Can Thoughts Be Truly Random?

Computers are incapable of generating truly random numbers. Can we generate truly random thoughts? My thoughts are usually caused by associating with something else I've been thinking about. Perhaps this sub-forum is a misnomer? I think I'm having a kernel panic...

 

I don't think my brain generates thoughts for me if that's what you mean.

 

"Thoughts" seem to necessarily imply structure, so I don't see how they could be Truly Random. I suppose some might feel as if they channel thoughts outside their own or something but other than that, I think one would need to have a very broad definition of the term "thoughts" to make a compelling argument that they are.

However, I think we generally use the term Random Thoughts to describe thoughts which immediately come to mind, without much of a defined conscious antecedent. So maybe Random Thoughts are kind of like Psuedorandom numbers to computers.

 

But I bet, without influences, you wouldn't think what you do think.

Like, when you think of something, anything.. what's your surroundings? is it really random, or does something trigger thought?

Like, sometimes I think really random shit right and folks'll be like, fuck you thinking about that for? but maybe it was something I saw that triggered a random memory = random thought = random conversation. But it was probably because I'd seen something to relate that randomness too.

Yeah?

Like did the thought of me posting this, my IMO thought, did they only stem from the fact I read this post, or thought about it?

 

Captain Obvious to the rescue:

It's not the thought itself. It's the context that makes us perceive a thought as random or not.

 

capatain jerk ass more like it :cuss:

 

Those are my first and middle name :cheers2:

 

Well this thread is certainly random.... So, Yeah!

 

Does anyone remember the Noid from the old Dominos ads?

Yup, random thoughts.

 

What was that quote, randomness is merely an illusion produced from our lack of knowledge and understanding, something something. Or am I quoting my old self....


There world may never know.

 

I don't think so. Thought may seem random, but there is a constant undercurrent of unconscious processes that are pulling your brain in certain directions.

 

they can when you're not being robbed of them by someone else's mundaneness intruding on your attention.

 

My thoughts are always random.

 

Randomly connected to one another. One links to another, links to another, links to another. Try not to think so hard

 

Potato chips skadoosh

 

now that is random, almost as random as Lodogs appearances around here...LOL
good to see you are still around....

 

Yeah. I've been coming here on and off since I was 19. Wow

 

and always the funniest ginger here....

how is the family, if you don't mind my asking?

 

Sensations and emotions arising in the body and mind can also generate thoughts.


Feelings of boredom can activate thought to seek stimulation in the form of cinema or radio or visits to interesting places. These thoughts too arise in random just as the sensations and emotions within.

But it is a fact that thoughts, like emotions , are transient content in the consciousness, and what is there today need not necessarily be there tomorrow.

 

When I hold a conversation with someone in real life, I often "branch off"....so my son would say almost ALL my thoughts are random. lol

But I think everything is connected, and rarely are thoughts random.