I'm sorry the title is kinda vague, but I wasn't sure what to title this. Basically do you ever find your mind just trailing over random thoughts? Sometimes it's a passing thought, other times it's a fictional story that builds itself in your mind? What about just an abstract concept or philisophical idea? Like for me right now I'm stuck on the idea of 'equality' What is equality? What does that mean? How do we reach eqality? Is equality something as simple as all people being treated the same? Is equality something more complicated with a need for quota driven considerations? Does equality demand inequality to create a balance? I dunno why that's where my mind is at, I tend to float in and out of random concepts and ideas. I also am aware that this follows a line of discussion I tend to follow, but these questions aren't what this thread is about. These are just the thoughts I had on my mind today. To be honest the reason I cling to this conversation topic on this forum in particular is because I enjoy the intellectual stimulation and this allows me to flex my brain muscles and be exposed to a differing point of view for awhile. I don't have many opportunities to engage with people equal to or better than me intellectually ( not to sound conceited ) but it is the truth. Most people don't want to discuss these kinds of things, ya know? I can only talk about cat videos for so long. getting back on topic... Last week I was mapping out a fictional story about a trans character and her journey. To be clear because this got really confusing really fast: This thread is about the random ideas that sometimes float in and out of my head, and whether or not I'm alone in these fleeting concepts.
My mind never stops wandering. I'll be thinking about one thing in one moment, five minutes later my chain of thought has taken me to something completely unrelated but at the same time it is related to the first thing, because the original thought led to a related thought which led to a thought only vaguely related to the first but connected with the second... it just snowballs. It's useful when I'm thinking of story/art ideas but a real pain when I'm trying to sleep.
If I'm awake 16 h/day, my brain does this 15 h. And it's been doing that since I was like 5. I actually would like to think less...
I do that all the time...from story plots (new and continuations of old ones), thoughts about myself in general to super deep things and even how best to kill people...my mind goes everywhere. As for your equality question: I believe it can never exist. Similar to what I've reached in terms of a perfect person, where there can never be one, because even when we're perfect, others will try to be even more perfect, leading to an eternal struggle to be 'perfect'. Equality, especially when within a large group of people/society, there will always be a case of being bias towards someone or something. No matter how 'fair' one is, there will always be something that will corrupt their 'fairness', be it outside stimulation or internal thoughts/previous conclusions of the person. No one can ever be treated equally: for example, in education. If we give 2 people an equal amount of papers to study for an equal amount of time (saying that their capabilities are equal like everything else) there will always be a bit of difference between the two on the basic concept that they are two different people. Something simpler, food. An equal amount of food is given to two equal people, and given that both take the same amount of food in the same bite at the same time, it may be possible that they will be alike, but equal? You can never micromanage such things. That's why I feel that it leads to the fact that no two people can forever hold a balance, let alone a large society. However, I found your last question: does equality need inequality to create a balance-the most intriguing. A quick thought goes that yes, we do. If there is no such thing as inequality, how can we judge what equality is? Without prior knowledge of 'equality', we will not be able to judge what is 'equal' and 'unequal'. Using my example of a perfect person, let's say we get a group of people, each with something perfect-a certain part of their looks, personality, etc, and bunch them all together into a human being (if this is somehow scientifically possible without severe scarring of a person, so I'll say on a robot), and we call that 'perfect'. Health, looks, wealth, personality. That is our 'conclusion', or 'base' of what a 'perfect person' is. Therefore, in our minds, we see that as a standard of how 'perfect' someone is, and naturally work towards being perfect. Going back to equality-as long as we have no idea what it is to have equality and inequality, we will be unable to judge a perfect balance of 'equality.' I hope you didn't get lost. I think I did. But I had fun. Hopefully it makes sense?
I feel you there. I spend way too much time in bed thinking about stuff. I spent one night laying in bed with my brain trying to come up with the answer to whether or not teleportation would kill you and replace you with a perfect copy of yourself, or whether it'd just teleport you. ---------- Post added 27th Sep 2015 at 11:43 AM ---------- That was interesting It reminded me heavily of my idea that perfection by nature would have to be imperfect thus it cannot possibly exist. My line of reasoning goes something like this. Something that is perfect is complete, it has no room to grow or change and no area to improve upon because it's perfect. As such something that is perfect would become pointless and boring given that it is not subject to change of any form. The only way to remedy this is for something perfect to have an imperfection and continuously be subject to change, however, having an imperfection makes anything perfect imperfect. Which is why I do not believe that perfect is an achievable goal.
Yes definitely when i want to sleep. I worked as a highway flagged this summer. 16 hours a day with no phone, TV or radio. Only a side country road to stand on the aide of which had hardly any traffic and prairie fields that extended beyond vision. Suffice it to say my only option was to wonder in my mind. Though I'm not sure if that much wandering is good for you...
Yes. The longer I'm awake; the weirder my thoughts become. Sometimes I get unusual perceptions that can affect my thoughts, and (at least nowadays) that's usually only a few times per week. Some online test basically said that I "enjoy a moderate amount of intellectual stimulation, and get bored with too much" so yeah, I'd agree. Sometimes I do have a one-track-mind. Plus I think I have a natural inclination to be impulsive. A lot of my thoughts are about "Why does that person behave that way?" I studied psychology, and it's cool that many people on EC did as well My mind wanders when I'm playing video games, unless it's a bit where I really need to pay attention. I estimate that at least 40% of my thoughts are about other people or things like Heavy Metal. I've talked about Heavy Metal, at times that baffle people. Recently I read a lot of subreddits (I don't want an account on Reddit), so I spend a few hours "absorbing" a lot of threads. Then I think about those threads when I'm playing video games.
Always. It gets annoying, honestly. I think too much about the most various things & I often have trouble focusing on what I'm doing, because my mind is just somewhere else.
My mind is a never ending flow of randomness. Like the other day I seen where you could order batarangs on amazon. That got me wondering if Spiderman's costume had some sort of support in the feet. I mean he has battled super villains on construction sites and there must be like nails and stuff like that laying around. How much of a bummer would it be if Spidey can defeat Rhino and Doc Ock in epic fashion, only to be taken out by a wicked case of tetanus?
Of course, all the time. I find it a good way to pass the time and to come up with the little details for my graphic novel and other things I'm working on. It's definitely a necessity for being a writer, I'd say. Almost all of the little bits of my story ideas that people love came from me having my mind wander.
Yeah. I can be thinking about doing homework and then I just find myself hacking up a tugrex in monster hunter a minute later.
Wow a lot of responses I guess having your mind just kinda get away from you is fairly common =P Do you think your thoughts tend to gravitate towards deep/philosophical things? Towards fiction and your imagination? or more towards more practical and tangible things?
Interesting that folks can even answer this question, let alone your other ones, with such wandering minds. =P
