on "Ri-Bi Taijo-bon""The Truth of the universe, or the Reality of Dharma, is separate from all names, forms, and distinctions. Because of the fundamental activity of equality or oneness in Reality, everything returns to the Self, or One. This is called ri (separateness).
"This fundamental activity of equality in the Truth of the universe freely works and develops in infinitely different ways, in accordance with varied situations and circumstances of differentiation. This creatively free working is called bi (subtle, mysterious). Although it acts in infinitely varied situations of differentiation, yet it is fundamentally pure and undivided. Its working is therefore always creative, subtle, profound, mysterious, and knows no contradiction.
"The Truth of the universe, or the Reality of Dharma, once it is expressed in words becomes bi, that is, phenomena. If it is expressed by silence it comes under ri, which is fundamental equality, harmony; if you speak, you are committed to differentiation. Thus 'both speaking and silence are concerned with ri-bi relativity.'
"...If one speaks, (s/he) is concerned with bi and commits (oneself) to relativistic differentiation. If (s/he) remains silent, (s/he) is concerned with ri and commits (oneself) to relativistic equality. This contradiction can never be solved in our ordinary domain of intellect.
"... Great Tao, or Truth, is thus an absolutely contradictory fact. Contemporary Japanese philosophers explain it in such terms as: 'The philosophy of 'affirmation is at once negation,' or 'The self-identity of absolute contradiction,' or 'Oriental Nothingness.'" (Shibayma, 178)
| 10.0000 | Mind and Cognition |
|---|---|
| 10.0001 | By cognition we mean "the act or process of knowing including both awareness and judgment." (Woolf) |
| 10.0010 | We begin our discussion on the mind and cognition with the observation that mind enfolds with brain. We sense that our brain is not separate from our mind. We conclude from our observations that our mind, though, does not limit itself to our brain. |
| 10.0011 | We understand that the implicit order of things, which is everywhere, is the root or ground of both brain and mind. |
| 10.0012 | We detect that "what happens in our consciousness and what happens in nature are not fundamentally different in form. Therefore, thought and matter have a great similarity of order." (Briggs, 148) |
| 10.0013 | Likewise, do we realize that our consciousness is the expression of our self-monitoring capacity that we express through our central nervous system. (Laszlo, 98) |
| 10.0020 | We know that the root of our central nervous system is our brain. Unless otherwise noted, our discussion on the human brain reflects Buzan. |
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| 10.0100 | The Human Brain |
| 10.0110 | We begin our discussion on our brain with a tale of Einstein. One afternoon he was quietly daydreaming in an open meadow, resting his body gently against an apple tree. His eye caught a sunbeam refracting in the dust particles of that quiet afternoon. In his reverie, he entered the sunbeam and followed its path. He discovered that he went to places and did things that his knowledge of physics told him was not the case. But, he knew it was the case. He returned to his laboratory and created the mathematics (a subject the records show he failed in school) to show what he had experienced in his daydream. Thus, the inception of the theory of relativity. |
| 10.0111 | What this experience images is the reflecting capacity of our brain. |
| 10.0120 | For many centuries, just like we believed the world flat and it wasn't, we held the brain to be a two or three pound lump of gray matter. With the development of the microscope, we discovered that our brain has hundreds of thousands of intricate nerve and blood pathways. These pathways, we discover are octopus shaped brain cells we label neurons. On the tentacles of these neurons are little protuberances that connect with one another. |
| 10.0121 | These little protuberances connect by electro-chemical impulses that form patterns with each other and with groups of neurons. These connections we identify with intelligence. |
| 10.0130 | In addition, we have discovered that our brain has four major structural areas that we use to process various activities. |
| 10.0131 | In what we label the left hemisphere for right handed people, we locate our capacity for mathematics, language, logic, analysis, writing, and so forth. |
| 10.0132 | In what we label the right hemisphere for left handed people, we locate our capacity for imagination, color, music, rhythm, and daydreaming. |
| 10.0133 | In what we describe as the corrugated tissue surrounding the hemispheres, do we find our capacity for intellectual activities of rational consciousness. We label this "thinking cap" as the cerebral cortex. |
| 10.0134 | In what we describe as the lower brain, our old brain left over from our reptilian ancestry, do we locate our general housekeeping capacity. Here, we take care of temperature control, blood pressure, chemical balances, and certain data processing — all to maintain our general life support systems. |
| 10.0140 | We have control over these life support systems — we live them rather than they living us. We have demonstrations of our ability to self-regulate these capacities from several sources. |
| 10.0141 | In 1971 at the Menninger Foundation, Swami Rama under controlled experimental situations showed his control over his heart rate and blood pressures. |
| 10.0142 | In Australia, our brothers and sisters we call aboriginal will let their life support systems turn off one by one until they have committed self-induced execution for a severe crime upon the unanimous agreement of the assembled group. |
| 10.0143 | We know that our children can cause bloody noses, change their body temperature, induce vomiting, spasms, and rashes when they truly want to avoid doing something. |
| 10.0144 | Contrary to the myth that we loose our capacity for intelligence as we age, we have clinically found out that with appropriate brain stimulation we can grow more protuberances on our brain nerve endings, thereby enhancing (if not increasing) our intellectual capabilities. |
