You know when you’re talking about something, then you get interrupted and you lose your train of thought? Happens to us all. What I want to know is that if it’s that easy to just simply, absolutely forget a thought involuntarily, why can’t we do it actively?

Question

You know when you’re talking about something, then you get interrupted and you lose your train of thought? Happens to us all. What I want to know is that if it’s that easy to just simply, absolutely forget a thought involuntarily, why can’t we do it actively?

In: 31

Answer 1

Because thinking is not just an active process, it’s both active and passive.

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Compare it to breathing.

We breathe without thinking about it. it’s a passive process.

We CAN stop breathing by thinking about it, but only for a short time because our instincts (passive) overwrite our active thoughts.

We can stop thinking about something for a bit. Focusing on something else is the easiest way.

But we cant FORGET something willingly.

Because remembering is a passive process that we can’t really control.