Thinking is not taught in school so most humans make impulsive decisions or reactions based on stored subconscious information and experiences that they have had in their past. If any thinking takes place it is usually minimal and reactions are almost instantaneous and largely impulsive. The only true way of impulsively thinking differently or reacting differently about a subject such as a topic, idea, or goal is to learn new useful information about the subject and incorporate it or store it into our subconscious memory.

Once new information is stored in your memory you can often say that you have a greater understanding of the subject even though your reactions are still largely impulsive to the subject matter. Your repertoire of impulsive reactions has just gotten a little more complex on the subject.

Most humans ask a question about a subject and may feel that they have the answer based on past learning and experiences. This is an impulsive reaction and it may be a valid answer if they or someone else has truly thought about the question in the past and come up with a relatively objective answer. Unfortunately most learning is just subjective rote memorization of information and spitting it back impulsively at a later date.

Most of us are creatures of habit and almost automatically know what to do on a daily basis. Most of us have daily routines which we follow without the need for real thinking. You can almost say that most of us largely function like automatons and go through life in a rather unquestioning fashion using our intuition most of the time.

Nature requires quick responses to everyday life and that is why habits both good and bad predominate and are hard to change unless we motivate ourselves to consciously do something about the habits. Yes, some have careers which require more thinking than minimum wage jobs which can largely be replaced with very efficient robots who can do the daily job routine or habit rather well.

Once the basic skills are learned most minimum wage jobs require minimal thinking and this is a major reason why humans become bored and often change jobs because the job is no longer challenging and yields little satisfaction. Yes, some for financial reasons may work at two or three jobs, especially if they are part time jobs just to make ends meet. Even though there seems to be a little variety in your life working at three jobs the amount of real thinking going on is relatively minimal.

Real thinking is picking a subject and trying to tediously answer as many as 25 or more questions many of which don’t have impulsive answers and really need further research. So real thinking is asking many questions and researching the questions to which there is no known personal impulsive answer and memorizing the valid researched answers.

Think: v. to silently and mentally verbalize and try to make correspondences between the subsets of one’s own knowledge and/or experiences and using as much logic as possible

What does “think about it” really mean? You are silently talking to yourself using words trying to come up with valid relationships which will hopefully help you decide what to do or solve a problem or problems.

You could think out loud but doing it silently is much more effective and faster or more efficient. Your impulsive feelings come into play so thinking out loud does not give the clearest view of the thinking process which includes many impulsive thoughts which enter and control the mind which are based on past experiences.

Not everyone thinks the same way because our past experiences are frequently very different and some think more logically than others and have different impulsive reactions to stimuli and especially brain stimuli.

Think before you act is frequently good advice but unfortunately most of our thinking is impulsive thinking since real life frequently demands rather quick reactions to circumstances.

Real conscious thinking begins when you ask yourself a question in your mind about a subject and then try to answer the question. Having one or more answers to a question is a possibility and then you have to decide which answer has more relevance to the question which you are asking. The circumstances which you are considering will determine what the correct answer or answers are. The question has words and the answer or answers also have words so you are really making correspondences or connections between the words in the question and the words in the answer or answers which are hopefully relatively reasonable, factual, logical, and true.

Most common humans are not only largely impulsive but the kind of thinking that they often do is very minimal. For example they may think very little about when to eat. They usually mentally and rather impulsively ask themselves- when will I eat?  The choices or answers that they commonly come up with are- right away, in a little while, in the afternoon, at 6 o’clock, or when I am hungry. This does not require much or complex thinking, the thinking is done very quickly or impulsively, and is often a reaction to a personal habitual way of thinking about when to eat.

When to eat is an experience or thinking process that we have done before many times so almost no real complex thinking goes into thinking about when to eat. We may hesitate a little while before deciding when to eat but the hesitation is minimal where we mostly subconsciously process all the alternative actions possible.

Thinking is not something which is taught in school and the thinking can be rather complex or relatively short and simple. There is a great difference in complex thinking about mathematics, science subjects, technology, computer programming, etc., and thinking about complex sometimes rather vague subjective matters such as relationships, humans, psychology, sociology, politics, business, sports, etc., which is mostly the realm of opinions, beliefs, ideas, probabilities, and personal experience. Technological thinking requires specialized skills, useful knowledge, the ability to analyze and synthesize which subjective matters seldom rigorously analyze and synthesize but often depend on statements made by authority figures.

I will mostly cover thinking about subjective things rather than objective usually very logical or real things which can be analyzed and synthesized rather easily once you learn what analyzing and synthesizing is using sets and subsets .

The key to good thinking in general is the ability to ask the right questions and then to get or find acceptable answers. Most of your questions should begin with WHY, WHO, WHAT, WERE, WHEN, WILL, HOW, and HOW MUCH? In subjective matters HOW LONG in time, HOW OFTEN, and HOW GOOD, BAD, or BOTH are also often necessary question beginnings to get answers to.

