“All thoughts are empty.”- You might have already heard or read that somewhere. If you have experienced the emptiness of thoughts, even for a single moment, by being a witness, it is something understandable. But for the ones who haven’t experienced the emptiness of thoughts or for them who have a very rational mind, it might not be easy to accept that how can all thoughts be empty. Here in this post, let’s try to look at this from a scientific angle. Don’t worry; we don’t need any complex physics equations or complex biology nomenclature for this post.
What happens when you are thinking, when you are recalling something or planning something or even sensing something? It’s just electricity firing in the neurons and the neural pathways of your brain. These neural pathways are like the circuits in your brain. Memories are stored in particular neural pathways. Different areas of brain are responsible for different types of functions.
Now just imagine there is a particular neural pathway related to some particular memory or person. If we put an electrode in your brain and trigger that particular pathway using appropriate current, you will recall that memory involuntarily. Or if we trigger a particular area for particular sensation, you will feel that. If we trigger area responsible for fear, you will feel afraid, without any reason!
There are researches which have been done in this regard. After a bit of surfing on net, I found an article on Scientific American. Quoting from it:
In July 2020 Nature Human Behaviour published an atlas highlighting locations across the cortex that, when aroused with electrodes, evoked conscious experiences … Led by Josef Parvizi, a professor of neurology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, the clinical team collected data from 67 people with epilepsy…
Patients reported a range of electrode-evoked subjective experiences: briefly flashing points akin to stars of light; distorted faces like those in the paintings of Salvador Dalí; bodily feelings such as tingling, tickling, burning, pulsing and so-called out-of-body experiences; fear, unease, sexual arousal, merriment; the desire to move a limb; the will to persevere in the face of some great but unrecognized challenge. Mere tickling of neural tissue with a tiny bit of electric current was enough to evoke these feelings. During sham stimulation (no current applied), patients did not feel anything.
Just have a look at this image from the article (Click on the image to open the complete image in new tab):
You can read the complete article here.
Just firing a particular area of brain can evoke a particular experience or feel. All your thoughts are just a product of that electricity moving in neural pathways. Where’s the essence in your thoughts then? It’s moving in one pathway, you feel afraid, it’s moving in another pathway you feel courageous.
You can read the complete article here.
Just firing a particular area of brain can evoke a particular experience or feel. All your thoughts are just a product of that electricity moving in neural pathways. Where’s the essence in your thoughts then? It’s moving in one pathway, you feel afraid, it’s moving in another pathway you feel courageous. That’s why it’s all empty. It’s similar to a machine (a very complex one) working in a particular way according to it’s programming, according to the current flowing through it’s circuits. (And we humans think we are smart, really?)
Lesson of the story: “Take it easy, Don’t take your thoughts too seriously.”
(P.s. : The way out of this drama is awareness.)
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