Nature of Thought Paper
Rebecca Quick
PHL/251
November 23, 2015
Dr. Michael Newman Myers
Nature of Thought Paper
Before one can understand the nature of thought, they must first understand what it means to think. Thinking can be described as a way of reasoning, the process of thought, or even one's opinion or judgement. One must also be familiar with the different contributors of thinking; the most important of these contributors are the sensory process, memory, and the medium or language. However, there are also factors that can get in the way of how we think such as personal barriers, thoughts, or even perceptual blocks.
The five senses seeing, smelling, touching, hearing and tasting is what makes up the sensory process that feeds us with the majority of the information we use to form our thoughts. "There is nothing in the mind unless it is first in the senses" (Kirby & Goodpaster, 2007), simply put the better we sense, the better we think. As babies, our senses are used to form thoughts, and as adults they are linked with thinking. Meaning that as one performs we sense, and as one sense's we perform. As an adult a good example of this would be that we may read, write, or listen to what one has to say, therefore; we are sensing. On the other hand when one cooks, drives, or even types a text message we are thinking. Our senses may not function properly from time to time, especially if we are sick or even tired. For the most part, they can be pretty accurate. As infants, we are all born with these senses, with some knowledge already intact, and as we grow so does the knowledge. Therefore, the knowledge that we gain over the course of our life then gets stored in our memory. Our memory is a unique tool that we use every day in our thinking process; it is used to preserve and remember past experiences. The way in which our memories are recorded can be influenced by our family upbringing, religious beliefs, environment, and prejudices....