Structured Thinking
I feel like getting the gist of how people of different caliber actually range . And what’s caught my eye is pretty much unrelated to money and fame, which are traditionally used to label someone as elite.
Human thinking structuredness. My definition of it would be as follows. It is the ability to:
- reason clearly
- define concepts distinctly
- mark the concepts’ boundaries and interconnections accurately
- understand causality
- realize the core sense of things and phenomena.
The reasonings of a person with structured thinking appear attractive as they are. They are graceful and elegant. They seem interesting even to those of us who don’t have a clue about the matter that is being discussed by this individual. In that grace we can see the light of practical knowledge, which could be applied for everyone’s better living.
Here you go with a classic example. Imagine a small community, say, a village. And there lives a well-respected man. Every time people get stuck with a problem or cannot settle a dispute, they seek advice from this man. They hand themselves along with their problem to him and expect him to judge in a way that suits everyone.
For such an ability the villagers readily reward him with food, clothes and other amenities. Actually, this very ability to clarify matters for others is why he’s respected.
In the world of modern economy such people can get fairly paid for professional and general consulting. And for a good reason! Without a proper approach to problem solving, unfortunately, things aren’t get done. Work stalls, the situation gets off hand and then finally companies declare bankruptcy.
Well, I also see fit to turn around the definition. A man without structured thinking mixes up everything he experiences. Feelings, emotions, opinions, facts, guesses, impulses, imaginary consistencies, numbers and interpretations. This person has no clear concepts’ definitions. For this, he cannot operate concepts properly. He only relies on abstract emotional impressions of their names without looking for them in an explanatory dictionary.
In extreme cases he tends to jump to false conclusions and get false assumptions on other people’s behalf. Which leads to simplistic and twisted interpretations with wrong generalizations and all kinds of logical fallacies.
From the perspective of a machine learning engineer, such a person is much like a neural network that was trained on a poor data sample. The network has built absolutely random links between input and output data — and has no idea about their core. It’s complete madness to let such an ML model solve complex tasks.
I’ll stress this out again. Thoughts of such a person are mainly free associations. He cannot be sure, where they come from and how they come along, as all the process is just a random connection inside his neural network. He is fully unaware of its origins, properties and functionality.
Such a person can be easily manipulated. You just need to know his original data sample, and the ways of his associating and emotional response.
Unfortunately, we are all like that deep inside. But for a good reason. Unstructured thinking with free associations takes way less energy and gets processed much faster. It can get you out of danger. Even if you wrongly recognise something harmless as a danger, it’s better this way. Sometimes there’s just no room for thoughts. You either act immediately or get eaten.
It’s obvious now that structured thinking is not a permanent feature of an individual. It totally depends on the state and environment. Constant stress, deadlines, never-ending notifications, overflow of random info, panic — this troublesome stuff can automatically switch your brain to unstructured thinking mode. And that’s when you become controllable.
In knowledge work it is crucial to stay in structured mode, therefore adjust the environment and your mental state accordingly.
Bad news for those who are proud of hustling 16 hours a day and not having enough sleep: it’s just a matter of time before you switch into the unstructured mode and screw up. Trust me, I’ve been there =)
So, what should you do to not fall in the unstructured thinking state? The first tip would be the body awareness. It is how you recognize and differentiate all of your emotions and sensations accurately.
Particularly, you should be able to express your momentary feelings clearly. What’s more, you should know, which hormones and neuromediators are responsible for them, and what thoughts and actions they cause.
This gives you a chance to change your physical and mental state and have a better look at the situation. Then you can make a choice, which is not based on free associations, and resist the manipulation.
Generally, the easiest way to develop structured thinking is realizing and getting away from the instances of unstructured thinking.
At this point my brain is tired of the attempts of structured thinking. It only wants to eat something sweet and relax for half an hour. So I’ll call it a day. I feel though there are many more thoughts to be structurized.
Which means: to be continued.