Before any thinking can begin you must first choose a subject, topic, idea, or goal  to think about which could be considered one of the primary goals of your thinking process. You can choose general or complex subjects, topics, ideas, and goals or you can choose very specific or simple subjects, topics, ideas, and goals to think about.

You can choose a very general complex subject such as males, females, relationships, and cars or you can pick specific or simpler subjects such as Mary, Martin, and BMW m3. More specific relatively simple subject matter may actually be in single question form such as- how smart or good is Mary or Martin? or when will Mary or Martin go to the concert with us?

In general, thinking about complex or general subjects is hard because you will come up with too many questions which you don’t impulsively have the answer to and frankly these are really mostly good subject matter for humans willing to follow up the thinking with research on the subject because there will be too many unanswered questions which need answers.

We will choose relationships to think about and then specifically think about the relationship between you and a potential spouse or a serious first date relationship.

Relationships are now our thinking subject matter so you should start off by determining WHO is the relationship about and WHO if anyone will help you in learning more about relationships. This learning aid may be an author, writer, search engine, or close friend who knows something about relationships or has some expertise in relationships.

WHY are there relationships?

WHY are relationships important to me?

WHY do relationships fail?

WHY do some relationships last and others don’t?

WHY do some humans avoid relationships as much as possible?

WHAT are relationships or what kind of relationships are there?

WHAT is a good, bad, or both relationship and WHY do you think so?

WHAT are the most important relationships?

WHAT are strong and weak relationships?

WHAT is the probability that the relationship will be good, bad, or both and WHY do you think so?

WHAT relationships should you spend the most time on?

WHAT things should you try to know before entering a relationship?

WHAT are the variables or factors affecting a relationship?

WHERE is the relationship? Let’s choose the United States but it can be anywhere in the world and if you want to specify a location then it can be a coffee shop or your house.

WHEN or at what time or what time period in the relationship are you talking about? We can choose the relationship period in it’s entirety, we can choose the beginning, middle, or end of the relationship, and we can pick a specific time or event in the relationship.

WHEN do you end a relationship?

WHEN is the best time to start a relationship?

WILL the relationship be good, bad, or both and WHY do you think so?

WILL the relationship last longer if I work at it?

HOW do you create or start a relationship?

HOW many relationships can you be in?

HOW can you make sure a relationship is worthwhile?

HOW does a good relationship develop?

HOW good, bad, or both is a relationship and WHY do you think so?

HOW probable is it that you will get into a good relationship?

HOW MUCH time, effort, and money will the relationship involve or cost?

HOW OFTEN do you have to be in a relationship?

HOW OFTEN do humans talk about relationships?

HOW OFTEN do relationships fail?

HOW LONG will the relationship last?

HOW LONG should you spend on a relationship before you give it up?

There are other question formats such as- If I screw up a relationship then can I fix it? This can be rephrased into the standard question format- HOW can I fix a screwed up relationship?

What is important to know about any subject is the variables or factors affecting the subject matter. It is often a question of knowing the time, place, circumstances, and personality such as beliefs, integrity, morality, sociability, likes, dislikes, interests, caring, empathy, aloofness, etc. of someone in a relationship. Those are the dominant variables affecting a relationship and questions can be asked about the variables.

WHAT happens when beliefs clash in a relationship? Is a close relationship possible if the human has little empathy? or HOW probable is a close relationship if a human has little empathy? WHAT do I do if a human hates socializing? WHAT happens in a relationship with few common interests? HOW important is integrity in a relationship? etc.

Now a relationship can basically be thought of as a series of events and you can narrow it down to a specific event in a relationship and ask all of the above questions again for that specific event. In our example we narrowed down the relationship to a period of time called the first date. So let us think about the first date.

WHY should I go on a first date?

WHY is a first date important?

WHY do first dates sometimes fail?

WHY are some humans so good at first dates?

WHO did or will I date?

WHO else was or will be there?

WHO helped me with advice on the first date?

WHAT is a good, bad, or acceptable first date and WHY do you think so?

WHAT should I wear on a first date?

WHAT questions should I ask on a first date?

WHAT is the probability that I will get the first date?

WHAT is the probability of a good, bad, or both first date and WHY do you think so?

WHERE should the first date be?

WHEN is the best time for a first date?

WHEN are the best circumstances for a first date?

WHEN will I know the date was a good, bad, or mixed one?

WILL the first date be good, bad, or both and WHY do you think so?

HOW OFTEN should I go on first dates?

HOW LONG should a first date last?

HOW do you act on a first date?

HOW good or bad will be or was the first date and WHY do you think so?

HOW can I create a good first impression?

HOW MUCH time, effort, and money should I spend on a first date?

HOW MUCH about myself should I reveal on my first date?

As you can see by the above example, in depth thinking about certain subjects can be very tedious and lengthy which is why common humans are largely impulsive and think little by answering simple questions like -will my date like me, how can I impress my date, and when should I ask for a date?

