Thinking

“Thinking is difficult. That is why most people judge” - Carl Jung

“College education is not the learning of facts, but the training of minds to think.” – Albert Einstein

Thinking is different from learning and judging. Learning is the memorization of knowledge, and judging is the execution of memorized knowledge. Therefore, there is correctness. On the other hand, thinking is a human activity against uncertainty. There is no correctness. In addition, thinking is endless and limitless.

What is uncertainty? Uncertainty is a consequence of human cognitive activity.

Then, what is certain? Something you can sense at present.  That is all that exists for an individual organism. Abundance for an individual. This cannot be shared with any others. Just for oneself at the moment – fulfillment.

The past is uncertain. The future is also uncertain. Even if limited to the current moment, something beyond one’s own sensibleness is uncertain. For example, anything outside of the reach of your vision, like the situation behind a door, someone else’s mind or the life of Schrödinger's cat, is uncertain. Something certain means something sensible at present. All others are uncertain. Uncertain due to beyond sensible. 1. because of not present – past and future. 2. because of the outside of one’s own senses.

Uncertainty emerged because of language. Without language, nothing is uncertain. Uncertainty can only be recognized with language. Without language, uncertainty does not exist because one can live only within certainty—the sensible at present in own mind. Memory without language is certain, like a flashback of PTSD patients. A dream is also certain when dreaming. On the other hand, recalling is retrospective cognition. Therefore, it is required for language. Remembering a dream has a lot of uncertainty. Without language, we cannot recall.

Sense – Cognize – React is the fundamental process of life. Only live organisms do that. Now, AI has started to recapitulate it.

The bumping of two molecules may cause a reaction. When a series of reactions using abundant molecules in the local environment caused replication and reproduction accidentally, life emerged. Not efficient and precise. However, because this replication/reproduction process relied on abundance in the adjacent local environment, it happened again and again - continued. Of course, there were a lot of non-continued entities because the process was not precise. No sensing was required because all materials necessary for the replication/reproduction process are abundant in the adjacent local environment.

If any individuals accidentally leave the local abundance, the replication/reproduction process will fail and be discontinued. Suppose an individual develops a sense of the transition to non-abundance from abundance and reacts to it like avoidance or pausing. In that case, it may enhance to stay in abundance or continue in transient non-abundance.

An important realization is that some sensing evolved, not simply for detecting something essential for life continuity. For example, we cannot sense oxygen because it is abundant in the atmosphere. We do not need to sense it. However, our body reacts if there is no oxygen. Then, we sense our body’s reactions but not oxygen itself.

Sensing extracts something sensible from abundance. This ability helped in the past to ensure life continuity by sensing non-abundant environments to evoke reactions. Something abundant usually cannot be sensed and cognized. In other words, there is no need to sense it for organisms' survival as long as staying in an abundant environment. Simultaneously, the abundance limits the organisms where the replication/reproduction process continues.

The first life started because all resources were abundant in its adjacent environment. The replication/reproduction process of the first life was unstoppable in the original, abundant environment. When the abundance was compromised, replication/reproduction was compromised and discontinued. If replication/reproduction was paused during non-abundant conditions, this life can wait until abundance is recovered. Then, the process is resumed and can be continued. Sensing permits the creation of a mechanism to control this nonstop process pause in a non-abundant environment, permitting survival in temporal non-abundance. Interestingly, although the replication/reproduction process is stoppable, sensing the local environment is now nonstop.

Cognition extracts something from continuous, boundless, endless sensing and prevents all sensed conditions from being transferred into reactions. Imagine an automatic door at the entrance of a building. It senses and reacts. How it senses someone in front of the door is usually not visual sensing but the physical weight on an entrance mat or in-far red reflection. This means whatever is sensed, the door will be opened. It does not need to be a person to open the door.

A surveillance camera is constantly seeing something in front of the lens. Imagine a surveillance camera without recording or no one checking the record. Sensing does not create reactions. Cognition is required for subsequent reactions to be initiated. A surveillance camera is meaningful only when cognition is accompanied. Importantly, cognition creates a buffer zone between sensing and reactions.

Something that looks like cognition in non-human organisms is often desensitization. Repetitive sensation desensitizes to initiate subsequent reactions. This could be a primitive form of cognition because the process is usually highly specific and selective.

Before language, desensitization must be the only cognition extracting objects and events in continuous boundless sensing. This mode of cognition is impossible to share with others and stays in an individual’s mind (or system), probably within a short period. Everyone is at the constant alert condition - actively sensing. Sensing causes immediate reactions. Desensitization pauses immediate reactions against repetitive stimulations.

Language creates cognition. Names – a series of audible sounds, must be the first step of language acquisition. A name is a tool to extract (or cognize) an object from the continuum of visual sensing, which constantly surveys the local surroundings. A name permitted a cognition of an object within one’s mind. Cognition must come from repetition and desensitization. Without a name, our cognitive ability (except human face recognition, though) is very limited. Imagine a field with weeds. For those who know the names of plants, they are not weeds but various plants. If the name of something is shared between two persons, the name starts representing something. The name becomes a symbol of an object.

Nothing represented anything before language (or names, if you like) emerged. Everything should be present and sensible. Anything beyond the current sensing did not exist. In other words, without language, the current sensibleness in the adjacent surroundings is the only thing that exists.

Language creates uncertainty. The names permit the extraction of repeatedly observed objects in cognition. The words also permit the cognizing of repetitive events, different from flashbacks. Each object/event/action is represented by its own unique word. Recalling becomes possible with words in one’s mind. The cognizable past experience, beyond flashbacks, emerged. The past was created.

