Thought Processes
Learning and expanding how we think.
We make tens of thousands of decisions every single day. Past that, we think about these decisions, some causing us stress with multiple days of deliberation and others made waiting to order sushi.
As we make these decisions, we are informed by our thoughts, but how many of us understand how we think?
To truly understand and improve how we think, we need to answer some key questions.
How do we process information?
How do cognitive errors and emotions affect our thoughts?
How do we expand our thought processes?
How do we process information?
In the world around us, there is a constant information overload. In the past, it would take months, if not years, to communicate with other countries. Now it occurs instantly. We can see information from around the world with a few taps.
In this world, it has become increasingly important to filter and process information. It is no longer how much you know. The problem is how you use what you know. The role of a wiseman is relegated to academia and Google has become a source of truth for many.
People often have a rigid way of seeing the world. They have their understanding and that is their truth. This is their inherent mental model.
Mental Models
Our mental model is how we structure and organise information from the real world. Often based on past experiences, these models inform everything from our mood to our decisions.
Aside from inherent models, we can also learn more. This gives a new lens to see the world. A few common models are:
First Principles: Get to your basic assumptions, keep asking why
Occam’s Razor: The simpler explanation is likelier to be true
Hanlon’s Razor: We should not attribute to malice what is more easily explained by stupidity
You can find a more extensive list here.
These can impact our decisions by giving us frameworks to work with, and building a kit of frameworks can help us perform better in various situations.
While these mental models can be summed up in one line, our inherent mental model is formed from experiences over a lifetime. It is individual and complex, making it harder to identify and resolve errors.
This is why relying on a single mental model is not enough. Learning more models brings us closer to matching our perception of how things work to how they actually work. However this isn’t enough. We need to combine these models and move towards solution singularity.
Solution Singularity
A singularity is a point of convergence. A spacetime singularity is the convergence of matter. A solution singularity is when all mental models converge. You can think of this as having a roundtable. At the point where all of you agree with each other, you have approached a solution singularity. Sometimes, we don’t have the time to consult others and we need to make a decision fast. To do this, we’ll implement systems thinking.
Systems thinking is about learning ways of thinking to reflect a complex world. A world in which we are not the centre. Using this, we can map out complex systems, allowing us to understand them from various perspectives. To do this, we must look at an issue as a whole rather than splitting it down into its parts.
An easy guide to applying systems thinking is:
What are the distinctions I am making?
What are the salient parts?
Are there relationships among these parts?
What different perspectives can I take? ← This is where you apply your mental models.
Using systems thinking, we challenge our ideas and plans with many perspectives and models. We can refine our solutions and find obvious flaws ourselves. We need less time to deliberate with others and can be more effective in our thinking and decisions.
Learning new models can be helpful. However, to become better decision makers, we need to better understand ourselves and how we already think.
What affects our thoughts?
We all like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, however we are the opposite. We often make decisions irrationally and then find the evidence to support them. This irrationally stems from two key places, systematic deviations from logic (cognitive errors) and emotions.
Cognitive errors
Cognitive errors are systematic deviations from logic that result in imperfect decisions.
In the Art of Thinking Clearly, Rolf Dobelli defines systematic in the sense that: “these are not just occasional errors in judgment but rather routine mistakes, barriers to logic we stumble over time and again, repeating patterns through generations and through the centuries.”
In other words, cognitive errors are things we want to be true because they make the world easier to understand. A few ways they do this are:
Authority bias - We listen to a doctor over a stranger on the street.
Overconfidence bias - We drastically overestimate how likely we are to be correct.
Historical bias - The reasons for something occurring become evident after the fact.
Fun fact, historical bias plays into the adage, ‘Hindsight is 20/20’.
The field of decision theory is dedicated to uncovering these errors and any compiled list would prove in-exhaustive as new errors are consistently discovered.
These errors are difficult to notice by yourself. This is because cognitive errors are mental models, however rather than those we want to learn, they are ones we must notice, and possibly unlearn.
These biases often serve evolutionary roles, whether it be discovering who to trust, believing in ourselves or learning from our mistakes. At the same time, they impair our thinking and decision making.
The best way to notice this is by analysing your decisions. Don’t just look at the outcome (that would be outcome bias), instead, focus on the inputs, how you processed them and what you could have done differently.
When you do this, you may find that your decisions are often tainted by how you feel in the moment.
Emotionality
Advertising is the king of consumerism. It is the driver of needless purchasing and would not work without focusing on our emotionality.
“Rather than attempting to persuade us (via our rational, analytical minds), ads prey on our emotions. They work by creating positive associations between the advertised product and feelings like love, happiness, safety, and sexual confidence. These associations grow and deepen over time, making us feel favourably disposed toward the product and, ultimately, more likely to buy it.”
With this definition of advertising, it is clear that emotionality can heavily impair decision making. Kevin Simler argues against this, proposing that, “Once we see it — and know that all our peers have seen it too — it's in our rational self-interest to buy the advertised product.”
However, this doesn’t change that we associate emotions with these products. Advertising in Simler’s definition has no objective value, the value of products is subjective to the wider community. Instead of our personal emotions, we hypothesise the emotions of others and act in accordance with this.
