A Way of Thinking: Chewing on Questions

February 25, 2023 Michael Gray

Thinking can be pictured as an apple. In the previous blog and podcast I considered the core of thinking as analogous to the core of an apple. Like an apple core, it is invisible from the outside of the apple, but it contains the essence of the apple—its seeds.

The core of a way of thinking consists of point-of-view, motivation (what the thinking is trying to accomplish), and questions that can be answered from that perspective.

The actual answering of questions is accomplished in the flesh of the apple—the working layer. This layer consists of assumptions, fact base (information), and conceptual framework. Just as the flesh is the bulk of the apple, so the process of thinking is primarily the business of the working layer.

Assumptions and the fact base tend to be fairly static. Thinking is accountable to these two, but is not primarily driven by them. Thinking is concept formation and revision. Learning then is conceptual change, either in the patterns recorded in concepts or in the connections among the concepts.

Conceptualization is fundamental to good thinking and has been dealt with in several previous podcasts and blogs.

The following is an approximate transcript of the podcast “Chewing on Questions.”

On this season of podcasts, I’m taking apart thinking so that we can be intentional about improving it. In the last podcast I dealt with what I call the core of thinking. It consists of point-of-view, motivation (that is, what you’re trying to accomplish with your thinking) and questions appropriate to your viewpoint. Everything else about thinking proceeds from this core.

Keeping in mind the picture of an apple, people don’t give the core much, if any attention beyond making certain they don’t inadvertently bite into it. That’s also true of thinking and it’s most unfortunate. With point-of view and its twin enablers out of sight, individuals tend to think that they are experiencing 3-D reality rather than only a small slice of reality. Like the analogy of blind people perceiving different parts of an elephant such as the trunk, ears, legs, and tail, small solipsistic slices of any reality can badly misrepresent the nature of the beast. It’s only by operating from multiple viewpoints that we can come close to seeing reality.

Within a given point-of-view we do our actual thinking by attending to questions appropriate to that mindset. The pursuit of answers takes us into the working layer of thinking. In the apple analogy the working layer is the meat of the apple. Meat of the apple? Okay some call it the flesh of the apple, but that’s the same mixed metaphor. A botanist might call it the mesocarp, but that’s specialized jargon beyond most of us and not particularly helpful!

The bulk of the apple is this juicy, hopefully crunchy, portion. Likewise, the bulk of our thinking is orchestrated in this working layer and uses three elements to formulate logical propositions that answer questions. These three elements of thinking are assumptions, information, and a conceptual framework. I’ll deal with each of them in turn.

Assumptions are the things that we take for granted without proof. They often go unrecognized unless someone else challenges the assumptions we’re making. We would be more productive thinkers if we took the initiative and examined our own assumptions. Assumptions are presumed because reasoning needs to start somewhere, or it will never get started. An assumption may be a premise that cannot be proven. “Matter is eternal, it has always existed” is such an unproveable premise and is the starting point for many cosmologies including the Big Bang. It’s convenient, but conjectural to make such an assumption.

An assumption may be something from another domain of knowledge that my current perspective has borrowed on the presumption that the other domain can justify it. The kinetic theory of matter (that atoms and molecules are in constant motion) is integral to how chemists explain chemical reactions, but it is simply assumed by most biologists. Chemists, in fleshing out the kinetic theory of matter, appropriate from physics principles of motion although they recognize those principles don’t carry through to the atomic and subatomic scales and that’s where Quantum Theory rules. Additionally, most chemists simply assume the menagerie of subatomic particles that particle physics offers. Chemists primarily deal in the gain or loss of electrons because that explains most chemical reactions.

I recently read an article in which a leading physicist questioned whether fundamental particles (like protons, neutrons, and electrons) are really particles. He went on “… the basic building blocks of matter are quarks and leptons … In addition to the building blocks, there are force carriers — the photon, of the electromagnetic force; eight gluons, of the strong color force; the W and Z bosons, of the weak nuclear force, and the Higgs boson, which explains why some particles have mass.” Except for theoretical chemists, most of this is not part of the knowledge domain we call chemistry. The logic of chemistry doesn’t utilize most of this.

https://www.google.com/search?q=subatomic+particles&oq=subat&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i67i131i433j0i67l4j0i67i131i433j0i131i433i512j0i67l2.6592j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Physicists have long been on a quest for a Grand Unifying Theory that ties all of physics together. Some optimistic physicists even dream of a Theory of Everything. Branches of physics such as astrophysics veer from present-day astronomy into cosmology and from there into philosophy. The assumption that matter and energy (since they are interconvertible) are eternal comes from cosmology. Cosmology in turn assumes philosophy and philosophy makes assumptions about the ultimate nature of reality and its knowability (which is epistemology).

