Ayla: Grampa, do you think about thinking?

Grampa: You mean about what is going on in me when I'm thinking about something?

Ayla: Maybe we should say, "When you think that you're thinking about something."

Grampa: Well, for that matter, do you think that I even think at all? I am pretty old, you know.

Ayla: This kind of talk could go in circles forever, couldn't it? But, just to be clear, you're not that old. 

Grampa: Yes, we could end up discussing for days whether you and I can even talk about thinking and still make sense to each other. People have done that, you know.

Ayla: So how do we get out of that death spiral? That's a figure skating term, by the way.

Grampa: We agree to define our terms for each other in some way that we both accept and then we get on with talking about what we really want to discuss.

Ayla: Words chasing words.

G: They're all we really have, Ayla. We do the best we can with the tools we have and we build understanding between us so we can live together and get along.

A: So what do you think "thinking" is? 

G: Well ...in myself ...I'm fairly sure that in order to even form a thought, I have to have some things that I usually call "concepts" already in place in my head, ready to be used, or let's say "combined" to get to any new concepts. That's thinking. 

A: Concepts like what? Math concepts? Like two plus five equals seven? That's a thought? 

G: Even more basic concepts, Ayla. The most basic ways of forming thoughts that I can put word-labels on and that are separate enough so that I can count them and say there are two or five or whatever of them. I have to know that much before I can think that two, let's say, chickens' eggs plus five chickens' eggs makes seven chickens' eggs all together.

A: So how do you get these concepts that you're holding in your head to begin with? Are people born with concepts of eggs or other things already in their heads? Or concepts of abstractions like numbers or of mental operations like adding? 

G: No. We learn them. Our parents or others around us, older brothers and sisters, maybe, call a thing that we're looking at an "egg". Then maybe they crack it open, cook the inside stuff in a fry pan, and feed it to us for breakfast. Maybe, scrambled and with a bit of ketchup. And we like the taste and also the feeling of having our hunger satisfied so afterward, we remember that experience and when we're hungry again, we say to Mom or Dad or Sister Katy a sound that is our best copy of the word "egg". They reward our effort by smiling and applauding. In a short while, the baby doing the learning has the concept of "egg". 

A: But then are you saying that we can't learn the difference between a stone and an egg except by experience then? 

G: That's right. 

A: And is that true for every concept that we can learn, like even concepts of numbers and adding? 

G: Yes. If Sister Katy comes out of the hen house each morning where your parents keep 10 chickens, and some mornings she has found 10 eggs, and some days 7, and some days only 2 or 3, and each day she counts them with you as she puts them in her basket, gradually you learn your numbers from 1 to 10. 

A: So if your family has Mom, Dad, Katy, Alan, and little you, you even start to understand that 10 eggs is much better than 2 because with 10 eggs, you get more breakfast. If eggs are all your family has to eat for breakfast, I mean. 

G: Basically, that's it. We learn by putting labels on experiences and memories of experiences. Then, we combine our ideas of what those labels are standing for and that's thinking. 

A: So all concepts are just labels for clumps of experiences. 

G: First, concepts are for organizing and labeling memories of experiences. Then, for organizing and filing sense data of new experiences as we see, hear, touch, taste or smell those new sense experiences. 

A: So you're saying we don't have any sort of basic concepts - you know, really basic ones like "up" and "down" or other concepts like that - that come already built in when we're born. 

G: We have needs already built in at birth. We need warmth and cuddling and food from some other living thing. Babies that are fed but not cuddled die, you know. So maybe you could say we have a basic concept of love built in when we're born, but even that idea of "food" is learned. Babies will try to eat things that aren't food at all. Toys. Even stones. Blanket corners. I guess we could say that the idea of hunger is built in at birth, but then we also have to say that all living things must be able to think. Oh, and by the way, even our ideas of "up" and "down" are learned. They're not built in. Experiments have been done in which people had to wear special goggles that upended how their eyes saw things. They then had to re-learn - actually, reverse - their concepts of "up" and "down" even to just walk around, and they did do that re-learning. 

A: Yipe! That's mean! Who would do such an experiment? 

G: Oh, the one who had to wear the goggles was the scientist himself. I mean he invented the goggles and then wore them for a couple of weeks himself. 

A: Did he have someone to help him get around? At least at first, he must have. 

G: Yes, for a week or so, until his eyes -- or rather his visual cortex, which is the part of the brain that organizes and makes sense of the nerve signals coming from a person's eyes -- learned the new system. But it eventually did. I guess I should say "he" did. He started seeing things right way up again. His brain had reprogrammed its concepts of "up" and "down". We can learn to adjust to almost anything when we have to. 

A: Why do you say "almost anything"? Is there something you're not telling me? 

G: Well, the experiments can get harsher. 

A: Like how? 

G: A person can be hung in a pitch dark, silent room in a tank of warm water, hooked up to a diver's helmet so he can breathe. In an hour or two, his senses almost stop sending any information to his brain. He can't see, hear, smell, taste, or feel. He's not even sure of where gravity is or where his arm is , and so on. It's called "sensory deprivation". 

A: My God! That would be horrible! Has anyone ever done it? Gone in the tank, I mean? 

G: I'm afraid so. The technique is a form of torture. It has been used to break spies. 

A: How did we get talking about something this awful? I hate even thinking about it. 

G: We were just trying to show that human minds don't really have any concepts built in from birth. We learn pretty much all of our concepts by experience, with help from the people around us. We could be said to have concepts of love and hunger built in when we're born, but if that's thinking, then we have to say that even a worm can think. 

A: Flowers turn toward the sun, don't they? Some of them do. 

G: Good example. 

A: So is it reasonable to say flowers can think? And all living things can think at some level? 

G: Yes. Or "feel", if you like that word better. But a scientist named Candace Pert proved that there is no neat line between thinking and feeling. Even humans, as complicated as we are, can't think without feeling and also can't feel without thinking. Flowers and worms think at a pretty basic level, but they do have concepts and they do use them. 

A: Why don't we form concepts of ...I don't know ...sillyburbles or noseyhoses? 

G: Because they're of no use to us. Not to us or the people who came before us. Remember that most of your concepts were taught to you by the people around you as you were growing up. Most of the ideas in your head, and the ways of combining those ideas, and even then doing something with the conclusions that the idea-combining leads you do, like say taking your hand away from a wasp, were formed by experience, sometimes painful experience. Usually the experience of people who came before you. More of the people who learned the useful concepts, the ones that helped them to deal with reality, survived. More of the ones who didn't learn useful concepts died. The useful concepts kept spreading in the population from parents to kids, generation after generation because the useful concepts worked. They made people who understood them more able to survive.    
  
A: So what is "love" then? Just cuddling? That's a pretty vague concept compared to ones like "egg" or "stone" or "Mom" or "flower".

G: Talk about things like love is a whole other talk, sweetie. We'll have to have it another day. Grampas get really tired, you know. 

A: Well, what a letdown. No, just kidding. I'm brain-tired too, and I have to run or I'm going to be late for dance rehearsal. Bye. I love you. 

G: I love you, too, sweetie. Remember to focus and listen to Gwenneth. 

A: I will. 

G: And dance con vivo. 

A: I will. See you. 

G: Bye bye.