The French psychiatrist Hubert Benoit (The Supreme Doctrine) did an interesting study of ‘thought’ and wrote about his experiments in his ‘Lacher Prise! He got himself into a bit of mental trouble I was told but I couldn’t verify it. I spoke at one point with his English translator but he knew nothing about it. In any case it was an interesting read.
Well I guess I missed the Bohm Memo on thought being outside the brain. I still see it as K first described:
" K: Would you say, sir, the brain is the centre of thought , feelings, physical responses, biological responses. And also the brain is the centre of one’s ‘consciousness’, fears, pleasures, anxiety, all that, sorrow, the whole of that consciousness, if you will accept that word, is in the brain. It is not out there.
B: I am afraid I would have to disagree.
K: Oh, delighted!
B: I don’t think that thought or consciousness is in the brain. That this is precisely one the greatest mistakes…"
Mindful awareness of thought as it occurs reveals how reactive thought is, and how circumspect one must be about every thought. This self-knowledge is essential, but apparently, until the whole nature and structure of incoherent thought is exposed, it doesn’t stop, allowing for silence.
I vaguely remember reading this years ago and I’d forgotten it. I read “Thought as a System” but I don’t recall him saying anything about this. Maybe I should read it again with this notion in mind.
If memory is stored in the brain and thought is the response of memory, why look elsewhere than the brain?
I did just read that discussion to see what Bohm might have meant and he did explain it but it was beyond me.
Here is some of it. Does anyone understand?
B: OK. I would say that thought belongs to a form of action which is related to separating precisely, to separating a unit from its context. That any separation of a unit from its context is a form of cognition or thought, at a fundamental level. Therefore the thoughtcannot exist without the relationship between that which is distinguished and that which it is distinguished from.
C: Wait a second. Would you say that thoughtis an event that arises de novo, or is it some sort of process event which articulates the separation and arrives at the awareness - in other words the arrival of thought is the articulation of the separation of thought?
B: It is an emergent quality.
C: So it is not de novo separation, it is an emerging of that.
B: Yes.
K: It is emerging.
C: Yes, but emerging not a separation at the instant but…
B: …it is imminent in the action.
K: It is emerging, being born.
C: That is an important distinction.
K: Yes. sir. Being born all the time.
B: Exactly.
K: From where?
B: What is the source?
K: Wait, wait. Thought is being born, emerging, growing, coming and going - right? From where?
C: Wait a minute, that may be the wrong question: from where, because you have already defined a definition.
K: No, no.
C: You have separated out process, you have made a distinction, by saying where you have got a definition.
K: No, I want to know the cause. Put another word if you like.
C: I would prefer: what is the action that arrives in thought?
I started this topic because I’ve been hearing in dialogues that thought is something outside the human and wreaking havoc on all of humanity.
“K: Wait, wait. Thought is being born, emerging, growing, coming and going - right? From where?” So the notion that thought arises outside of the brain may have started with Bohm, as he stated earlier in this dialogue.
That is not Dr Bohm, who said that, about thought outside of the brain. That is Dr Varela. Dr Bohm is not even in this dialogue! I hope this helps clarify your confusion.
So that is why you did not get the Bohm memo, for he did not say that.
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Thanks for the clarification. Should have read the introductions. " A: I would like to introduce you to Dr.Shainberg, he is a psychiatrist from the United States. Dr.Peat is a physicist, writer and film maker from Canada. Professor Bergstrom is a neuro-physiologist at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Professor Varela is a neuro-biologist at the Max Planck Institute for brain research in Frankfurt. I am a neuro-biologist and teacher at Brockwood Park." I probably would have assumed B was for Bergstrom, then. But interesting Varela was a neurobiologist. K was wanting to be challenged in the 80s and dialogue with these scientists did “delight” him, especially the notion that thought was outside the body.
In these recorded dialogues, I wonder how many bouts of bubbling incoherent thought were latched onto by the listeners, morphed and repeated in today’s dialogues?
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Yes isn’t this situation you describe the “going north” that K pointed out? The danger of continuing in this direction isn’t seen? If it were, it would be dropped instantly…but it’s not.
Like the belief in organized religion ie, when that is ‘seen through’, it’s dropped in that very moment.
Desire attaches to what promises pleasure, fulfillment, security etc and discards it when it no longer does…and then seeks something else. Is it the non-understanding of desire that keeps us ‘moving north’?
I feel this is a very good question. As per my experience, some people have this aversion because of conflicts that happened in their lives and there is no room for self-acceptance in their thoughts.
If possible, can you put this question in another way?
Please share your opinion.
So it seems. Desire/fear (presuming to know what-should/should-not-be) prevents being completely here now.
We operate on presumption until we see how mistaken it is. The old saying is that “seeing is believing”, when actually, seeing is the end of believing.
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Is intelligence self-annihilating? The first link in this topic is to K’s talk with scientists at Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb was built. When human nature (thought, knowledge, memory, intellect, sense of self, and identity) is vilified or demonized, is it the beginning of intelligence’ s self-annihilation?
Hi DeNiro, thanks for reframing the question.
I don’t think suppressing ourselves is intelligence. We are social animals as we play, talk, laugh, fight and do other sorts of silly things in our lives. All those things are happening due to the “self” inside right? 
I suppose we all thought that in one way or another.
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I presume everyone can spot the obvious shocker/error about intelligence being a judgemental old whotsit - but are we also playing with the idea of intelligence being so stupid it kills itself?
Macdougdoug, not a “whotsit”, but a function. What is the function and critical point of intelligence when considering scientists and weapons of mass destruction, industrialization and climate change, dolphins and whales beaching en masse?
Just to go back to the previous point : comparison/discrimination is but a very primitive/brutal form of intelligence - one that is the foundation of self - thus part of the subject/object experience of separation and conflict (sorry for the heavy handed wording - but sometimes what is obvious is difficult to convey)
As for the function of intelligence in one phrase : it is immediate non-conflictual action. Meaning the absence of resistance/effort in the face of what is seen.
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Hi DeNiro,
I see that war is an evolutionary thing, which is a part of nature and I am not an expert to say something about it. Maybe climate change and other natural disasters will unite everyone(even dictators), as it questions the very existence of the human species one day 
. Let’s see how it goes.
And for there to be no “resistance / effort” of ANY kind there must be the ‘intelligence present that there is no observer apart from what is being observed.
Or that identification with the parts must necessarily come into conflict with the whole.
Or that the will of the subject is at odds with the object
Or that the thoughts and opinions of this center are not the whole of what is.
But actually the above are all just teaching stories, ad hoc explanations/rationalisations - in the moment there is none of all that, just silence in action.
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