Thoughts About ThinkingColumn #1: "Thinking is Scarce"by Gerald Angelo Cirrincione
The first thing that I think about thinking is that most people don't. They repeat, they react, but they don't think. Plagiarism isn't thinking, rebellion isn't thinking. Thinking is simply looking, listening, and considering. "But," you say, "what about logic, analysis, reason, the scientific method?" I would reply that, insofar as these things are useful (and they have a use), they formalize and systematize looking, listening, and considering. They serve thinking, they are tools for thinking, but they are not thinking itself. To confuse hammers and saws for carpentry itself would leave a carpenter unable to rise to the heights of his craft. Having said that most people don't think, I will add that computers don't think either. Computers process representations of data, words and numbers. They neither look, listen, nor consider in the sense that I mean here. The looking and listening of a thinker involve the meaning of what is seen and heard. Likewise, when a thinker considers, this is done meaningfully. Computers move electronically encoded symbols without any recognition of their meaning. As technology progresses, computers will be able to imitate and mimic more and more of the ways humans manipulate information. This will continue to be astonishing (and disconcerting). Many more computers in many more situations will be indistinguishable from humans. But computers will never think in the sense I mean here, just as cameras will never see, tape recorders will never hear, and airplanes will never take a vacation. A central human self will always be needed to provide coordinated meaning and over-all direction. Computers, by doing non-thinking yet complex support functions powerfully and quickly, will free humans to think more and better than ever before. If no computers think and few people do, we have a scarcity of thinking. Because thinking is also useful, its scarcity makes it valuable-more so than gold, stocks, or real estate. There is no better economic or personal investment one can make than to learn what thinking is and how to do it. (The three most important skills a human being can develop are the ability to research, to think, and to communicate. Combined with vigorous good health, they virtually guarantee a happy, productive life.) Some people go through their entire lives never having met a thinker. They have no role-model or mentor for thinking as a way of life. Their whole attitude about thinking may be wrong. They may confuse thinking with aggressive and defensive arguing. They may mistakenly think that they think well because they are quick with words, or skilled with numbers, or have a high IQ score, or have gone far in school, or have read a lot. They may not even know what thinking is. But all people (with very rare exceptions) have a potential to become good thinkers. To do this, however, takes a realization of the need and a conscious decision to work at it. When we, as individuals, begin to increase and improve our thinking, we begin a marvelous adventure. What can be more fun than to look at things we have previously ignored, to listen to points of view we have formerly pre-judged, and to consider what it all may mean? Our starting point when we first decide to think more and better is always the same: a mind full of disorganized, self- contradictory, and unexamined beliefs. Some of these beliefs have been borrowed from, or imposed by, others. Some are hasty conclusions we have leapt to ourselves. There is a hodgepodge of suppositions, guesses, dogmas, lies, and evasions. These are mixed together with facts, knowledge, and experiences. My own thinking has been strengthened by my study of mathematics and by my practice of meditation. People rebel at mathematics for the same reason that they rebel at meditation; the beginner's mind is an aimless wanderer. Mathematics asks for and develops order, attention, discipline, consistency, and calmness. These qualities stand the thinker in good stead. Meditation (in the open, non-dogmatic, non-religious sense that I mean it here) is the still observing of the mind-both its contents and activities. To set aside time for this practice may reveal to the beginner the "drunken monkey mind" that meditation masters talk about. Meditation, when first practiced regularly, is like browsing through a file cabinet in disarray. We see the contents of our mind. They may be divided into two categories: what we know and what we believe. Beliefs create information in our heads that, by definition, we don't know for sure. Rather than have an empty space in our mind, we choose to just believe something. On an interesting or important subject, it is tempting to choose the most likely or most pleasant possibility and believe that. We tend to believe things that are consistent with other things we believe, and with who we believe we are. Beliefs multiply. Our senses, fortunately, (if we are looking and listening) are constantly bringing us information from the external world, both first-hand sense impressions and reports of the sense impressions of other people. When we receive information that contradicts what we believe, we have a wonderfully glorious opportunity: we can consider whether the information is inaccurate or our beliefs are mistaken. We can decide that our beliefs need to be re-examined. We ought to be delighted at the prospect that today's developments may prove our beliefs wrong. If we know that we just believe something, if we know that we don't really know, then it can be invigorating when we modify our ideas in the light of newly arriving facts. But if we are sure we are right, if we admit no possibility of doubt, then-sadly-we must deny facts and hide from news. What prevents people from opening their minds on certain subjects? Why do they declare a matter closed to more discussion and further investigation? "That idea," they say, "is just bizarre, or preposterous, or obviously wrong. It can be dismissed at once. It is a waste of time to look, listen, and consider it." Perhaps. After all, time is limited. Everybody must set priorities. Nobody can think through absolutely everything. But here one must be ruthlessly honest with oneself. The introspection of a meditative mind is useful. Intellectual honesty is necessary. Candor is important. Only you can look within yourself. Become an inner detective. Ask yourself, in the privacy of your own mind: Does the idea I refuse to consider have implications that shock me, disturb me, or frighten me? Does the idea confuse me, or perplex me? Does it make me uptight or uncomfortable? Does it horrify me or disgust me? Are its implications worrisome or threatening? Is the prospect of my possibly accepting the idea terrifying? Would it separate me from my friends, neighbors, or colleagues? Would the idea require an inconvenient change in my life, or an embarrassing public reversal of my position on a matter? Have I-for motives I have not wanted to admit to myself or others-been using my mental abilities to cleverly defend what I believe, rather than to openly look at, listen to, and consider other points of view? Only you know the answer to these questions; you must look within yourself with integrity. Thinking begins with a decision to do so. The ultimate free thinker would be somebody with complete freedom to look at, listen to, and consider any person, place, thing, or idea. The ultimate free thinker would have neither external nor internal constraints. Having read the above paragraph, you probably now know why I don't dare to presume to call myself a free thinker. Instead, I say that I strive to think freely. And I will probably never think completely freely-given the degree of freedom of thought I now possess, the life-span of the average human being, and the rate of progress I have been making. While I do strive to think freely, freedom of thought is not the only quality of thought I wish to develop. I wishto be a compassionate thinker, a realistic thinker, an honest thinker, an imaginative thinker, a humorous thinker, an ethical thinker, a sensitive thinker, and-perhaps most of all-a thought-provoking thinker.
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