Repetitive events gain unique names. The names separate one event from the others. Then, the precursor events of a repetitive event are recognized as signs of the event. The emergence of logic. This leads to recognition of the future. The recognition of the past repetitiveness created the future prediction. The beginning of anticipation and anxiety. The future emerged.

Without language, there is no representation – no extraction of the similarity in objects and the repetition of events. Perhaps, without language, there is no past and future but just present. Everything is current and sensible - certainty.  Language created uncertainty. Thinking is the human activity dealing with uncertainty – something beyond current and sensible.

There are two types of uncertainty: time and space (or proximity). Beyond sensible is uncertainty—future and past, something invisible, inaudible, untouchable, or without smell and taste. Certainty is current sensible. Life without language is living in the moment, constantly sensing the adjacent environment with subsequent reactions. This is alive.

Language permits humans to recognize repetitive events and familiar objects beyond desensitization. The alert state can be lowered. However, how certain is that? Of course, it is uncertain.

Recognizing the future is troublesome. Potential precursor events for a pleasant or unpleasant event are recognized as signs. Language creates anticipation and anxiety, besides fun and fear, which are emotions at present. Anticipation and anxiety are emotional reactions by cognition without sensing.  They are cognition-initiated reactions independent from the current sensing.  

Cognition is a powerful tool that extracts something from continuous boundless sensing to prevent subsequent instant physical reactions. In addition, interestingly, cognition is sufficient to create physical reactions without sensing. When this becomes uncontrollable, it is a problem. For example, that is depression. Cognition-initiated physical reactions without real sensing are evoked. Because the physical reactions are real, thus they were sensed by body sensing systems. The loop of sensing – cognition – reaction is initiated without the current sensible – without anything real but only cognition.

We humans do not like uncertainty. Language brings uncertainty. Then, using knowledge and logic based on language, we try to mask uncertainty as if uncertainty does not exist. These are beliefs. 

Logical thinking is one strategy for dealing with uncertainty. It involves a series of rational judgments based on knowledge. Logical thinking minimizes thinking but replaces it with a series of multiple judgments based on standards. What differs from the beliefs I mentioned above? The beliefs are one step. Logical thinking is multiple small steps – a series of small beliefs. By logical thinking, uncertainty becomes a series of multiple small certainties. 

Knowledge is memorized standards (or small beliefs) of the extracted components of repetitive events sufficient for repetition and reproduction. Each piece of knowledge has a logical relationship of cause and consequence. During logical thinking, all that you have to think about is which knowledge to use and in what order. Probably ‘choosing’ or ‘selecting’ might be a better word choice than ‘thinking’ to explain logical thinking. Selecting one to use from a pool of memorized knowledge. After that, a series of judgments based on logical connections of knowledge can deal with the original uncertainty. You don’t need to think about everything as a whole by yourself, but the collective past human experience supports your thinking (or selection). The process made us feel uncertainty became a certainty. The amount of real thinking dealing with uncertainty is minimal because the process is a series of judgements. The fundamental caveat of this is that logic is context-dependent. If the context differs from the past, logic cannot bring replicable consequences.

Real thinking is endless. Wandering around in one’s mind without purpose, one can easily get lost. Curiosity guides you. Curiosity is not a question defined by logical thinking. Curiosity leads to imagination. I hope you recognize that curiosity and uncertainty are very close words within imagination.

Knowledge and logic create certainty based on past repetitive experience. When event A occurs, event B will certainly happen. We pretend uncertainty does not exist. Real thinking is imagination dealing with uncertainty. Therefore, it is endless and very difficult for many because the process easily traps us in a loop of endless anxiety.

The caveat of logic is that it is inevitably context-dependent. Quite often, the context is embedded in the local abundance for someone executing logic. Abundance cannot be recognized by people inside. Abundance is only recognized when it is not abundant. Therefore, the context of logic is impossible to recognize by logical thinking.

The context permits logic to work repeatedly. Correct logic means it always works in a certain context to which it belongs. An incorrect logic means it does not work – does not bring reproducible consequences. However, when the context changes, the correctness of logic could change. Certainty comes from the context. The current sensibleness creates the context for organisms. Except for humans, all organisms live in certainty. Only humans live in uncertainty because of language.

Thinking is the human cognitive process of dealing with uncertainty, which is cognition beyond the current sensibleness due to language. Uncertainty evokes anxiety; thus, it is often uncomfortable. Knowledge and logic are strategies for not thinking or minimizing thinking. From ancient to the modern era, religions, divination, fortune-telling, etc., attempt to provide certainty as faith. Modern sciences based on logical thinking are partly replacing them. However, logic is context-dependent. There is no uniform eternal context as human cognition hopes for. Each individual’s cognition is its own current adjacent local sensible context. Everyone’s context is different at each moment. 

To think, we need build the strength to immerse ourselves in the uncomfortable without judgment. Writing down, Drawing down and Shaping up are great strategies to stay in uncertainty without getting lost in circuitry. Thinking is endless and limitless. Leaving a track of thoughts behind you with words, sounds, drawings, etc., is important for preventing you from being trapped in an endless circuit which drains all of your energy. Creativity is the consequence of thinking, which others can follow the path of one’s thinking.

Pleasures keep the person in the present, preventing thinking. Hobbies also keep you occupied in the present, preventing thinking. Meditation is a training to keep you in the present. Wandering around the uncertainty that language creates in one’s mind is sometimes dangerous and painful. One easily gets lost.

This is thinking. Thinking is immersing oneself in the uncomfortable, staying in the uncertainty created by language. The best way to accommodate thinking is to leave one's track behind.