thought
Let an agent keep thought as an activity separate from its content and from its expression, and avoid claiming access to anyone else thoughts.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify
Researched by: Claude
Purpose and description
Let an agent keep thought as an activity separate from its content and from its expression, and avoid claiming access to anyone else thoughts.
The mental activity of forming ideas, reasoning, judging and imagining, and the ideas that result from it.
What it is for: Understanding, planning, deciding and imagining; the inner activity behind speech and action.
It can be express it, in speech, writing or action; study it, in psychology, philosophy and neuroscience; train it, through education and practice; infer it, imperfectly, from what people say and do.
Distinguishing features
An activity and its content, which should be modelled separately
Private: only its expression is available to others
Includes reasoning, imagining, remembering and judging
Distinct from perception and from emotion, though entwined with both
What it looks like
Not directly observable. It is known through a person own experience and inferred in others from behaviour and expression.
How it is recognised
No visual marker; expressions and behaviour are indirect evidence
Brain imaging shows activity correlated with thinking, not its content
Statements of opinion are expressions of thought, not the thought itself
Related models
is a kind of - alongside perception, memory and emotion
is expressed as - the expression is what can be recorded
is studied by - disciplines with different methods
is confused with - a belief is a held attitude; a thought can be entertained without belief
In practice
Families and kinds
reasoning: deductive, inductive, abductive
imagination and creative thought
judgement and decision
reflective and automatic thought
Standards and regulation
Freedom of thought protections in human rights law
Mental privacy and neurodata protections emerging in some jurisdictions
Failure modes and hazards
Attributing thoughts to people from thin evidence
Treating an expression as proof of a belief
Collecting or inferring mental states without consent
Also called
+68
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Also registered as vr.tr.thought
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions.
Kinds of thought What sort of thinking it is.
Different kinds of thought have different standards of quality.
Kind
Reasoning, imagining, judging.
Kind of thought
The kind of thinking in question.
- What kind of thought is involved here? definition
- What standard of quality applies to it? definition
Process
Deliberate or automatic.
Mode of thinking
Whether deliberate or automatic.
- Is this deliberate reasoning or automatic thought? definition
- What biases are typical of that mode? boundary
Content and expression What is thought and how it is shared.
Only the expression is observable, so records hold expressions, not thoughts.
Content
The idea or proposition.
Content of thought
The content as far as it is known.
- What is the content of the thought, as expressed? definition
- How faithful is the expression to the thought? boundary
Expression
Speech, writing or action.
Expression record
Where and how it was expressed.
- Where and how was the thought expressed? provenance
- Was the expression sincere, reported or paraphrased? boundary
Study How thought is investigated.
Evidence about thought comes from methods with known limits.
Methods
Experiment, introspection, imaging.
Research method
The method and its limits.
- Which method produced this finding about thought? provenance
- What can that method not show? boundary
Findings
What is established.
Established findings
Results and their replication.
- How well replicated is this finding? measurement
- Which findings are contested? boundary
Attribution and privacy Saying what others think.
Attributing thoughts to people is an inference with ethical limits.
Attribution
Claims about what someone thinks.
Attribution evidence
The evidence behind an attribution.
- On what evidence is a thought attributed to this person? provenance
- How should uncertainty in that attribution be stated? action
Privacy
Protection of mental life.
Protections
Legal and ethical protections.
- Which protections apply to inferring someone thoughts? boundary
- When must an agent decline to infer? action
What the second pass must settle
- Should the registry separate thought as activity from thought as content?
- How should an agent mark inferences about what someone thinks?
- What protections should apply to inferred mental states?
- The registry entry has merged aliases about pandemic responses; should those be split off?