To get you thinking... - What would it take? Perhaps this...

By: Tom Cloyd

(Reviewed: 2026-05-04:1641 Pacific Time (USA))

Why think at all? Thinking is hard work, isn't it? Often, yes...except when it isn't!

While it can lead us astray, more often it gets us past blocks to our progress, solves a problem for us, or at least moves us closer to a solution. "Overthinking" is a problem for some people, but failure to think much at all is a more common problem.

What starts thought? Distress can, but so can curiousity, or simply the need for greater depth in our sense of things.

Often, all it takes to start the flame of thought is a spark, so here are some good ones...

 

Page contents...

The nature of thought ^{^}

Do you know what "thinking" is...? Consider these descriptions, from some notably thoughtful people.

Thinking is inherently something the organic mind does ^{^}

"Every use of a logic 1s a matter of psychological fact, and being so, is subject to the factors that determine all such facts. But the logic-in-use itself is occupied, not with those factors, but with the factors of the problem at hand. Thinking, whether logical or illogical, is always a psychological process; but when it is logical, it reaches out to the larger world where the problem that occasioned thought has its locus. The question [of] how we ought to think and not merely [of] how we do think does not make psychology irrelevant but instead gives relevance to a good deal else besides."²

~ Abraham Kaplan² (President of the American Philosophical Association from 1947 to 1958. Professor of Philosophy, U.C.L.A., U. of Michigan, University of Haifa. Named one of the top ten teachers in the United States in 1966 by Time magazine.)³

Thinking encompasses learning, memory, problem-solving ^{^}

Thinking is, "...generally, any covert cognitive or mental manipulation of ideas, images, symbols, words, propositions, memories, concepts, percepts, beliefs or intentions. ...A term used so that it encompasses all of the mental activities associated with concept-formation, problem-solving, intellectual functioning, creativity, complex learning, memory, symbolic processing, imagery, etc. Few terms in psychology cast such a broad net and few encompass such a rich array of connotations and entailments."¹

~ Arthur S. Reber (Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College, The City University of New York, New York City, New York, USA).

Thought is a whole-brain process, and part of a system that extends far beyond the brain ^{^}

The nature of thinking is not easily expressed in a few words. UCLA psychiatrist Daniel Siegel describes it as being "mediated" (i.e., managed) by the upper part of the human brain - the "cerebral cortex", but emphasizes that "the networks of the brain function as a whole to create [activated] brain states..." "There are many interconnecting linkages between the cortex and other regions of the brain, as well as essential inputs from the body and the relational world - our interconnections with other people and the environment." He emphasizes that brain states involve widely separate brain regions that are strongly connected by neural fibers such that both the distinctiveness of these regions and their strong integration is maintained.⁴

Sparks to start the flame of thought ^{^}

Please see To get you thinking... for a complete listing of brief articles in this section.

Notes ^{^}

 

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