Psychology, thinking.  ---  .Introduction or sum up types of thinking.  (1) Image thinking vs. symbol thinking. (words, numbers, musical notation, computer languages, logic symbols, etc.)  (2) Categorization and classification.  (3) Abstract vs. concrete thinking (a spectrum).  (4) Black and white thinking vs. shades of gray thinking.  (5) Analogical, metaphorical and figurative thinking (art, dreams).  (6) Conscious vs. unconscious thinking.  ---  5/16/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  .Introduction or sum up.  (1) Thinking as talking to yourself.  So adding vocabulary adds thinking ability?  (2) Thinking as picturing (or, like a movie, picturing with sound added) or imaging.  (3) Are math, music and dance thinking radically different from the above two?  Music is feeling, but playing music requires thinking.  Math is quantity imaging.  Dance is movement, which requires thinking, imaging, or just intention?  ---  8/23/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  .This section is about various other thoughts on thinking.  Topics include: ( ) Abstraction.  ( ) Analogy.  ( ) Classificaton and categories.  ( ) Development of thought.  ( ) Emotion and thought.  (See also: Psychology, emotion.)  ( ) Freedom of thought.  ( ) How we think.  ( ) Ideas.  ( ) Ignorance.  ( ) Image thinking.  ( ) Intelligence.  ( ) Language and thinking.  ( ) Memory and thought.  (See also: Psychology, memory.)  ( ) Metaphorical thinking.  ( ) Organization of knowledge.  ( ) Question theory.  ( ) Thinkers.  ( ) Who says we think?  ---  1/24/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  "Don't think, we'll think for you.", are the most dangerous words ever spoken.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) A large amount of thinking can be accomplished by mental swapping, that is, the replacement of one mental variable with another through the use of imagination.  (2) The feat or ability of mental swapping of ideas is also the basis of metaphor.  Metaphorical thinking powers much of the arts.  ---  3/22/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Booting up thoughts.  Thoughts at the start of the day.  (2) Pop-up thoughts.  Throughout the day.  (3) What's on your mind?  Concerns.  Desires.  (4) Shutting down thoughts.  Thoughts at the end of day.  ---  4/12/06

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Brain states without thought vs. brain states with thoughts.  Humans can have thoughtless brain states.  For example, Zen meditation can produce a thoughtless brain state.  (2) Brain states without words vs. brain states with words.  Humans can even have thought brain states that are wordless.  For example, when you are parallel parking a car you are thinking about complex geometric angles, yet you are doing so without words.  ---  5/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Critical thinking.  (A) Analyze arguments.  Judge or evaluate the quality of the logic of the argument, and the overall epistemological strength of the argument (premises and conclusions).  (B) Analyze and judge the ethical strength of the argument.  (2) Creative thinking.  (A) Problem solving.  (B) Idea creation or generation (quality and quantity).  ---  04/10/1997

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) How much to think about something?  Once a day?  All day long?  (2) How much to let something bother you?  Less than it should, to the point of apathy?  More than it should, to the point of incapacitation?  ---  6/15/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) How much to think on a subject?  (2) Methods used, and how often each?  (3) How many ideas get, how good ideas, range of ideas.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) How much you see in things determines how gifted you are.  The dim simply do not see much in things.  (2) How much things move or bother you determines how gifted you are.  The dim simply are not moved by things.  (3) How much you see in things determines how much you are moved or bothered by things.  That is, 1 determines 2.  (4) For example, the dim see a flower or a tree, or a mountain, or a person and the only thought that crosses their mind is simply the name of the object.  The gifted, on the other hand, see the same objects and a myriad of thoughts, emotions, memories and sensations cross their mind.  ---  11/25/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) If you are going to be a thinker, then you must confront the whole ball of wax, all of the universe.  You must have knowledge of all subject areas, and all points of view.  You give each view what it is due.  You do not over-emphasize or under-emphasize an area.  It takes a great deal of judgment and balance.  (2) Everyone is a thinker.  (3) The reason to be a thinker is to stay mentally healthy.  Not to lord it over others.  Not to build a career.  Not to pick up women.  ---  3/23/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Intelligence defined as the ability to think.  The ability to create a new idea beyond the contents of memory.  (2) Thinking defined as the ability to control one's thoughts, which derives from the ability to control one's memories.  (3) Thinking defined as anything that is not 100% hardwired instinct.  (4) Thinking defined as creative problem solving.  ---  5/31/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Intelligence helps, but other psychological factors are just as important.  Factors such as: (A) Hard work (number of hours more so than degree of intensity).  (B) Good memory.  (C) Good attitude.  (D) Social skills.  (E) Motivation and drive.  (F) Emotional knowledge.  (G) Practical knowledge.  (H) Curiosity.  (I) Mental health.  (J) Attention and focus.  (K) Healthy environment.  (L) Good role models.  (M) Picking good goals and good plans.  (2) All these factors can make up, to some degree, for lack of intelligence, and they can even propel a person of average intelligence past a person of higher intelligence.  (3) Problems with the above factors can drop a person of high intelligence below a person of average intelligence.  Such problems include: (A) Poor attitude.  (B) Poor role models.  (C) Distractedness.  (D) Mental illness.  (E) Emotional problems.  (F) Poor social skills.  (G) Pessimism, negativity and depression.  (H) Fear.  (I) Laziness.  (J) Lack of motivation.  (4) All these problems can impede intelligence.  They can lower one's functional or working intelligence.  Functional or working intelligence level is the intelligence level that you operate with on a day to day basis.  Functional or working intelligence is different from "test taking intelligence under ideal conditions", which is what most IQ test measure.  ---  5/21/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Internal logic: quality of, development of.  (2) Booting ideas: quality, quantity, source.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) IQ: intelligence quotient, your max.  (2) KQ: knowledge quotient, your max.  How much you know on any subject.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Knowledge pool depends on gathering information, and memory of information gathered.  (2) If you change the facts or views or ideas you deal with, you can change your outlook and behavior.  ---  11/30/1997

