Where do thoughts come from?

by Bill
(Palo Alto, CA)

(let's test this out)

I just ran across a provocative article in Scientific American: "There is No Such Thing as Conscious Thought":

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-is-no-such-thing-as-conscious-thought

The author suggests that the only conscious activity of mind is always tied to some sensory experience - what one sees or hears or feels - even in only in memory or imagination. But abstract interpretations, inferences, and the like. come from somewhere else. Where is that "else"?

I've often wondered about that too. Despite science being "scientific", where do its hypotheses initially come from? Where does creative fiction come from? (According to ancient Greeks, it was given by the Muses). Classical composer Beethoven once r.e.marked that he wasn't so much composing as merely "transcribing".

If the above is the case, are our thoughts really our own?