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The most intriguing thing about the discussion this past week was the possibility of the nervous system creating an “output” without an input.  The first thing that came to mind was: is this the process of thought?  When we are thinking, without conscious input from the outside world affecting this thought—compare it to aimless wandering, even—does this thought get converted into an output?  Could the tangible term of “thinking” be created as the box with no input?

The nervous system is the center of all mental activity including thought, learning, and memory.  While memory is often associated with the hippocampus, thought’s tangible whereabouts are often hard to discern—and perhaps this could lead to a more definite conclusion.  Because thought seems to range from all over the cerebrum, it seems plausible that thought could be the construct of the nervous system to create new outputs when no input is being received, or—in another aspect—triggered by subsequent ideas of the input that is being received.

I’m not sure if I’m making sense at all, but it seems to me that the essence of thought could really be compared to this box with no input signal.  I’ve always thought of “thinking” as much of a turning wheel, a constant replaying of thoughts that have been formed from memories and experiences.  Perhaps our brain has sensed a stimuli in another form, been reminded of an occurrence associated with that stimuli, and dispatched an output with no direct stimuli spawned from that association and thought.