Useful Thinking
What are the useful, skillful or allowable types of thinking? We are reasoning from the relative world with Ego still operative. In absolute sense there might be the possibility of acting entirely spontaneous solely based on intution and intent.
- Questioning
- Answering (answer is received from memory or subconscious)
- Reminding (call of subconscious)
- Intuiting (listening to intuition)
- Deliberation considering the pros and cons of a certain course of action.
- Partitioning. Breaking down a complex problem into smaller parts. Problem solving preparation. The actual problem solving is still by intuition and insight.
- Planning. Imagining a future scenario and laying out steps to achieve that scenarion. It is a form of partitioning except that we actively imagine scenarios.
- Designing
- Contemplation. A combination of questioning and trying to answer the question. It is making things explicit. As if trying to convince somebody else. It is a way of arriving at sound knowledge.
In general with useful types of thinking you would create some document, that incrementally improves. This is because you cannot keep too many variables in your mind.
Not allowable: any thought that involves "I" or that is about "I". Any thoughts that ruminate the past. Any thought about others "Oh he is so and so". Any judging.
Perhaps we can compare useful thinking as a query and instruction language designed to bridge consciousness and mind. We could think of thinking also as the gate keeper to subconscious mind. Thinking takes place in consciousness that is for sure. But is also in language. Actually thinking is silent talk. Only if it is to a future self or to others it is useful. When we talk we think. Thinking therefore only seems to be for communication. The conclusion therefore seems that there is no useful thinking only useful communication
So the phrase 'thinking out loud' is sheer nonsense. Whenever we speak we are thinking out loud.
However, there is a value to making things explicit. But then again ideally you should write it down. So it turns out that language is not only a tool for communication, it is also a tool for creating knowledge. But then knowledge as we know it is actually the communication of knowledge it is a form of information, the knowledge is derived from the information. Making the knowledge explicit in language though is a litmus test of the correctness of knowledge. The knowledge is then reproducible. There is nothing wrong with knowledge it is very useful even though it is only an abstraction. A preoccupation with knowledge though cuts us off from reality. When we live in the abstraction we perceive the abstract object and we are not experiencing reality. Reality is consciousness, love, energy, intuition, intention all else is narrative. Experiencing reality is feeling. When we think we don't feel and when we feel we don't think. So education must be a balance of knowledge and experience.