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Many people have heads that are impenetrable barriers.  (2) Some people have ideas going into their heads.  (3) A few people have ideas coming out of their heads.  ---  3/11/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Mechanisms of thought, and (2) Organization/structure of ideas.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) New thoughts.  What would a totally new situation be like?  Unrecognizeable?  (2) Old thoughts.  Remembered.  Categorized.  Processed.  Automatic.  ---  4/3/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Percent of time you're in a type or method of thinking.  (2) Percent of time you're on a subject of thinking.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Reading words.  Is reading words a form of thinking with words?  (2) Seeing images.  Is seeing images a form of thinking with images?  (3) When we are reading words and seeing images at the same time, for example, in a television commercial, are we simultaneously thinking with words and images?  ---  6/6/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Some people have only a few concepts or categories.  Some people have only a few connections between concepts.  Some people have a very static set of concepts, and do not readily form new concepts.  That is a bad situation.  (2) Other people have many concepts.  Other people have many connections between concepts.  Other people have a dynamic set of concepts, and readily form new concepts, and form new relationships between concepts.  That is a good situation.  ---  2/24/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Subjects of thought.  What do you spend your time thinking about and why?  What to think about?  (2) Efficiency of thought.  Quantity and quality of ideas per time period.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) There are many methods of thinking.  (2) The various methods of thinking are all learnable skills.  (3) The various methods of thinking can each be applied on many types of data.  Thinking skills are transferable across subjects.  (4) Applying thinking skills to data results in either new data or organized data.  ---  12/6/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Thinking as talking to yourself.  Verbal thinkers.  (2) Thinking as seeing pictures.  Visual thinkers.  For example, Einstein.  (3) Thinking as hearing sounds.  Not necessarily music.  Not necessarily the sounds of spoken words.  Aural thinkers.  (4) Thinking as a combination of words, pictures and sounds.  For example, like one perceives a movie.  Movie thinkers.  ---  10/30/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) To think of something really cool that no one has ever thought of.  An intellectual first ascent.  To boldly go where no man has gone before.  (2) My turf is between philosophy and literature.  Not in either camp.  Too literary for philosophy, too philosophical for literature.  (3) Do it working through my notes, not by reading books.  ---  04/26/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) Viewpoint: from where you are looking.  (2) Vista or view: what you can see.  (3) Horizon: limits of what you can see.  (4) Direction - ?  (5) Perspective: same as viewpoint?  (6) How much time you spend in each.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) We think most of the time with images, sounds, smells, tastes and touch.  Not as much with words, numbers and other symbols.  (2) Asking questions, even to yourself, requires thinking with words, which is something we rarely do.  (3) Therefore, people seldom ask questions to themselves.  And therefore, people seldom generate answers.  ---  5/16/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) What is the difference between the way we think when we are first learning a fact or skill versus the way we think when we are adept with a fact or skill?  (2) For example, what is the difference between the way we think when we are first learning to touch typewrite versus the way we think when we are adept at touch typewriting?  When we first learn to touch typewrite we think about every move and our thinking is hesitant and deliberate.  When we are adept at touch typewriting we seem to think more swiftly, fluidly, easily, almost effortlessly.  (3) One can argue that the same shift from difficulty to ease occurs with thinking about any idea, and when using any thinking method.  Our first thoughts on a subject, and our first use of a thinking method, are apt to be clumsy and difficult.  However, once we become familiar with a body of ideas on a subject, and once we become practiced at a method of thinking, our thinking becomes easier and flows.  ---  11/22/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) What is thinking?  What should we think about?  (2) Why think: purpose, importance, need for, use for?  (3) How think: mechanisms, methods, techniques?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) What is your mental range, low to high, i.e. What is your level of consistency or inconsistency?  (2) What is your average, i.e. What level are you most often at?  In general, for any subject area, and through time.  ---  05/12/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) What things do you think about?  (2) How do you think about those things?  (3) Many people spend a lot of time thinking about the things they want to gain or obtain.  Many people's heads are filled with the statement, "If I get x then I will be happy.".  (4) Many people think mostly about trivial bullshit in a totally superficial way.  Few people think about important things in a critical way.  ---  3/22/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  (1) You can do a lot of thinking, but not having an adequate pool of information to work with can hinder you.  (2) You can have a huge pool of information, but if you never think about it you will make little progress.  ---  1/15/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  A great mind has both discipline (memory, organization) and creativity (freedom, tangents, new ideas).  ---  05/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  A systematic exploration of the idea world is required.  A systematic exploration travels every path in an organized manner.  For example, one can solve a maze by following every closed path until one finds the solution path.  ---  12/16/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  A web metaphor for concepts (ex., the Internet as a web) is useful but incomplete because a web metaphor cannot capture all the types of set relationships that we find in set theory and that are so useful in human thought (ex., union, intersection, subset).  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstract thinking.  A concept is an abstraction (summary, outline) from all the memories associated with a thing.  For example, the concept of a cat is an abstraction from the image of a cat, the sound of a cat, the behavior of a cat.  ---  6/8/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstract thinking.  The ability of humans to think abstractly is a result of the human ability to think of ideals.  The ability of humans to think of ideals is a result of the ability of humans to think of goals.  Goal seeking is an ability of many animals who spend their day trying to fulfill their needs.  That is to say, goal seeking produces ideals which then produce abstract thoughts.  And thus abstract thinking in not necessarily limited to humans.  ---  6/8/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  (1) See also: Abstract vs. concrete thinking in early humans.  (2) See also: Symbolism in the arts.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  Abstraction = to be more general and less specific.  Symbolism = 100% abstraction.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  An abstract term like "equality" is abstract because it is about an idea.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  Concrete and specific versus abstract, universal and general.  (1) Two examples: "cat" and "nine"  (A) Cat.  A specific instance of a cat (concrete, specific).  Any and all cats (abstract, general).  (B) Number nine.  A specific instance of a set of nine things (concrete, specific).  Any and all uses of number nine (abstract, general).  (2)(A) Concrete, specific.  Who would say that specific instances of "cat" exist only in the mind and not in the real world?  No one.  They are real, physical animals.  (B) Abstract, general, universal.  Abstract, general ideas of "cat" exist only in the minds of those who think them, and not anywhere else, and thus they are fictions.  (3) The mind naturally attempts to classify any concrete, specific thing it experiences.  Thus, once we see our first cat, our mind immediately starts forming a abstract, general concept of cat.  ---  1/1/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  Is abstraction a type of classifying and categorizing?  Or is categorizing and classifying a type of abstraction?  Or is abstraction the same thing as classifying and categorizing?  Or is abstraction unrelated to classifying and categorizing?  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  Levels of abstract thinking.  (1) Specific concrete thing (no abstraction).  (2) All x's (types).  (3) All things.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  Only words can be abstract.  Sentences cannot be abstract.  So thinking abstractly means thinking using abstract words.  What is an abstract word?  If a word is not denoting a person, place or object then that word is abstract.  If its an idea then its abstract.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  PART ONE.  Three levels.  (1) A particular, individual tree.  (2) The category or class of all trees.  (3) The abstract notion of tree-ness.     PART TWO.  A class or category is a group.  Plurals are used to denote classes and categories.  Groups are collections of individuals.  By generalizing the notion of individuals in a group we get the notion of the abstract.  So classes and categories are a stage on the journey to abstraction.  Individual, group (class or category) and abstraction are three different things.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  There is no such thing as a purely concrete or a purely abstract idea.  All ideas have a spectrum of meanings from concrete to abstract.  ---  8/6/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  What degree of abstraction is a person most comfortable thinking at?  There is a spectrum from no abstraction to total abstraction.  An example of no abstraction is a concrete object like a tree.  An example of total abstraction is a completely symbolic expression, such as a math formula or an abstract painting.  In the middle of the spectrum lies something like a realistic painting of a tree.  ---  7/2/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Abstraction.  What level of abstraction do you like to think at?  I must confess that I don't enjoy always thinking at the "highest" level of abstraction.  That is why I am not a mathematician or a computer programmer.  Sometimes I enjoy delving into the less abstract, sensuous types of thinking.  In any event, it is a mistake to consider high levels of abstraction as somehow better than lower levels of abstraction.  For example, it is a mistake to regard the mathematician as somehow better than the artist merely because the mathematician works at a different level of abstraction.  We can call this mistake "the fallacy of abstraction".  ---  7/10/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  After certain degree of needs are met the drive to think is less, and thinking becomes work.  You must spur yourself to do it.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Algorithmic thinking.  (1) We can define memory as a person recalling a thought that the person had previously.  (2) We can define thinking as the creation of a new thought.  (3) The new thought is the result of performing an operation on data inputs and thus the new thought can be the result of a new operation or new data inputs.  (4) Some acts of creativity involved an old operation with new data inputs.  Some acts of creativity involve a new operation with old data inputs.  Some acts of creativity involve new operations with new data inputs.  (5) Take the example of multiplying a five digit number by a five digit number.  This is something that I have never done before, and the result is thus new.  However, multiplication is an operation that I have done before.  (6)  How much creative thinking is involved in simple calculation?  Not much it seems.  Perhaps none at all.  Yet notice how much of what we call "profound artistic creativity" can be broken down into simple algorithmic steps.  Quite a bit actually.  The artist may appear like a magician but he is only doing simple replacements of one operation or data input with another.  If simple algorithms are no big feat of thinking, then neither are our creative leaps.  ---  1/1/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  All thinking of past and all thinking of future serves present situation.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  An essay on thinking.     PART ONE.  Sensing and thinking.  Any sense input, be it sight, smell, taste, sound or touch, can trigger the memory of any other sight, smell, taste, sound, or touch (or emotion, or thought).  A sight or sound can include reading or hearing a word.  Any sight, smell, taste, sound or touch can be a symbol (i.e., can trigger or stand for another).  We can even imagine new sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches.  So there seems to be less of a distinction between sensing and thinking than I thought.  If any sense data can be a symbol.  If any sense data can be imagined or thought of.     PART TWO. Sensing and thinking.  Seeing vs. mental imaging (or imagining).  Seeing images vs. mental picturing of images.  When we read fiction we mentally image the story.  Can we say that we imagine the story?  Or did only the author imagine it?  Do we imagine non-fiction too?  I.e., do we mentally picture everything?  If so, then besides Fodor's "Language of Thought" there is also an "Image System of Thought".  Is mental imaging a form of thinking by using images?     PART THREE.  Categorization and classification, are they the same thing?  Are they defined as hierarchical tree building, or are they, more simply, merely the process of creating sets or groups?  Hierarchies are subsets.  But hierarchies cannot represent the set function known as intersection.     PART FOUR.  Categorization and classification.  More fundamental than the hierarchical classification and categorization of concepts is the psychological process of organizing information, be that information in the form of knowledge, data, or merely symbols.  Information can be organized serially, such as the alphabet and whole numbers.  Serial organization is a more simple process than is hierarchical classification into tree-like structures.  Even more simple than the organization of information is the mental process of pattern recognition of physical objects.  Pattern recognition is where intelligence starts.     PART FIVE.  "If-then" thinking is a type of temporal pattern recognition.  Whereas "Which of these things is not like the other" thinking is a form of spatial pattern recognition.  Temporal pattern recognition and spatial pattern recognition both evolved in animals as a survival skill.  Spatial pattern recognition is the more simple of the two, and it probably evolved earlier, in lower forms of life.  Spatial pattern recognition helps the carnivore pick out the weak prey, and it helps the herbivore pick out and avoid the bad fruit and the inedible plant.  Thus, spatial pattern recognition helps both the carnivore and herbivore survive.     PART SIX.  If-then thinking.  (1) "If-then" thinking (i.e., rule based thinking) evolved from the causal aspect of nature, which in turn is based on time.  If time did not exist, then cause-effect would not exist, and as a result if-then thinking would not have evolved.  It is because humans learned to recognize actual "if-then" causal phenomena in nature, we were able to then set up our own abstract "if-then" scenarios such as laws and formal logic.  (2) Pattern recognition in groups of physical objects is based on space (not time).  If space did not exist, then our ability to recognize patterns of objects in space would not have evolved.  And if pattern recognition had not evolved, then our ability to recognize groups and sets would not have evolved.  And our ability to categorize and classify would not have evolved.     PART SEVEN.  Symbols.  (1) Sound can evoke a word or an image.  Example, the sound of a dog bark can evoke the word lassie, or it can evoke a picture of lassie.  (2) Some things can evoke only feelings.  Music can evoke feelings only?  Paintings that are abstract (i.e., not of recognizable objects) can evoke feelings only.  Nonsense words can evoke feelings only.  Are these three all examples of non-symbolic arts?     PART EIGHT.  Symbols.  Is a picture (of a flower, for example) symbolic in the same way that a word (the word flower, for example) is symbolic?  Or is a picture differently symbolic than a word?     PART NINE.  The question remains: What is thinking?  Is there really such a thing as thinking, such as we traditionally envision it?  Do we think with words only?  Can we think with images?  For example, if you picture a robber taking the payroll, is that essentially the same as saying "A robber could take the payroll", or "A robber did take the payroll"?  When you think about and solve a spatial relation puzzle, you do so without using words.  It appears, from the above two examples, that we can think with images.  If we can think with words and images, can we also think with sounds, smells and tastes?  ---  6/6/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  "Is" and "be" are the most commonly used verbs.  (1) "Is" and "be" can be used to mean "exists".  For example, things are themselves.  (2) "Is" and "be" can be used to mean "equals".  For example, "x is y" means "x = y".  (3) "Is like" means "is similar to".  For example, "X is like y" means "x is similar to y in some way but not equal to".  (4) Metaphorical thinking, speaking and writing is inevitable because people are always comparing things.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  (1) Analogy: "a is to b as x is to y".  (2) Metaphor (a comparison) "x is y".  (3) Simile (a comparison using like) "x is like y".  (4) Metaphors and smilies are types of analogies?  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  (1) Good points about metaphors.  Metaphors can reveal new and useful relationships between things.  (2) Bad points about metaphors.  Metaphors can confuse more than they clarify.  Things are what they are, so why call one thing another thing.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  (1) See also: "Psychology, mind, development. > Use of metaphors by early humans".  (2) See also: "Arts, literature. > Use of metaphor in the arts, especially literature, especially poetry".  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  Analogy is the use of one thing to represent or mean another thing.  And we convey analogies through language, which involves the use of one word to mean another word.  The use of one word to mean another word is a feature of many modes; a feature of slang; a feature of code; a feature of humor.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  Analogy, metaphor and simile.  Analogical thinking.  Metaphorical thinking.  ---  6/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  Metaphor thinking.  One argument is that human thought evolved layer by layer.  Starting with simple, single word thoughts about the immediate physical environment and immediate physical needs.  Evolving to complex, multi-sentence thoughts about abstract ideas.  The way these layers relate to each other is through metaphors.  We arrive at complex ideas from simple ideas via metaphorical thinking.  This evolution over millions of years is replayed in every child's development, to some degree.  ---  9/1/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  Metaphorical thinking and analogical thinking is a type of classification and categorization thinking.  To say "this is like that" is to put "this" in the "that" category.  Alternatively, it is to form a new category that contains "this" and "that".  Categorization and classification is just a form of "grouping".  We group ideas together in various ways.  ---  8/28/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  Metaphorical thinking is when you say, "This is like that."  What type of thinking do you call it when you say, "This is unlike that."?  It is just as important a type of thinking.  Perhaps we can call them "synonym thinking" and "antonym thinking".     PART TWO.  Analogy thinking is when you say "This is to that as this other thing is to that other thing".  Analogy is formally symbolized as "X : Y : : A : B".  Analogy thinking is a form of double metaphor.  Its actually a triple metaphor consisting of a metaphor on each side and the metaphor of the whole analogy itself.  ---  6/3/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analogy.  Our minds find it easy to think analogously.  "This is like that.  This is not like that"  To think analogously is to group things together by some abstract pattern.  Our minds like to group things.  Metaphor and simile arise out of analogy.  ---  3/23/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Analysis of your thinking.  Ways to improve it and what to get it to.  How do we think, and how best to think.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Anyone, from any philosophical school, anyplace in the world, can think of any idea, in any form (visual art, poem, philosophy), on any subject, at any time.  ---  12/01/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Arguments against thinking (figuring and finding).  Boring.  Enslaving, not freeing.  Waste of time, not useful.  Will change for worse.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Arguments against thinking.  Many people think(?) that thought cannot solve everything.  You can't think your way out of every situation.  (1) Thinking vs. emotion.  They argue that emotion is more important than thought in some situations.  (2) Thinking vs. drive.  They argue that drive is more important than thinking in some situations.  (3) Thinking vs. action.  They argue that action is more important than thinking in some situations.  ---  4/10/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Arguments for and against thinking, reading, and writing.  (1) Against.  If your are changing fast it can hold you back.  You can become a studier rather than doer.  It can enslave, not free you. (2) For.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Association.  One thing calls to mind another thing.  One thing reminds you of another thing.  One memory triggers another memory.  So much of human "thinking" is association of memories.  People think they are thinking, but most of the time people are really associating memories.  ---  3/22/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Association.  What does it mean to say that we associate one thing with another?  What does it mean to say that our thought trains move in vague associations?  (1) Memories of all past encounters with a thing.  (2) One thing reminds you of another thing.  (3) A mental web of associations.  ---  8/3/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  At certain times in your life you are more apt to get an idea than at others.  There is a window of opportunity on getting ideas.  This is why you have to start early, and do your notes your entire life long.  ---  01/01/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Automatic thinking.  Consider the act of walking along a forest path.  Are you thinking when you walk along a forest path?  Are you thinking about walking?  Are you thinking about the path?  Are you thinking about the forest?  Most likely you are thinking about something else.  Humans are able to do some things by using little conscious thought or effort, seemingly automatically.  ---  3/22/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Avoidance is the most common intellectual mistake.  Many people make the mistake of avoiding thinking about many things.  ---  1/1/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Basic thoughts are most important.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Believing what you hear, read or see.  Is it true and why?  Is it important and why?  What are alternate views and arguments?  Figure it out!  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Bias in authors.  In the intellectual world, as well as the material world, you have to ask (A) What does the person want to get (their goals), and (B) What are they selling (what ideas are they pushing).  ---  11/2/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Big fears: (1) How do I know what I am reading isn't a bunch of lies?  (2) How do I know I won't go further, or in better direction, if I don't read it?  (3) How do I know they are not trying to socialize, steer, brainwash, and program categories and views in my mind?  ---  06/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Big intellectual sins.  (1) Being wrong.  (2) Working on the trivial and unimportant.  (3) Producing ideas that go nowhere, and are not powerful and lasting (producing much change for better).  (4) Being too airy (theoretical) or too concrete (practical).  ---  06/15/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Big problem in life.  You can't do anything, if you don't have knowledge.  But by time you get the knowledge, you can't use it.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Build a brain trust.  Get many, good, diverse brains, communicating well.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Can we and should we control or direct our thoughts?  (1) If we can direct our thoughts then we can choose to widen our scope of thought or narrow it.  Widening our scope of thought is good.  (2) Controlling our conclusions and our premises.  (3) Controlling facts vs. beliefs.  (4) Believing a lie even when you know its a lie.  ---  9/26/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Capacity is limited so choose what to think about (subject), when to think, how to think (method), how to load up.  Mistakes of doing any of these, and effects of mistakes.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Catalogues and cannons of ideas.  Best ideas, best structures, most complete, most accurate and true, best importance ratings.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  (1) Classification means to arrange or organize categories.  (2) Categories are groups of individual objects.  (3) For examples: The Dewey Decimal classification system; the Library of Congress classification system; the Biological classification system.  ---  12/6/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  (1) Creation of a mental category by a person can be a conscious or unconscious process.  (2) Some categories we figure out for ourselves, some categories we find out from other sources (media, peers, etc.).  (3) Creation of a mental category by a person is similarly to the process used by a library cataloger.  (4) We often assume that our categories are organized in a logical structure, and that categories are created based on whether they are logically called for.  However, category creation is often based on importance as well as logic.  Things we deem unimportant we put in an "everything else" category.  Things we deem important we create categories for.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  (1) Simple and rigid category thinkers:  (A) Each item is in only one category.  (B) Each category has only one attribute.  (2) Complex and sophisticated category thinkers:  (A) An item can belong to many categories.  (B) A category can have many attributes.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  (1) Things exist.  (2) We create categories to describe sets of things.  (3) We then create categories to describe sets of categories.  ---  11/5/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  (1) To some degree the categories we create are influenced by our needs and by the obstacles or problems we face in getting those needs.  (2) To some degree the categories we create are influenced by our psychological abilities, like our perceptual abilities, memory abilities, emotional abilities and reasoning abilities.  ---  11/5/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  (1) We have categories.  We have logical structures of categories.  We have importance structures of categories.  (2) We have ideas.  We have logical structures of ideas.  We have importance structures of ideas.  (3) Is every idea a category?  Is every category an idea?  ---  10/31/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  (1) What determines the type, number and structure of the categories a person forms? (2) The average person has what type, number and structure of categories?  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  (1) Why did humans evolve the ability to categorize?  Perhaps the ability to categorize evolved in humans and other social animals in order to sort out kinship.  (2) Categorizing is not the same thing as thinking abstractly.  For example, the category of "all the barking animals I have seen" is not abstract, but it is similar to the concept "dog" which is abstract.  Perhaps the ability to categorize eventually evolved into our ability to think abstractly.  (3) One can think inferentially without thinking abstractly.  One can think inferentially without thinking in terms of categories.  So inference seems somewhat separate from categories and abstraction, and possibly evolved some other way.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  A category or class is a group or a set.  Categories and classes can thus be analyzed using set theory.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Categories are acquired based on: (A) Everyday use.  If you use it often you will develop a category for it.  (B) Once in a lifetime occurrences or use.  If you ever experienced it, even once, you will have a concept for it.  (C) The education we never use.  The ideas we think of that we never use.  That is, we are constantly generating a multitude of categories in our minds.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Categories are different from levels of abstraction.  (A) You can have many categories at any level of abstraction.  (B) You can abstract a single item into symbolic form without recourse to categories.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Categories or ideas.  Simple vs. complex.  New vs. old.  Best vs. worst.  General vs. specific.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Concepts are not the same as categories.  Concepts are what we put into categories.  (You can, however, have the concept of category.  You can also have the category of all concepts.).  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  For any sentence, paragraph or paper ask, "What subject is it about?"  It could be about more than one thing.  (ex. Symbolism, double entendre, subject-verb-object, etc.).  It could be about many things.  What category to put it in?  It can go in many categories.  ---  6/14/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Having many, varied categories does not determine how ethical you are.  There are many single-minded individuals who perform simple yet much-needed tasks with great tenacity, and these individuals are to be admired.  On the other hand, having many, varied categories, the result of mental flexibility and constant learning, is a healthy psychological trait.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  If everything is connected to everything else and related to everything else, then what business do we have categorizing and classifying?  ---  10/22/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Is it possible to think without using categories?  No.  Is it possible to speak without using common nouns?  Yes.  Is it possible to think of anything that is not a category or not in a category?  No.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Is there only one set of subjects or categories?  If no, is one set of categories or subjects better than another?  Better in terms of what is useful, healthy, true or good.  For example, some people's mental organization is based on goals (the future).  Some people's mental organization is based on the past (memories).  ---  7/16/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  On what basis do people create categories?  (1) People create categories for what they think is important.  The unimportant does not merit its own category.  (2) People create categories for the basic foundational ideas.  The minor details are relegated to sub-categories in a hierarchical classification system.  (3) People create categories when they have many things that need to be organized by pattern.  A small quantity of things with no discernible pattern do not get a category.  (4) People create categories at busy intersections, like the nodes on a network or web.  The seldom visited routes and places rarely get a name or a category.  (5) See also psychology, thinking, classification and categories.  ---  9/24/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Pokemon, baseball cards, etc.  People love to differentiate, classify, categorize and keep statistics.  If only they would apply these skills to something useful.  ---  11/30/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Single-item categories.  It may be that the brain forms a category for every single thing it encounters.  If you don't have a category, then you can't think of a thing.  You can't think about things you don't know of.  Perhaps "concept" is a better term to use in this case.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  The traditional academic divisions of knowledge, which Western civilization has to a degree been based on, are a useful way of categorizing and structuring knowledge, but they are not the only useful way of structuring knowledge.  To make new advances often requires discovering new concepts and new relationships between concepts.  New ways of seeing the world.  Of course, there are many, many useless concepts and concept structures, and even counter-productive ones.  It is not merely a matter of using different words, although that may help.  Sometimes you have to make up new words.  ---  4/14/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  The uncategorizable: (1) Things we know nothing about.  Things that fit into no known category.  (2) Things that fit into so many categories that you can't confine it to any single category.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Thinking as categories and classification.  (1) The number, types, and levels of classification you set up, or have set up for you, consciously or unconsciously, has an important effect on how you think.  (2) Levels of abstraction.  How much time you spend in each.  (3) How you categorize any specific experience, situation or event is very important.  (4) Classification theory: inclusion, exclusion.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  To categorize is to put into groups.  Two types of categories:  (1) Putting concrete, singular individual items into groups.  (2) Putting groups into groups.  ---  12/26/2003