| 10.0150 | What we can conclude is that each of us is potentially an exceptional scientist and artist. If we find that we are lopsided either to the left or to the right, this is not do to an inherent disability, but because we have given one side of our brain more of an opportunity to develop than the other. |
| 10.1060 | We sense unity and integrity in nature, in its various systems. We wonder at the inherent unity of the universe (11.1000). We detect that our mind is no longer opposite matter. We sense, instead, that mind is our "quality of self-organization of the dynamic processes characterizing the (human) system and its relationship with the environment. |
| 10.1061 | Thus, we understand that we in mind "coordinate the space-time structure of matter." (14) |
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| 10.1000 | The Human Brain: A System Theory Viewpoint |
| 10.1100 | In our process of self-discovery, we find that our brain has three basic components. Each component has its own process of mentation. At this point, we need to begin thinking in a non-linear fashion and begin thinking in terms of a multi-dimensional hologram of brain/mind. We will be adding various levels from here on out to our brain-mind, all inter-phasing one with the other. The whole hologram is greater than any sum of the parts we include or do not include herein. So far, we have a general idea of a brain in four quadrants: right and life, upper and lower — and now, three components: |
| 10.1101 | The first component we label the reptilian brain, similar to the lower region of the brain discussed earlier. Here we store our Jungian archetypical figures and roles. |
| 10.1102 | The second component we label the limbic system. Here we make our emotional preferences, select and develop the various scenarios we want to bring into action. |
| 10.1103 | The third component we label the neocortex. Here we produce our various plays, tales, and novels according to our own individuality. |
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| 10.1200 | We operate through these components in a process of dynamic self-organization. |
| 10.1201 | We realize that our self-organization is immanent in our own process of organization and self-renewal as we interrelate within our environment. We are continually reorganizing as new structures enter and old structures leave the immediacy of the moment, including our own biological process of aging and body transformation. |
| 10.1202 | We accomplish this self-organization through our "triune brain." Our fully developed brain has these three components — or better yet, is these three components. We have, in each component, a distinct sense of space/time, intelligence, memory, motor, and other activities. We intentionally link them — one with the other and normally coordinate their activity. |
| 10.1203 | We take full responsibility for that we are — that we are a self-organizing system, whole and in part, interrelating within the cosmic dynamic of the integrity of the universe. To the extent that we fully take ownership of our being-in-the-world, that we produce what is and are not the victim of excuse, but its creator, do we responsibly show our integrity by mastering all our processes. |
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| 10.1300 | The Reptilian Brain |
| 10.1301 | We emerged our reptilian brain somewhere around 250 to 280 million years ago. |
| 10.1302 | We have discovered that through this brain we coordinate a very rich spectrum of behaviors. We give meaning to our territoriality, engage in ritual fighting and intimidations to establish our place in social hierarchies, and take care of social things such as greetings, ritual courtships, orderly migration and hording of material benefits. |
| 10.1310 | Thus, we can image the reptilian brain as the material system though which we manage the processes of what we label organismic mind. |
| 10.1311 | Through organismic mind we do not reflect. At best, we engage in pure self-expression or pure self-presentation. Our activity that we usually call spontaneous is not so much the automatic stimulus-response of genetically instructed behaviors, but more our expression of our whole being that we source partially through organismic mind. |
| 10.1312 | We assume our responsibility for our irresistible drives, impulses, and compulsive behaviors by taking direct control of our organismic functioning. |
| 10.1313 | By so doing do we also take responsibility for our genealogical heritage rooted in what we call Jungian images of species-consciousness and the collective unconsciousness. |
| 10.1320 | As a result, we take responsibility for our reluctance to cope with new situations because we have assumed responsibility that through our reptilian functioning, we do not have a good learning capacity. By so doing, do we free ourself from this limitation. |
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| 10.1400 | The Paleomammalian Brain or Limbic System |
| 10.1401 | Our paleomammalian brain we estimate to be 165 million years old. |
| 10.1402 | Through this brain we process our own internal information and information from the external world as well. Through this brain, then, do we establish the foundations of our personal identity. |
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| 10.1410 | Subsystems of the Limbic System: |
| 10.1411 | We process information in this system in three ways, the first being our sense of smell or olfactory system. |
| 10.1412 | Next, we process information through our oral and genital systems that we show in our feeding, pairing, and aggressive behaviors. |
| 10.1413 | Finally, we can also process information by circumventing our olfactory complex and focus our attention through our visual systems especially in our social and sexual behaviors. |
| 10.1413a | Thus, today, do we find that our socio-sexual frame of reference is primarily visual in nature and our need to look good. And thus, to the extent that we have taken responsibility for our need to look good do we avoid the illusions of looking good that blind us from seeing who we are being in so far as we are caught in the image we think we need to maintain of ourself in order to gain acceptance, succeed, and so forth. |
