A lot of people are bad-mouthing thinking these days. They call it an obstacle to deeper consciousness, a trouble-maker, a doubt-generator, a logic-chopper, a brake on peak performance (over-thinking). They see it as worry or wondering, a waste of time or a cover for laziness, a distraction from simple seeing, an excuse for paralysis, indecision or delay. We are urged: don’t analyze, act. And driven every day by deadlines and demands on our minds, we cry, “Enough, no more. Give us rest from the work of thinking.”
At the same time, new technological devices and systems are tackling many cognitive tasks, producing results every more accurate, precise and rapid regarding matters ever more complex. “Anything else the human mind wants to outsource? Hey, what’s so good about thinking anyway?”
Yet everyone says that good thinking contributes to success in work and life. We hope that it (plus some good luck) will ensure our continued survival and progress. But if we don’t have good reasons to respect thinking (as we, homo sapiens sapiens, do it), how can we hope to encourage others to take it seriously, much less learn to do it better?
Below is presented a model of thinking that’s true to the mental activity as we actually engage in it, experience it, rely on and love it. This model can and should be used to improve our proficiency at thinking. Finally, it can be used to specify what is uniquely characteristic of human thinking and what the future of this activity might be.
A systematic analysis of thinking has to consider 1st its work: various thought projects; 2nd its workspace, the conceptual elbow room available for thought projects to be worked on; and 3rd its workers, we, each one thinking, who launch projects and see them through to completion. A useful analogy may be the garage workshop of a hobbyist, equipped with benches, tools, and projects in progress.
“Thinking: the kind of work you can put your mind to”
Thinking, as I use the term, is engagement in thought projects, that is, serious and determined efforts towards bringing particular sequences of linked perceptions and conceptions to their concrete and satisfying fulfillment by means of intuition, observation and inference.
Thinking is not, by this definition, the same as obsessive thought that is never satisfied, nor is it daydreaming that is not moving ‘toward’ anything. The thinking person always has on-going projects, even if, at any particular moment, work on them is not going on. Thinking is real work that produces something, a thought, something tangible, measurable, verifiable in the sense that it can be spoken, shown or bring something to pass. For example, thinking may produce an explanation, a book review, a design, a plan to avoid traffic, an articulate insight, a set of instructions, a word of advice, a solution to a problem, an alternative, a plan of action. A sentence is a complete thought; a paragraph is a unit of thinking, that is, generating, developing and framing thoughts. (Think of reading as shadowing the thoughts of an author.)
When we reflect on the sensations of thinking, we struck by its virtual physicality. It’s as if thinking takes place in a mental world modeled on a physical one. When we’re thinking, we feel we’re in the midst of a space with places to go and room for things to be, and in the presence of objects what we can handle almost as if they were palpable, hefting them, carrying them, pressing them together or keeping them apart, all the while going or flowing ‘forward.’ This thinking space seems to have terrain to be traversed, uphill, downhill, on and on. Sometimes we bump against walls and barriers and have to go around, under or over, or we backtrack, or stall.
There’s thinking weather–fog, bleak overcast, or bright, breezy shadow-casting sunlight–to be endured or enjoyed. Thinking objects are sometimes inert, stable and dependable, and at other times, active, mutable, unbiddable. We, the ones thinking, find ourselves sometimes exhilarated, sometimes exhausted, now unable to restrain ourselves from racing ahead, now barely able to muster the will to keep slogging. At time we’re lost, weary and frustrated; at other times, sure, strong and masterful. Thinking feels like the flow of our physical and public existence: challenging, busy, surprising, very alive.
Thought projects
The number and variety of possible thought projects themes is boundless, each project of a scope and nature chosen by the one thinking. Projects follow on projects, inspiring and facilitating each other. Major projects–system designs, for instance–may be broken into sub-projects which may be reassembled to fulfill the original purpose or used as building blocks for different goals. Some projects are begun, languish, and suddenly come alive to finish in a grand flourish; others advance steadily without drama. Some consist of a preconceived sequence of small thought steps; others consist of a series of mini-projects responding adaptively to local or changing circumstances. Often we toggle between any of several active-status projects open in our minds at any moment. The progress of thought projects can often be tracked in the form of scribbled notes, sketches, discursive conversations, prototypes and models. These overt expressions serve as landmarks, as travel diaries, as drafts, and as traction surfaces for further progress.
