Dissatisfaction and thinking
What drives a person? To begin with, there is “something” within the person that drives the person to action. This “something” arises as a result of physiological and mental processes in the human body and/or is conditioned by the influence of the social environment. For example, we can get thirsty or have a desire to buy fancy jeans. Psychology introduces terms to designate what we just called “something”. The most common term is “human need” which is used in Maslow’s pyramid. However, more recent theories say that dissatisfaction or scarcity of something leads a person to action. We will predominantly rely on the term “dissatisfaction,” but we will also use the concepts of need, desire, etc. at the same time.
The human brain is a physical object; it exists in the real world and can be seen and even touched. Thinking, on the other hand, is a behavior or function of the brain that cannot be touched. The brain is physical, while thinking is abstract. Just as a car is physical and traveling is a function of the car, which is abstract. When talking about the brain and the automobile, we can discuss their structure and composition, but the behavior of objects is discussed in terms of functions. Therefore, it is important to separate in reasoning the concepts of brain and thinking, meaning the system (brain) and its function (thinking).
To eliminate dissatisfaction, a person thinks and then performs automatic or thoughtful actions. Automatic actions are reflexes, instincts, and habits, which, according to Kahneman, are performed by fast thinking. Thoughtful actions are performed after using slow thinking. We will call fast thinking — animal, instinctive, intuitive, and slow thinking — formal, rational, logical.
*Thinking Spectrum
Modern human beings are still hostage to reflexes and instincts that were formed in the days when our ancestors were walking in Africa, hunting, and gathering. However, the uniqueness of man lies in the speed of adjustment of the individual brain (its neural network), which adapts to the new world more rapidly than the brains of other animals. Infinite dissatisfaction is inherent in nature and it makes human beings “move the cogs in their brain”.
The human brain is the main enigma and object of research in the twenty-first century. The brain performs behavior/function, and the results of this brain function are thoughts and ideas, as well as subsequent human actions. Actions can easily be seen, and thoughts and ideas can be seen or heard if spoken or recorded on paper and computer. Then thoughts and ideas will manifest in the physical world in the form of a sound wave, text on paper, or on a computer. Therefore, the best thinking is “thinking by means of writing” (practicing thinking by writing). Then you can see your newly created thoughts and consciously work with them, including correcting and putting them into a consistent model. By thinking, a person literally physically grows new neural connections in the brain: he changes both his view of the world and habitual ways of making decisions.
Even though Mankind already knows a lot about the brain, there are still many things to be learned. For example, it is not known exactly which parts of the brain are responsible for learning new things and solving new problems. But such a part of the brain can be identified, and it is called intelligence.
What is intelligence
In different historical periods, human beings required certain life skills. In the era of hunting and gathering, in the agrarian period, or in the period of assembly-line production, different knowledge and technology were valued. Each era imposed its own requirements on the person who wanted to live an interesting life or at least to live comfortably. The material stratification of society created insurmountable class boundaries, but investments of time and money in a needed profession allowed people to at minimum not die of hunger, and at best (the importance of the profession or uniqueness of the skill) opened wide opportunities, which the majority did not have. Knowledge and mastered applied practices have always been in high esteem.
The modern world is unlike previous eras in that the speed of change has increased dramatically, and accordingly, it is impossible to be guided by the old principle of choosing a profession for life. Professional knowledge will not be able to guarantee a worthy mastery of life. The speed of change in the world opens up new opportunities to have an interesting life for a person in the 21st century, but this requires new development. Everything that helps a person’s thinking change more quickly comes to the forefront, and in particular, mastery of complex new tasks. If you are interested in everything new, and you want to develop endlessly, then your main goal is strengthening the intellect.
A person is a physical object, and life mastery is a person’s behavior in life. The brain is a physical object, and thinking is the brain function that forms thoughts that lead to action. The intellect is the physical part of the brain, and the function of the intellect is the thinking mastery, which is responsible for learning a new skill and a new level in the old skill.
Intelligence will help to deal with new challenges in the future that could bring mass robotization, qualitative life extension, and a change in moral standards. However, it will no longer be purely human intelligence or the intelligence of a single human being.