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| 10.1420 | Through our limbic system we process information so that we experience the information as feelings and emotions. We realize that our limbic system in itself is totally integrated. Through this system we discharge electrical and/or chemical impulses only within its own boundaries. This means, that we keep these impulses from having any influence on the neo-cortex of our brain. Thus, can we now understand those instances where we recognize our feelings and intellectual opinions are not in agreement. |
| 10.1421 | Through the limbic system we are capable of narrowing down the flexibility of our thinking by fixing our thought patterns to meet the strong convictions we might have made by assuming various perceptual fields. Also, it is through the limbic system, by perceptual choice, that we limit our thinking to as few as or as many tracks as possible. |
| 10.1422 | Finally, we begin any endorphenic activity through the limbic system — as well as any hallucinations or oceanic feelings, mystic rapture, or new space-time relations we may choose to experience. |
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| 10.1430 | Through the limbic system we engage what we label the reflexive mind. Through this mind we mirror our outer reality. We then rebuild this reflection in our inner world. "This mirror image does not simply enter from the outside, but emerges from exchange processes between a mosaic of sensory impressions and tentative models" which we project outward through our reflective mind. (163). |
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| 10.1440 | The most significant characteristic of our reflective mind is apperception. Through this process do we express our capability to form alternate models of reality — including the one we now have — whatever model that may be. As a result, we tend to make our model more real than reality itself. |
| 10.1441 | Being responsible, we can through the limbic system and the prism of reflective mind, emerge spontaneous and creative features such as an emphasis on certain forms and colors, and gestalts with which we can associate with other forms such as grand dragons in cloud formations. In the same moment, we can suppress other details that might disturb our primary model. |
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| 10.1450 | As we take more and more responsibility for our act of perception and the filters through which we choose to experience life, we begin to experience our influence upon animate life around us. We learn that no matter what we think is the case, we do create the environment by the perceptual fields we employ that we use to govern our functioning of our limbic system. |
| 10.1451 | Through the limbic system we do away with the pseudo-objective world. Once we have done this, we align our world consciously with our values. We are expressions of our more emotional nature. We give to the world another dimension, the dimension of compassion. With the dimension of compassion, we emerge a sense of autonomy that we demonstrate in our behavior by contributing actively in the design of our community — however we choose to perceive it and our position in it. |
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| 10.1500 | The Neomammalian Brain |
| 10.1501 | Our neomammalian brain is around 50 million years old. |
| 10.1502 | This brain is similar to a large neural screen on which we place the symbolic images of language and logic. It is through our use of this brain that we free ourself from the outer world. Thus, with this brain we engage in symbolic abstraction. |
| 10.1503 | With this brain we engage in a two-way process. Not only do we receive direct sensory input from the external phenomenal realm, but we also superimpose over it our own image or particular idea of reality. In such a way do we illuminate the phenomenal realm in the creative process of transformation. Thus, have we come from the cave to our present technological age while remaining essentially the same human composite. |
| 10.1504 | Thus, it is through this brain in the neo-cortex that we process information with our self-reflective mind. |
| 10.1510 | We actively design our model of our environment through our self-reflexive mind. We become involved in the creative interpretation of our environment, including the reality of our own self. |
| 10.1511 | We master our environment and all that it contains (including our own reality) by our expanding realization of its plasticity. |
| 10.1512 | In Goethe do we express the same fact of our reality:
I am awake, "Oh, let them reign, |
| 10.1520 | In this level of being, we make independent the processing and organization of information from our metabolic activity and direct sensory impact. Thus, do we experience not a "'we' who think, but 'it' thinks in us." |
| 10.1521 | We in mind become a creative factor not only in image forming, but in the active transformation of outer reality as well. |
| 10.1522 | Thus, do we rise from the pre-human human state and we "blossom fully in the human world." (164) |
| 10.1523 | With self-reflexive mind, we emerge a profound sense of anticipation. We continue to understand anticipation in its "passive sense of expectation and anticipated experience." A new sense, in the "active or creative (goal-setting) sense as (our) creative design of the future" merges with the reality of the former. |
| 10.1530 | In our self-reflective mentation, we make effective our experience of the past in the present, and of the future as well. |
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| 10.1600 | Thus, we envision ourself as being in the phenomenal realm that we have evolved to contain what we know as our human form. We, in our evolutionary process, structure this form with a four "chambered" brain. Our four "chambers" being right and left hemispheres, lower and upper. We function within and through our brain by self-organizing ourself in its evolved state. We sense our evolving self-organization in our reptilian, paleomammalian, and neomammalian brains. |
| 10.1601 | We note that we speak of brain only in the sense that we have evolved it to be the root of our central nervous system. In the phenomenal realm, we, as phenomenal reality, as nerve, as we proved in our neuro-physiological and socio-biological studies. |