We can consider the ends of projects in terms of a hierarchy of striving: for instance, life-long mental health may be a vision, cognitive fitness may be a goal, regular practice with puzzles my be an objects and completion of today’s newspaper sudoku may be a presentable project outcome.
Determining or defining the specifications of any of these kinds of ends may represent the fulfillment of any thought project. We may have an end in mind for a project and only have to find a way to realize it; or we may have a promising way of going forward toward some yet-to-be-discovered end, the actual lineaments of which can only be drawn upon encounter; or most likely, we have a general sense of both possibly profitable means, and possibly attractive ends, and a readiness to work the one against the other. So, a certain objective with a detailed description of required criteria–specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bounded, perhaps a solution needed for a specific problem–may find itself satisfied by what is produced and offered as a solution. Vice-versa, what is discovered may be just the thing to represent a previously unspecified solution to a previously unrecognized problem.
Thinking Questions
Thought projects tackle three kinds of questions: ‘what next?’ ‘what else?’ and ‘what exactly?’, each of which represents one of the three modes of thinking: creative, conjectural and critical.
Creative thinking responds to ‘what next?’ by taking the initiative and launching new ventures that being into being what doesn’t yet exist. Conjectural thinking responds to ‘what else?’ by going in search of the unsuspected and discovering the not-yet-known. Critical thinking responds to ‘what exactly?’ by drawing distinctions that clarify and confirm what is not yet suitable, right or appropriate. Every thought project engages all three modes, all of which are directed toward a single product satisfying the requirements of each. Indeed, any project, as a project, involves initiatives, scoutings and judgments, and requires creative, conjectural and critical thinking.
Each of the three modes has its own ‘compass’ that orients it toward the pole of its fulfillment:-
–The pole of selfness or wholeness: creative thinking is directed to the making of products that do for themselves, to themselves, with, toward and of themselves, having an intrinsic-ness and wholeness which is independent of the creator.
–The pole of thereness: conjectural thinking is directed toward the revelation of and engagement with previously un-encountered or unrecognized presences, actual apart from the belief or opinion of the discover.
–The pole of rightness: critical thinking is directed toward the reaching of conclusions about what is good, true or sufficient, which determinations are cogent and convincing, independent of the arguer.
These orientation principles, along with sightings, clues, results of tests, measurements of rates of change and other observations provide dead-reckoning ways of tracking progress of sequences of thoughts toward the achievement of concrete fulfillments characterized by wholeness, rightness and thereness. Of course, not all projects are assured success; we may fail to solve the sudoku.
Thinking Spaces
Each project defines the scale and scope of its own thinking space. This is the room for working, made available by the holding of certain sets of presumptions and permissions, by which, in turn, are made available by certain groups and classes of perceptions and conceptions. To be useful, workspaces generally must be a. Bigger than the work b. With room enough for tools, supplies, etc.; c. Reconfigurable as projects evolve; d. Designable; e. Able to sustain morale; f. Unsupervised, free from snooping; g. With places for works-in-progress and works-in-pause, staging areas; h. With still empty spaces set aside; i. Semi-permanent, able to be reconstructed; j. Including odd or surprising or not obviously relevant items; k. Able to inspire.
As a project develops and discovers itself, its workspace may expand, contract or change shape. Since projects come to fulfillment in single completion points, an analogy may be a coordinate system of latitude, longitude and elevation lines which might start, say, at the south pole, expand to the equator and contract toward the north pole. Likewise the dimensions of real possibility, of freedom and openness in which the project is pursued first expand then contract to the specificity of the presentable project. The evolving shape of the project over time can be mapped according to three coordinates.