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  To create a category or class is to create a label.  To put an idea in a category is like putting a label on the idea, which is like putting label on a person.  Labels can limit the idea, just like labels can limit a person.  Labels can stunt the development of an idea, just like labels can stunt the development of a person.  Labels can build barriers between ideas, just like labels can build barriers between people.  ---  1/1/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categories.  Types of thinking.  (1) Simple declarative sentences: "I think this is Spot".  (2) Categorizing: "I think Spot is a dog".  (3) Inference: "I think Spot is pregnant".  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categorization.  (1) Is abstract thinking a type of classification and categorization thinking?  (2) Can we classify and categorize without using logic?  ---  5/16/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Classification and categorization.  What does it mean to say a thing cannot be categorized?  (1) Its uncategorizable.  It fits into no known category.  Its the first member of a new category.  (2) It fits into many categories.  ---  1/1/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Come up with new ideas.  Work out the internal logic of the ideas.  Work out how the idea relates to other ideas (logical relationship, historical relationship, etc.).  Evaluate the usefulness and importance of the idea.  Evaluate the truth and logical validity of the idea.  ---  1/1/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Coolest, newest, hottest ideas are not in books, or even journals.  They hover in minds and on lips.  ---  11/04/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Critical paper.  (1) What he says.  In general, in specific works, and in specific phrases.  Which are the important passages?  (2) What various other people think he means.  Arguments pro and contra each of their views.  How various people respond to his views.  ---  01/09/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Critical thinking skills.  (1) Put it into words.  (2) Clarify what is being said.  (3) Get your definitions straight.  (4) Deliver arguments for it.  Deliver arguments against it.  (5) Find examples or cases where it is true.  Find examples or cases where it is not true.  (6) Rate the arguments, for and against, in order from strongest to weakest.  (7) Expose hidden assumptions of the view.  Expose the inobvious implications of the view.  ---  8/25/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Critical thinking.  Good critical analysis of a work.  (1) Lay out what he says in logical outline.  (2) Fill in other people's views.  (3) Don't make mistakes in interpretation.  (4) Leave nothing out.  (5) Do it clearly and concisely.  (6) Get right importance order.  (7) What he thinks, and what you think of what he thinks.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Critical thinking.  Practice thinking critically on all readings and writings.  Ask yourself about an idea (1) What is wrong or right with this idea, and to what degree?  (2) What is incomplete, excess, or irrelevant in this idea?  (3) How can this idea be applied, or transferred to other subject areas?  (4) How can this idea be made more abstract or specific, broader or narrower?  (5) What is the opposite view and arguments?  (6) Thus can you develop your own great ideas and improve others.  (A) Totally new ideas, vs. (B) Significant improvements, vs. (C) Holes found (questions or problems raised).  ---  11/06/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Criticism means analyze and judge.  Analyze means describe and explain.  Judge values and standards.  For what existed, exists, and will or could exist.  Ideally, ideally in this world, and ideally for you.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Curiosity is natural and healthy: learn about everything.  Never stop questioning, never stop thinking.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Curiosity may have killed a cat, but curiosity kept the cat species alive and well.  ---  11/23/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Curiosity.  (1) Curiosity is an attitude of inquiry.  Curiosity is an attitude of questioning.  Curiosity is an attitude of exploration.  Curiosity is a good thing.  (2) Curiosity is not the same thing as doubt.   Curiosity is not the same thing as creativity.  Curiosity is not the same thing as thinking.  Doubt, creativity and thinking are other good things  ---  12/16/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Database approach to thinking and knowledge.  The view that all knowledge can be represented as a database, either on paper or in the mind.  The stronger view that all knowledge is best represented as a database.  ---  1/2/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Deep and free, my motto for thinking.  ---  11/20/1997

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Development of thinking in humans.  Three types of thinking ability.  (1) Thinking about animals helped develop human thinking abilities.  "To catch a fox you have to think like a fox".  The development of hunting for animals caused an increase in our thinking abilities because many animals have a rudimentary consciousness that helps them avoid being killed by allowing them to engage in active opposition.  (2) Social thinking.  A very important step in the development of human thinking is the development of social thinking.  To try and figure out what's the other person thinking and what's the other person feeling takes a new kind of thought than is possessed by solitary animals.  (3) The development of planning or thinking about the future.  Did it occur gradually, where at first we could think an hour into the future, then after a thousand years of evolution we could think a day into the future, then after thousands of years of evolution we could think a year into the future?  ---  5/6/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Development of thought.  (1) Development of thought in mankind:  Who first said "i can think"?  History of human development of thought, and language, and relationship of both.  (2) Development of thought in individuals: ability to think.  Ways and types of thinking.  Degrees how well they do any type.  Idea pool: knowledge.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Development of thought.  Did humans think in single words for a long time (hundred of thousands of years) before they thought in sentences?  ---  4/10/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Development of thought.  What age you think of a thing (and with how much effort).  Some people have certain dispositions to figure out (or be "hit by") certain truths or ideas at a young age.  How hard something hits you, at what age, how long it lasts, and prominence it takes in your personality.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Directed (focused) vs. undirected (wandering) thinking.  What combo of each produces best quality and quantity of ideas for you?  ---  08/20/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Directed thought.  (1) Directed thoughts.  (Def of)  (A) Pros.  Directed thoughts can improve problem solving.  (B) Cons.  Directed thought can lead to narrow thinking.  (2) Undirected thoughts.  (Def of)  (A) Pros.  Undirected thoughts can lead to reverie, tangential thinking, subconscious thinking, creative thinking, wide ranging thinking.  (B) Cons.  Undirected thoughts can be unproductive.  ---  10/28/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Directed thoughts.  (1) The degree to which a person is able to direct their thoughts is a learnable skill.  (2) Spending all your time with undirected thoughts is a bad thing.  Spending all your time with directed thoughts is also a bad thing.  (3) A mix of 50% directed thought and 50% undirected thought might be a good mix.  (4) When we focus we direct our thoughts.  When we daydream we have undirected thought.  ---  10/28/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Eight types of intelligence, yield eight types of thinking, yield eight types of knowledge.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Emotion and reason.  Leading with the left (brain) instead of the right (brain).  (1) Emotion.  Feel something is true, or have a hunch.  You then find arguments to support that conclusion.  And then see if the data supports the arguments.  (Deduction?)  (2) Reason.  Gather data, and form arguments, and then form conclusions.  (Induction?)  (3) Both are good just as long as you do not operate strictly on either emotion or reason alone.  ---  4/28/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Emotion and thinking.  High intellectual involvement and high emotional involvement go hand in hand?  Help each other?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Emotion and thinking.  Reason vs. drive or emotion.  Reason is king, emotion is queen.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Emotion and thinking.  The problem is not reason vs. emotion.  The problem is thinking vs. not thinking, and feeling vs. not feeling.  We need thought and emotion against the void.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Emotion and thinking.  There is a two way link between feeling and thought.  (1) Thinking about one's emotions.  For example, thinking "Why am I happy about x?", or asking "What is happiness?"  (2) Feeling one's thoughts.  For example, "What do I feel about x?"  ---  2/10/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Emotion and thinking.  When you talk about your sensations and emotions, you are actually talking about your thoughts about your sensations and emotions.  The song is correct, "Nobody knows how I feel".  Through language, other people have direct access to your thoughts, but they have only indirect access to your sensations and emotions.  ---  1/24/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Every experience fills your brain and has an integrative or disintegrative effect.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Evolution of thought.  (1) Why would thinking evolve?  Thinking evolved because it offers an evolutionary advantage over instinct.  (2) How could thinking or intelligence arise in animals?  Through the process of evolution.  (3) How necessary is language for thought?  ---  5/31/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Factors in thought: complexity, extensiveness and density.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Figuring out and finding out how to think for yourself.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Finding a new and useful relationship or link between categories is as good as finding a new and useful category.  ---  6/5/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  First move from breadth to depth.  Then move from recognition to recall.  ---  06/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Four stages.  (1) Data: facts.  (2) Information: drawing (metaphysical) conclusions about data.  (3) Knowledge: a body of information that coheres (epistemologically).  (4) Wisdom: knowledge used in the ethical realm (ethics).  ---  12/20/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Four stages.  More data (numbers), yields more information (facts), yields more knowledge (coherent body of facts), yields more wisdom (ethical decisions).  ---  5/30/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Four types of thinkers.  (1) Single idea thinkers who dwell on one point.  (2) Dualistic thinkers (either/or thinkers) who can only think of an idea and its opposite.  (3) Spectrum thinkers who can interpolate the points on a line between two opposite poles.  (4) Web thinkers who link ideas in shapes other than straight lines.  ---  7/29/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Freedom of thought: unrepressed, and unsocialized.  Once you free yourself of everything society tells you to do, and everything society tells you to think, you are free and must create your own world and life.  You can only improve culture by going beyond culture.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Freedom of thought.  Thinking anything about anything vs. controlled thought.  By self or others, for better or worse, pros and cons of each.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Freedom vs. repression.  (1) Freedom of thought.  In any method, on any subject, at any moment vs. (2) Dogmatism, rigid, controlled thinking.  Any method, any subject, any moment.  (3) Which way is better, when use either way.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Freedom vs. repression.  Acknowledge repressed thoughts, let the thoughts come, free your mind from yourself and from others.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Freedom vs. repression.  Repression is bad, it causes mental illness.  Don't limit your conscious thoughts.  Acknowledge unconscious repressed thoughts.  How?  Say, "I let myself think anything about anything".  If your unconscious mental policy is repression then pretty soon you stop thinking.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Freedom vs. repression.  Self repression and social repression of mind.  Negative effects on iq.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Freedom vs. rigidity.  Dogmatism destroys creativity and development.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Getting the knowledge vs. using or applying the knowledge.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Gray areas.  (1) Combine the notes on "gray areas" with the notes on "black and white thinking.  (2) Shades of gray.  Don't call me a shady character.  (3) Black and white thinking is a type of polar thinking.  Shades of gray thinking is a type of spectrum thinking.  (4) There are at least two ways we use the terms gray, black and white to apply to thinking.  (A) Gray areas as the unknown.  Black and white as the known.  (B) Gray areas as subtle distinctions.  Black and white as clear cut.  ---  4/6/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Gray areas.  Black and white thinkers like to remain safely in ports of certainty, leaving the pioneers to explore the gray areas on the map of reality.  There are two types of gray areas.  (1) Ethical gray areas are the cases where the boundary between good and evil is not clear.  (2) Epistemological gray areas.  There are cases where the relationship between the concepts in a set of concepts is unclear.  One is tempted to call this a metaphysical gray area.  But I prefer to call it an epistemological gray area in that any statement we make about the relationship of concepts in a set of concepts is going to be either true or false.  ---  4/7/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Gray thinking.  Black and white thinking.  Who engages in black and white styles of thinking?  (1) Fanatics and other rigid people.  (2) Children, neurotics and dim adults.  Black and white thinking is a simplistic style of thinking.  Children, neurotics and dim adults are simplistic thinkers.  ---  7/29/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Great accumulation, organization, and consolidation must take place before growth can take place.  ---  03/10/1989

