Where Do Thoughts Come From?
If this question is approached from the perspective of 'thought,' people will discover that this behavior is not limited to humans; animals also exhibit it, especially organisms that are biologically close to humans (such as primates) or those closely associated with humans (such as dogs and cats). Even the wild animals that are more distant from humans (such as elephants and whales) can be included. So, why do these organisms possess thoughts? And where do thoughts originate from?
It can be observed that animals with the ability to develop complex 'thoughts' appear to possess memory capacity as one of the fundamental cognitive foundations. Memory capacity allows them to remember where food can be found and where rivers are located. A live-animal experiment showed that maze-learning experiments in rodents have shown that different individuals may require different numbers of trials to learn the same route, indicating differences in learning ability and memory-related processes [Tolman, E. C., 1948]. This study also demonstrated that animals rely on memory capacity to develop the ability to learn the maze. Through recognizing the complex and winding pathways after five or fifty trials, their brains form 'thought processes' to generate a complete mental representation of the route.
It suggests that 'memory' is the foundation of thought; people can find possible solutions from the experiences stored in their memories. However, the ability to solve problems does not completely depend on the amount of stored memory, but rather on an individual's learning ability. From the experiment, it can be observed that even though both specimens are rats, the time required for each rat to learn how to reach the exit of the maze is different. Even with the same amount of brain structures and neuronal data, their abilities to recognize complex environments, learn, and complete thought processes require different amounts of time.
Recently, the difference between AI and humans is that AI integrates a vast amount of accumulated human knowledge or information, allowing it to analyze the benefits and drawbacks of different problems. In contrast, individual humans can only preserve their personal experiences and memories throughout their lifetimes. However, humans possess abilities that remain difficult to explain from the current scientific perspective, namely creativity and insight. Hence, if thoughts are created from experiences stored in memory, then are creativity and insight formed through the integration, deconstruction, and reconstruction of large amounts of stored memories? If so, does this imply the future potential of AI?
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