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From: gin001@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it (Mauro Cicognini)
Subject: Re: how many distinct thoughts can a person have?
Message-ID: <1991Jun27.092443.16343@cdc835.cdc.polimi.it>
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References: <1991Jun19.033316.18773@athena.mit.edu> <1991Jun25.031941.20713@newserve.cc.binghamton.edu>
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Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1991 09:24:43 GMT

vu0208@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu () writes:

>In article <1991Jun19.033316.18773@athena.mit.edu> mlevin@jade.tufts.edu writes:
>>   I was just reading Z. Pylyshin's "Computation and Cognition", and
>>at one point, he states something like: "the number of distinct human
>>thoughts is uncountable." Does anyone have any arguments for or
>>against the idea that the number of possible distinct human thoughts
>>(or mental states) is uncountably infinite? Note I do not mean
>>"astronomicallly large" - I mean infinite (and perhaps uncountably so)
>>in the strict mathematical sense. It seems plausible to me; does
>>anyone have a good argument either way?
>>
>>Mike Levin

>If not infinite then multiple thoughts DO occur concurrently in a
>human brain!!

>1) I remember reading somewhere about a poet who could
>write with both left and right hands, and at times he was writing two
>different poems simultaneously!

>2) A personal experience: I have had many times NESTED-DREAMS! That
>is, Dream in a dream at most to 3 levels. At each level I have
>communicated from the nth-level to (n-1)th level of the nested-dreams.

>-------

>This is purely my theory:

>Human brain may be strongly-processing one thought (on which it is
>concentrating) but in the back-ground lots of thoughts are being
>processed (weakly) (here I use strong and weak thoughts to define the
>degree if concentration). Now once the current thought-process is
>completed or require more information then one/or more  of the
>back-ground process-thoughts share/send the information to/from the
>strong-thought. And this thinking process goes on until fewer thoghts
>are left (resulting in a conclusion or action) or all the thoughts are
>connected together to reach some new discovery/invention by the brain.

I think very interesting the experience of having nested dreams, although it
never occurred to me.
I think also very reasonable that many thoughts be carried on at once, since 
a vast number of processes surely go on inside the brain simultaneously: 
just think of all the self-supporting systems and the self-regulation systems.
So, as the autonomous nervous system is able to do many things at once, also thecentral nervous system (that is, the conscious part) is likely to be able to do so, too. The rest is experience.
As for the number of thoughts (that is, mind processes) that can go on at once,
I think that we need first a more precise definition of what we mean with the 
word. Of course, if the definition is loose enough, we may end up as well
saying that we have uncountably infinite thoughts going on in a single moment,
just because we cannot really measure them, or identify them well enough. 
Personally, I think that their number may be very large, but not infinite, due
to the finite number of neurons in the brain. Of course, this is only an idea, 
that comes to me quite natural. But common sense is often wrong.

Let's not forget we are dealing with living things.
And a network that can change itself as it needs.

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Sapere aude! Habe mut dich die einige verstanden zu bedienen! (I. Kant)



