Thinking About Thinking

On a couple of occasions my wife has made the following comment on my behaviour: "You think too much". I have thought deeply about her observation! Human beings communicate using languages they have learnt but whatever the native tongue, language is full of ambiguities and prone to misinterpretation. So what did my wife mean by her comment? I don't think (there I go again!) that she could possibly mean I should stop thinking; after all, thought is the basis for almost all our actions and interactions, so it is going on all the time. If she had said: "You spend too much time thinking and not enough time doing", then I would understand where she was coming from, particularly as my 'doing-to-thinking ratio' is a considerably lesser quantity than my wife's.

One of the discussion groups I am currently participating in, on the subject of thinking(!), has touched on the issue of male versus female thought processes and particularly the key differences. A view has been expressed that women's thoughts tend to relate to the natural (real) world whereas men use their ideas to relate to the conceptual world and I quote one comment: "I think a woman might generalise men as dreamers who get wrapped up in their theories". Well I have to admit to being able to relate to that point of view and one of my favourite pastimes is thinking about thinking.

We are part of a complex system that we try to understand by using simple mental models of what we think is going on around us. Sometimes our mental models become very rigid preconceived ideas and even when 'reality' doesn't match our model, we are still reluctant to modify our ideas. What is 'reality'? Is my view of the world, which is my 'reality', the same as your 'reality'? We are each using our sensors - seeing, hearing, smelling, touching - together with complex processing, which draws upon experience, intuition, tradition, preconceived ideas - and forming opinions of the 'reality' that surrounds us. Sometimes we attempt to breakdown the complexity of the environment into simple building blocks. But that doesn't always work. Colours should be simple, easy-to-understand components but why does, for example, the colour of my house appeal to me but look crap to you? Are we seeing the same colour but processing it differently, or vice versa?

There can be a danger of trying to squeeze a non-linear world into our linear mental models. Cause and effect is a common view of 'reality' - this affects that, which affects this, which affects those........ etc - but it doesn't always work like that! A affects B, which affects C, which after time modifies A, which affects B, which after time also modifies A. So the simple linear model has time- dependent feedback loops creating a non-linear function. To understand even a comparatively simple non-linear A-B-C model, we have to view it from a system perspective, understanding not just the constituent building blocks, but also the relationships between them.

As we move from concepts to 'reality', we can direct our thoughtful energies towards trying to understand issues such as why did the economic crisis occur, how do we solve our financial woes, how many species are there on the planet, are homo sapiens the only mammals that pop up everywhere, are we taking more out of the planet than we are putting back in, is the planet warming, if so what can we do about it, why do we have wars,........???? The issues go on and on but every time we try to simplify them and tackle them in isolation, we usually fail. So that's why I see a benefit in thinking about thinking, because although traditional thinking has resulted in tremendous developments for mankind, we don't seem to be able to solve some of the real crunchy and destructive issues that we have created, which face us and will plague future generations. So OK perhaps I should spend more time doing rather than thinking but if we carry on doing what we're doing, why should anything change? We will only change what we are doing if we stop doing and think about it........just a thought!