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One does one's thinking before one knows what one is to think about.
Julian Jaynes
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Thinking precedes our awareness of what we are supposed to think about.

This quote by Julian Jaynes suggests that our cognitive processes often function unconsciously before we consciously recognize the subject matter we should contemplate. It emphasizes the complexity of thought and how our decision-making processes are sometimes initiated without our full awareness of the context or the content we are engaging with.

Themes

ThinkingAwarenessCognitionThoughtPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

During a seminar on cognitive science, this quote could illustrate how our thoughts are formed.

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Our sense of justice depends on our sense of time. Justice is a phenomenon only of consciousness, because time spread out in a spatial succession is its very essence. And this is possible only in a spatial metaphor of time.
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Civilization is the art of living in towns of such size the everyone does not know everyone else.
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Abstract words are ancient coins whose concrete images in the give and take of talk have worn away with use.
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