In modern civilization, it is impossible not to take advantage of progress in the form of technology. Human beings cannot rely solely on their brain. Many people cannot leave home without a smartphone, and computers are increasingly beginning to perform certain functions of the brain. For example, memory is not limited to the human brain. Much of a person’s memory has migrated to smartphones in the form of records of phone numbers, birthdays, photos, etc. Such technologies that carry out the function of the brain are called exocortex. The cortex is the natural human brain, and the exocortex is an extension of the brain to the outside world that enhances our natural brain. An individual person’s intelligence is part of their natural brain plus their exocortex.
We are specifically highlighting the part of the human brain that is responsible for solving new problems. We want to understand how to strengthen intelligence, as it is the magic wand for humans in a fast-paced world. Intelligence consists of an innate part, which evolution is responsible for developing, and an acquired part, which develops over the course of life. We need to know how to strengthen intelligence and how to do this constantly because intelligence gets old pretty quickly. An analogy here might be an old version of smartphone firmware, which becomes obsolete over time and cannot compete with the new features of competitors.
How to enhance intelligence
Human beings have always been interested in enhancing (strengthening) their thinking activity. People faced new challenges and those who could solve them survived. This is how the evolutionary development of intelligence took place. In the scientific community, it is believed that the most ancient parts of the brain, which our ancestors always had and which connect us to animals, are the first to develop in humans. This part of the brain is near the spine and is responsible for breathing, perception of the world through the senses, emotions, sex drive, pleasure, sleep, hunger, and thirst. The frontal lobe is at the front of the brain, and it is the youngest part of the brain. It was formed during evolution and thus paved the gap between humans and animals. The frontal lobe is believed to be responsible for thinking, and in every human it is the last to form, followed by slow thinking that balances and regulates the impulses that the animal brain generates.
The development of the frontal lobe occurs through learning. Starting in childhood a person solves feasible tasks and thus develops their intellect. However, intellectual skill is often confused with applied professional skill. Applied professional skill may be sufficient to solve problems in the professional sphere of activity. For example, a firefighter, faced with every new fire, usually solves a professional problem based on his applied skill. But if he starts building a swimming pool on his property, his intellect will most likely show up, which can help him solve the problem faster. If he does not have enough intellect, he will try to solve the new task mainly with the help of his applied skill, which in the end may let him down.
Tasks are solved by certain applied practices. The application of practices can be intuitive or out of habit, that is, without engaging the intellect. But sometimes professional experience is not enough, and one has to turn on the intellect and figure out complex activities. This is how intelligence develops, usually unconsciously. A person takes a complex professional path where they encounter complex tasks and successfully solve them. But this is quite a long and thorny path that can be taken by goal-oriented people with initially high mastery of concentration (self-collectedness mastery). An alternative would be the conscious development of intelligence. This path is unlikely to be easy, and it will also require a certain mastery of focus, but it may be quicker and easier to understand.
The conscious development of intelligence involves the following:
- The study of methodological transdisciplines. Aisystant offers a new list of state-of-the-art transdisciplines: systems thinking, ontology and communication, computational thinking, scientific thinking, praxiology (economics), and ethics;
- Development of a professional outlook;
- The implementation of work projects that utilize applied practices along with knowledge of transdisciplines and role mastery.
The development of the intellect is progressive through the accomplishment of feasible tasks. The human muscle develops under strain. Similarly, intelligence is enhanced by complexity. The first way to pump the intellect is to study complex transdisciplines which not only loads the brain with abstract concepts but also sets the skill for working with applied disciplines.
However, knowledge alone is not enough to develop an intellect capable of solving life’s problems. It is necessary to implement a working project at every moment of one’s life in order not to lose touch with the physical world. Knowledge must keep pace with practical implementation, the intellect is trained more quickly on the challenges of life, which are solved with the help of scientific theories. A work project can relate not only to work but also to personal self-development. For example, a swimmer’s or dancer’s practice.
Step-by-step development of intelligence is guaranteed if the difficulty of the task to be solved is just above the current mastery of life. If the task is too difficult, there may not be enough intrinsic motivation and external positive reinforcement, or in the extreme case there may be a fatal outcome. For example, skiing on black slopes without proper training is likely to result in injury, so it is necessary to put “skin in the game” properly.
In the end, another important function of intelligence must be highlighted. Intelligence allows the absorption of different disciplines and combines them with each other. This ability is called integrative complexity, where the intellect assembles different pictures of the world from disciplines and forms a transdiscipline. This ability is inherent in those who create new transdisciplines or disciplines, practices, and methods. But at the first stage one simply needs to know and begin to master modern transdisciplines and always be ready to see the new state-of-the-art transdisciplines.