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Great thinking and great thoughts can occur, or be put off, at any time.  ---  07/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Having knowledge is great, but getting knowledge is a pain in the ass.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How far can you see beyond your situation, and how often do you?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How fast (in hours) can I learn how much material (in pages), how well (test scores?), and how long remember it?  Be competitive with yourself.  Create time to study.  ---  03/20/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How much do you think?  How can the amount of thought be measured?  TPM: thoughts per minute.  TPD: thoughts per day.  UTPD: Unique thoughts per day without repetition.  ---  12/8/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How to improve a person's thinking ability?  Have them think more often.  Have them think on a wider number of topics.  Have them develop more thinking operations.  Have them store their thoughts in writing on a computer.  Secondarily, develop a better memory system, drive system and emotion system.  ---  5/31/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How to think.  Gather best facts.  Use good logic.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  "Making stuff up" is something that many of us often do.  (1) For many of us, "making stuff up" is how we think.  We often stick with the first thing that we can think of.  Sometimes we refine it by sticking with the first thing that seems plausible.  The point is that the way most of us actually think is that ideas pop into our heads every now and again, and then we may, or may not, occasionally apply rules of logic and science against those ideas, partially or completely.  (2) A variation on this theme is lying to ourselves and others.  We are so good at "Making stuff up".  (3) Another variation is tale telling or mytholygizing.  We love "Making stuff up".  ---  1/20/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  (1) Most people's minds are not organized in rigid hierarchical outline classification systems, but rather in loose associative systems.  (2) Also, they remember, forget, create, or revise categories as needed.  (3) Study the category systems (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics) of kids, mentally ill, primitives, and ancients.  ---  05/03/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  A large amount of the so called "intellectual activity" that takes place in society is merely an activity that I call "reading the instructions".  This is especially true in areas such as medicine, law and computers.  How proud and superior some individuals feel having read the instructions.  How smart they consider themselves to be, having acquired an advanced degree by reading the instructions.  Is this the cream of the crop that says, "Yes, I read and followed the instructions!"?  No, it is not.  (2) Much of medicine, law and computers involves merely following the instructions.  Many highly paid doctors, lawyers and techies spend most of their time merely following the instructions.  What if you want to create full time?  You are up the creek without a paddle.  (3) In most of the top jobs, the professional jobs like doctor, lawyer, programmer, etc., you have to be smart in that you need to have command of a large body of detailed knowledge, but you do not have to be creative, in fact creativity is discouraged because they want you to go by the book.  ---  8/30/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  Booting up.  (1) Related to notes on "What to remember" and "Organization of ideas by importance", is the concept of "What ideas to boot up with."  The ideas that you choose to boot up with have a big effect on the new ideas that you generate.  (2) Some good ideas to boot up with: (A) There is little time left.  Do not waste time.  (B) Solve some problems.  (C) Find truth and get justice.  (3) Vapid ideas that most people boot up with: (A) I want sex.  (B) I want riches.  (C) I want fame and status.  (4) This topic is also related to cognitive therapy.  Cognitive therapy attempts to change attitudes by changing thoughts.  This topic is also related to optimism and pessimism.  Optimism and pessimism is often a result of the ideas we boot up with.  (5) GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.  If you boot up with sub-optimal ideas, then you will produce sub-optimal ideas.  (6) Sometimes you just draw a blank and cannot think of any ideas to boot up with.  In those cases, you can fall back on your "boot up" list of ideas.  (7) We "boot up" with ideas many times a day.  ---  6/2/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  How do humans think?  Very often humans think pre-verbally and pre-logically.  PART ONE.  Humans use a lot of pre-verbal thinking when we first encounter a new phenomenon.  This is the type of thinking that children and teens do a lot of, but adults do it too.  When you first experience something you may spend a long period of time before you generate any verbal thoughts on that phenomenon.  (1) An example of this type of thinking in children is their single word answers.  You ask, "Did you like the movie?".  Child answers, "Yes".  You ask, "What did you like about it?".  Child answers, "I don't know. " (2) Another example is teens.  Teens are able to generate their own verbal thoughts, unlike like children who merely respond to questions.  But the sentences that teens generate are usually simple sentences like, "This is cool." and "That sucks", ala Beavis and Butthead.  (3) What many adults do not realize is that when an adult encounters a new experience they go through the same stages of "child thinking" and "teen thinking".  It may take an adult years to come up with any verbal (sentential, propositional) thoughts on the subject.  Another misperception that many adults make is believing that children and teens are not thinking most of the time when in fact children and teens think and learn as much or more than adults when you take into account nonverbal thinking and learning.     PART TWO.  Also note that when you first encounter a phenomenon your thinking is non-logical.  It may take a long time to develop logical thoughts on the subject.  However, that does not mean that our non-logical thinking is unimportant.  Non-logical thinking is very important.  The types of non-logical thinking include dreams, free associations, emotions, metaphors, etc.  We are all artists when we first encounter a phenomena.  ---  1/9/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  How the mind could hypothetically work.  (1) One neuron for one thought.  This is not a likely scenario.  (2) One combination of neurons for one word in one thought statement.  This is perhaps more likely.  ---  6/10/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  Humans think by performing operations on data.  The data is in the form of concepts.  Sets of concepts are called categories.  What are all the types of operations humans perform when they think?  (For example, logical operations.  Functional operations).  Operations and data can be combined into procedures.  Is this how are brains work?  ---  12/1/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  Most people's information gathering is random, unrigorous, and unorganized.  They read the paper, watch the news, talk to friends, and read bestsellers.  They don't search, and they don't plan their searches.  ---  02/22/1997