| 10.1602 | We continue to self-organize ourself by processing information through our three states of mentation: 1) organismic, 2) reflective, and 3) self-reflexive mentations. |
| 10.1603 | We process our self-organization through cognition. |
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| 10.2000 | Human Cognition |
| 10.2001 | Our inquiry into how we process our awareness and come to judgments is three-fold.We will look at our thinking styles within the context of The Art of Thinking (Harrison, et al.). Second, we will inquire into what critical thinking is (Sternberg). Lastly, we will look at ourself in the act of thinking effectively. |
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| 10.2100 | Thinking Styles (Harrison) |
| 10.2101 | We can structure our thinking style into five modes. We find that each mode is complete and distinct in itself. We note here that as we investigate each of these modes, we may find ourself reflecting that "Ah, this one fits" and then may find we make a similar response to the next. |
| 10.2102 | As we evolve our responsibility for that we are, we know that each mode or style we make appropriate to meet the demands of a particular situation as we choose to perceive that situation. |
| 10.2103 | Likewise, if we find that we usually respond in only one or two modes, then we might reflect upon our own being-in-the-world critically (10.3000). We may conclude that we have caught ourself in a perceptual set or a particular set of perceptual sets that we use to let ourself remain irresponsible for the quality, quantity, and content of our experience creating the phenomenal realm. |
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| 10.2110 | Synthesist Mode |
| 10.2111 | In the synthesist mode, we draw together a conclusion from a field of opposing ideas. We might say that in this mode we engage in conflict resolution. |
| 10.2112 | We characterize ourself in this mode by watching for similarities in a perceptual field of seeming dissimilarity. Thus, do we structure our environment to evoke conflict in order to settle in a synthesis. We position ourself sensing a need for change. Thus, our general stance toward the phenomenal realm is one of speculation. Any data we generate we find is meaningless without some type of interpretation given to it. |
| 10.2113 | We sense our strengths in this process of synthesis by paying close attention to basic underlying assumptions we find in our phenomenal field. We communicate the abstract conceptual aspects we discover in the field. We realize that we excel at preventing too much agreement and in creating controversial, conflict-laden situations to make the changes we envision. We construct situations, therefore, that have much debate and open a clearing for creativity to emerge. |
| 10.2114 | On the other hand, we take responsibility for our tendency to ignore agreement when it is already present. We sense our tendency to encourage conflict when it is no longer necessary. Additionally, we recognize and deal with our propensity to demand change and newness when the field does not ask for it. We tone down our ever-present willingness to theorize. And we recognize that when we are in our synthesist mode, more often than not, we project an image of being uncommitted to the task at-hand. |
| 10.2115 | We structure our perceptual field from an integrative point of view. |
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| 10.2120 | The Idealist Mode |
| 10.2121 | When we process from the idealist mode, we draw our conclusions based on what we determine to be the total context of the situation. We find that we engage in harmonious resolution rather than conflict resolution. |
| 10.2122 | We characterize ourself as welcoming a wide range of differing views. We gravitate naturally to ideal solutions to the problems we create through our perceptual fields of the situation. We detect that we put our interest in the values we perceive inherent in the situation, which of course, we emanate from the perceptual field we generate. Our stance we make to be generally receptive of others and situations. And any data we generate we give equal value to in light of the theoretical view we create and maintain in reference to ourself and ourself in the situation. |
| 10.2123 | We recognize and take responsibility for our general strengths in this mode. We pay close attention to the process of human interaction. We bring to the group's attention values and even philosophical aspirations. We show an exact ability to articulate goals and in evoking a broad view with appropriate goals and standards of behavior. We find that we function optimally in this mode when we maintain a field that is unstructured and value-laden. |
| 10.2124 | On the other hand, we take responsibility to see that we do not ignore or screen out pertinent information. We watch our tendency to delay action because of the many choices we have generated. We curb our desire to elicit the "perfect" solution and we make sure we pay close attention to details. We take note of the fact that when we are processing from this mode more often than not, we project an image of being verily sentimental. |
| 10.2125 | We understand that in this idealist mode, we are maintaining a holistic or assimilative perceptual viewpoint. |
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| 10.2130 | The Pragmatist Mode |
| 10.2131 | In this mode, we draw conclusions based upon whatever we determine from our perceptual field will work, given the basic particulars of the situation as we view them. |
| 10.2132 | We characterize ourself determining a "whatever works" attitude. We design the situation so that we reach our payoff in the shortest possible route. Thus, we make lots of room for innovation. We realize that our general stance is adaptive to the situation and ourself in it. We gravitate toward any data, information, or theory that we determine will advance us to our goal. |
| 10.2133 | We take responsibility for the fact that our strength in this mode lies in our paying strict attention to the pay-off. We know that we do let emerge, recognize and point out the most effective tactics and strategies that will get us to our desired end. We are excellent at identifying impacts various courses of action will have on a given situation. We sense that we thrive in complex situations with incremental facets to them so that we can provide innovation through experimentation. |
