THOUGHT TEXT

A sentence is born when it is written. There may have been thought before the writing, then a sentence appears upon the page or screen, after which the sentence is. The sentence may be read, then thought may occur. I can call such sentences thoughtext.

If sentences are read, the reading and the thoughts which may occur are part of the reader's subjective experience. We define the subject as the reader, you. If you think, we can write that you have thoughts. In any case, you are aware. I write this now.

These words appear between you and I, connecting us while also marking off a boundary of definition between you who are reading them now and I who am writing them now. The words are the same for each of us although the ink is different. The word now is accurate in both uses in the first sentence of this paragraph although the designated time is different. Of the meanings, who can know?

The following is a conventional picture. I have thoughts, subsequently I write words, although the thoughts which might have occurred prior to writing the words are not the thoughts which occur while writing the words. There are different possible relationships between the prior thought, the thought while writing, and the words written. A relatively strong connection would occur in the case where the decision to write a particular sequence of words was part of the prior thought and those words were subsequently written. A very different case occurs when the actual composition happens during the process of writing, although in this case it is possible that prior thought had outlined a theme of which the words are, to some extent, an expression. An actual case I sometimes notice in my own writing is a mixture of the two cases already mentioned. When I start writing a paragraph I have previously thought the conceptual theme and the words and form of the first sentence or two, then as I continue to develop the theme in writing I think ahead of the writing by a phrase or two, a clause, possibly a sentence or more.

Although thought is reasonably thought of as sometimes a precursor to writing, when the theme of the writing is thought then an interesting reflection of reference occurs. Let us denote thought by T and writing by W and concatenate the symbols such that the leftward symbol designates the act or event, whether thought or writing, which is prior in some sense, perhaps causally or temporally, to what is designated by the rightward symbols. The simplest cases are the following:

T Thought.

W Writing.

TT Thought about thought.

WW Writing about writing.

TW Thought about writing.

WT Writing about thought.

TTT Thought about: thought about thought.

TTW Thought about: thought about writing.

TWT Thought about: writing about thought.

TWW Thought about: writing about writing.

WTT Writing about: thought about thought.

WTW Writing about: thought about writing.

WWT Writing about: writing about thought.

WWW Writing about: writing about writing.

TTTT and such longer combinations appear to be more reflective than necessary here.

All of the combinations shown above shall occur in or be relevant to this thoughtext but this seems to be the place to notify the reader that the intended theme of this thoughtext is thought rather than writing. Thought is the primary concern, writing is the essential medium.

While you are reading this another symbol is deserved, R, which for you would preface each of the combinations above which began with W; although if you think about what you are reading or have read there is then another leftward T.

If philosophy contains sequences of thoughts in mind and sequences of words and higher expressions in writing then a significant question is which thoughts should be thought and which words and expressions should be written. Should we attempt to direct our thought by our thought and if so, how? Although we need all of philosophy to help us find out which thoughts we should think, one exercise which might be useful for developing that philosophy would be to examine the nature of thought and of thoughts.

Selecting a portion of consciousness and calling that a thought, especially naming or describing a particular thought, is to mark off a boundary or fence around that part of consciousness. In fact, unless my own experience is idiosyncratic, the designated thought is part of a wider flux of more or less perceived sensations, of sounds and sights and touches and odors, of emotions mixed and subtle, strong and mild, thick or clear, of fragments of sentences and rags of words, glints of memory, imaginations, ghosts of ideas, of a vast web or water or quasi-crystalline magma of awareness, from which, for a moment, a form becomes strongly enough articulated to be called a thought, before redissolving into the flux, to be followed by another thought, then another.