Asking the right questions is challenging enough but not all questions have valid answers nor are all the answers easy to get or research and this primarily depends on the complexity of the subject, topic, idea, or goal. Thinking sometimes stops when you have no answer to a question so you can either research the answer or ask a follow up question which you may know the answer to.

Thinking is basically a one way conversation with yourself where you ask and try to answer questions that pop up into your head or mind. All that I am basically doing here is offering you more questions which should pop into your head impulsively. The more questions that you ask about a subject, topic, idea, or goal and try to answer, the more lengthy and complex is your thinking process. Your understanding of the subject, topic, idea, or goal often increases the more questions that you have answers to on a given subject.

The problem with thinking about subjective subjects, topics, ideas, or goals is that sometimes a question has more than one possible answer which depends on the complexity of the question, depends on the surrounding circumstances such as kind of event, number of humans present, etc., depends on multiple possible causes, and depends on the uncertainty of the result which is really a question of estimating probabilities rather than guessing about always or never facts and events.

When you ask yourself WILL the first date be a good one? You are really asking yourself to guess largely based on your personal experience with dating and perhaps to some extent the dating experiences of humans that you know well. You are really making a probability estimate about the future and perhaps basing the estimate on your past experience with good dates if it is not your first date with someone. If it is your first first date with someone then guessing at how good the date will be is an exercise in futility to a large extent since you really don’t know.

Based on prior experiences with first dates you may determine that 2 out of 5 first dates were good so you could predict that there is a 40% chance that it will be a good one. On the other hand if you determine that the two successful first dates were because you had much in common and the next date also has many things in common with you then you may increase the probability to 60 or 70% or more. Living life you find out that there are relatively few certain things in life with a 100% probability of happening in the future. A basic human desire for certainty about the future is why fortune telling is such a popular scam business as well as horoscopes.

Lengthy thinking requires much time and when you are thinking it is usually helpful if you eliminate distractions and do the thinking in a relatively quiet place. I like to think much about what topic I am going to write about next. During the writing process I take time out in a cigarette puffing break (I don’t inhale) and think about what I am going to write about next or what I need further research in. Thinking and writing go together very well since you are really recording the information in your mind when you write something down. Writing something down also helps you to remember new information which is processed by your subconscious.

Practice makes an attempt at perfection more successful so the more that you actually do some real thinking, the better you will get at the thinking process.

We have not exhausted an excursion into how to think because complex science, technology, and computer programming is much more logical and reasonable in the true sense of the word. Knowing how to analyze and synthesize scientific, technological, and computer programming information has led to robots with potential artificial intelligence which can truly be called logical thinking machines. Yes, humans are being replaced by “thinking machines” or software which can very efficiently process information and do real tasks in the real world.

Self driving cars are an example of the progress made in computerizing the very complicated process of driving. It is true that the technology is still not acceptable and is not as safe as a human driver but this is largely due to the fact that the ultimate or best detection device costs about three times the price of a car these days. Cost cutting has decreased effectiveness and has resulted in detection devices which are very bad in dealing with emergency situations on the road and bad road conditions, especially in bad weather conditions such as snowstorms and thunderstorms.

Will there eventually be self driving cars with better safety records than humans? Yes, but it will take some time and will require better quality and more expensive detection devices and more precise algorithms for emergency situations and unusual road conditions. Even with the best technology there will still be accidents with self driving cars because no computer program is perfection in an imperfect world of almost infinite complexity on the road and especially off the road.

Some may feel that computers will take over all jobs but this is not so true in ethics or morality and in psychology, sociology, and politics where many of the buzz words used are badly defined and often very vague. This means that these professions are very biased and subjective rather than objective disciplines and depend more on a consensus of opinion rather than objectively observed facts.

Political science and social science is really not a science but merely the compilation of statistical norms with no valid cause effect relationships which are common to science where cause and effect is proven by mathematical equations with well defined independent and dependent variables. A more accurate description is political ideology and social ideology which is increasingly becoming more and more left wing with the passage of time.

Analysis: n. taking apart subsets (conceptually and/or physically) and/or chemically to show that they are related and identifying nonessential subsets

Analyzing chemical reactions or analyzing human behavior are worlds apart in terms of mathematical rigor. Unless you are actually accurately analyzing human behavior with accurate definitions then you are doing little else than gathering dubious statistical data and trying to guess at possible cause effect relationships which you won’t find with any degree of certainty.

True analysis is done mathematically or numerically and any other form of analysis is merely intuitive guessing based primarily on prior experiences with the subject matter being “analyzed” or more accurately biased subjective judgments made about new information based on historical precedents and/or experiences and little more.

Synthesis: n. to add a subset(s) which is frequently judged to be essential and doing so conceptually and/or physically and/or chemically to form a set

 Synthesis basically means taking the parts or subsets and making a whole or a set out of them. Writing a book or play is synthesizing, using experimental evidence to make a new theory is synthesis, and putting together all the ingredients for a recipe is synthesizing.

Building up is synthesis and breaking something down to its component parts is analysis which is the opposite of synthesis.

 

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