In either definition, the process tends to be instinctual and can be negated by stepping back. Taking a breather and asking yourself why you need to purchase something can elucidate your motivations clearly. A similar practice can be used in all emotionally charged moments. If you’ve ever noticed a car salesman getting you excited before selling to you, it’s because you’re likelier to agree when experiencing positive emotion. The inverse is also true, how your partner will refuse everything when they’re mad.
While emotionality is often transitory, there is a specific emotion which can heavily impact our decision making. This is fear.
“So over you is the greatest enemy a man can have and that is fear. I know some of you are afraid to listen to the truth - you have been raised on fear and lies. But I am going to preach to you the truth until you are free of that fear…”
As Malcolm X said, fear is the enemy. It is an opaque glass distancing us from clear decisions. A few ways fear can impact your decision making are
Not asking that person out so you miss out on a life together
Not going against your friends so you never stick out
Not starting that business so you never pursue your dream
All of these are symptoms of fear, fear of the unknown, of being different, of the downside. Fear often shows through anxiety and overthinking. It prevents us from taking the path we truly want to take.
Those who are fearful are unsure of what they want. It can be because of what others think of them or how it might affect them. Either way, without defining what you want and taking steps to get there, you will be like a boat rowing through conflicting currents. You will be pulled everywhere until you are right back where you started.
“A distinguished commander without boldness is unthinkable. No man who is not… bold can play such a role, and therefore we consider this quality the first prerequisite of the great military leader.”
In the words of Carl bon Clausewitz, only those who are bold and able to overcome their fear can rise to lead in war. The same occurs in daily life. Those who are unable to overcome their fear fall victim to the tides of the world, while those who can recognise and combat their fear can make effective decisions and destroy all obstacles in their path.
While introspection can allow us to better understand how we think, we are still limited by a further factor, our forms of expression.
Expanding how we think
Think of yourself as a container. Each time you learn a new mental model, you add something to this container. Occam’s razor is a bottle of shaving cream. Hanlon’s razor is a pebble. First principles is a cube of wood. By learning new things we gradually fill this box. Although we can refine our models and select the perfect ones, the size of the box still limits us.
The box is a form of expression. By learning the limitations of language and looking at alternate forms of expression, we can both enlarge the box and construct entirely new ones.
Limitations of language
Language inherently limits how we can express ourselves, however, Orwell goes further.
“The English language becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”
This flywheel causes a decline in language and a decline in thinking, as we lose the ability to think as concretely.
“What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualising you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it.”
I am a victim of this, and if Orwell read this essay he would not be impressed. However, the principles that Orwell extolls prove immortal. It is important to let the word choose the meaning, however a decline in language means that our words become uglier. This degradation in words reduces our clarity and changes our expression, turning the concrete image into something abstract. As expressed by the Category Pirates:
“A demarcation point in language creates a demarcation point in thinking, which creates a demarcation point in action, which creates a demarcation point in outcome.”
To solve this, one must first expose themselves to articulate uses of the English language. I have made a small list below.
Politics and the English Language - George Orwell
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
Address at American University - JFK
Even through this exposure, we are still limited to English. To extend further we must learn alternate forms of expression. This will allow us to think and express ourselves in clearer ways.
Alternate types of expression
Have you ever felt like the words just aren’t right? A concrete image is becoming fuzzy? You might try drawing, however you can’t express the design that way either. This is because we are limited by our form of expression.
Even language, there is tone, body language, speed, and volume which all express information on top of the words spoken. In the written form, none of these exist.
Due to the inherent limits on a single language, and languages in general, it becomes necessary to learn alternate forms of expression.
A smaller alteration is learning different languages. A few roots which can be explored are Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan and Australian (the First Peoples’ languages). These expose you to varying structures and alter how you think about problems and how you express solutions.
Learning a variety of languages allows you to connect deeply with a wider range of people, exposing yourself to a variety of perspectives and learning about cultures around the world.
Going back to our analogy of the boxes, learning a new language is like making a new box, with research showing speaker’s personalities link to the language they’re speaking at that moment. It’s like the processing is done through a different container, and these can be swapped at will.
However, language is not the only way for people to express themselves. Movement, art, music, all of these are forms of expression. Being a skilled artist can allow you to transfer your vision to reality, you no longer need to search for the right words. Being skilled in movement will make every step intentional, no wasted energy and you can express yourself however you wish, whether it is hitting a dyno on a climbing wall, a backflip or even running up the stairs. Finally, music is the ultimate form of emotional expression. We don’t just look for technical ability. We look for emotion through rhythm, pitch, tempo, progressions and so much more.
My favourite definition of power is the ability to convert thought into reality. By improving how we express our thoughts, we are making ourselves more powerful.
Where to go from here
Our thoughts, our decisions, our communications. There is one thread which ties it all together. They are all affected by our methods of expression, and we must work to improve. Improving our mental models, our use of language and our alternate forms of expression. Only by doing this will we be able to effectively think, communicate and decide.
If I had to summarise this in one line, it would be as follows. Act with intent, without intent, there should be no action.
I’d like to end with a quote from Rick Rubin in The Creative Act.
“The objective is not to learn to mimic greatness, but to calibrate our internal meter for greatness. So we can better make the thousands of choices that might ultimately lead to our own great work.”