The Difference Between Thought and Thinking - "What Is Thought?" and "What Is Thinking?"

This is content that helps you organize your thoughts. Since it's heavily influenced by my personal opinion, please consider it for reference purposes only. 

 

The Difference Between Thought and Thinking - What Is Thought and What Is Thinking

 

1. Difference

a. Thought
Thought is an internal activity that occurs in the human brain, encompassing various subjective experiences such as emotions, memories, imagination, desires, and more. Thought are mostly passive and natural, occurring spontaneously, closely related to human emotions and experiences. 

b. Thinking
Thinking is a subjective and active Cognitiveactivity and is the process of gathering information, analyzing it to solve problems, and making decisions. It includes various forms of thinking such as logical thinking, mathematical thinking, and problem-solving, and is a crucial aspect of human intellectual capabilities.

**Instinct, Thought (Thinking, Feeling): These three activities have different characteristics, functions and play significant roles in our daily lives and behaviors. Instinct helps us survive, thoughts deeply influence our emotions and experiences, and thinking is essential for solving problems and exercising our intellectual abilities.**

2. Thought as the Source of Thinking

Thought are internal activities that originate in the human brain and can serve as the starting point for Thinking. It encompasses various internal elements such as Feeling(emotion), memories, imagination, desires, goals, and more. it influences the direction of logical thinking, problem identification, and the generation of new ideas. When people need to solve problems, they first generate ideas through Thought, and then use logical thinking to make decisions. In conclusion, “The thought process” triggers and guides Thinking. These activities are interconnected and play a vital role in our lives.

In real-life situations, you may have experienced times when you say things like, 'I can't think of anything right now,' 'My mind is blank,' or 'I can't see anything in front of me'.  In such cases, Thinking is required. To think effectively, three prerequisites are essential:

First, in situations where one has relevant experiences or possesses related knowledge
you need to have relevant experiences or knowledge related to the situation. In other words, you need to have the sources for thinking.

Second, in cases where one is not overwhelmed by specific emotions or devoid of symptoms of anxiety
In situations where you are overwhelmed by specific emotions, taking a break to relax and regain composure is necessary. This requires conscious effort. Escaping from emotional turmoil without conscious effort is quite challenging. Conscious effort, combined with the help of experts, can eventually lead to finding clues to solve problems.

Third, in cases of imminent survival threat

3. MBTI-Related Discussion

Thought and Thinking are essential concepts for describing the characteristics of NT group out of 16 MBTI types. While ENTP, ENTJ, INTP, and INTJ individuals are all quite different from one another, they share common characteristics in terms of Thoughts and Thinking.  Although they have many other differences, the fact that these two indicators(N and T) are the same also signifies a significant commonality, especially in the mental world.

NT type group prefer Intuition(N) over sensing(S) when it comes to Perceiving functions, and Logic(T) over Feeling(F) when it comes to Judging functions.

The logic here is related to Thinking. While I tend to associate Intuition(N) more with the concept of Thought rather than Sensory perception, What determines Sensory(S) perception and Intuition(N) perception indicator is not Thought but rather the way of Perception, which is the previous stage of Cognition.

The reason I mentioned that the concepts of Thought and Thinking are important factors in explaining the NT group is because, generally, for people who tend to think a lot, their second indicator is often N. It's not because I believe there's a direct relationship between Intuition and Thinking.

Well, that's it for today. I'm planning to try out some contents in the future, to help you organize your thoughts. I have no idea how many of you will see it, but if you have any opinions, please leave a comments. Thank you.