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Special Issue 45 of SHAPE journal articles on Thinking

The Team


Jim Schofield - Editor

Physicist, Philosopher, Marxist, Multimedia Expert, Mathematician, Author, Sculptor.

Dr. Peter Mothersole -
Editor

Senior Lecturer in Computing, Physicist, Photographer, Constructivist, Software Developer, Philosopher.

Mick Schofield -
Art Director

Graphic Designer, Writer, Photographer, Music Producer,
Digital Artist, Webmaster
 
 


Special Issue 45
Thinking


What is Thinking?
The Boundaries of Thought
[self-imposed limits of human thinking]
Reality and Mind
[the as yet not totally defined alternatives
for a philosophical standpoint]



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Editorial

Welcome to the 45th Special Issue of the SHAPE Journal, an edition titled simply Thinking!

Exactly what thinking is has always been a problem for Homo Sapiens. For we are clearly animals, yet seem to be very differently endowed from even our closest relatives among the Great Apes.

Yet we continue to study what we think of as “intelligence” in various non-human animals, and attempt to define what it is that separates us from them, and exactly how it could have developed in only this single species.

Indeed, we often characterise what we do as “Thinking” and picture it in a very homocentric way, as in Rodin’s famous sculpture of a man with his hand upon his chin and with head bowed. He isn’t looking at an object or doing anything physical: he is Thinking!

We like this because it doesn’t seem to fit with how all the other intelligent animals “think”. We seem to do our reasoning solely in our heads, using what we call abstractions, and we are convinced that only we can do this. There can be no doubt that it happens. But what actually is it, and what can it achieve? Indeed, the number one question has to be, “Can it actually settle upon the Real Truth?” The answer has to be “No!”


Jim Schofield
SEPTEMBER 2016