Proverbs 23:7 says, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." William James said, "My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of my doing." Buddhism teaches that karma means "volitional action" and any thought, word or deed conditioned by desire, hate, passion and illusion create karma. Matthew 5:28: "Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully. has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
So the great religions of the world have long noted that the thought is strongly associated with the deed. Now, a theory of consciousness supports that assertion. It has been long noted in the research of brain activity and prosthetics that thinking about motor activity activates the same brain areas that actually subserve that motion.
This should not be considered the same as "thought-action fusion" is the cognitive distortion or 'magical thinking' that having a thought about something is the same as carrying out that thought. This is a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder that having a thought about something is the same as doing that thing. This causes a lot of anxiety for the individual and often creates a desire to carry out a compulsion to neutralize that anxiety.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2009)
"If the brain is like a set of computers that control different tasks, consciousness is the Wi-Fi network that allows different parts of the brain to talk to each other and decide which action 'wins' and is carried out," said San Francisco State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Ezequiel Morsella, lead author of the study. The study finds that we are only aware of competing actions that involve skeletal muscles that voluntarily move parts of the body, the bicep for example, rather than the muscles in the digestive tract or the iris of the eye.
The results demonstrated that merely preparing to perform an incompatible action, for example preparing to move simultaneously left and right, triggered stronger changes in awareness than preparing to perform a compatible action or experiencing a conflict that does not engage the muscles that move our bodies. Participants rated changes in their awareness on an eight-point scale and reported an average rating of 4.5 when mentally preparing to perform an incompatible action and an average rating of two for compatible actions.
The findings support a new theory developed by Morsella which predicts that the primary role of consciousness is to bring together competing demands on skeletal muscle. Morsella's theory also proposes that consciousness allows individuals to adapt their actions in the future, for example wearing an oven mitt to hold a hot dish.
The results give credence to an interesting idea that 'thinking is for doing,' a framework psychologists are using to explore the link among consciousness, perception and action. "Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that when you prepare to perform two competing actions you prime the same areas of the brain associated with carrying out that same action," Morsella said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090930141537.htm#">Consciousness Is The Brain's Wi-Fi, Resolving Competing Requests, Study Suggests
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