| 10.2134 | On the other hand, we take responsibility for recognizing that we can tend to screen out the long-range aspects of the situation. Equally, we recognize that we can tend to want the payoff before it has incubated within the moment. We put the brakes on our tendency to be more expedient than the situation asks. We pay attention to our tendency to rely on what will generate the quickest turn over at the highest benefit. We take note that when we are processing in this mode more so than others, we project an image of being over compromising. |
| 10.2135 | In sum, in the pragmatist mode, we hold an eclectic viewpoint toward the phenomenal realm and the field we create. |
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| 10.2140 | The Analyst Mode |
| 10.2141 | In this mode we draw our conclusions on the basis of our break down of our situation into its component parts and then upon our definition of these parts. |
| 10.2142 | We characterize ourself in this mode by seeking out the best way to solve our problem we have created so that we can have something to solve. We concern ourself with various models and formulae that we apply to situations or we invent our own. We take a profound interest in what science has to offer in terms of coming to a reasoned conclusion. Our general stance is prescriptive. We give credence to the theory and the method over the data we may generate. |
| 10.2143 | We take responsibility for our strengths in this mode evidenced by our paying close attention to method and planning. We reflect the data and the details. We recognize that we excel at model building. We sense that we thrive in situations that are predictable and structured so that we can provide stability. |
| 10.2144 | On the other hand, we take responsibility for our tendency to screen out values and subjectivities. We check our propensity to over-plan and even over-analyze the situation. We check our need to have situations and people therein fit into predictable patterns. We pay attention to our urges to be inflexible and overly cautious, experience them, and let them go. We recognize that when we process more often than not from this mode that we project an image of being tunnel-visioned. |
| 10.2145 | In the analyst mode, we maintain a perceptual field we predicate upon the rules of formal logic and the principles of deduction. |
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| 10.2150 | The Realist Mode |
| 10.2151 | In the realist mode, we draw our conclusions based upon our sensed experience of the facts at hand as we choose to perceive ourself in an intrinsic aggregate of the phenomenal realm. |
| 10.2152 | We characterize ourself in this mode as depending upon the so-called facts of the situation and even upon the opinion of so-called experts. We find ourself in this mode with the attitude "What is, is." Our quest is to find solutions that meet current needs that we create in order to find the solutions. We want concrete results as well. Our general stance is corrective. We put any data we generate over any theory being that we like hard, cold facts rather than words. |
| 10.2153 | We take responsibility for our strengths that we demonstrate by paying close attention to facts and results that we choose to perceive inherent in the given phenomenal situation. We never shrink from identifying the realities of the situation and inherent resources therein — as we choose to create them according to our perceptual field. We recognize that we excel at simplifying matters and "cutting through" to the core of the issue. We sense that we function best in what we see as well-defined, objective situations so that we can provide the drive and momentum to keep things going. |
| 10.2154 | On the other hand, we take responsibility for our tendency to screen out any disagreement. We check our propensity to generate quickly over-simplified solutions to problems we create according to our perceptual field. We recognize we can tend to demand consensus and immediate responses. We check our tendency to emphasize the facts of the situation, forgetting that these facts are our own or even the groups'. (Remember, we believed that Earth was flat — a commonly accepted and unquestioned fact — for a long while and had to punish those who came to know otherwise.) When we engage in this mode too much, we tend to project an image that is results-oriented to the exclusion of other points of view. |
| 10.2155 | In the realist mode, we maintain an empirical viewpoint we base upon principles of induction. |
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| 10.2160 | Each of these styles or modes of being-in-the-world we can identify in our own being. As we mature in our human responsibility, we readily realize and sense that none of them are true — either literally or figuratively. |
| 10.2161 | We recognize that we process from a particular mode depending upon the perceptual filter we presently maintain. Any of these filters, we see, upon reflection, do not allow us to experience reality as it is. |
| 10.2162 | Using any of these modes in combination, whole or in part, we restrict our perception — and even now, we may be restricting our perception of our perception of this situation by thinking about these thoughts from any one of the above modes. |
| 10.2163 | In so far as we are so doing, we are not clear as to what is being communicated in that we are thinking in a particular way. The way we choose to perceive predicates how we think. How we think determines what we perceive. |
| 10.2164 | At this juncture, we move now into the realm of critical thinking. |
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| 10.3000 | Critical Thinking (Sternberg) |
| 10.3010 | When we look at ourself thinking critically, we can assume any one of three points of view for the sake of discussion. |
| 10.3011 | In the philosophical tradition we recognize our stated requirement for formal logical systems. Critical thinking systems we generate from this position we make competency based, stating what we can do when we think critically. Our systems are logically rigorous and internally consistent. |
