Onset resident Peter Baum notes: We are told to think outside the box.

But, he asks: "What if thought is the box?"

In his recently released book, "ThoughtForms: The Structure, Power, and Limitations of Thought," Baum explores the different systems, the variability, and the uncertainty of thought.

"At some points, it's scary, because it also introduces ambiguity … and that some of these systems are flawed," explains Baum, who is self-employed and has worked in inventing, optics, and programming. He did graduate work in math and computer science at Southern Illinois University, and that is evident throughout the book.

In remarks at a book-release celebration at Salerno’s in Onset last week, he walked his guests through a recipe for “Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies” as if it were a computer program – thinking differently about an everyday set of instructions.

In the self-published book, Baum writes that ideas, interest, and personal experience have motivated him to try to understand the "precise nature of thought."

He presents his theory about thought in this first book, and says he hopes that the subsequent three volumes will expand on that theory and put it to use.

"The title really says it all. … It's for everyone who's interested in the thought process," he says, "finding out things, doing things, learning things, understanding things, creating things, and changing things."

Baum has been working on volumes two, three, and four simultaneously, and predicts number two will be out in 2014.

"Even if I don't do anything else, at least the basics of the theory are laid out," he said.

By reading the book, he explains, "you begin feeling like you've introduced all of this uncertainty."

"You lose something by not having that certainty anymore," he continues, "but you gain … understanding of what's going on in the world."

Baum spent more than 10 years planning and writing the books and the subsequent volumes.

"I'm sort of in a state of pleasant shock," he says of the release of "ThoughtForms."

Hardcopies of "ThoughtForms" will soon be available on Amazon.com. Electronic versions of the book are currently available on Amazon and on barnesandnoble.com.

If you'd like to purchase a hardcopy of the book before it is available on Amazon, contact Peter Baum at peter_baum@verizon.net.