[JAK]

Originally Posted by Robert There are profound thoughts that have deep meanings and can stretch our minds in new directions or offer new perspectives on which to view things. These thoughts have been offered in the past by many of our great thinkers and remain profound and deeply moving even today. This forum is devoted to those thoughts. --Robert

In his Principles of Biology of 1864, Herbert Spencer presented a glorious phrase to encapsulate natural selection: Survival of the Fittest
(see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest ).

Though this phrase has generally been shunned by mainstream biologists, it is coming to the forefront of psychology. The key focus is the definition of "fittest". If it means "best fit", then it adroitly captures the essence of conscious thought. What we perceive with our senses is recognized in the mind by a "best fit" memory fetch (see O. G. Selfridge's 1959 Pandemonium Model of Perception and the Dominic Masaro's Fuzzy Logical Model of Perception from the 1990s).

Further, our selection of an appropriate behavior to enact within our environment is relative to these perceptions. This, too, can be considered a "best fit" model. We choose a behavior which "best fits" the environment given our repertoire of behaviors (our skills and talents).

Finally, the actual decision process in the brain appears to be a competition of values in the nucleus Reticularis Thalami (nRT) - the outer shells of the thalamic bulbs atop the brainstem (see Bernard J. Baars and James Newman). The neural circuit which best fits the perceptions and carries the highest "value" (energy potential), will overcome competing thoughts to control behavior.

"Survival of the Fittest" is a magnificent phrase which encapsulates the essence of conscious thought and behavior.

[austintorn@aol.com]

I always thought the mind tries out scenarios of consequences, sometimes real quick and without consciousness necessarily getting involved too much, like when passing over certain shirts to wear and feeling "ugh". Like the quantum world, the most probable comes out of all the superinposed possibilities as the best fit.

[JAK]

Originally Posted by austintorn@aol.com I always thought the mind tries out scenarios of consequences ...

Superb observation. Freud had that same insight. He referred to conscious thought as "rehearsal work". If we don't have a "canned" response to a situation in our immediate (or future) environment, we indeed "try out" different scenarios - pros and cons.

And as we build our "pros and cons", each scenario has a positive or negative value (or "weight") which, when summed with the others, may reach a threshold of action - the point of decision. If the "cons" out-weigh the "pros", we never reach that threshold to take action, and no external behavior ensues. If the "pros" outweigh the "cons", action (behavior) based upon the positively weighted scenario occurs. If confronted with multiple negatively weighted scenarios, and we are forced to choose one, the process becomes more complex, but it can still be explained by weighted values in competition.

You have encapsulated this concept nicely saying that "the mind tries out scenarios of consequences."