If you can't see a entity doing the thinking, deciding what will be the next thought, what decides to raise an arm then?
No, when I just observe which thought will be next, I can see that thoughts just pop up on their own. I just have the idea that there are the thoughts that come on their own (automatically) and the thoughts that I can do manually.
So, I have read your questions very carefully. I am again a little bit frustrated. I know what you expect to hear but I will continue to say what I am thinking honestly, so that you know where I am exactly.
Does a thought think?
No. A thought can’t think. A thought it is just a reaction of the brain to the surrounding environment. I see an animal and the mind recognizes “this is a dog”. My stomach feels empty and a thought comes “I am hungry”. I listen to a song and the thought arises “I feel melancholic”… etc.
Does a thought have power of decision?
A thought by its own doesn’t have power of decision. A thought is just a thought that appears by itself. But I feel that “I” have the power of decision. Sorry, maybe we go back to my “food decision” or your “arm exercise” but that makes me really confused and I haven’t figure it out yet.
“My stomach feels empty and a thought comes “I am hungry”. (I can decide to eat or not)
“I listen to a song and the thought arises “I feel melancholic”” (I can decide to stay in this mood or play another song and feel another feeling. I think that I can have control. Maybe I am wrong, but even if I can understand it intellectually, I cannot say I can believe it for sure because this is not my experience yet and I don’t want to lie to you.
Do you experience a thought raising an arm? Or could the arm raise because it does, without a reason for the movement to happen?
How an arm can raise by its own? If this could happen, we would see people walking around with arms and legs raising on their own like crazy. I don’t know, I find it funny and confusing to think that this is true. When I am doing an action that it is needed to use my arms of course I don’t control the movement of them step by step. The same thing with walking. I don’t have to order my feet to move. I just walk. But who decides to walk or not? I still think there are some voluntary and some involuntary thoughts. Some of them are like reflections to the environment and some of them are decisions to these reflections.
And now you will say that also these decisions are just a thought. Example: My stomach feels empty (this is a sense of the body). The mind reacts to this sense and a thought rises “I am hungry”. Let’s say I am on a diet now, I will think “I don’t need to eat now, I can wait one more hour”. (Here I say that this is my decision to react or not to the thought “I am hungry”). And I think you want to show me that “the decision” that “I can wait to eat in an hour” that it is just another thought that comes by its own…)
So, in this way… the thought “I can wait to eat in an hour” it is just another reaction to the previous thought… ???
Hehehehe,,,, I don’t know.. this is very funny… In this way it is like we are using artificial intelligence… (A thought like this came to me while I was camping for two months in nature, about two years ago. One day I was watching the sunset and this came to my mind as a scenario. A person that seeks for enlightment and when he reaches there he sees that we use artificial intelligence. I laughed a lot with this scenario.
Ok, now you will say very correctly that I am doing imaginary scenarios again, and you will be very correct. I just find it very helpful to express my thoughts like this.
I will try to think of another example that it came up right now. A thought came “I need to make a break for a cigarette”. Ok this is not my decision. It is just a reaction of the mind to avoid this search, because it became tired. (Or it just needs some nicotine) Another thought came “maybe I should continue and not smoke for now”. Then another thought came “Come on, if I don’t smoke, this is totally my decision”. But.. this is just another thought reacting… trying to explain the belief that “I have control”, that I can decide to smoke or not. Is Mind just reacting to everything, even to the thoughts that it just made, and we comprehend this as an “I”?
So…. You told me to raise my arm. The mind reacts to this “task” and wants to try the exercise… It takes the thought “I have to raise my arm and see if it will raise or not”… And waits for something to happen. The mind itself that took this task by its own as a reaction to your saying. And it waits for an arm to raise or not. But nothing happens because it makes the thought that “I” have to give the order to raise my arm. Pfff very confusing.
I will have a break for now.
Could it be that the only reason you believe the arm is raising because of a thought, is because other thought is "raising the arm was my decision, I did it"?
I don’t get this at all. Maybe you want to type it differently because I don’t make any sense of this. Sorry.
“Can you find this I that is supposed to be raising the arm if you look to what is happening?
What is this I?
Where is this I?”
I am too frustrated for now. I would like to leave these questions for the next time until I figure out all the above. Thanks again.