An unwillingness to examine assumptions that other disciplines deal with more directly is intellectually lazy at best and intellectually dishonest at the worst. An example of both is found in Richard Dawkins classic book, The Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins says on p. 15:

“I am a biologist. I take the facts of physics, . . . for granted. If physicists still don’t agree over whether those simple facts are yet understood, that is not my problem.”

Dawkins is a mechanist materialist, and the credibility of physics is foundational to that view. Physics inability to explain is very much Dawkins’ problem.

A second component of the working layer is information. By information I mean the fact base created through using the lens of the point-of-view on the questions it was created to answer. When I say facts, I mean something low level. This is stuff and most disciplines are full of them. I’m not against facts, indeed I will make the case that thinking in the working layer is accountable to a fact base. The ability to retrieve facts, however, is a far cry from thinking that can justify those facts and utilize them for a higher purpose. A growing fact base is what most academic disciplines aim for in college students. Facts accumulated in this manner have a nasty tendency to be forgotten almost as fast as they are added. Facts are volatile, because the fact base tends to be loaded through rote memorization.

I recently talked to a college student who recounted taking a fact recall final exam and admitted over Christmas break that he no longer remembered anything of consequence from that course though he had completed it less than three weeks prior and received an A on the final and an overall A in the course.

Many of the facts students are trying to accumulate were generated through exemplary expert thinking, but students haven’t learned that thinking. Instead, they are attempting to stockpile conclusions that they have never been taught to justify. Since knowledge is justifiable belief, an accumulation of inert facts is a store of information and not knowledge.

The difference between facts and knowledge is contextual. Economists prognosticate using factual inputs generated by others. These factual inputs include the Consumer Price Index, Gross Domestic Product, Consumer Confidence Index, Unemployment Rate, and many other metrics. There is a rationale by which each of these is calculated from data collected through government and private sources. That rationale is a way of thinking by accountants, statisticians, and others that transforms data into these indices. For these folks thinking produces knowledge and that knowledge is a product of their thinking. Economists, however, simply use these facts (which are subject to frequent revision) in the light of economic models and historical trends to make forecasts. Will there be a recession, or will there be a soft landing? It depends on which economist you believe, but all their forecasts are based on facts produced by others.

In medicine physicians accumulate information produced by others. These consist of vital signs, medical interviews, blood tests, urinalysis, etc. These are all produced by others through their discipline specific thinking and training, but they are received as factual items on the patient’s chart by the physician. Occasionally the factual items are not accurate. I recall an endocrinologist looking at test data for a family member and commenting that two different kinds of tests told a story that could not be accurate because it violated physiologic realities. He advised that a particular test be repeated at a different diagnostic company because he had experienced other questionable results on this test from the first company. The result from this repeat test ended up confirming the physiologic principles of endocrinology (no real surprise)!

The assumption that test results would be accurate was violated in this case. As a result of improperly performed test procedures the facts were not facts—they were in error. Assumptions should be justifiable and factual information is usually accurate. Assumptions and facts should harmonize with real thinking. The bulk of our thinking is the search for integrating present specifics with past patterns as well as the creation of new patterns and connections within our conceptual framework.

Learning is conceptual change! Change in connections and change in our concepts. Change is always hard—it requires effort and intellectual humility and yes, questions! Socrates is reputed to have said “the unexamined life is not worth living.” For Socrates an examined life consisted of asking penetrating questions and persisting until reason provided satisfying answers.

We have been formulating our conceptual frameworks since birth and possibly before. We do not approach any question as blank slates. We would certainly recognize the likelihood of flawed concept formation and linkage in young naïve children. The truth is that many of these misconceptions remain with us as adults who have not been asked the kind of questions that would unseat our erroneous categories and connections. Misconceptions that remain unchallenged have pernicious effects on our present and future conceptualization. They are like a moldy slice of bread that quickly produces a moldy loaf.