The three coordinates of the thinking workspace are configured and behave differently according to the modes of thinking which they serve: creative thinking goes forward with respect the Opportunity (‘fill me’) coordinate; conjectural thinking, the Otherness (‘find me’) coordinate; and critical thinking, the Orientation (‘fit me’) coordinate.
The Opportunity coordinate consists of strings of points which can each balloon into empty (or vacatable) spaces available to be occupied by whatever new thing the thinker decides to originate there. The possibilities of size and shape of each of these opportunity spaces is bounded by particular combinations of resources or liberties internally or externally available. The contents of these spaces are undetermined until the thinking begins to make something in it; they become fully determined when these creations achieve full self-ness. The coming into being of new entities modifies the coordinate as a whole, changing existing opportunity spaces and even making new ones possible.
The Otherness coordinate consists of strings of references to what we know, things and arrangements, but like the number line, with potential places–between and within each reference and beyond all references–for everything we don’t know or even suspect, that is, the fullness of everything else in the world and in the future. The spaces of potential things we are ignorant of are penetrated, explored, and mapped by the ones thinking, discoveries becoming new knowledge references on the coordinate, often changing the arrangements and confirmations status of prior references.
The Orientation coordinate consists of strings of criteria, as individual axes or multi-axis bundles, related to different principles, rules or specifications that represent the standards against which at any point–the product in conception, in production or on presentation–can be tested. Individual criterion axes may be as broad as rights-of-way or narrow as tightropes but for the project to be within its boundaries is an ‘okay’ and a ‘go-ahead’ and to be at the core of any criterion, if any is defined, is concrete and satisfying fulfillment.
Criteria may be a-priori and appropriate to the fundamental principles of the thought project or the one thinking. Criteria may also be designed, decreed, revised or discovered in the course of the project. Determining what relevant criteria exist, how accurate or precise they are, whether the project at any point is within their boundaries and how close to the core is the function of arguments–abductive, inductive, deductive. Special sets of axes are used for testing the principles and methods by which rightness is determined, as much as for determining wholeness or thereness.
A thought project at any particular moment, that is, when a certain thought under consideration is linked to others prior, proximal and distal by implication or inference may suggest an opportunity for something new to be created; may indicate the presence of an other to be encountered; may confirm that the project is on the right track or clarify where it needs to go. With regard to the overarching criteria of wholeness, rightness, thereness, we may ask, what does the thought indicate in terms of project progress?
Expansion of the workspace in terms of creative thinking is the readiness to realize real creative possibilities (inventions); in terms of conjectural thinking, the readiness to encounter unsuspected possible existents (discoveries); in terms of critical thinking, the readiness to learn about possibly relevant criteria (discriminations). This is space open-ended in terms of what can be found, what can be made, what can be determined: space to be filled, space in which things are to be encountered, space tied together. In terms of the three coordinates, movement is toward wholeness, thereness, rightness. Thinking is an activity of local and global divergences and convergences, inflations and deflations.
The whole workspace is the whole mind, home to many projects-in-progress. In our daily life, the workspace, its windows open to take in experiences, goes walking in the world. On the way, through its presence in and interaction with what it meets there, it finds and gets information useful to existing projects and ideas and incentives for new ones.
These three coordinates describe the workshop at any particular time (however instantaneous or inclusive.) The time component is the life-clock of the one thinking. Successive thoughts and their workspaces may leave records in the form of notes, diagrams, speech or, more subtle but no less real, permanent reconfiguration of the architecture of the mind. The trajectory of a project can be tracked back through successions of different size and configurations of the workspace. Likewise, workspace changes are strung together by the links between successive thoughts.
One, Thinking
The one thinking is not just a channeler of thoughts but the thinker of them. More than that, the one thinking is the one who initiates projects and articulates the product. The one thinking is the one inventing the new, the one engaged with others and otherness, the one living (and dying) according to its determinations of the good, true or sufficient. The livingness of the one thinking is more fundamental then just mental activity, its resources more profound, its challenges more dynamic and dangerous. Yet thinking applies itself to all these matters out of prudence and joy in order to improve its chances in and enhance its appreciation of life and the world. Only human thinking can perform three key tasks for survival and prevalence: question premises, recognize otherness and create new genres or forms.
