Thinking in our heads.

[Deleted]

So recently I was wondering, why do we think in our heads? I'm not a psychologist, however if you told someone (say a child) that their brain is behind their ribs would they think from their chest? Or from their head still? Do we think, where we think we think? Or do can we only ever think from our heads?

Thank you!

[Knight Gil]

We don't think from our heads. We think from our brain.

/thread

[Deleted]

But, if you told a child that their brain was found in their chest, would they think lower down where they think their brain is located? Or still in their heads?

[Deleted]

Children are told Santa is real, does not make it true.

[Rocketsurgeon]

You are suggesting that I have a sense of a physical location to my thoughts. I do not.

[theenigma77]

On the topic, do all of you think in your own voice? What do deaf people think like? Just pictures? Or do they think in a voice as well? Unanswered questions of the universe.

[Deleted]

Well. I think I think with my own voice, however it sounds around the same as I hear my voice, however people will hear my voice differently than I do. Also, it is weird to think that people whose languages involve clicking noises with their tongues, actually think with not a voice, but the sound of their tongues clicking. It's all odd.

[Rocketsurgeon]

Sometimes I think with a voice, sometimes with text, more often images, and mostly waves of base emotion. Which takes forefront depends on what I'm doing. I think with a voice when I have the resources for it-its almost my mind on idle, but if I'm doing something physically taxing or that requires all my concentration, it goes more primal.

My mind's voice is usually similar to but not the same as my voice, either as I hear it or as it really sound.

[theenigma77]

I think in my own voice when I think something like "Hmm what should I do tonight, or I need to get gas later" but when I think of hanging with friends I'll picture them AND think in my voice. I also think in video when I'm bored, like I'll imagine myself doing super cool guy stuff and all that jazz. 70 - 80% of the time however I think in my own voice. Even now as I type this I am reading it outloud in my head.

[Neichus]

So recently I was wondering, why do we think in our heads? I'm not a psychologist, however if you told someone (say a child) that their brain is behind their ribs would they think from their chest? Or from their head still? Do we think, where we think we think? Or do can we only ever think from our heads?

Thank you!

I know anciently many people regarded the heart as the center of thought rather than the brain. While that proves nothing except that we can be wrong, it's interesting to wonder where they experienced the thinking. Although I'd be pretty surprised if they experienced perspective from anywhere except somewhere around the forehead (roughly where "third eyes" are drawn) as that appears to be where people construe their location, probably due to its close proximity to the visual input (although it's incidentally over the frontal cortex, which is a major player in consciousness).

[Deleted]

I think something like "Hmm what should I do tonight, or I need to get gas later" but when I think of hanging with friends I'll picture them AND think in my voice.

I guess I do that, I seem to think in an informal way "What am I doing later? Oooh what w-- ah mechanics". And I only ever see pictures if I'm recreating occasions in my head or trying to remember what something looked like. But as for videos, I only ever see them if I am deep in daydreaming or just like me running but nothing too complex.

[Deleted]

Well, the brain is in the head and it's technically the only thing that does any thinking in your body. It's also proven.. probably a century or more ago:P
Saying different things doesn't make it true.

[Dassen]

People are missing the OPs point. If a person didn't know where the brain was located, would the "voice in their head" still be located in the head? Or would it come from wherever they thought their brain was located?

[Rocketsurgeon]

But the voice in my head isn't located in my head. If you raised me to think it was in my foot I would not experience any change from the present. I have never felt any kind of thought location. Is that something other people experience?

[Deleted]

People are missing the OPs point. If a person didn't know where the brain was located, would the "voice in their head" still be located in the head? Or would it come from wherever they thought their brain was located?

Yeah I'm sort of deviating along with everyone else on questions about the mind. However Neichus made a good point also about olden beliefs.

---------- Post added 2011-05-09 at 06:04 PM ----------

But the voice in my head isn't located in my head. If you raised me to think it was in my foot I would not experience any change from the present. I have never felt any kind of thought location. Is that something other people experience?

Yeah, I think just behind my eyes and no further back than my chin upwards, so a small section. However this is what I meant, as you do not think there. Am I only thinking there due to me thinking my brain is there and thus where I think.

[Rocketsurgeon]

There were also ancient cultures that believed your thoughts to be in your entrails. That has a little more basis in fact, as the amount of nerves in your gut rivals that of your brain. Gut feeling is real, yo.

[theenigma77]

If someone told me my brain was in my ass I would still think the same way. That where thought process is handled try thinking from anywhere else. It's impossible. Even if I had no prior knowledge that my brain was in my head, that just where thinking takes place.

[Deleted]

You are suggesting that I have a sense of a physical location to my thoughts. I do not.

Idd. If you're having this " sense of a physical location" it´s rather because you think in verbalizing it. wen you are focuzed in a though theres no location, only a brain working lol

[Shockzilla]

People are missing the OPs point. If a person didn't know where the brain was located, would the "voice in their head" still be located in the head? Or would it come from wherever they thought their brain was located?

Oh I get the OP’s point, Poor attempt to sound like a deep thinker. Let’s try telling kids they hear with their eyes and see what happens. /sighs

[Kwafee]

I think in the voice of James Earl Jones, he's like the running narrator of my inner-mind.

Don't think too hard about it though, you might hurt your head... Or WILL you?