Thinking - Robert Hamill

The Other Mode of Thinking
Pattern Matching, not Logic

   We all have heard that logical thinking is done on the left side while intuition occurs on the right side of the brain. The conscious brain has been know for ten thousand years, at least. The unconscious has been a part of the general awareness of thinking since Freud. Most theories describe reasoning quite well, but leave mysterious the right side, the unconscious, the intuitive.
   I'd like to explore this other mode of thinking, that which functions by pattern matching. What exactly is pattern matching and how does the brain use it? Simply stated, pattern analysis is the innate mode of the brain, a giant neural network. Pattern analysis compares a current pattern with a remembered pattern and determines if there is a match between the two - and the match need not be exact.. An obvious example of pattern matching is recognition of a face.
   Perhaps you don't think face recognition deserves the appellation 'thinking'. It's done in the brain. It's important to our reactions to the external world. If pattern matching was only used for face recognition it might not be worth the effort

to explore it more, but it's not restricted to visual analysis. Another use is concept formation and change. Yet another is situation comparison and premise selection.
How does the brain perform pattern matching? The brain is a vast neural network. It does not, at its native level, perform like a traditional computer where there is a series of if-then statements the results of which are our thoughts. A neural network, whether natural or in a computer, has the following structure, using vision as an example.

Input handling - raw sense data through rods and cones which we typically think of as being handled outside the brain.
Hierarchy of neurons that condenses the massive stream of input data down to a manageable size. This smaller stream is funnelled to the brain through the optic nerve.
The internals of the brain. Another hierarchy of neurons that processes the accumulated sense data by comparing its input to its reservior of stored images.
Selecting and performing an action based on the perceived vision.