Thinking

      It’s something we do all the time and yet most of us would probably consider that others should do it more often.  What is it?  THINKING!  This is the process of using one’s mind to consider or reason about something.  For most of us it doesn’t seem to be a problem.  However, on many occasions you will hear someone comment: “WHAT were they thinking?”

 

     An article posted on Psychology Today over 10 years ago by Charles Fernyhough PH.D. made an interesting observation (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-voices-within/201008/what-do-we-mean-thinking )

 

     “It seems to me that there are two common usages of the term (thinking). One holds that thinking is everything that the conscious mind does. That would include perception, mental arithmetic, remembering a phone number, or conjuring up an image of a pink unicorn.

     On this definition, thinking simply equates to conscious cognitive processes. I think this definition is too broad, and we make more scientific and philosophical progress if we tighten it up a bit. 

     People of a psychodynamic persuasion might even want to talk about "unconscious thinking," but I think that makes the term so broad as to be quite useless. Of course, there are tremendously important unconscious cognitive processes shaping the way we make sense of the world, but "thinking" seems to me to be quintessentially conscious.

     Let's take Rodin's The Thinker as an example.  Here's someone who is more than just conscious.  He is struggling with a problem, cognitively trying to get from A to B.  One important point about thinking is that it is active; it is something that we do.

    That's why I, following Vygotsky, prefer the active term "thinking" to the passive term "thought." If you like, we can call "thought" the product of the active process of "thinking." But I think that sticking to the active term keeps the special qualities of thinking at the forefront, and that's important for what we have to do.” 

     Our thinking process whether we view conscious or unconscious thinking as our perspective, must also be weighed in the light of our “reactive impulsive thinking.”  Impulsive thinking is the tendency to act without thinking, for example if you blurt something out, buy something you had not planned to, or run across the street without looking.  To a degree, this kind of behavior is common, especially in children or teenagers, and isn’t necessarily a sign of trouble.

     What if we lived our lives primarily according to impulsive thinking and not conscious or unconscious thinking?  I think we can reason what a catastrophe that may cause, not only in our own lives, but in the lives of everyone around us.  How would they know what we might do next?  How could they respond to current conditions if they could not rely upon our responses being in agreement with the preferred process of logical thinking?

     Perhaps you know an individual who seems to always “act before thinking”.  Or maybe they appear to never think things though at all!  It is very difficult to work with or even associate with such an individual.  They may make you of think of the expression “loose cannon.”  We never know when they might go off!

     It is therefore understandable that developing our thinking process takes time and effort.  I’m not saying that we will always agree in our thinking with that of another person.  But there are ways that our logical thinking process must be developed.  As always, however, the key obstacle that gets in our way is that we’re only human!

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"If you think more about what to do before you do it,

you will have quicker and better results."