We tend to be much more likely to see misconceptions in the thinking of others than in our own thinking. Let me give you an example that you have probably heard and likely have accepted uncritically. Physicians who prescribe antibiotics for infections frequently say to a patient with an infection that is not responding to treatment, “I’m going to prescribe you a stronger antibiotic.” Stronger antibiotic is a misconception. Failure of the first antibiotic was not because it was weaker, but because it was not an appropriate prescription given the nature of the infectious agent. Antibiotics are not classified as strong or weak, but as effective or ineffective given the antimicrobial susceptibility and resistance profile of the infectious agent. Because physicians seldom bother (or sometimes are unable) to determine that profile in advance of prescribing, they do not have the necessary factual information to use it in their decision-making. A second facet of the “stronger antibiotic” mythology may be that the new antibiotic may be more unpleasant than the first. It may cause more side-effects, or it may need to be administered through an IV. These distasteful attributes are not evidence that an antibiotic is any more effective.

I dealt with conceptualization in three episodes last season (season 4). Those were episodes 6, 7, & 8. I also developed concept formation and connection in chapter 4 of my book, Unforgettable: Enabling Deep and Durable Learning. Because conceptualization is so strategically important to clear thinking, I suggest you avail yourself of these resources to dig deeper than we have time for today.

I do want to end this episode with the positive side of conceptualization and not the negative of misconceptions. Let’s consider the war in Ukraine as a short case study in concept formation and connection. I certainly recognize that the extent of U.S. involvement in the Ukraine war is a matter of significant disagreement. That is evidence of differences in the conceptual frameworks from which the various parties reason. Since the majority of the U.S. populace affirms the current position of providing support in the form of weaponry, ammunition, troop training, and military intelligence, but not U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine, let’s assume that position for the sake of time.

Concept formation is the result of perceiving patterns. Ukraine is an innocent party which was invaded by a hostile Russian force. Basic concepts of self-defense and just war would seem to apply here and there are many historical examples that parallel the Ukrainian struggle for self-determination. Should the U.S. be involved in any way or is this purely Ukraine’s problem? Most in the U.S. would say that to allow bullying on any level is unacceptable. Many would also say that allowing Russian hegemony to be unchallenged would set the stage for future incursions and destabilize the world. These are all concepts with a long history, and we are now connecting them to Ukraine. I would add that the success of the American Revolution was due in no small part to our alliance with France.

One seemingly newer debate is over “Putin’s red lines.” There has been much nail-biting regarding whether providing material support to Ukraine’s war effort would provoke Putin and lead to an escalation that would lead to Putin using tactical nuclear weapons and even pull the U.S. and/or NATO into direct war with Russia. To many with a knowledge of history this smacks of Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement when Germany was the aggressor and gobbled up Austria and the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia prior to the outbreak of WW 2. Nigel Gould-Davies argued in a recent article that “red lines are red herrings.” Gould-Davies defines the concept this way “A red line is a tripwire for escalation.” He goes on to invoke the implied consequence, “Russia’s red lines thus impose limits on Western actions.”

Gould-Davies points out three misunderstandings associated with the red line concept. The first is the implication that red lines are fixed matters of policy. As he says, “this is almost never the case.” One of his illustrations is President Obama’s declared red line on the use of chemical weapons in Syria which was crossed with almost no consequences. The second flaw in the red line concept is the focus on the consequences to the victim of escalation without considering the considerable costs to the aggressor. Escalation is dangerous for both parties, and this is undoubtedly why President Obama never invoked his threat of “enormous consequences” when Syria crossed his red line. The third flaw Gould Davies identifies is that “fear of escalation …encourages an escalation of bluff.” The aggressor threatens about more situations, not fewer. Having seen the benefits of red lines aggressors become more belligerent.

The war in Ukraine has seen the crossing of Putin’s red lines multiple times without military consequences and this has emboldened Ukraine’s supporters to provide more and better weapons including most recently tanks and armored vehicles from the U.S. and NATO countries. Will fighter jets be the next item on Ukraine’s wish list to be granted?

According to some generals and military observers the whole idea that Russia can attack Ukraine with impunity and then retreat to sanctuary in Russia and Belarus is madness. Wars are not conducted this way they argue. You don’t allow an enemy sanctuary.

These interconnected concepts of warfare have implications for Ukraine and its allies. In the next installment of this series on the way we think, I’ll consider the output layer of our thinking. Thinking is meant to answer questions. Answers consist of explanations and good explanations usually invoke cause and effect. Cause and effect relations are predictive and lead to near-term implications and long-term consequences. With this we come full circle to principles, the power tools of thinking (see episode 1 of this season).