How to Observe Thinking Itself?
Insight about thinking can only be obtained from its observation, which differs significantly from any other kind of experience.¹
For while the experience of ordinary phenomena begins immediately as soon as they enter the realm of one’s own consciousness, thinking about phenomena eludes the ordinary spectrum of observation.
A metaphorical comparison could be made, for example, with the use of a hammer, in that the hammering of a nail is completely in the foreground, while the movement of the arm — analogous to thinking — is not in the foreground at that moment and therefore remains in the background.
It is therefore in the nature of thinking that when observing something it is completely absorbed in it and cannot become aware of its own activity at the same time.
Attention is therefore always focused on what is entering one’s consciousness from outside, and not on what one is producing.
This fact that thinking so easily remains an unreflected element of the thinker may be one reason why epistemology has hardly any significance today in individual scientific disciplines such as medicine.
For this fact is often suppressed in the scientific community, in so far as one would have to ask oneself whether the way in which knowledge is gained is really critical and does not remain in a naive state.
The risk would be that it turns out to be a naive approach, i.e. that scientists cannot become aware of their own principles and are confronted with the fact that they may not be handling them correctly.
The beginning of any science must therefore inevitably be a science of knowledge, which investigates the process of knowledge with the same empirical method by which the natural sciences investigate other phenomena.
Specifically, it would therefore be advantageous if it were possible to place oneself in a kind of exceptional state — outside of one’s own thinking activity — in order to be able to observe oneself thinking about something at the same time.
For without being able to somehow separate one’s consciousness into two parts, it is impossible to think and observe oneself at the same time.
Active thinking, therefore, cannot be observed simultaneously, but only in retrospect, by making the experiences that have emerged from one’s own thinking activity the object of thinking.
Later thinking is, so to speak, reflexively directed towards an act of thinking that has already been carried out.
Even if the already completed thinking activity is now to some extent ‘dead’, it is still qualitatively the same as the active thinking that is directed towards it.
The activity (subject = thinking) and the object (object = thinking) are therefore one and the same and thus nothing remains unconsidered.
Everything takes place in the intimate realm of thinking.
When we observe thinking, therefore, we are not confronted with anything external, but only with our own inner activity, which can be seen through with all its laws.
Only thinking can therefore be said with absolute certainty to be produced by oneself, in contrast to all other contents of the world.
The famous philosopher Cartesius (1596–1650) may have been prompted by this fact to make the world-famous statement:
“I think, therefore I am.”
Thinking, therefore, enables man to create something that can only be recognised afterwards.
This is in complete contrast to the lawful nature that surrounds man.
In nature, man can only create something after he knows the necessary principles.
Without prior knowledge, only nature that does not yet exist, so to speak, could be created, i.e. in the manner of an act of creation.
It is the same with thinking: it must first be thought before it can be known.
Thinking therefore gives man a secure starting point from which to view the world.
For thinking is supported by nothing other than itself.
However, most philosophers would object to this conclusion on the grounds that consciousness precedes thought and must therefore be assumed to be the starting point.
But this objection is purely theoretical, or would only be relevant from the point of view of the creator.
For in order to arrive at knowledge about consciousness, thinking must necessarily be used and this cannot therefore be assumed without examination.
The introduction of the concept of ‘consciousness’ without the use of thinking is simply impossible, which is why research into thinking must inevitably begin first in order to grasp the world.
We must not make the mistake of rashly looking for explanations for the world without starting with the most immediate and closest thing to the human being: thinking.
As long as one is not aware of this, all assumptions about all possible areas of life and principles will be without solid ground.
Doubts about the correctness of thinking itself or the objection that the observed thinking is based on an illusion can be refuted in so far as thinking itself is simply a fact.
At most, it can be misapplied, as when one uses the wrong tool for a particular activity.
As far as thinking itself is concerned, however, an unbiased examination reveals that what it produces is based on nothing other than its own, fully comprehensible activity.
Everything that could otherwise be attributed to thinking already leaves the unprejudiced observation of thinking and is purely speculative in nature.
[1] As concluded in my previous article: https://medium.com/@HeimatloserM/greatest-prejudice-against-thinking-fb00ba0aad3d
Note: This text was originally written in German and translated into English using Deepl, because I am a native German speaker.
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