| 10.3012 | In the psychological tradition we recognize that we think critically within limitations of the environment and our own person therein. The critical thinking systems we generate here we structure upon performance, what we actually do when we think critically. Our systems are externally consistent in regard to the behaviors our systems purport to describe. |
| 10.3013 | In the educational tradition we recognize that we need certain skills to solve problems. Our critical thinking systems in this domain are a mixture of competence and performance. Our systems in this domain are neither external nor internal as we have no tests to measure consistency. |
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| 10.3100 | Definition of Critical Thinking |
| 10.3101 | Critical thinking "comprises the mental processes, strategies, and representations (we) use to solve problems, make decisions, and learn new concepts." (46) |
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| 10.3200 | Critical Thinking: Internal Domain of Familiar Experience |
| 10.3210 | We think critically as a result of our interaction between our disposition toward critical thinking and our ability for critical thinking. Thus, are we present to our philosophical domain. |
| 10.3211 | Our dispositions include: |
| 10.3211a | 1) our willingness to seek a clear statement of the thesis or question. |
| 10.3211b | 2) our willingness to seek reasons. |
| 10.3211c | 3) our desire to be well informed. |
| 10.3211d | 4) our desire to remain relevant to the main point. |
| 10.3212 | Our prerequisite for critical thinking, then, is our own internal motivation or desire to think critically. We might say that this prerequisite we engender from our intentionality, our giving-meaning-to-(neutral)-reality. |
| 10.3220 | Our psychological domain of our internal experience involves three components. |
| 10.3221 | Our higher order executive processes we label as the metacomponents. Through these metacomponents we plan what we are going to do, monitor ourself while we are doing whatever we are doing, and evaluate what we have done after we have done it. These components include: |
| 10.3221a | 1) our recognition that a problem exists, |
| 10.3221b | 2) our definition of the nature of our problem, |
| 10.3221c | 3) our decision as to a set of steps to solve our problem, |
| 10.3221d | 4) our ordering of these steps into a coherent plan of action, |
| 10.3221e | 5) our structuring of a mental map for organizing our information, |
| 10.3221f | 6) our structuring of our time and resources for solving our problem, |
| 10.3221g | 7) our monitoring of our problem-solving solution, |
| 10.3221h | 8) our use of feedback to evaluate the effectiveness of our problem-solving strategy upon completion of the solution process set. |
| 10.32222 | Through our performance components we execute the process of our metacomponents and originate feedback to them. These are lower order, non-executive processes that vary with our domain of performance. Our performance components include: |
| 10.3222a | 1) inductive reasoning, |
| 10.3222b | 2) deductive reasoning, |
| 10.3222c | 3) spatial visualization, |
| 10.3222d | 4) reading. |
| 10.3233 | Our knowledge-acquisition components we use to learn concepts or procedures. We identify three such components: |
| 10.3233a | l) Selective encoding by which we screen relevant information from what we decide is irrelevant. |
| 10.3233b | 2) Selective combination by which we put together what we have decided is relevant information into a coherent and organized manner, |
| 10.3233c | 3) Selective comparison by which we relate old, previously known data to new, about-to-be-learned data. |
| 10.3234 | We understand that in the psychological domain, we have a problem only in reference to the fact that we construct our reality to contain a problem and thus our need for problem-solving strategies, and whatever emotional/feeling components we bring into the picture as a result. |
| 10.3230 | Lastly, in the educational domain of our internal experience we demonstrate our cognitive information processing abilities. We can structure our cognitive processing abilities (in ascending order) as: |
| 10.3231 | Knowledge acquisition, for which we would employ our knowledge-acquisition component of our psychological domain that we would put into operation as a result of our intentionality to do so in our philosophical domain. |
| 10.3232 | Comprehension wherein we go beyond the knowledge itself and engender an understanding of what we have come to know by filtering the knowledge through the performance components in our psychological domain as per our statement of intentionality in our philosophical domain. |
| 10.3233 | Application during which we prove our ability to apply what we have come to comprehend, again through interaction in our psychological domain based upon the metacomponents we have structured in our philosophical domain. |
| 10.3234 | Analysis during which we appraise critically what we comprehend and apply, again using our components as noted earlier in our philosophical and psychological domains. |
| 10.3235 | Synthesis by which we put together into a somewhat creative way the knowledge we have analyzed in our various domains and their components. |
| 10.3236 | Evaluation by which we structure a broad and critical appraisal of the knowledge we have analyzed and synthesized within the context of our philosophical intent and metacomponents and our psychological, performance components through which we process our knowledge or information. In this way do we realize the essence of our education, the drawing out of our own being information. |
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| 10.3300 | Critical Thinking: Domain of Unfamiliar Experience |
| 10.3310 | Philosophical Viewpoint |
