THINK AGAIN? MORE ON THINKING
HOW TO RETHINK DIFFERENTLY
“Progress is impossible without change; and those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw.
I have written about thinking in my previous Epistemology articles, in some detail, by raising the following important questions, and have tried to answer them:
- What is thinking?
- Why do all of us have to think?
- What is the purpose of thinking?
- How do we think?
- How many types of thinking are there?
- What kinds of neuro-chemical processes occur in the thinking brain?
In this article, I shall focus on a different aspect of thinking - how thinking again to correct your old thinking, but also to think differently, with a change of mind and change of personal cognitive biases.
I was inspired by Adam Grant’s recent book entitled Think Again. Adam Grant is teacher/professor, and organizational psychologist from renowned Wharton School of Business.
I think there is no better time than right now to think again, in order to understand why the devastating coronavirus pandemic ravages every country in the world differently? Why do the richest, most populous and able countries like the USA, Brazil and India are most devastated by the pandemic and have the highest mortality rates in the world?
Could it be because of their leadership? I really think so. It looks like these countries share leaders with the same mind, personality and behavioral characteristics: democratically elected, populist, charismatic, racist, right leaning, conservative, ego-centric, narcistic, demagogic, power hungry, anti – science, above the law, tribal or cultic type leadership. They are unable to change their mind, to acknowledge the facts, refuse to hear the sound of reasoning and science to follow, but easily believe in conspiracy theories.
One can’t help but to think and ask, “is our democracy starting to fail us, as dictatorial regimes wish and claim? Is election alone, can longer be considered a sign of democracy? How come these peoples with questionable moral and ethical characters could get elected to run such big countries?”
I don’t know the answers to these questions. All I can say is that President Trump lost his re-election attempt fair and square. It looks like the others would too. So, I am hopeful that these disturbing events are only temporary setbacks for our democracy. I am also hopeful that all freedom loving nations would keep their democracies and their treasured freedoms, without any concerns for the future.
To be able to think again and think differently to change one’s mind requires certain mental capacity, mental flexibility and mental fitness. The basis of these important mental qualities are to have a genetically acquired intelligence with high IQ and with high moral and ethical integrities.
Intelligence can be defined as the ability to think anew, to think critically, to learn from your mistakes and be able to change your mind, in critical circumstances and to face and solve emerging any new problems.
Yet, to be able to do all these things requires an additional set of cognitive skills, that is the ability to realize that your old knowledge, opinions, assumptions no longer serve you well, and to let them go. Think differently, you need to be able to unlearn your old knowledge, habits, skills and intuitions. Start paying attention to the facts and science. Know that facts would never go away by ignoring them. To be able to do all these changes should be considered a sign of required wisdom in a leader. A leader supposed to lead. He or she can lead us to glory, to nowhere or to disaster.
I strongly advise for those readers who want to master the art of thinking and rethinking, to own and carefully study the following two very helpful and important books:
1- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
2- Think Again by Adam Grant