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  One way of describing how humans think: (1) Generate a lot of views (pro's and contra's).  (2) Rule out the impossible.  (3) Of the remainder, decide which is best.  ---  12/30/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  Top down solution: theoretical to practical.  Bottom up solution: practical to theoretical.  It is tough to tell which will yield better answers sooner.  Always try both.  Attack all problems from all directions and levels.  ---  06/15/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How we think.  Two opposite views.  (1) The mind is always trying out new ideas.  And the mind is constantly remembering.  We limit our minds when we decide that we are going to think about one thing.  Vs.  (2) The mind thinks and remembers only when we spur it to, and if we do not spur it then it does nothing.  We tend to do nothing or do loops.  (3) I think the former (1) is more accurate.  ---  2/10/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  How well you compare to age peers, IQ peers, anyone alive, or anyone who ever lived.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Human knowledge, in the individual and in society, exists as a patchwork of ideas in various states of development.  Some old ideas are well developed.  Some new ideas are fledgling.  Sometimes new ideas cause old ideas to be revised.  Human knowledge is not static.  ---  9/8/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Hyper-active thinking vs. slow deliberate thorough thinking.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Idea conflict and resolution.  Cognitive dissonance and consonance.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas about things, events, and processes.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas are like billiard balls.  ---  12/20/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas tend to congregate in groups.  If you change your views on one idea, often it changes a bunch of preceding assumptions and following conclusions.  And it often changes neighboring ideas as well.  A change in one view can start a web of idea changes, because ideas are inter-linked.  ---  6/9/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas: engines or frogs?  People sometimes ask me why I include very simple notions in my Notes.  The basic idea is that complicated ideas are constructed out of simple ideas.  And complicated ideas can be disassembled into simple ideas, much like an automobile engine can be disassembled and reassembled.  Other people hold that ideas are like frogs in that they die when you try to dissect them.  Break out the CAT scan.  ---  10/25/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas: find them, research them, write your own outline, rate them for quality.  ---  03/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  An idea is a tool.  Get better ideas.  ---  3/3/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  Development of an idea.  (1) When the idea is born mentally.  (2) When the idea is put into practical concrete form.  (3) When the idea is adopted by rulers.  (4) When the masses accept the idea.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  Education for an idea.  Some people have heard of the idea, some have not heard of the idea.  Some people understand the idea, some people do not understand the idea.  Some people agree with the idea, some people disagree with the idea.  ---  3/11/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  Get many ideas.  Get good ideas.  Get ideas on important subjects.  ---  7/30/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  Ideas exist.  Ideas are important.  Ideas have an effect on our lives.  Some people, like anti-intellectuals, would like to ignore ideas completely.  ---  8/1/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  Metaphysical status of ideas.  If an idea can affect anything, it is real.  Ideas have power?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  New idea formation.  All new ideas are combos of old ideas.  What are the simplest ideas we started with?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  Sets of ideas.  Building with information.  Ideas link.  Ideas combine.  Synergies form when ideas combine, i.e., the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  A syllogisms displays synergy.  When two premises lead by inference to a conclusion then that is analogous to synergy.  It is also analogous to a chemical reaction.  ---  10/9/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  The world of ideas.  (1) There is a world of ideas.  A world of theory.  (2) The world of ideas is more interesting than the physical world.  ---  1/16/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  The world of ideas.  Does it have any effect?  Merely psychological?  Does it last?  Does it endure?  What is an idea worth?  More or less than stuff and actions?  ---  12/10/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  There is a world of ideas.  Ideas exist.  There is a large set of ideas.  Ideas stand in logical relation to each other.  Ideas effect the physical world.  ---  6/22/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  There is a world of ideas.  The world of ideas is easily ignored.  The world of ideas is easily dismissed.  The world of ideas is easily left unexplored.  It is a big mistake to ignore, dismiss or not explore the world of ideas.  Anti-intellectuals are people who make the big mistake of ignoring the world of ideas.  ---  11/17/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ideas.  Types of ideas.  Useful vs. not.  Important vs. unimportant.  General vs. specific.  New vs. old.  Original vs. not.  True vs. false.  Simple vs. complex.  Healthy vs. unhealthy.  Ethical vs. unethical.  Valid vs. invalid.  Fruitful vs. unfruitful.  Currently held vs. outdated.  Broad/narrow.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  If we define thinking (and thus intelligence) as any mental content that is not memory then we can say that thinking is any act of creativity or imagination.  ---  5/31/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ignorance is a disease.  Fortunately, it is curable.  ---  7/1/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ignorance: responses to the unknown.  (1) Unthought of gets no response.  (2) The unknown pondered.  The mysterious, when pondered, arouses either fear or curiosity, attraction and allure.  Overestimation vs. underestimation.  Confusing issues cause frustration and avoidance.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ignorance.  (1) What is ignorance?  (2) What is the result of ignorance?  Mistakes.  Pain.  Injustice.  Untruth.  Cruelty.  (3) What causes or contributes to ignorance?  (A) Illiteracy.  Unable to read.  (B) Rusty thinking skills.  (C) Low value placed on reason and thinking.  (D) High value placed on blind belief and blind obedience, for example, as found in religion and the military.  ---  11/22/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ignorance.  Causes.  (1) Not learning, not thinking, not searching.  (2) Thinking you know it all already.  (3) Thinking there is nothing to know.  (4) Not knowing how to think.  (5) Lack ability, time or energy to think.  (6) Lack drive or desire.  Don't see need to learn.  (7) Fear change and resist change.  Think it is brainwashing.  Don't want to change.  (8) Don't know how to think or learn.  (9) Unintelligent.  (10) Repressed, rigid.  (11) Poor skills, no clue, no resources.  (12) Culture discourages individual from learning.  Unconsciously or consciously.  (13) Effects of ignorance: mistakes, pain, loss, confusion, anxiety.  (14) Ignorance types: momentary vs. long term.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Image thinking vs. word thinking.  (1) Two more types of thinking.  (A) Imaging, that is, thinking with mental images, sounds, touches, tastes, and smells.  (B) Symbolic thinking with words, numbers, etc.  (2) These two types of thinking are linked.  (A) Every image, sound, touch, taste and smell is a symbol.  That is, we tend to imbue everything with symbolic content, so that everything "stands for" something else.  Everything has associations to other things (i.e., triggers, links).  For example, we see the color light blue and we think "sky blue".  (B) Every symbol can be stripped of its symbolic content and taken at face value for its non-symbolic value.  ---  2/10/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Image thinking vs. word thinking.  If humans think more with pictures than with words then the importance of the visual arts increases relative to the literary arts.  ---  7/14/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Image thinking vs. word thinking.  Some people use a lot of words when they think, while other people do not.  It would be interesting to count the words per minute of various people's thoughts.  ---  7/19/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Image thinking.  All words are based on pictures.  Thus, language-thinking is based on image-thinking.  Even abstract concepts like "freedom" are based on an image in your mind of a slave in chains and your desire not to become a slave.  ---  6/3/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Image thinking.  Hypothesis: Most people (95%?) think most of the time (95%?) with images rather than with words.  Their thinking consists mostly of picturing themselves performing certain acts or achieving certain goals.  When they occasionally (5%) do think with words, most of the time (95%) they merely state facts or beliefs, which involves no inferential breakthroughs that we normally associate with thinking.  ---  3/9/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Image thinking.  If we think with pictures then how do blind people think?  With "pictures" they create from their other senses?  The argument is not that we think merely with visual pictures, but that we think non-symbolically.  A counter-argument is that everything we perceive we create a symbol for, because everything we perceive we categorize, and categories are abstract classes which are themselves a type of symbol.  ---  7/12/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Image thinking.  Thinking with images really means thinking with audio/video/smell/taste/touch.  ---  4/11/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Image thinking.  To those who say that humans think by using language I say that we think by using pictures, and only occasionally do we tack language onto those pictures.  Picture thinking is more prevalent and more basic than language thinking.  PART TWO.  Three arguments to support the above.  (1) Ancient people were thinking with picture long before the invention of language.  (2) Babies think with pictures before they learn language.  (3) Animals think with pictures even though they have limited language ability.  PART THREE.  Thinking with pictures can be called imagination.  PART FOUR.  If most of our thinking is done with pictures and not language then language is not that big a deal.  ---  7/12/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Importance of new and old ideas to deal with a new and old world.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  In every day life most people use the reasoning skills of a Phd, except without the specific knowledge of a Phd.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  In order to spend a lot of time thinking, one has to think that the thinking will do some good, and that progress will be made.  Some people lack confidence and say, "Don't think too much".  Those people are anti-thought.  Ignorance results from not thinking.  ---  6/2/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  In the past, logic and reason were less prominent.  Art and magic were much more prominent.  ---  7/19/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Information and psychological health.  (1) The world is complex, with many parts, things, ideas.  The result is massive amounts of information.  (2) Humans are information processing beings.  Part of human health in information management.  Do not ignore information because ignoring information leads to problems.  (3) How to deal with massive amounts of information?  ---  1/2/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Information and psychological health.  Gaining knowledge, storing knowledge, and organizing knowledge are all important for psychological health.  ---  9/8/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Information management.  In ten thousand years, how much writing will there be?  A lot.  How will we deal with all this writing?  Will we just snip out pieces and say, "this idea is useful currently", or "this idea is useful and new to all humanity", or "this idea is useful but outdated"?  How will we get all the information into the heads of people?  Can there be information pollution?  Garbage or junk.  Toxin or poison.  For any idea, will we list all the people who held that idea?  And list all those who held the opposite view?  ---  3/13/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Information.  (1) How is information stored in the human mind?  In memory as pictures, sounds and words.  In memory as abstractions.  (2) How does the human mind process information?  Ways of thinking.  (3) How does the human mind produce new information?  Hypothesis generating and testing.  Question asking.  Epistemological testing procedures that run automatically, subconsciously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  ---  10/9/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Information.  How much information can a person know?  How much information does a person need to survive in a situation?  How much information does the average person know?  How to measure amounts of information quantitatively?  By number of sentences?  How to diagram information structures?  How to describe the importance of a piece of information?  ---  10/9/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Information.  PART ONE.  How much can information help?  The answer to that question is the the cumulative accomplishments of all scientists, inventors, philosophers, artists, thinkers, writers.     PART TWO.  The arguments of anti-intellectuals.  What are the limitations of information?  Limitations of reason due to emotion.  Limitations of reason due to persistence in the face of apparent reason.  ---  10/9/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Information.  Things learned and forgotten: facts, attitudes, behaviors.  Information is like building blocks; and forgetting is like losing the foundation or even the entire building.  Forgetting requires relearning; and learning takes time and energy.  Learning involves mistakes; relearning involves repeating mistakes.  ---  10/9/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Inobvious to obvious.  (1) Things that are obvious to school children today were inobvious to the great minds of the past.  (2) Things that are considered "intuitive" to people today were considered "counter-intuitive" to people hundreds of years ago.  (3) Thus, what is obvious and intuitive to humans changes from time to time and place to place, and it is in large part dependent on culture and personal experience.  ---  6/26/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Instead of thinking about what I can't do, or what I could have done, think about what you can do.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intellectualism is often a defense mechanism.  Intellectualism is an attempt to recast the world according to your personal strengths.  ---  3/9/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intellectuals.  An intellectual is someone who cares about ideas.  An intellectual is someone who works with ideas.  An intellectual in America is someone who retains a college level education for more than a year after graduating.  (2) An intellectual is someone who thinks ideas are important, useful and valuable.  An intellectual is someone who thinks reason and logic are good things.  An intellectual is someone who values knowledge.  An intellectual is someone who values intelligence.  An intellectual does not hold that knowledge is the only thing, or even the most important thing, but that knowlege is important, as contrasted with anti-intellectuals who think knowledge is not important.  ---  8/9/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence (and education) depends on the organization and growth of the mind, like an organism.  ---  03/13/1989

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence evolved from the need for a "reality check".  A reality check consists of two parts, a sensory check and a memory check.  A sensory check is when you wonder if you can believe your eyes, or other senses.  A memory check is when you wonder if you can believe your memory.  The need for a reality check is when you realize that your senses and your memory are sometimes faulty.  When an animal wonders "Is this real?" and thinks, "Perhaps it is otherwise.", that is a form of reality check.  ---  10/1/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence, types of.  (1) Having many, varied categories (knowledgeable).  (2) Having a strong inference engine (able to solve logic problems).  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  (1) High intelligence defined as exceedingly rational.  (2) High intelligence defined as being knowledgeable, which is really a function of good memory.  (3) High intelligence defined as having good problem solving abilities.  (4) High intelligence defined as creativity or inventiveness.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  (1) Intelligence defined as mental ability of any type.  For example, emotional intelligence.  (2) Intelligence defined as thinking ability.  However, there are many types and ways of thinking.  (3) There are many types of intelligence and there are many ways of testing each type of intelligence.  For example, you can test either the ability to recognize a solution, the ability to recall a solution, or the ability to create a solution.  (4) Therefore, intelligence tests that can be taken in a few short hours and which therefore tend to measure only a few types of intelligence and which test for these types of intelligence in only a few ways are by their nature incomplete and not accurate.  To test for every type of intelligence in many different ways would take days and days, and thus would not be economically feasible for testers.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  (1) Intelligence is a mental ability.  (2) There are many types of intelligence.  (3) Intelligence develops over the lifetime.  Not just knowledge, but also mental ability.  (4) Many factors can either help or hinder the development of intelligence.  (5) You have to make an effort to use intelligence because it does not always pay off automatically.  (6) Some people use the term intelligence to describe all one's mental abilities including memory and emotion.  (7) If so, standard IQ tests do not measure all of intelligence.  ---  5/16/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  (1) Intelligence: ways of thinking.  (2) Knowledge: areas or subjects of thought.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  (1) Memory and intelligence.  How many people remember the algebra and geometry that they learned in high school?  How many people can remember the information they learned in the classes they took in high school and college?  How many people can remember the information in the books they read?  Very few people remember very much information.  Memory is a big part of intelligence.  (2) Beyond memory, how many people can think critically about the information they absorb?  And how many people can think creatively about the topics they study?  Critical thinking and creativity are also important elements to intelligence.  ---  9/4/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  Components of intelligence.  (1) Knowledge base.  Large if you have a photographic memory.  (2) Judgment: choosing what to learn, or do (work and leisure time).  (3) Creativity.  (A) Inductive and deductive logic creativity.  (B) Problem solving creativity.  (C) Artistic creativity.  ---  06/05/1997

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  High intelligence (smarts) is no guarantee of being ethical, sane or hard working.  Intelligence isn't everything.  You don't have to be super intelligent to be a good person or a useful person.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  How well you compare to peers (percentile).  How well you compare to young and old (average mental age).  At any age, at any type of thinking.  It can change by the moment.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  Howard Gardener posits many types of intelligence.  Social intelligence or interpersonal intelligence, and perhaps, by extension, political intelligence.  Mathematical intelligence, and perhaps, by extension, financial intelligence and economic intelligence.  Musical intelligence, and perhaps, by extension, emotional intelligence.  Linguistic intelligence.  Intrapersonal intelligence.  Kinesthetic or athletic intelligence.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  If you are intelligent but never apply your intelligence then your intelligence is wasted.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  If you are intelligent but you have no interest in a topic then you won't take to that topic, unless you have been trained as a mindless drone, which many school children are.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  Intelligence defined as a measure of thinking ability.  High intelligence defined as being good at thinking.  ---  11/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  IQ is potential: it must be used, exercised, directed.  Repression and neurosis can destroy working IQ.  IQ, potential and actual, can rise and fall depending on whether you shoot ahead or fall behind your peers.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  IQ is potential.  ---  03/15/1989

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  Nature: hereditary effects.  Nurture: environmental effects of society or poor living conditions.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  Two ways of defining intelligence.  Absorbs a lot quick (finds out well).  Thinks of things others don't (figures out well).  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intelligence.  Types of intelligence.  Ways to measure intelligence.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Intuition.  (1) Estimating probabilities (risk).  (2) Thinking with incomplete information (uncertainty).  (3) Unconsciously thinking, and coming up with a conscious answer.  (4) Use of feeling to aid thinking.  Pros and cons of intuition.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  It is harder to think today because (1) There are so many, immediate, cheap, easily accessible, distractions (TV, drugs, etc.).  (2) It is easier not to think in life (comforts).  (3) It is easier to escape.  Drugs and booze are everywhere.  ---  12/12/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Its simple once you know the answer.  Its easy once you know the answer.  Its a cinch once you know how.  ---  1/1/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Knowledge and ignorance of skills and facts are always relative to the situation, problems and goals.  ---  5/8/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Knowledge is content and structure.  Thinking is process and mechanism.  ---  10/20/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Knowledge, feeling, and memory.  Do I "know" that I have the psychological resources to deal with life, or do I "feel" confident, or do I "remember" all the times I handled the situation I was in.  Is there a clear distinction between knowledge, feeling and memory?  It seems impossible to do one without doing the other two.  If people use their entire brains all at once, then what is the best way to study the mechanism of the brain?  ---  12/8/2006.

