Thought

It is too much to talk about thoughts and their nature, but let it be said that a thought is seperate from another thought, so that a mind can have a series of seperate thoughts. It also seems that one is able to experience new thoughts. One has thoughts they have never thought before, and these thoughts can be related to recent events. So then I'm sure it's safe to assume that one is able to create new thoughts.
I will talk about being conscious of thoughts.  I don't mean anything too wild here, but simply being aware of a thought. I mean the same thing as thinking a thought, entertaining a thought, having a thought. All these phrases point to the same experience, that of what I will refer to as being conscious of a thought. Finally, I have come to realize this opinion has already been thought of, and has since been labelled epiphenomenalism. Therefore it is my intent to offer the reader not an original theory, but rather an original method of proving said theory.


My claim:
Each thought is not constructed consciously but is rather, as it were, seen by the consciousness, after being constructed non-consciously. So then our thoughts are created non-consciously, without the influence of consciousness.


Explanation:
What I mean is that if one reflects on their mind's processes, they will see that they are concious of a thought itself, but not its creation. In other words, we do not experience why there would be a thought rather than not one, we just experience the thought.

One might counter:
But what about the thoughts one thinks consciously?  I can consciously decide to think of an elephant, and so then I do it.



I would reply:
The desire to consciously think of an elephant, rather than a tiger, rather than an eggplant, rather than not think at all.  This desire, was it created consciously?  If so, was that desire to desire created consciously?  And so on...



One might further counter:
A thought originally may be formed non-consciously, but a second after its birth it begins being changed and shaped by conscious mental activities.  To be conscious of a thought is to affect the thought, and so while not responsible for the original conception, we consciously develop and change the thought for as long as we are aware of it.



I would reply:
Again, why choose to be conscious of the thought rather than go on to the next one?  Why choose to develop a thought one way over the other?  If every effect has a cause, then every mental action is caused by something. Thoughts can cause the creation of new thoughts, but to subscribe to this theory is to admit that originally a non-thought must have created a thought.
"Thoughts' and 'inclinations' and even 'desires' are distinct in many ways, but not in this one:  They all must originate from somewhere other than themselves, for every conscious thought being caused by another, we must admit we are not sure what caused the first one.


Therefore:
Thoughts, at one point, must have originated unaffected by consciousness.  The act of creating a thought seems intuitively different than the act of being conscious of a thought, and so, I feel it safe to say a thought must be created before one is conscious of it.  Should anyone need proof, I suggest they recall anytime in their life they were struck by a thought suddenly, for instance when one remembers, out-of-the-blue, that they forgot to roll their car window up. It is most aligned with experience to claim that every thought stems from the non-conscious.




Consequences:
One simply has ideas, they are not responsible for them. For this reason I say 'Until the schizophrenic is blamed for having delusions, it is inconsistent to praise the genius for their insights, and the artist for their creation'. Of course, this doesn't feel right, and it doesn't seem reasonable to actually take this consequence to heart.  However, it still makes sense, at least to me. And if it doesn't make sense to you, I invite you to reflect on why that is, and if at the very base of your judgement a thought appeared, seemingly from thin air, into your mind. I think anyone who can reflect with accuracy on their own mind will be inclined to agree with me, that all thoughts come originally from a sudden inspiration, come from the non-conscious