Specific, possible project to the one thinking in several ways. Attractor-driven projects take the form of quests, haloed by the kind of glamour, often related to personal preferences, triggered by evocative calls, or suggestive glimpses of intriguing ways to feel. Impellor-driven projects take the form of problems, highlighted by urgency, often related to local circumstances and exigencies, triggered by the inadequacy of existing solution, irritating skewedness, imbalance or lack of fit, or the frustration of pieces missing. Part of the training of one, thinking, is enhancement of the sensitivity to the latent factors which move us to conceive of quests and questions.
The analogy of the craftsperson suggests the virtues and disciplines of those who are regularly thinking well. Perhaps the premier virtue is the readiness to leave solid earth behind and step forward into the river of a new thought project. The one thinking foregoes stability, clarity and security when beginning a new project. There’s usually a risk in thinking and always some discomfort. Thinking is messy before it’s neat; open and exposed before it’s snug and tight.
Good thinking also requires diligence in keeping projects moving forward, technical proficiency in, for instance, fabrication, research, and argument, as well as project management, resourcefulness and scrupulousness with regard to quality. A most inspiring example of this, for me, was the willingness of Johannes Kepler to reject his initial plausible results concerning the orbit of Mars, results which were the product of so much hard calculation, just because they were not consistent with the data of Tycho Brahe. Thinking is exertion, so fitness is important.
One who is thinking must assent on some level to any undertaken thought project. If not the activity becomes a mechanization and estrangement of the mind, since we recognize ourselves by our thinking. Teams working on projects share targets and work in common workspaces and may have characteristic styles but the basic and irreplaceable unit agent of thinking is the individual one thinking.
The quality of thoughts and thinking
There are five criteria we can use to tell is thoughts are of poor quality: 1st they are derivative, dependent, with little intrinsic weight, lacking wholeness; 2nd they are trite, no unexpectedness, lacking originality; 3rd they are fuzzy, indistinct, vague, lacking respect for details; 4th they don’t seem to have been produced or appropriated through hard work and hard choices, lacking history; 5th they are ungrounded in real-world observations or unlinked to generally accepted authority or technique, lacking effectiveness.
Thinking as an activity can be held to four standards: 1st faux vs real thinking–no work, no mental sweat; 2nd unsuccessful vs successful thinking–no fulfillment after much effort; 3rd bad vs good thinking–poor technique, including project management itself; and 4th unhealthy vs healthy thinking–not self-renewing, self-sustaining. Healthy thinking protects itself, improves and invests in itself, sees opportunities in itself, depends on and trusts itself, is sometimes surprised by itself, appreciates itself. This is the adaptive behavior of a capability that enhances our adaptability.
Conversation of exploration
At the heart of any thought project is query, the interrogative spirit methodically applied (after Justus Buchler). The thought project workspace can be considered a query space, even a locus for many dynamic query spaces coming into and going out of existence.
Likewise, conversation of exploration (convex) cultivates query space as the key to what distinguishes it from other kinds of conversation, both those of quid pro quo exchange, those impatient to arrive at lock-down judgments or those that wander dreamily (more akin to contemplation, a different mental activity). Convex deliberately extends the time between provocative encounter and practical judgment in order to freely pursue ‘what else?’, ‘what next?, ‘what exactly?’
As it does so, convex fairly foams with query spaces and may not necessarily end with a ‘that’s that’ conclusion but with a mix of new findings, new inventions, new distinctions and yet-to-be resolved new questions.
Thought projects and convex both operate in query space, one reflexive, focusing more on product: the presentable; the other more social, focusing more on process: the query experience itself. The two overlap, intertwine and support each other.
Since convex an be a gateway to engagement in thought projects, it should be defined more carefully. A conversation of exploration is an active session of some number of people engaged in looking and thinking out loud regarding a particular object, occurrence, process or place they’ve chosen to put themselves in the presence of. There are three guidelines for successful convex: 1st they generate query space; 2nd they stay linked to the presence; 3rd they produce some take-away.