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Language and thinking.  Adults who never learned to talk.  (1) How well do they think?  (2) How similar are they to human beings that lived before human language developed?  (3)  To what degree is language required for thinking?  (4) To what degree is thinking required to be human?  One view holds that your thoughts are what make you the person you are.  The opposite view holds that the self can get by on emotions, memories and drive.  ---  2/26/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Language and thinking.  Language and communication.  The blind use language.  The deaf use language.  Helen Keller was blind and deaf and she used language.  Who doesn't use language to think?  Who doesn't use language to communicate?  Only people who choose not to think and communicate.  ---  10/13/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Language and thought.  Thinking defined as talking to yourself.  Thinking to self co-evolved with talking to other people.  Humans didn't start thinking to themselves till they started talking to each other.  ---  10/2/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Language and thought.  Thinking defined as talking, discussion or conversation, be it with another person or with yourself.  To talk is to think.  Talk therapy is really thinking therapy.  Likewise, to write is to think.  Talking, writing and thinking have much in common.  ---  6/2/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Language and thought.  Thought defined as speaking to yourself.  If you define thought as speaking to yourself then thought requires language.  If you define thought as speaking to yourself then no language means no thought.  ---  5/22/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Language and thought.  Without language there would be no talking to yourself and thus there would be no thinking.  ---  5/31/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Levels of mental activity.  (1) Ideas per minute.  (A) Creating new ideas vs. remembering old ideas.  (B) You can be quiet, dull and mentally inactive, with few ideas per minute or you can be hyperactive, distracted and tangential, with many ideas per minute.  (2) Thinking (and remembering) with images vs. words.  (3) Scope of thought.  (4) Level of abstraction of thought.  ---  6/1/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Limits of reason: at some point we must act on reasons.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Logical structure vs historical structure vs. importance structure.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Me: current ideas held, history of ideas held.  Current and past history of alternative ideas considered but not held.  Current and past method of thinking, generating and evaluating ideas.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thinking.  (1) An argument about thinking.  Thinking requires learning only.  Learning requires memory only.  If you have memory then you can learn, and if you can learn you can think.  Thus, memory is sufficient for thinking.  (2) The counter-argument is that the thinking done by animals, like birds that learn to get a snack by remembering which button to push, is somehow less complex than some of the thinking done by humans.  ---  5/25/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thinking.  (1) Thinking about past events is memory.  (2) There is no present, only past and future.  (3) Thinking about the future using "if" statements (hypotheticals) is really imagination.  (4) Therefore the only true thinking is atemporal thinking about abstract concepts.  ---  02/28/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thinking.  At what point does memory become thinking?  (1) Speed of memory.  (2) Abstraction.  (3) Imagination of hypotheticals.  (4) Clearness of memory.  Not hazy hunches.  (5) Speed of reaction.  ---  5/17/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thinking.  If you can remember you can learn.  If you can learn you can think.  ---  5/17/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thinking.  Remembering quicker, easier and better leads to thinking quicker, easier and better.  ---  11/22/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thinking.  The things you think about are the things your brain finds easy to remember.  Different people remember different things.  A person remembers some things more easily than other things.  For example, some people remember their future goals, some people remember their past experiences.  ---  6/21/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thinking.  We remember images more than we remember information that is in symbol form (words, numbers, etc.).  Therefore we think with images more than we think with information that is in symbolic form.  ---  5/16/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thought.  (1) Thought is just a succession of memories.  A new thought or idea is just a new connection, combination or succession of memories.  Thus, memory is more important than thinking.  We do more remembering than we do thinking.  The good thing for the neuro-scientist is that memory is not that complicated a biological process.  Many animals have memory capability that we understand.  So that takes a lot of the mystery out of our brains.  (2) Types of memories: (A) Memories of words.  (B) Memories of ideas and thoughts.  (C) Memories of events (mental audio/visual movies).  (3) The lightbulb of inference goes on only when we have the exactly right memories loaded in exactly the right order (ex. syllogism).  In this light, inference is a minor, fragile and rare step compared to all the memory work we do which leads up to inference.  (4) During the course of an average day: I perceive about 75% of the time.  I remember about 15% of the time.  I feel about 4% of the time.  I actually think only about 1% of the time.  And I come up with maybe two or three new ideas per day.  Yet people seem to believe that we go around thinking all day long.  This is not so.  ---  3/21/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Memory and thoughts.  (1) Thoughts raised by memories.  (2) Memories raised by thoughts.  ---  9/30/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Mental efficiency = progress per effort.  Effort = resources used per time period.  Progress = quality and quantity.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Mental organization leads to mental growth.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Most important ideas.  (1) Keep your brain in shape.  (2) Critical thinking and creative thinking are both important.  (3) Think often, and on a wide variety of subjects.  (4) Keep a record on computer of both figured and found notes.  ---  10/30/1997

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Most of what humans think about are topics called to mind from their drives urges or desires.  Thus, drive is crucial for stimulating thoughts.  ---  5/31/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  My thinking is a mix of (1) Formal reasoning to dissect ideas (male philosophy), and (2) Hazy memory traces, feeling and emotion, intuitive hunches, and bodily feeling and sensation (female art).  Both are needed to generate ideas.  ---  06/10/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Narrative.  (1) Narrative can be defined as story telling.  (2) People sort out their experiences, thoughts and emotions after events occur.  People do this via memory.  People do this via narrative story telling.  Narrative story telling is a psychologically healthy and therapeutic thing to do.  Narrative story telling is a form of psychotherapy.  Some would argue that we cannot not tell stories, even if only to ourselves.  (2) To give no thought before or after the fact is unhealthy.  To have no narrative storytelling is unhealthy.  (3) Yet narrative is not the only way that humans think and communicate.  There are other ways to think and communicate besides narrative.  For example, logical organization of ideas rather than temporal organization of ideas.  And thus, it is possible to have, on both a personal level and a societal level, an over-emphasis on narrative.  ---  11/22/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Narrative.  (1) What is the deal with narrative?  Why do people love narrative?  Oral history, or story telling, was and is the primary way humans confront reality, deal with reality, and communicate reality.  (2) People want to tell their life story (first person narrative).  They say, "All I know is what happened to me and what I saw".  Through retelling their story they are (A) Reliving it, which is enjoyable for happy stories and cathartic for tragic stories.  (B) Recommitting it to memory, which helps it last longer in their mind.  (3) People's first person narratives are typically totally out of perspective.  They contain gaps due to the repression of things they dislike.  They contain fabrications, exaggerations, and fictive additions.  They contain bias and slants.  They try to make themselves look good.  They contain mistakes in assessing what was important.  They vary widely in what conclusions or lessons to draw, if any.  (4) If it wasn't for newspaper, radio and television we would have limited knowledge of the world at large.  So for a long time, people only knew about their community or town and not the world.  The invention of reading and writing started people organizing knowledge logically instead of chronologically.  However, today, few people read and fewer people write, so the result is many people are still in an oral tradition of chronological organization of reality.  That is, many people in modern society continue to live like cave-dwellers.  (5) Most people think only in concrete terms about their immediate needs in their immediate environment.  The fate of the world depends on people thinking globally, long term and abstractly, in addition to using first-person narrative.  ---  5/25/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Narrative.  People love narrative.  They are like children who want to hear a bedtime story.  They can only think in narrative form.  ---  6/10/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  New reasons for old conclusions yields new attitudes for old subjects.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Object of thought: how often, well, complete, accurate, and fast, we can think of it.  Conclusions reached: how well we act on it.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Once we know something (epistemology), then how use that knowledge (ethics), and can we do what we want to do (technology)?  Proof for ethical issues is a major problem.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  One can define thinking as operations performed on content drawn from memory.  However, is it sensible to distinguish mental operations from mental content?  Are there operation neurons as distinct from content neurons?  Are there people with mental injuries that let them access content without the ability to perform operations?  Likewise, do some people have mental injuries that let them perform operations without access to specific content?  ---  5/31/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  One thing that I do not like is a cultural climate in which nothing can be criticized (ex. excessively politically correct cultures).  This describes cultures where you can only mention the good side of things.  In a climate where we cannot criticize, the first thing that goes out the window is critical thinking.  And that is bad.  ---  7/6/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Organization of knowledge is based on (1) Creation of categories.  (2) Creation of relationships between categories.  ---  6/3/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Organization of knowledge.  Knowledge is good, and the organization of knowledge is also good.  (1) Organization of knowledge lets you learn or absorb information, store or remember information, and handle or process information in greater quantities.  (2) Organization of knowledge lets you be more creative.  It lets you figure out more.  (Creativity = figuring out).  It lets you self-learn.  (3) Organization of knowledge lets you work quicker.  (A) You get more done.  (B) You get smarter at a younger age.  (C) You make time critical decisions before its too late.  (4) Organization of knowledge lets you work more accurately.  (A) You make less mistakes.  (B) You get closer to truth and justice.  (5) Organization of knowledge makes you healthier, with less confusion, anxiety and stress.  ---  6/3/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Organization of knowledge.  You can organize many types of media.  (1) You can organize ideas in your mind.  (2) You can organize symbols like bits on a computer disk, or words on a page.  (3) You can organize physical things like books on a shelf or baseball cards.  ---  6/3/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Organization of mind allows for coverage of larger areas, and greater subtlety.  ---  03/13/1989

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Organization or structure of mental content.  The most popular view today is that mental content is organized in a web of loose associations.  Yet humans also consciously organize their mental content into more formal structures.  ---  3/22/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Our concepts are not always organized in a tree-shaped hierarchy.  Sometimes they are organized in a web.  ---  3/25/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Our time and place limits how we think about things.  How we think today blows away how we thought 3000 years ago.  The question is how will we think in another 3000 years?  ---  12/15/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Pattern recognition.  Visual patterns.  Sound patterns.  Other types of patterns.  Patterns involve repetition and then variance.  ---  11/20/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  People need to think globally and long term.  It is a problem if people think only about local issues and short term issues.  Yet it is difficult for many people to think globally and long terms.  People have a tendency to think locally and short term.  Egoists think locally and short term.  Altruists think globally and long term.  People do have some ability to plan for the future, for example, many people save for retirement.  People also have some ability to think globally, for example, when people think about global warming.  ---  10/30/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Percent of your time you give to thinking about a subject.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Picking your subject is the first step and perhaps the most important step in thinking.  Are you going to think about trivial bullshit?  Or are you going to think about solving the problems of the world?  Let's make the decision a little more difficult?  What if someone pays you a lot of money to think about trivial bullshit, and what if you are likely to face poverty and failure for trying to solve the problems of the world.  See?  Not so easy.  You are being pressured into thinking about trivial bullshit.  Do not fall for it.  ---  5/15/2007  ---  *

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Power = complexity * speed * choosing subject and ideas, using whole mind.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Power, intensity and effort you are thinking at, and for how long.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Progress has been slow, in my life, in other individuals lives, and in world history, not because everything has been thought of, or because we are too stupid to think of anything else, but because (1) People were and are too burnt out from work to think in evening.  (2) People hogged questions and answers in order to build their careers.  (3) No one told people "Go out and find and solve problems".  Advertisers say, "buy our products and relax".  Churches say, "pray to god".  Others told us, "just do your job", "you are stupid and you can not think of anything", "watch sports and movies", "only big science, and not individuals, can make advances", "there is no hope for you", "you will slave miserably for pennies".  ---  12/12/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Purposes: (1) Problem solve.  (2) Decision making or choosing.  (3) Judging.  (4) Doing.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Quantitative methods.  Find out important statistical information for all subject areas.  Historical statistics, and future projections.  Comparative statistics.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Quantity and quality of ideas you generate.  Speed you can generate them (hopefully not too late).  And how well you apply them to your life.  ---  07/10/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) Curiosity can be defined as the ability to formulate a question.  Curiosity can perhaps more accurately be defined as the tendency to ask questions.  Curiosity is a good thing.  (1) Curiosity is not the same thing as creativity.  A person could ask a lot of questions and yet not be able to create any possible answers to those questions.  However, curiosity and creativity aid each other.  Curiosity is a good first step.  Creativity is a good next step.  ---  5/14/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) How important are questions to thinking?  Can we think without questions?  (2) Is there such a thing as a non-linguistic question?  That is, when we are thinking non-linguistically, for example, by image thinking, can we form a question?  ---  12/10/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) Knowledge is gained by asking questions.  Although, its true that something may occasionally strike you out of the blue.  (2) If you don't ask the right questions then you won't get the right answers.  (3) Asking questions is important.  Asking the right questions is important.  ---  5/24/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) People who ask few questions.  Do no questions occur to them because they are dim?  Have they been told its best not to question and do they believe that unquestioningly?  Have they been scared into silence and mental stasis?  (2) People who ask many questions.  Are they curious?  Are they anxious?  Do they simply value knowledge.  ---  11/10/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) Question theory: ask best questions (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics).  Best question trains, structures, and hierarchies.  (2) Answer theory.  Develop best answers, develop best proofs, and use them best.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) Questions beget more questions.  (2) A question is often a problem.  That is, once a problem is identified or posed, one asks (a question) for the solution to the problem.  (See, Psychology, thinking, problem solving).  (3) A question is like a riddle.  ---  8/24/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) Structure of questions in a field of thought.  (2) Questions lead to more questions.  (3) Questions are logically related to each other.  One can draw flow charts of questions in a field of thought.  ---  1/16/2003

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) The "question space" of a subject is the total number of questions associated with that subject at any given time.  As one's knowledge of a subject increases the question space increases.  That is, more knowledge produces more questions.  (2) The structure of questions on a subject.  Questions on a subject often form a pattern or structure.  For example, a diagnostic or troubleshooting flow chart is a structure of questions designed to help repair a thing.  ---  10/5/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  (1) What is the result when a person is psychologically incapable of formulating questions?  (2) What is the result when people are discouraged or prohibited from asking questions?  (3) What happens when a person gets into the habit of not asking questions?  ---  9/25/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Asking questions and searching for answers is natural and healthy.  Dogmatics don't want you to ask questions.  Neurotics don't want to ask questions.  Both dogmatics and neurotics are unhealthy.  ---  03/13/1989

