How Our Minds Work

The vast majority of individuals do not think about how they think, as they do not examine their beliefs. Both are major factors making up how we relate to others, the world, and how we process what comes into our awareness. The vast majority of humans react, without understanding why they react as they do.

Reacting to any discussion of the role of religion in our lives, as presented in my Sunday blog, as an attack on fundamental beliefs, in God for example, and what God is or is not, without examining what actually was written, is, by definition, irrational. Religions have been imposed upon humans from the beginning of our history, as a way to control us, and have nothing to do with what is, or is not, reality. ("Reality" is a topic for a blog another day.)

Now we, as individuals, do not like it when it is suggested we are being irrational. To most, "irrational" is equivalent to being called: "dumb," "immature," etc., etc., all negative of course.

To be a rational person, is to be a "reasoning" person. The word rational is also the root of "rationale," the reasons or basis for behavior, beliefs, actions, etc., etc., as in "rationalization."

This is all having to do with how our minds work; how our minds work has to do with how much or little programming one has incorporated into how we think--our beliefs.

There are a number of ways we "think," or process information, if we think at all.

Empirical thinking. Empirical thinking is thinking originating or based on experience; "empiricism"--that all knowledge originates from experience--was attacked and debunked with the advent of "scientific" ways of gaining knowledge. At the forefront of these attacks are the professional "skeptics," who sneer at people who believe that what they personally experience has validity.

Scientific thinking. Scientific thinking is the system which replaced empiricism as a way of gaining knowledge. Scientific knowledge is gained primarily through experimentation with controls (that which is not influenced by the factor of what is being studied through experimentation). The scientific method involves the breaking down of everything into small aspects, and then studying the aspects. Rarely, if ever, is the "whole" of anything studied.

Currently, what is considered to be "scientific thinking" is simply referring to past scientific writings, as authority and fact, and newer researchers going on to extrapolate from them to new knowledge based on the old. In the last number of years a large amount of this former, "fundamental" research has been found to be pure fabrication and false. This information has not been widely dispersed, however. This is true of much evidence currently used to justify many drugs and products we ingest every day to our detriment. Many law suits have been brought recently against drug companies, in particular, because of bought-and-paid-for "scientific studies" by vested interests, which have resulted in many deaths.

Scientific thinking is the over-riding system that is taught in colleges and universities today. Hence, it is likely to be a major part of our programming if we have pursued any form of advanced education.

The basic underlying structure of science is reductionism; the believe that it is possible to come to an understanding of the whole of anything, by studying its parts. Studying "the whole of things" is left to philosophy and religion; both considered non-scientific and, by definition, not worthy of examination, i.e., not rational--irrational.

The advent of the science "ecology," in the late '50's challenged the fundamental principals of all sciences. I define "ecology" as "the relationship of everything to everything else." The formal definition leaves out humans as part of the equation; an impossibility.

There are other ways of thinking that go way back in time, which underpin how people think still today; one of these is "Aristotelian," another is "Logic," considered aspects of Philosophy. I will not go into these, at least in this blog.

There have been attempts to challenge these systems in my lifetime, such as General Semantics; a non-Aristotelian approach to understanding how people think, and the multiple errors in how people process incoming information. I studied this system in the 60's and credit it with helping me to examine how I, and others, process information, at that time, and I am still a supporter of it. Unfortunately, General Semantics seems to have been killed off in the late '60's. It did teach people how to think and process incoming information clearly, after all. A good enough reason to kill it off, in the minds of those who control what we think and believe.

There was a magazine based on General Semantics called, "Etc." You will recognize that I use, "etc., etc.," in this blog; it means that there are other examples, of whatever it follows, not given. In the General Semantics system of processing information it is a recognition that, "nothing is either/or; this or that, up or down, right or wrong, black or white--everything we experience comes in shades from one extreme to the other.

A recent attempt at bringing true rationality to thinking has been Ron Paul's "Critical Thinking" theories. Ron Paul teaches at Sonoma State, in Sonoma County, in California, (I'm not sure if he is still teaching, actually). His theory gained a large number of followers; I'm not sure about its current standing. I, personally, contacted Mr. Paul, at Sonoma State, and attended some of his classes and seminars. I became interested in his teachings, after hearing him speak to an audience of, mainly, teachers, and thought it would be something to pursue. Unfortunately, by experiencing his teachings first hand, I found that it incorporated several belief systems as "fact" and that one must accept these basic "facts" in order to think "rationally." I did not pursue this course of study, which I had already rearranged my life in order to do. (Bummer!)

Having done my best to uncover and inspect my beliefs, I subsequently developed a systems approach to understanding human thinking and behavior. Currently, my mind/thinking processes search what I am studying/reading for what the underlying beliefs are of whatever it is. I now do this automatically, and it is what I did listening to Ron Paul lecture on "critical thinking." Instead of viewing what comes in as un-disputable "facts," because the source is supposed to be an "authority" based upon an evidenced education or position in the world, I question all authority, no matter what it is, and hold nothing as "proven fact."

So ends my blog for today.

Shirley Gallup