Let us try to clarify some of the relationships which may occur between thought and the words which appear in this writing. It may be self observed that part of the content of thought is words and language which appear as if sounded out or spoken in the consciousness, sometimes whispered and sometimes clearly articulated and distinct. Sometimes I find words progressing in my consciousness into phrases and statements, even grammatical sentences and sometimes when those sentences are statements about thought I form the intention of transcribing them in this writing and subsequently do so. When I actually write these words, however, it is more directly from another thought than that which originally thought the words; at the simplest instance I repeat the sentences, usually more slowly than originally thought, since I am a slow typist: I repeat them a word or phrase at a time and then type them, repeat the next word or phrase and then type that, and so on. While this event form does actually happen on occasion what usually occurs is more like a recreation than a repetition. Having formulated, again sometimes in distinct sentences, the idea or ideas which I wish to write down, I then subsequently sit in front of the keyboard and screen of the computer and type the words pretty much as I think them, usually following more or less closely the ideational intent with which I started the paragraph but also commonly adding more detailed explanation and expansion of the theme whilst in the actual typing process. More often than not the sequences of words in the writing are formed either just when they are typed or, the most common case, just prior, a few seconds prior, to typing them. To be painfully explicit, while the theme of the paragraph has usually been preset in thought before beginning writing, the actual phrases used are thought one or few at a time, then immediately thereafter typed, then the next few words or phrases are thought, then typed.

The description of composing while at the keyboard is an example of a form of thought wherein thought and action are entwined. Precisely and narrowly thought engages action actively by directing changes in the relative positions of bodily parts; thought also engages action receptively by perception and thought engages action reflectively through rethought and reflection upon those perceptions. Now again we are edging out from the clear shallows of phenomenology into the depths of meaning, wherein we would seem to eventually sink, swim or transcend the metaphor. Is this a reflection upon my method? Would it not perhaps be over simplistic to explain my method as phenomenological examination of thought in consciousness which then uses the springboard of language and linguistic creation to reach out into the intersubjectivly intended space of this writing? Yes, that would be too simple, something very much like logic or reason is also at work, some such machinery in the thought itself which forms, organizes and selects thoughts and themes for examination, decision, and writing.

What a strange deck of cards language gives us to play with. We have set the suit for thought and now look at our hand: meaning, intent, significance, content, theme. Words are too crude; they are dog eared and ragged; they sort of spread out in middle age; they have vague associations of usage and intent, all we can do is try to set them in order so that their meanings, their realms of influence, overlap and interact in such a way that we cover and uncover our intent, the words themselves, weatherbeaten as they are, worn by over handling, have, due to the very usage which wears and tears them, acquired a sheen and patina that somehow carries a glow of significance and, besides, we have no other choice, we have only these and other words to contain our content, to carry out our intent.

See again how strange this is. Thought occurs in my consciousness, loosely speaking; my body punches patterns on the keyboard; images of what may be called 'signs' appear; these images are somehow brought to your attention, wherein they induce thoughts, which may have some degree of correlation with the thoughts I thought, but neither of us can ever really know whether they do or not, unless in some other order of reality. But what has just been written is a jumble, a confusion, not the truth. It is more true to write that there is some inner guide, principle, belief and technique by which what I do in thinking and writing these words has at least an intent to be of a particular sort of significance, something pertaining to thought and communication, from which derives inner form, content and structure which I attempt to illuminate with words, words which are not, in the most part, separated entities but more like knots in the net of language, carrying meaning dripping from their forms and histories; and then again, to be honest, these words when plucked pull on the net and the tension of language itself carries part of the exposition. And you do not decipher these words as some strange hieroglyphics with a guesswork dictionary by your side (well maybe you do, but for most readers not); you read them, following a deep ingrained habit like walking, although the path may be familiar or strange, smooth and comfortable or steep and rocky; you read them in light of your personal experience both of language and of life; your reaction to these words may depend, quite reasonably, on the time of day. For me to do such writing is to cast bread forth upon the waters, although the following story may be irrelevant. Once, many years ago, I had friends throughout the world who shared a curious habitation near the edges of conscious experience and creative action. We devised and carried through the following schema: each would, on their own continent, at the same standard time, perform some action. I threw a handful of mushrooms into the ocean, then played a flute while they washed ashore, gathered the ones which had arrived to my right and recast them, and then repeated the performance until all of the mushrooms were beached to my left, except for those, perhaps, lost at sea.

Joe Staley