, I’m going to think about apples more than if I didn’t want to think about apples. Perhaps a better example: if I think to myself, “I want to calculate 33 + 28”, I will. Something’s going on here; do you not agree?
That’s not entirely true: look up Wegner, “Paradoxical Effects of Thought Suppression”, 1987.
If my own experience is typical, people don’t usually think “I want to think about apples” unless it’s part of a thought experiment or something. A behaviorist model might work here: You get a stimulus: something that activates your brain’s concept of apples. It may be a sense impression, like seeing an apple, or it may be a thought, for example a long train of thoughts about gravity and Isaac Newton eventually gets by a train of spreading activation to “apples”. This stimulus gets processed by various different cognitive layers in various different ways that are interpreted by your conscious mind as “thinking about apples.”
If you want to not think about apples for some odd reason, the natural tendency is for this to activate your apple concept and cause you to think about apples. If you’re smart, though, you’ll try to distract yourself by thinking about oranges or something, and since your conscious brain can only think about one thing at a time, this will probably work.
The breakthrough for me was realizing that “I think about apples” is more a peculiarity of the English language than a good reflection of what is happening—about as useful as “I choose to produce adrenaline in response to stress”. It suggests that there’s someone named me with a flashlight illuminating certain thoughts at certain times because I feel like it. I find it less wrong (though still a little wrong) to imagine the thoughts percolating up of their own accord, and me as a spectator. This might make more sense if you meditate.