Posted by BBob on June 30, 2000, at 18:18:52
In reply to Zen and Learning Dissociation: Sara T, DJ, posted by shar on June 29, 2000, at 20:59:19
(shar asked)
>Bbob: if you read this, isn't all thought sublinguistic? Or are there other types?I suppose that is a good question, and you caught me writing quicker than I was thinking.
What I really meant was probably cortical thought as opposed to subcortical activity, though that too is a poor distinction. I could say constructed thought - that is more like what I was thinking about, but, again, that is less than specific. We have cultural constructs, which is pretty much what I meant when I blurted out linquistic thought, but we also have deeper emotional constructs which are way sublinquistic, though they were likely *constructed* early in our lives.But I would defend the notion of linguistic thought, in a general sense. We talk about “thinking out loud,” when our musings and perceptions seem to couple in real time with spoken (or written) words. We are familiar with “subvocalizations” in which thoughts are constructed as words but not elevated to the level of muscular expression. Since thought is more like quantum fields of energy in neural networks, I was trying to suggest thoughts that involve and include linguistic areas of the brain, as opposed to those centered elsewhere, especially deeper in the mid-brain.
There is probably a lot written about what is thought, and there was a thread on the board about it recently. “Thought” is in itself an arbitrary distinction. My hunch is that thought stretches from the sensory experience through perception and on into analysis and memory.
For example, when the motion of an object stimulates the peripheral neurons in our retina, signals race to the superior culliculus which is closely connected with our neck and head muscles, and which impulsively makes us tend to focus on the motion with more precise feature detecting neurons associated with the center of the retina. We saw something move and thought we had better take a closer look. Some people would likely say this is not thought, but I tend to imagine thought being a continuum, ranging from sensory perception to advanced, frontal-cortex thought.
This view presumes that context is an element of thought, and accounts for the parts of our cultural constructs that we store outside of our brain. The view essentially recognizes mind as larger than brain. Planets, mountains, trees, books, buildings, words and perceptions can all considered to be thought in some way - our thoughts, in an eastern view, and thoughts of the elements, in the animistic view. In western language, we often refer to the written word as “thoughts.” These words, for example are my thoughts on the subject of thought.
The reason a broader view of mind is important to the study, practice and pursuit of mental health is that the recognition of mind as including our environmental/cultural context allows mental health caregivers to embrace the widely asserted need for social support as part of a treatment regime that might also include manipulation of neurochemistry.
Disassociation, among other things, lets us disengage from both external and internal parts of mind to restructure or reorient. The risk of dissociation, as some have suggested in this thread, might be that we fail to reassociate in an orderly or consistent manner.
My ecopsychological view is that disassociation from human constructs, with the intent of reassociating with other life forms and natural systems, allows us to tap into an order and a momentum for which we are not constantly responsible. We can thus be more like creation than the creator.
Well - typically wordy of me. Maybe my frequent wordiness is why I am so keen on disassociating.
poster:BBob
thread:38054
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000630/msgs/38890.html