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Asking questions is natural and healthy.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Asking vs. not asking.  Best questions and toughest questions.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Best questions for a situation or problem.  Asking the tough questions: tough to ask, and tough to answer.  Honestly and earnestly vs. not.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Erotetic logic is the logic of questions.  What is one doing mentally when one asks a question?  What types of questions are there?  "How?" questions ask about how something is done.  "How?" questions are often technological questions.  "Why?" questions ask for an explanation.  "Why" questions are often scientific questions.  Often, questions are in an if-then format.  For example, if so and so, then why or how thus and thus?  ---  5/14/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Form a collection of questions.  ---  10/13/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Gather ye questions while ye may, because having the questions is almost as good as having the answers.  ---  10/8/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Getting smart is about asking questions, and in particular, asking the best questions.  However, in order to think of the best questions, it helps to have a body of knowledge in place.  Rarely do excellent questions come out of the blue.  You have to build from the ground up, in all subject areas.  For example, if you believe the earth is flat then chances are you will not ask any "round earth" questions.  (2) Two major problems are (A) Not asking any questions at all.  (2) Not having a series of your "wrong path" questions eventually lead you in the right direction.  ---  7/2/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Humans are naturally curious.  Humans naturally ask questions.  Humans have evolved a question asking module in the brain.  ---  12/6/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Importance of asking each type of question.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Is x a y thing (metaphysics)?  How do we know about x (epistemology)?  Should we do x (ethics)?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  People can lose the ease with which they are able to form questions.  People can get out of practice or habit of asking questions.  The habit of not asking questions inevitably leads to the habit of not thinking.  That is unhealthy.  ---  9/25/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  The ability to ask questions is aided by the ability to rule out the impossible, and then to evaluate the various possible answers.  ---  5/14/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  The mental state immediately preceding question formation is known as befuddlement.  ---  9/25/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  The most important question is, "What are the most important questions?"  ---  1/20/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  The question is the start of all new thoughts.  ---  10/13/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  There are an unlimited number of questions that one can ask about anything.  Asking questions randomly does not guarantee that you will head in the direction of increasing knowledge.  It requires practice to know which questions to ask.  ---  5/14/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Two year olds often go on a question asking rampage.  Why?  I don't know!  ---  12/6/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  What is the role of question formation in thinking?  Good question.  Questions drive thinking forward.  Do we unconsciously form questions?  Do we consciously form questions without paying much attention?  Is there a question forming area of the brain?  At what point in human evolutionary history did humans first begin to ask questions?  ---  5/15/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  When did humans first start asking questions?  Was it after the development of language?  Or was it possible to ask a question before the development of language?  If language was not available, was it at least possible to feel uncertain and to make a quizzical face?  ---  9/25/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Who, what, when, where, how, why.  Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetic questions.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Question theory.  Your ability to think of the answers is based on your ability to formulate the questions.  If you want to solve problems you need to pose problems in the form of questions.  If you want to make progress in this world, and improve the world, you need to question what is wrong and how to fix it.  ---  8/14/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Reasons to think.  Reasons to not think.  Reasons to write.  Reasons to not write.  (1) Others say, "Don't think".  They may even give reasons not to reason, which is an oxymoron.  Others say, "Obey orders.  Rule of might, force, violence, rule of jungle."  Or they may say, "Have fun, relax".  (2) I say, "Think, reason".  I give reasons to reason and think.  I say, "Write".  I give reasons to write.  ---  10/28/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Related subjects.  (1) Psychology in general: we think with the aid of entire mind.  (2) Memory: remembrance is the basis for all thinking.  (3) Emotion: feelings are thrust upon us, but thinking takes effort.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Relationship of stimuli (old or new, thoughts or experiences) and creativity.  How to stimulate the mind?  How any degree of stimulus, or lack of it, affects creativity.  ---  04/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Right or wrong conclusion is not as important as reasons and arguments, true or false or none at all.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Rigorous thought is logical, precise, important, with true arguments, and yields rigorous speech and actions.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Sensation and thinking.  Sense and thought are inseparable.  (1) When we sense our environment we also have thoughts about the environment we are sensing.  (2) When we think about our past sensations, there is probably triggered, to a small degree, a bodily response similar to the one we experienced during the initial sensation.  (3) If sensation and thought are inseparable then it does not make sense to talk about "paying attention to our senses" on the one hand and "paying attention to our thoughts" on the other hand.  ---  5/29/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Sets of ideas.  Consider the notion of one hundred ideas separately versus one hundred ideas connected.  Either connected serially, via 100 connections.  Or each idea connected to every other idea, via 1000 connections.  Ideas have more utility when connected to each other.  We weave a web of ideas in our minds.  An idea network.  ---  5/16/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Sociology of knowledge.  (1) Which ideas get most exposure (press) to (A) Academics, and (B) Masses?  (2) How many supporters an idea has = the idea's power.  Idea's power is related to political power.  ---  11/20/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Sometimes big thoughts come without trying vs. with intense effort.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Sometimes you get a good answer.  But don't know how, or the reasons.  It is intuitive, instinctual, unconscious thinking.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Speed of information processing is critical.  Develop ideas sooner.  Evaluate ideas quicker.  ---  10/23/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Speed: how long it takes you to figure things out how well.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Subject-picking is as important as method of thinking.  Do you pick your subjects based on what is fun or do you pick subjects based on what is important?  To what degree does society determine what subjects you think about and what you think about these subjects?  ---  1/25/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Subjects of thought vs. methods of thought.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  The abstracting mind vs. the detail oriented mind.  Some people have a tendency to abstract.  Some people have a tendency toward detail.  ---  10/8/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  The cycle: reasoning, learning, studying, knowledge, understanding, wisdom.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  The phrase "new thought" is redundant.  All thoughts are new, otherwise they are just memories.  ---  6/8/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  The question is not just "what do you think about, and not, and why?"  The question is "what do you think about x?" (if you do think at all).  Not just what view do you hold on x, but what is the total number and complexity of thoughts you have on x?  And what logical and importance structure do you put your thoughts in?  ---  07/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  The way knowledge should be organized.  (1)(A) History.  (B) Logical.  (C) Importance.  (D) Alphabetically.  (2) Levels: (A) Grade school.  (B) High school.  (C) Graduate school.  (3) Length: (A) One paragraph or one minute.  (B) 10 pages or one hour.  (C) 100 pages or one week.  ---  12/31/1997

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Theoretical knowledge is useless (?) if one is not aware what is going on in the world.  And knowing what is going on is useless (?) without a theoretical framework to apply it to.  ---  07/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  There is a debate that goes on in the head.  A person must have sufficiently strong arguments for holding any thought, or taking any action, because the subconscious mind very often produces counter-arguments against thoughts and actions, or at least questions thoughts and actions.  ---  8/16/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  There is a difference between being (1) A good test taker.  (2) Wise.  (3) Creative.  ---  02/01/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Think about what, why, how (methods).  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers: who are the best: Test takers, game players.  Fastest and most accurate.  Busiest workers.  Most wise, most ethical.  Direction pickers, importance seers, goal setters.  Broadest thinkers vs. most in depth.  Ground breakers and explorers.  Industrious thinkers vs. productive thinkers.  Best total overall.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectual as (1) Not beholden to money, power, or position (in government, academia, or the press).  (2) Not a specialist.  A generalist.  (3) An amateur.  Not a professional.  ---  09/01/1994

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectuals in government, business, academia, and amateurs.  Credentials.  (1) Learning: degrees.  (2) Creating ideas: original vs. critical (ideas about ideas).  (3) Creating things.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectuals: dogmatist (conservatives) and creators (liberals).  ---  06/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectuals.  Healthy: confront practical problems.  Neurotic: unconsciously driven to try to confront unconscious problems, which leads them exploring all over.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectuals.  Idea men: creating vs. analyzing and appraising the created.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectuals.  People who work with ideas.  Creator of ideas.  Historian of ideas.  Criticizer of ideas.  Synthesizer of ideas.  Researcher, gatherer, librarian.  Questioners.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectuals.  Professional intellectuals (teachers, writers, journalists, etc.) need to make a living at what they do, and so they often write obscure cryptic garbage.  It is a power play/ploy.  ---  6/15/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectuals.  Psychological traits of various types of intellectuals.  (1) Do it for fame, (2) For knowledge, (3) For money, (4) Sex, (5) Status etc.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Intellectuals.  The pure intellectual forgets about his body.  Forgets he has a body, and forgets he needs to take care of his body.  Wants to ignore his body.  ---  12/30/1995

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Pressing need for excellent critics in each field to provide clear, concise, exact, complete synopsis of books into a page or two, and to rate its importance, and show where it fits it.  They make things manageable.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Scholarship definitions.  Likes to learn: student.  Likes to do research: scientist.  Likes to save and organize information: bibliographer.  Synthesizer vs. analyzer.  Critic.  Philosopher.  Historian.  Teacher.  Problem solver or question answerer.  Information technologist: create or find, organize, store, and retrieve information.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  Scholarship.  (1) Quantity and quality of knowledge.  (2) Quantity and quality of contributions.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinkers.  The most important trait for an intellectual, philosopher, or scientist, besides smarts, is taste, having a feel for things.  I got taste.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking about things as they pop into your mind vs. thinking of things intentionally and methodically.  How much time to spend on former and latter.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking about what you're doing vs. about something else.  Pros and cons.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking and behavior.  What think, and how think?  What do, and how do?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking as connections between ideas.  I am not referring to our mental habit of noticing similarities (analogy, metaphor) and differences, that is, comparing and contrasting, rather, I am talking about noticing whether there is either a connection between ideas or no connection between ideas.  The connection does not have to be inferential (ex. logical syllogism).  The connection can be associative.  For example, artists pile up sensations, perceptions and impressions.  Artists connect ideas.  ---  4/10/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking defined as operations or functions only.  ---  6/2/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking functions: (1) Classify, organize.  (2) Integrate (merge).  (3) Consolidate, unify.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking hard keeps your brain in shape for when you need it.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking is a two-step process.  (1) Idea generation, which involves imaginative thinking.  (2) Idea criticism, which involves critical thinking.  ---  1/1/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking is moving ideas (words and images) around in your head.  Putting them next to each other (grouping).  Putting them above and below each other (in order).  Putting them in hierarchies (classify).  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking is the most important thing.  Avoiding it by not thinking, or thinking about one narrow area all the time, or accepting other people's thoughts uncritically, is a big mistake.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking of past, present, and future.  (1) Those who think of what they were: act like kids.  (2) Those who think of what they are: never grow.  (3) Those who think of what they will be.  Those who think of what they want to be: get it.  (4) Percent anyone does each.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking requires that one challenge oneself with a new idea.  Some people, for example, conservatives, are not comfortable challenging old ideas with new ideas, and thus conservatives have a tendency to not think.  ---  6/2/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking style differences between the sexes.  Or, what is the deal with my girlfriend's high phone bill?  (1) Men's thinking:  (A) Figure it out for yourself.  For example, don't ask for directions when you drive.  (B) Conflict (War) of ideas or Competition of ideas.  Defend you views from critical attacks.  Think critically about other people's views and attack them.  (C) Abstract, universal ideas.  (2) Women's thinking:  (A) Talk with friends to figure things out.  (B) Cooperation of ideas.  Hear other people's views uncritically.  Respect the truth of other people's "experiences".  Arrive at a consensus.  (C) Concrete, subjective truths.  (3) This is why women spend hours gabbing on the phone.  This is also why women tend to call psychic hotlines and men don't.  This is also why women tend to not go for science, and prefer the pseudoscience of astrology, tarot, palm readers, fortune tellers, etc.  ---  5/25/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thinking today.  We are faced with a complex world, difficult to understand, need to know a lot to survive, frantic pace: decisions must be made more quickly.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thought as computer code.  If you're a thinker then you are a computer programmer.  ---  10/5/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thought is defined here as a new connection between memories.  The instant you have a thought, that thought becomes a memory to be used later to make new thoughts.  ---  6/8/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thought trains.  Starting and stopping points.  Speed, direction.  Old vs. new lines.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thoughts come one at a time, build like bricks.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Thoughts exist in relation to each other.  Thoughts affect each other.  Thoughts exist in larger structures.    There are issues of precedence, assumptions, and presumptions.  ---  7/2/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Three different pairs of concepts.  (1)  Obvious ideas: occur first vs. subtle ideas: occur later after reflection.  They can be simple or complex.  They can be important or unimportant.  (2)  Simple ideas: take a few steps vs. complex ideas: take many steps.  They can be obvious or subtle.  They can be important or unimportant.  ("Subtle" meaning difficult to find, difficult to discern, easily overlooked).  (3)  Important ideas vs. unimportant ideas.  They can be simple or complex.  They can be obvious or subtle.  (4)  Sometimes the simplest ideas can be the most important, much to the mortification of academicians.  (5)  The order of priority is to find the important thoughts, then the subtle thoughts, and lastly the complex thoughts.  ---  1/12/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Three useful thinking techniques.  (1) A useful math technique:  Take a phenomenon.  Represent it quantitatively using mathematics.  Perform calculations to transform it.  And then bring it back into the real world in the form of new knowledge.  (2) A useful computer technique:  Take a phenomenon.  Represent it digitally using the computer.  Perform software programs to transform it.  And then bring it back into the real world in the form of new knowledge.  (3) A useful art technique:  Take a phenomenon.  Represent it as something else using artistic analogy.  Perform artistic exercises to transform it.  And then bring it back into the real world in the form of new knowledge.  (4) The point is that math, computers and art can all be used for analogical thinking to create new knowledge.  ---  10/25/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Three views of thinking.  (1) Thinking as opposed to remembering.  I.e., thinking as coming up with a new idea, as opposed to remembering an old idea.  This view essentially equates thinking with creativity.  A criticism of the "thinking as creativity" view is that when a musician creates a new piece of music, those who hold this view would say that he is thinking.  And when an abstract artist creates an artwork, those who hold this view would say that he is thinking.  But both the musician and the artist might say that they are doing more feeling than thinking when they create.  So we cannot say that all creativity is thinking.  We may not even be able to say that all thinking is creativity.  (2) Thinking defined as inference.  Criticism: if one defines thinking as inference then one would say that a novel writer is not thinking (novels being mostly description and not inferential argument).  But it seems like the novel writer, as opposed to the musician and artist, is thinking.  (3) Thinking defined as symbol manipulation.  Criticism of this view is based on the following argument.  (A) There is no such case of a thing being either a symbol or a non-symbol.  (B) Everything is both a symbol and a non-symbol.  For example, even a flower has symbolic content; and even a word has non-symbolic content, such as its font.  (C) Therefore, you cannot distinguish symbol things from non-symbol things.  If everything is both symbol and non-symbol, and if you define thinking as symbol manipulation, then we are always thinking, because we are always perceiving symbols.  To perceive is to think.  ---  6/6/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Three ways to rate ideas.  (1) Degree of complexity or difficulty.  (2) Degree of truth.  (3) Position in overall argument.  ---  8/6/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Time you spend thinking well or poorly, in any method of thinking, on any subject of thought.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  To make an idea fly you need (1) A good idea.  (2) Political weight and push.  (3) Marketing skills to sell it.  ---  10/09/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  To those who mock brainy nerds.  Yesterdays nerd is tomorrow's dope.  People are getting smarter.  Those we think are too brainy today will seem dumb in the future.  ---  5/1/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Transfer of knowledge and thinking skills to new subjects, and to new situations.  Three step process: specific to general to specific.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Truth.  Improvisational truth is quick, effortless, and high quality.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Two big attitudes.  (1) I want to know: leads to health.  (2) I don't want to know: leads to pathological psychology.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Two big ideas.  What to know about, and what to think about.  That is, how to structure knowledge, and what methods to use to think.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Two techniques for thinking.  (1) Dispassioned thinking.  This technique is useful for comparing multiple views without taking sides.  (2) Empassioned thinking.  Thinking with emotion.  This technique is useful when developing an argument for or against something.  (3) Use both methods regularly.  Know when to use each method.  ---  5/14/2007

