What generates a thought?

Question

you know sometimes your just doing nothing and a thought comes in mind

why is that?

Answer 1

"All thinking is a process of identification and integration. Man perceives a blob of color; by integrating the evidence of his sight and his touch, he learns to identify it as a solid object; he learns to identify the object as a table; he learns that the table is made of wood; he learns that the wood consists of cells, that the cells consist of molecules, that the molecules consist of atoms. All through this process, the work of his mind consists of answers to a single question: What is it? His means to establish the truth of his answers is logic, and logic rests on the axiom that existence exists. Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification. A contradiction cannot exist. An atom is itself, and so is the universe; neither can contradict its own identity; nor can a part contradict the whole. No concept man forms is valid unless he integrates it without contradiction into the total sum of his knowledge. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality." Ayn Rand

http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/th...

Answer 2

We've got lots of information in our brain. We're not always connected to it because if we were, it'd be information OVERLOAD. We tend to only keep in mind the information that is essential for the present moment. And just because you don't remember something, doesn't mean that that information ain't there. It still probably is deep in the antipodes of the mind, but you're just not connected to the swampy pool of information.

Answer 3

Chemicals firing from neurons? I'm not very scientific, sorry. You should look at what physicalists and substance dualists say.  

Answer 4

That is the right hemisphere of your brain. Also called your subconscious. Our left side keeps us preoccupied and doesn't here it most of the time. "Doing nothing" is similar to meditation where the left (conscious) side is quieted in order to listen to the other side.