Portal:Thinking
The Thinking Portal
Thought or thinking generally refers to any mental or intellectual activity involving an individual's subjective consciousness. It can refer either to the act of thinking or the resulting ideas or arrangements of ideas. Similar concepts include cognition, sentience, consciousness, and imagination. Because thought underlies almost all human actions and interactions, understanding its physical and metaphysical origins, processes, and effects has been a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including, among others, biology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.
Thinking allows beings to make sense of or model the world in different ways, and to represent or interpret it in ways that are significant to them, or which accord with their needs, attachments, objectives, plans, commitments, ends and desires.
Selected cognitive function article
Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one thing while ignoring other things. Examples include listening carefully to what someone is saying while ignoring other conversations in the room (e.g. the cocktail party problem, Cherry, 1953). Attention can also be split, as when a person drives a car and talks on a cell phone at the same time.
Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Of the many cognitive processes associated with the human mind (decision-making, memory, emotion, etc), attention is considered the most concrete because it is tied so closely to perception. As such, it is a gateway to the rest of cognition.
The most famous definition of attention was provided by one of the first major psychologists, William James:
"Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought...It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others." (Principles of Psychology, 1890)
Selected picture
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A hand-drawn mind map, a thinking tool.
Selected biography
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (
pronunciation (help·info), April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath, being a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer.
Thinking lists
- List of thinking-related topic lists
- Cognitive biases
- Cognitive scientist
- Philosophical theories
- Creative thought processes
- Decision-making processes
- Emotional intelligence
- Emotions
- Fallacies
- Memory biases
- Mnemonics
- Neurobiology
- Organizational thought processes
- Perception
- Psychometrics
- Thought processes
Things you can do
- See the list below? Scour Wikipedia, and see how many articles you can find that belong on that list. Then add them.
- In addition to the topics below, see the List of thought processes
Quotes
-My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun? Wernher von Braun
-The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition Bertrand Russell
-Each progressive spirit is opposed by a thousand mediocre minds appointed to guard the past. Maurice Maeterlinck
Related portals
- Portal:Artificial intelligence - (Artificial thinking machines)
- Portal:Mind and Brain – (Interdisciplinary aspects of the physical and mental)
- Portal:Philosophy - (Thinking about life, the universe, and everything)
- Portal:Psychology - (Study of human behavior, including thinking)
- Portal:Science - (Exploratory thinking)