| 10.3311 | In the philosophical view of our critical thinking, we must engage our self-reflexive mind in the upper region of our brain. We must think from within our neo-cortex. Here we can engage in dialogical thinking. By using this type of thought, we escape our egocentrism and narrowness of perception that we experience when we are thinking reflexively in our limbic system. In this view of critical thinking, we see situations and things from another's point of view, rather than just from our own. Eventually, we come to experience reality from the totality of viewpoints possible, species-wide, by maintaining neo-cortical activity that we intend to generate clear perceptual fields through clear filters. Thus, we come to engage in thought by no-thought. (11.000) Our cognitive structures are clear of the reflections of our own thought constructs. We can process information as it is and not as we think it ought, could, would, or should be. |
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| 10.3320 | Psychological Viewpoint |
| 10.3321 | To deal with novelty, new things in our experience (given the existence of a category of "new" that we maintain in our perceptual field), we must make-up rules as we move along into the unknown as we have structured our field to perceive the unknown as unknown. |
| 10.3322 | To accomplish this, we employ three kinds of insight, the knowledge-acquisition components of our psychological domain. (cf. ">10.3233a, b, c) |
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| 10.3330 | Educational Viewpoint |
| 10.3331 | From this viewpoint, we may want to generate in the earlier stages of our development our ability to discern both the familiar and the unfamiliar aspects of our problem in novel and potentially interesting ways. |
| 10.3332 | A standard way we can do this is to create the categories positive and negative, interesting and uninteresting. We then look at our problem and start listing characteristics of our problem in the categories we have created as we choose to perceive these characteristics. We often generate a novel solution by seeing in a clearer manner the aspects of the problem organized into a new field. |
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| 10.3400 | Critical Thinking: Domain of External World |
| 10.3401 | Critical thinking in this domain answers our questions "Critical thinking for what?" |
| 10.3410 | Philosophical Approach |
| 10.3411 | Philosophically, our intention is to provide an explicit model of how we bridge the gap we create between critical thinking skills and every day life. |
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| 10.3420 | Psychological Approach |
| 10.3421 | Psychologically, we want to solve our problems that we have created. So, we develop and design critical thinking techniques that we can apply immediately to our day-to-day living situations to solve problems. We, thereby, give ourself something to do, and thereby, we think, give some meaning and purpose to our existence that we think exists outside of ourself for the most part. |
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| 10.3430 | Educational Approach |
| 10.3431 | Educationally, we develop programs so that we can make a difference in the life of others — such as the Headstart Program. We assist others to learn how to take responsibility for their own integrity and move forward. |
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| 10.3500 | We have structured our experience of our being-in-the-world as a nerve that has as its core a four-part brain: right and left, upper and lower. Within these parts, we localize three distinct evolutionary brains: reptilian, limbic, and neo-cortex. We organize these brains' functions with three corresponding mentations: organismic, reflexive, and self-reflexive minds. We can use one or more of five thinking styles to process our organization. We mold our processing within three general domains: philosophical, psychological, educational within the context of our internal experience, external demands, and our encounter of what we experience as the unfamiliar. |
| 10.3501 | We now look at ourself being effective in our self-organinization, which implies effective thinking. |
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| 10.4000 | Effective Thinking |
| 10.4001 | By effective we mean "producing a decided, decisive or desired effect or result." (Woolf) |
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| 10.4010 | We continue to speak of thought, continuing to leave in being the category of thought without reducing it to the absurd (reducio ad absurdum, a logical process of taking a concept to its banal essence to have it in its pure form, thought/no-thought). |
| 10.4020 | Therefore, our discussion here leads to a dead-end or a cul-de-sac for we know that thought and its processes are our own creation. Thus, they do not exist except as mental fantasies we use to organize our being and being within the given self-created structures of our phenomenal reality. Thus, do we note the reality of no-thought that is before our fantasizing upon clear, absolute reality. |
| 10.4030 | Hence, we include this section (and for the most part, this handbook as a whole) in recognition of the reflexive nature we process and have not yet taken responsibility for and, thus, the need that we issue from this irresponsibility to engender a more integrated sense of integrity. |
| 10.4040 | (We recognize that we would not be giving meaning to these words now if we were functioning solely through our organismic mind. We would not have the mentality, will, or inclination to be so doing.) |
| 10.4050 | (We know we would not need to be giving meaning to these words now if we were functioning from the perfected state of complete self-reflexive, neo-cortical cranial activity as we would find this entire exercise redundant at best, and a waste of time at worst — for we know we are clear, open, perfection as we wont.) |
| 10.4060 | (Realize, please, if your response is to take offense of any kind to the above words, you are engaging in your reflexive mind, and thus, are these words addressed solely to you. You are to take responsibility for your reflection of your own present being-in-the-world you find imaged in these words and enhance your own integrity by taking responsibility for your reflexive mind — which you do by becoming self-reflexive. You accomplish this task by consciously opening-up the upper regions of your own neo-cortex and let yourself be self-reflexive in the same way you let your self enter sleep. Let it happen. Fiat lux. Et lux facta est. Let there be Light. And Light was made.)
