page_title: Thought
section_title: Etymology and usage
hierarchical_section_title: Thought / Etymology and usage
context_page_description: Thought encompasses an "aim-oriented flow of ideas and associations that can lead to a reality-oriented conclusion". Although thinking is an activity of an existential value for humans, there is still no consensus as to how it is adequately defined or understood.
  Because thought underlies many human actions and interactions, understanding its physical and metaphysical origins and its effects has been a longstanding goal of many academic disciplines including philosophy, linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, biology, sociology and cognitive science.
  Thinking allows humans to make sense of, interpret, represent or model the world they experience, and to make predictions about that world. It is therefore helpful to an organism with needs, objectives, and desires as it makes plans or otherwise attempts to accomplish those goals.
context_section_description: The word thought comes from Old English þoht, or geþoht, from stem of þencan "to conceive of in the mind, consider".
  The word "thought" may mean:
  a single product of thinking or a single idea ("My first thought was ‘no.’")
  the product of mental activity ("Mathematics is a large body of thought.")
  the act or system of thinking ("I was frazzled from too much thought.")
  the capacity to think, reason, imagine, and so on ("All her thought was applied to her work.")
  the consideration of or reflection on an idea ("The thought of death terrifies me.")
  recollection or contemplation ("I thought about my childhood.")
  half-formed or imperfect intention ("I had some thought of going.")
  anticipation or expectation ("She had no thought of seeing him again.")
  consideration, attention, care, or regard ("He took no thought of his appearance" and "I did it without thinking.")
  judgment, opinion, or belief ("According to his thought, honesty is the best policy.")
  the ideas characteristic of a particular place, class, or time ("Greek thought")
  the state of being conscious of something ("It made me think of my grandmother.")
  tending to believe in something, especially with less than full confidence ("I think that it will rain, but I am not sure.")
  Definitions may or may not require that thought
  take place within a human brain (see anthropomorphism),
  take place as part of a living biological system (see Alan Turing and Computing Machinery and Intelligence),
  take place only at a conscious level of awareness (see Unconscious Thought Theory),
  require language,
  is principally or even only conceptual, abstract ("formal"),
  involve other concepts such as drawing analogies, interpreting, evaluating, imagining, planning, and remembering.
  Definitions of thought may also be derived directly or indirectly from theories of thought.
caption: A Pensive Moment (1904), by Eugene de Blaas
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