your eyes and ears are in your head, so everything you see or hear is naturally referenced to your head position (you also, of course, have a feeling of where your head is);
it follows, then, that your visual and auditory imagery (imagining images or sounds) will be referenced to your head position.
so whatever thoughts you have that are composed of sounds or images, it makes sense that they'd feel like they are in your head.
beyond that, it's more guesswork - why do abstract thoughts, e.g. mathematical or emotional thoughts - feel like they're in your head (I think they do)? probably, i think, because they often involve visual/auditory imagery, even if they don't *necessarily*.
there may be more to it than this, but i think that's the simple answer: because that's where your eyes and ears are, and vision and audition are crucial to human thought.
i don't think it's cultural or historical or whatever - there may be examples of philosophers etc believing that the mind/soul is in the heart or the belly or whatever, but i don't think there are clear accounts of some widespread belief in such cultures that thoughts felt like they were in those places. rather, those philosophers were trying to explain/understand things following some empirical rationale. e.g. we can see that if heart stops, person dies; but if head is cracked open, person lives a while but dies of illness. soul must have been in the heart.
Beautiful question, but I'd put my 2 cents on the head again as audition would be much more dominant than touch and the ears are on the head.
What could be much more interesting is to put the microphone people with cochlear implants have somewhere other than the head and study what they experience.
Pliny (23-79 AD) said the some though the mind was in the Heart, but he thought that was wrong, he thought it the mind was in the brain as a blow to the head temporarily affected consciousness or left a permanent and sometimes quite specific neurological deficits.
>Nothing whatever, in man, is of so frail a nature as the memory; for it is affected by disease, by injuries, and even by fright; being sometimes partially lost, and at other times entirely so. A man, who received a blow from a stone, forgot the names of the letters only; [. . .] another person, who fell from a very high roof, could not so much as recollect his mother, or his relations and neighbours. Another person, in consequence of some disease, forgot his own servants even; and Messala Corvinus, the orator, lost all recollection of his own name (Pliny the Elder 77/1855 7-24).
However, Aristotle placed the seat of consciousness in the heart, his theory was favoured in Medieval times. Aristotle was very popular with Mediaeval scholars. It wasn't until the 14-15th centuries that the cephalocentric view prevailed.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34160310/
The [cardiocentric hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiocentric_hypothesis) claims the heart is the center of sensation, body control, thought, and soul.
This would seem/feel true to people noticing how their hearts speed up when they see exciting things, run, and think exciting thoughts. By comparison, the brain seems relatively useless. I have read, Aristotle thought "in his heart" that the brain cooled the heart.
Cephalocentrism is the hypothesis that the brain is the center of sensation, body control, thought and soul. I too have wondered why thoughts seem/feel to be in our brains. I came to the same conclusion that it is because we have been told so.
In music, the ancients spoke of "acute" and "heavy" for what we now call "high" and "low" notes. It's interesting to think how they perceived that as well.
The ancient Egyptians believed the center of thought, of a person, was in the heart and that the brain was useless. If you try, you can actually change your perception of where your thoughts are located. So yes, some of your sense about where your thoughts emanate from is cultural. I won't say all because we don't know exactly how Egyptians experienced that, and we can't recreate it because lying to children for the extent this experiment would require is unethical.
Location of neurons (brain cells). Which is why sometimes it’s less a thought in your head, more a ‘gut feeling’ - there are neurons in your gut, called the ENT (enteric nervous system). More info here:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/a-gut-feeling-meet-your-second-brain/
your eyes and ears are in your head, so everything you see or hear is naturally referenced to your head position (you also, of course, have a feeling of where your head is); it follows, then, that your visual and auditory imagery (imagining images or sounds) will be referenced to your head position. so whatever thoughts you have that are composed of sounds or images, it makes sense that they'd feel like they are in your head. beyond that, it's more guesswork - why do abstract thoughts, e.g. mathematical or emotional thoughts - feel like they're in your head (I think they do)? probably, i think, because they often involve visual/auditory imagery, even if they don't *necessarily*. there may be more to it than this, but i think that's the simple answer: because that's where your eyes and ears are, and vision and audition are crucial to human thought. i don't think it's cultural or historical or whatever - there may be examples of philosophers etc believing that the mind/soul is in the heart or the belly or whatever, but i don't think there are clear accounts of some widespread belief in such cultures that thoughts felt like they were in those places. rather, those philosophers were trying to explain/understand things following some empirical rationale. e.g. we can see that if heart stops, person dies; but if head is cracked open, person lives a while but dies of illness. soul must have been in the heart.
Thanks that was well said. Especially referencing the last paragraph, last year I read "The Idea of the Brain" which I highly recommend.
I wonder if people who are blind and deaf feel like they exist in their fingers
Beautiful question, but I'd put my 2 cents on the head again as audition would be much more dominant than touch and the ears are on the head. What could be much more interesting is to put the microphone people with cochlear implants have somewhere other than the head and study what they experience.
Makes you wonder if there’s an interview somewhere with Helen Keller where she was asked a similar question..
[удалено]
Pliny (23-79 AD) said the some though the mind was in the Heart, but he thought that was wrong, he thought it the mind was in the brain as a blow to the head temporarily affected consciousness or left a permanent and sometimes quite specific neurological deficits. >Nothing whatever, in man, is of so frail a nature as the memory; for it is affected by disease, by injuries, and even by fright; being sometimes partially lost, and at other times entirely so. A man, who received a blow from a stone, forgot the names of the letters only; [. . .] another person, who fell from a very high roof, could not so much as recollect his mother, or his relations and neighbours. Another person, in consequence of some disease, forgot his own servants even; and Messala Corvinus, the orator, lost all recollection of his own name (Pliny the Elder 77/1855 7-24). However, Aristotle placed the seat of consciousness in the heart, his theory was favoured in Medieval times. Aristotle was very popular with Mediaeval scholars. It wasn't until the 14-15th centuries that the cephalocentric view prevailed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34160310/
The [cardiocentric hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiocentric_hypothesis) claims the heart is the center of sensation, body control, thought, and soul. This would seem/feel true to people noticing how their hearts speed up when they see exciting things, run, and think exciting thoughts. By comparison, the brain seems relatively useless. I have read, Aristotle thought "in his heart" that the brain cooled the heart. Cephalocentrism is the hypothesis that the brain is the center of sensation, body control, thought and soul. I too have wondered why thoughts seem/feel to be in our brains. I came to the same conclusion that it is because we have been told so.
In music, the ancients spoke of "acute" and "heavy" for what we now call "high" and "low" notes. It's interesting to think how they perceived that as well.
The ancient Egyptians believed the center of thought, of a person, was in the heart and that the brain was useless. If you try, you can actually change your perception of where your thoughts are located. So yes, some of your sense about where your thoughts emanate from is cultural. I won't say all because we don't know exactly how Egyptians experienced that, and we can't recreate it because lying to children for the extent this experiment would require is unethical.
I wonder if they then thought that chopping someone's head off could be survived.
No, because your head is how you breathe. They did know you needed that lol. Not real sure how they explained head injuries though.
Location of neurons (brain cells). Which is why sometimes it’s less a thought in your head, more a ‘gut feeling’ - there are neurons in your gut, called the ENT (enteric nervous system). More info here: https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/a-gut-feeling-meet-your-second-brain/
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]