10.3430 Educational Approach
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| 10.4100 | Cognition: System's View |
| 10.4110 | We experience cognition, our act of thinking, not as a linear process. We sense it to be a circular process between our own system and the environment, both with their sets and sub-sets. (Jantsch, 53) |
| 10.4111 | When we sense the complementarity of our structure and function and the structure and function of the environment and the function and structure of our being that lets both our self and environment complement each other as one, we understand process thinking. |
| 10.4112 | Thus, do we experience as a result from the interaction of the various processes in a specific dynamic regime well defined spatial structures. (Ibid., 41) |
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| 10.4200 | Cognition: Emotion |
| 10.4210 | We know from our research that before we can experience an emotion, we must have in place the corresponding cognitive structures that we can use to create meaning "out of the inherently meaningless, physiological, and situational information." |
| 10.4211 | Thus, we have no question that how we use our information we tie inherently to our cognitive processes. (Behrends, 35) We have seen earlier that our cognitive processes we create according to the structure we impose upon our act of cognition, which in turn we predicate upon the perceptual fields we create through our use of our perceptual filters. |
| 10.4220 | Thus, the more efficient our perceptual filters, the more efficient is our cognitive processing, and thus, in this instance, our emotional life or absence of it. |
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| 10.4300 | Cognition: Complexity |
| 10.4310 | We prove our relative efficiency in our use of our cognition by how we demonstrate our capacity to take-in social behavior in multi-dimensional ways. |
| 10.4320 | We find the traits of those of us who have integrated ourself in the cognitive domain, and by extension, in our other domains as well as follows: |
| 10.4321 | We make appropriate responses to the environment we are creating — not in our head, but as it is and we are — one within the same reality. |
| 10.4322 | We are seldom stereotypical in our attitudes, being open and fluid to see/perceive situations and people as they are rather than as we may tend to ideologically hold them to be. |
| 10.4323 | When we make judgments, they are not prejudiced, but are flexible coming from an open perception of others as they present themselves in the living process. |
| 10.4324 | We engage in thoroughly diverse behaviors — not caught in one particular way of doing or being-in-the-world that we ground in our natural, spontaneous commitment to be, rather than a contrived commitment to do. What we do emanates from who we are-in-the-world. We do not let our doing become our being. We are and in our being we do, and thus, our being is our doing. |
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| 10.4400 | Cognition: Characteristics of Effectiveness |
| 10.4410 | We show a very high tolerance for ambiguity. We find it very easy to depart from — even a great willingness to depart from — the literal aspects of a situation. We easily create alternative possibilities for what the situation might be. |
| 10.4420 | We find that we can cope with unstructured situations with ease and dexterity. We can do this because of our developed neo-cortical capacity to suspend conventional modes of thought at will if w happen to be using a conventional (or even unconventional) mode in the moment. In other words, we are free of our cognitive structures and can use them without them using us. |
| 10.4430 | We can maintain in our memory a mental image of our target stimulus easily in the face of competing, irrelevant information. We do this easily because we are present to the reality that we are what we are remembering. It is easy for us to separate out what we need not remember for we know we are that as well. |
| 10.4440 | We realize that we can use information in accordance with our task in the moment to the utmost and with the greatest of ease. We, in effect, become a full input sensory organism, penetrating the moment with knowing acumen. |
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| 10.4500 | Cognition: Degree of Efficiency (Ibid., 33) |
| 10.4510 | We generate a perfect yield of information in response to any cognitive task, given its degree of relevancy to our previously held experiences. |
| 10.4511 | Even when the cognitive task is formally out of our realm of previously held perceptual fields, we readily make enough associations and correlations to generate an isomorphic patterning to handle effectively the given task. |
| 10.4520 | We differentiate and integrate all information by processing it en masse, given the perfect integrity of our cognitive structuring generated by our perception emanating from the clarity of our clear perceptual filters. |
| 10.4530 | We understand and accept responsibility for our optimal human functioning from our integrity grounded in our vigorous differentiation and integration of meaning. We predicate this differentiation and integration on the primary metaprogram we generate from our specific act of intentionality to be present, penetrating and being the moment with knowing acumen. |
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| 10.4600 | Cognition: Systems View of Thinking (Fuller) |
| 10.4601 | Thus, we come to experience thinking, when we find it necessary to actively think rather than let thought be, to be a "putting-aside, rather than a putting-in, discipline." (237) We separate out from the field that we are what it is we actively process cognitively. |
| 10.4602 | We sense our thinking to be a "high frequency interception and very temporary diversion to a local holding pattern outside our consideration of all the irrelevant inbound feedback." (236) We prove our integrity by being the whole pattern, and thus the master of the pattern of thinking and of the pattern itself. |
| 10.4603 | We, then, take responsibility for our conscious awareness of the pattern that we are the pattern, the awareness, its content, and the cognitive structures we are employing in the process of self-organizing ourself within our own integrity being the moment. |
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White Robed Monks of St. Benedict