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Two views.  (1) To be happy don't think: dogmatic religion, Zen, hedonism.  (2) To be happy think: problem solving, mental activism.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Two ways to get new ideas.  (1) Same operation on new objects of thought.  (2) Same objects of thought with new operations performed on them.     PART TWO.  Some examples of thinking operations.  (1) X is necessary for Y.  (2) X is part of Y.  (3) X is a condition for Y.  (4) X is opposite of Y.  (5) X is same as Y.  (6) X as compared to Y.  (7) X union with Y.  Boolean operators.  Math operators.  ---  7/11/2002

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Types of ideas.  (1) Ideas we can put in single words.  (2) Ideas we can only put in sentences (S-V-O  subject - verb - object).  (3) Ideas we can only put in paragraphs.  Connections between sentences.  (ex. syllogism).  ---  4/11/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Types of minds.  (1) Inactive minds.  (2) Active but not gaining new knowledge.  That is, going round in circles.  (3) Active and gaining new knowledge but not getting useful knowledge.  That is, immersed in trivia.  (4) Actively gaining new and useful knowledge.  (A) New and useful for that particular individual person.  That is, your story.  (B) Useful for all individuals.  That is, learning what others already know.  (C) New and useful for all individuals.  That is what scientists, philosophers, inventors, and artists do.  ---  12/12/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Types of thinking yields types of knowledge.  Howard Gardener posits eight types of intelligence.  That can also mean eight types of thinking and eight types of knowledge.  ---  6/4/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Types of thought.  (1) Language thought.  (2) Mathematical thought.  (3) Visual image thought.  (4) Social thought.  (5) Natural environment thought.  (6) Physical movement thought.  (7) Musical thought.  ---  5/22/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Use every minute of every age, because you change.  You decay hormonally, and grow experientially, and the kind of ideas you are "primed" to think of, and the kind of work you will produce, changes with every age, and every situation.  ---  04/30/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Usefulness of ideas.  In the intellectual world, as well as the material world, you have overvalued ideas (usefulness gained is not worth price of time spent reading) and undervalued ideas (much bang for buck).  Bargains and rip-offs.  Useless junk (plastic baubles) and Edsels (lemons).  Overly hyped stuff (lied about what it was).  Like auto mechanics you have two factors: (1) Honesty vs. lying.  (2) Reasonable price vs. rip-off.  ---  11/02/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Using old thoughts vs. creating new thoughts.  How often do each.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Vocabulary.  Truth.  Reason: rational thinking.  Intelligence: types and measures of.  Thinking: moving images or concepts or symbols.  Understanding.  Knowledge: what we gain through reason.  Ignorance.  Wisdom, genius.  Smart, clever, cunning.  Knowledgeable, learned.  Learning: formation of a new idea, new knowledge.  Education: process of learning.  Studying.  Scholarship: study of x (philosophy, science, etc).  Information, data, ideas.  Analogies: computer, muscle, knowledge pool, and knowledge tree.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ways of thinking lead to types of knowledge.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Ways to proceed with thinking.  (1) First a word.  Then a definition.  Then an  exhaustive discussion.  (2) Then a question about a word.  Then alteranative answers to the question.  That's a debate.  That's a problem.  (3) Whose view is closer to the truth?  Whose view is closer to justice?  ---  9/8/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  We are all dumb by degree.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What amount of time do people spend thinking actively and creatively?  In a 24 hour day we spend 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours monopolized at work or school, and about 2 hours commuting.  This leaves 6 hours to think, of which we actually think only about 10 minutes.  Most people spend most (90%?) of their free time in some type of vegetative, auto-pilot, fugue, screen-saver state of mind.  ---  10/22/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What are most important subjects, and most important ideas on them?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What do people think about all day long?  A thinking experiment would have people report into a tape recorder every minute what they are thinking about.  Or, better yet, you could just have people speak their thoughts out loud and record an entire day of thoughts.  Then compare the total number of words spoken from one person to the next.  Also tally up the total number of times any particular word is spoken, to see which are the most frequently occurring words.  Also see which people are thinking about the largest number of words or topics.  One could also see how much of people's thinking is productive thinking and how much is non-productive thinking.  This could be a very interesting experiment.  ---  6/2/2005

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What do people think about?  What are their ideas and how are they connected?  How their heads are organized conceptually?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What does an individual spend most of their time thinking about?  What percent of their time do they spend on each subject that they think about?  What does their mind map look like?  What are the thought methods that they use?  How advanced are the thought methods that they use?  ---  4/22/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What is thinking?  Here I am defining thinking as the active creation of new ideas, as opposed to the recall of old ideas by memory, and as opposed to the passive receipt of new ideas from other people or media.  ---  9/25/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What price pay for neglect of x vs. study of x?  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What to think about: Job.  Women.  Current situation of self and world.  Ideals, ethics.  Problem solving, and doing work.  (See memory: what to remember).  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  What we think about.  (1) What most people think about most of the time.  90% of their free time most people think about things like (A) Their popularity amongst their friends.  (B) Car: buying, maintaining, repairing, insuring, cleaning.  (C) Home: buying, maintaining, repairing, insuring, cleaning.  (D) Mate.  (E) Kids.  (F) Job.  (G) Partying: planning, doing, recovering.  (H) Shopping.  (I) Sports.  (J) Hobbies.  (K) Food, sex, money, power.  (L) Television.  (2) What people do not often think about and perhaps should.  (A) The state of the entire world.  Global thinking.  (B) Temporal thinking.  World history and the future of the world.  (C) Their own past and future.  (D) Information management.  ---  10/22/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  When we learn a skill (e.g. typing) to the point where we can "do it without thinking", is it really the case that we do it without thinking?  No.  Do we just think quickly?  Or is it conscious vs. unconscious thinking?  ---  8/23/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  When you think of something for the first time, and say to yourself, "I never thought of that before", you should also say to yourself, "Good job."  ---  7/26/2006

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Whenever you think of something and do not write it down you are repressing it.  You are saying, "I refuse to acknowledge and confront this".  You are saying, "Do not remember this in the future".  You do this by saying, "This is not important", or "This is dirty." etc.  ---  11/16/1998

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Who says we think?  Many of us spend most of our time in a pre-rational state, such as (1) Non-thinking.  Unfocused.  Vegetative.  (2) Magic and myth.  (3) Confused.  Fuzzy.  Fog.  (4) Thinking same few thoughts on same few subjects.  (5) They question is not "How do we think?", but rather, "How to start thinking?", and "How to think often on a lot of topics?"  ---  1/20/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Who says we think?  Most people do not spend most of their time thinking, neither using inductive nor deductive logic.  Most people spend most of their time in an aimless drifting state of free-association, with their conscious and unconscious minds interacting, so that ideas appear and disappear like specters.  When people do by chance think, the mode of thinking that is most often used with this type of free-associating is metaphorical thinking.  In the metaphorical state of mind things are not so much "true or false" nor "logical or illogical", rather they are "like or unlike", where one thing reminds you of another.  When we have a pressing intellectual task at hand we break out the big guns like reason and logic.  However, for the most part, most of us spend most of our waking hours in a mental state resembling a dream.  It is an energy saving flow of associations.  When people do think, which is only occasionally, most people use metaphorical thinking most of the time.     Actually, most people use a technique best described as "free-associate and see if it sticks", which is not even as rigorous as metaphorical thinking.  This is the ultimate energy saving mode of thought.  Things like "organizing one's ideas", "logic", and "cause and effect reasoning" and "thinking about anything that is not directly in front of one's face" are perhaps relatively modern forms of thought (perhaps 50,000 years ago).  ---  11/15/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Who says we think?  Most people suffer from the attitude mistake, "Animals cannot think.  Humans can think.  I am human.  Therefore, I spend all my time thinking."  The reality is that most humans are about 50% memory, 30% emotion, and 20% thinking.  Memory and emotion are often overlooked yet vitally important.  ---  6/26/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Who says we think?  Thinking defined as "pure reasoning" is not something humans do often and it may not even be possible.  Most of the time we operate using a melange of thoughts, emotions, memories of past experiences and desires for the future.  Humans do not engage in pure thinking.  ---  6/5/2000

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Who says we think?  Two types of thinking.  (1) Creative thinking.  Thinking of something new.  (2) Non-creative thinking.  Thinking of something you have already thought of before.  This is really memory.  Most of our thinking (95%) is non-creative thinking.  Most of our thinking is memory.  The above two types of thinking are linked.  We create from memories.  ---  2/10/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Why some people don't like to think.  (1) Thinking is difficult.  Thinking is hard work.  Thinking is not always fruitful.  Sometimes mistakes are made when thinking.  (2) Thinking can be scary.  You never know what you will think of.  You may think of something that challenges your assumptions.  ---  2/21/2004

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Wisdom is as much thinking right thought at right time (using old knowledge well) (and decision making), as it is understanding something new.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Wisdom means knowledge of general principles vs. specialist knowledge.  ---  12/30/1992

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Wisdom, definitions of.  (1) Knowledge, broad and deep.  (2) Thinking skills, many types, quick and accurate.  (3) Creative.  (4) Emotional knowledge.  (5) Ethical  (6) Tactical.  (7) Excelling in all mental areas vs. a specialized area.  (8) Excellent memory.  ---  5/16/2001

Psychology, thinking.  ---  Working out the possibilities.  Thinking by hypothesis is very important.  ---  3/25/1999

Psychology, thinking.  ---  You can't do your best thinking unless you are in tip top shape physically.  ---  07/25/1993

Psychology, thinking.  ---  You see a woman and you say, "She really has a dancer's body.  Look at how gracefully she moves."  We can say that humans think with the aid of their bodies.  We can also say that humans think by looking at other people's bodies.  When a person sees other people, the person will "mirror" the other person to some extent.  If we say that a person thinks with the aid of their own body, and even with the aid of other people's bodies, then where is the mind, where is the self, and where is the individual?  ---  4/16/2006