When to Think
Thoughts about Thought
I’m usually suspicious of people who tell other people how to think and what to think. But what about when?
Are there times when you should think? And other times when you should not?
I was curious, and so I thought about it.
To start with, what is thought, anyway?
Many people much smarter than me have defined thought and thinking. But I wanted to derive a definition for myself. So, I thought about thought.
We constantly experience things. The colour of the paint on paintings. The sound of cars outside. The smell and taste of coffee. The touch of computer keys as we type.
These are all experiences of things in the real world. colours, cards, coffee, and computers are all real.
But we are also capable of experiencing things that are not real. For example, I could imagine the following.
I’m painting a cubist painting in green, blue and yellow; while riding a mars rover; smelling the strange smell of the red soil of the Martian planet; while all the time feeling that strange itchy sensation of a new space suit.
I haven’t experienced this for real, and probably never will, but I can experience it, just as I can experience real things.
To me, this imaginary experiencing, is what thought is.
Sometimes thought is concrete, in that we experience concrete representations of things, like the concrete image of a cubist painting. Sometimes thought is abstract, in that we think “cubist painting” without actually visualizing one.
And so, now that we have some idea on what thought is, are we any closer to deciding on when it is best to think?
We can answer this question, by doing a simple empirical experiment.
- First, watch out for when you think
- Next, note down what you thought
- Finally, (and you need not do this immediately), note down if the thought was useful.
I’m not sure what your results were, but over 50% of my thoughts were completely useless. It was as if I was going on some errand, only to turn back halfway, because I’d realize that it wasn’t of any use.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are these “useless” thoughts beneficial exercise for the mind, or harmful overactivity?
I arrived at an answer somewhat indirectly.
“Running” the above experiment of “watching out for thoughts”, had an interesting side-effect. The more one watches out for thoughts, the less thoughts one seems to have. In fact, thoughts seem to be very shy creatures — if they suspect that one is on the lookout for them, they don’t come out to play.
And so, I wonder if the experiment is even accurate, because the act of measuring thought seems to affect the accuracy of the measurement.
But the experiment had a different, unexpected, and clearly beneficial effect.
I found that the more I ran the experiment, while I had fewer thoughts, I seemed to have better quality, more useful, even more creative thoughts. And I also found that the reduction in the quantity of thoughts made me calmer and more energized…
Sometimes we chase after the answer to one question and end up answering other questions. And sometimes these other answers are far more useful.
What do you think? Or not think?
⬛
