How much power do thoughts have?

Enough to affect everyone on the planet, which is pretty powerful. Oops, let me get back to ya lol….

Well, the different thoughts we have determine outcomes. For example, you could think really positive and great things, but if you also have thoughts of apathy and cynicism, that will most likely trump the positive thoughts and ideas.

One’s thoughts can effect one’s health.Definitely.
;)

Thoughts are very powerful. They compel actions; they shape future actions (for good or bad); and I do believe that positive imagery has a healing quality. My eye got caught on one of your sub-questions, Mariah—“Does having good intentions make you a good person, even if you don’t take action?”

On the surface, I’d say yes—“good” is as “good” thinks. But to turn those thoughts into actions is a greater good, IMHO.

Nobody’s a good person, firstly. Not even a freaky Gandhi/Mother Teresa hybrid.
A positive attitude has its health benefits – consider it a +1 to CON.
Good intentions are a mitigating factor, but if they don’t translate into good actions, there’s not much point. Bad thoughts/intentions are as bad as actual bad actions, but do not screw up other people.

In a moral sense, thoughts are actions that you keep to yourself.

Does having good intentions make you a good person, even if you don’t take action?

Certainly. Good intentions most often prevent you from undertaking hurtful actions. It is very difficult to prove a negative, however, leaving good people often wondering if they should have done more.

“I think, therefore I am.”
There you go, enough power in that to fuel a medium sized sewing machine for a good half an hour or so. Just enough time to run off a fine pair of pantaloons.

If thoughts didn’t have power, we’d still be banging rocks together for dinner :P

Well, we can’t really prove our opinions about this to anyone but ourselves- but I know that thoughts have power, at least on a personal level.

Other than that, we can only correlate – but I know when I’m down (mentally and/or physically), I benefit greatly from the love and support from my friends and family. That’s the power of love.

The placebo effect is a concrete example of thought directly affecting the world.

I heard the story of a young English doctor back in the 50s who had taken an interest in hypnosis. He encountered a 15 year-old patient in a hospital whose skin was covered in thick, warty growths. The doctor knew that hypnosis could be effective against warts, so he requested permission from the doctors in charge to try hypnosis on the kid. He put the kid in a trance and told him that his left arm would clear. Within 5 days of the 10 minute session, the left arm sloughed the growths and became clear. Another session cleared the right arm (here is a before and after picture of the right arm). Then the legs and back were mostly cleared.

The young doctor was then informed that what he had believed to be a very bad case of warts on the patient was no such thing—the boy suffered from birth with an incurable congenital condition called icthyosis. No effective treatment had or has ever been found for this condition, and patients almost always die young.

Subsequently, other icthyosis patients were brought to this doctor for treatment, but his efforts had no effect on them. He now thinks that it was his confidence in the efficacy of the treatment on that first patient that made the difference. When he learned what an extraordinary anomaly the success had been, his own incredulity prevented him from delivering the hypnotic suggestion with confidence, hence the lack of effect.

I don’t know about the power of positive thinking. I spend a lot of time thinking positive thoughts about Mark Harmon, but he has yet to show up at my doorstep. Maybe I’m just not thinking about him often enough? LOL.

But in all seriousness, it seems to me that optimistic thoughts are weaker than negative ones. It seems like having just one negative thought can make a situation take a turn for the worse, but several positive thoughts are necessary to bring about a positive outcome. I’ve often wondered about this, why the balance of power is so unfairly skewed away from the positive side.

@lonelydragon I’ve actually noticed the opposite, positive thoughts have far more ‘power’. However, negative thoughts can spread like wild fire when left unchecked. That said, it’s also possible that we’ve described the difference between a pessimist and an optimist : P

This seems useful again:

An old Cherokee told his grandson, “My son, there’s a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It’s anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It’s joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.” The grandson thought about it and asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

@rOs It seems that we did. :) There is some evidence to suggest that humans have a negativity bias that predisposes them to observe and give more weight to negative thoughts. So maybe the accurate description is that the negative thoughts are more attention getting than the positive, which goes in hand with your story about choosing which wolf to feed (great food for thought, btw). Maybe we just have to remind ourselves to feed the good wolf and ignore the bad one.:)

That makes sense, I was thinking the same thing- We tend to mirror the prevailing emotions of our peers (which are often negative). It takes a conscious effort to channel our emotions in a positive way.

Google sez that your brain consumes roughly 20 watts of electricity at rest. The actual rate is more obscure. Make of that what you will. :D