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     This idea of original thought seems to baffle me. What is an original thought, and can it only be composed of other original ideas to be an original thought? I, myself, have never thought or dreamed of anything so outside of what I know to be true to call it an original thought. I’ve never pondered of something that was free of preconceived notions. In Descartes’ Mediations, he uses an analogy to link dreams and reality that I think would like to apply here. In the painter’s analogy we understand that a painting has been created independent of things the painter has seen. For instance a satyr would be composed of a human and a goat, both of which the painter has seen, but has put the halves together to create an entirely new creature. Even if the figures are independent of what the painter would find in ‘reality’, the colors and the reflection of like come from what the painter has seen.

     This may be taking Descartes’ idea out of context, but I think he was on to something in regards to the function of the brain. Have you ever thought of something that wasn’t based on anything you knew to be true, and thought of it as viable? There is a certain connection here between what we think and what we believe to be true, even if the new thought isn’t entirely based on truth. But what is the process of knowing something? If our brain is the result of cephalization of the nervous system, then it is part of the nervous system; and the definition we have come to except, at this point in the class, of the nervous system is a series of boxes within boxes of which follow the process of input/output, where is the information retained. If neurons are only capable of generating, transmitting and receiving action potentials to relay electrical and chemical information, how can it then be ‘stored’ in a way that we can draw on it in our thoughts? And is it this retention of information that makes us independent from all other creatures?