What is thought?

Thought, in the modern technical sense, is rather like travel. To travel without the aid of tools (cars, buses, and planes), that is, to walk, barely means travel at all in the modern sense. Likewise, to think in the modern sense means thought with tools. It is not enough to speak, or write with pen and paper, or even a typewriter. We have little choice, to be competitive, but to word-process, to send email, and to build hypertext. The thoughts we think we are having in the relative comfort of our own heads mean little, until they are written out, published to others, and subjected to natural-selection tests for validity. Beyond this, we must be keenly aware of the texts produced by others and the physical circumstances that produced them. These are simultaneously the best representation of a whole community's thought, and also the best tools that we can use to further advance our own thought.