Question6.com: We, The People are NOT HAPPY
11 - Human thinking is not enough
Thinking is, unfortunately,
the first thing that comes to mind!
Our body keeps us attached to the material world. It is a good place to start developing our thinking. It may not be a place to stay.
We pretend to dominate the universe with our intellect. That could be a bad case of the Dunning–Kruger effect.
People who know very little think that they are the experts. If we cannot control our thinking - Who does?
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our thinking. Thus, we are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall require a substantial new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.
-Albert Einstein
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena; it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”
– Nikola Tesla.
“The time has come to realize that supersensible knowledge has now to arise from the materialistic grave.”
Rudorl Steiner
Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.
-Shakespeare
Thinking is as natural to man as breathing, eating and moving. Thinking is what differentiates humans from animals. Whether we like it or not, we must think. Sometimes we even think about something we don’t like to think about.
There is something special about human thinking. When we make a mistake in our calculations, we must look for a 'thinking mistake' and correct it. This is thinking about our thinking.
Imagine a society completely dominated by logical thinking. If you make decisions that cannot be justified, you would be sent to a psychiatric hospital run by robots using AI. They would not call it ‘Artificial Intelligence’. They would just call it ‘Intelligence’. It would be a society doing many things without any feelings - such as atomic bombs.
If your parents treated you with ideas and no feeling, you would feel frustrated and rightly so. The child needs feelings more than ideas.
You may ask yourself: “What would give my children a better chance to be happy in life? Is it to be good at mathematics or to be a good dancer? Thinking can help you pass an exam but there is a lot more to learn. An education based on thinking alone would replace freedom with rules. You would suffocate.
If thinking cannot be left alone, what else do we need? Is it feelings? Intuition? increased consciousness? common sense? What do you think planet earth is using to keep all those plants growing and keep all those animals alive? Is it thinking? Instinct? Are we surrounded by the law of nature? In a conflict between ideas and feelings, chances are that the feelings will prevail.
Thinking feeds on facts. It uses logic to process information. Intuition feeds on emotions and our relationship with other people. A little love could solve many problems.
Intuition is the opposite of thinking. There is no reasoning. There is no need to assemble ideas together to go from A to B. Intuition is direct knowledge. You fly from A to B. You just KNOW that you are in danger or that somebody is not trustworthy. You KNOW that this car is going to change lanes. You KNOW that something is not safe. It is through intuition that we relate to our pets, to the forest, to the flowers, to the sunset, to music… It is also the most powerful way to relate to each other.
Thinking isolates. Intuition unites.
Not only is our intuition very limited but we discredit it. If a woman wants to justify buying a dress, she is not going to say: “I fell in love with that color”. She would rather say: “I have nothing to wear - It was on sale - It matches the color of my shoes…”. She knows that she needs an explanation that will be accepted, and intuition is not one of them.
Let’s keep thinking where it belongs. It is very well adapted to making a chain of ideas based on facts. Our thinking was born from our interactions with the material world. It started with our ancestors’ making tools. At that stage we were guided by the laws of nature. It was a safe place to start. As human thinking became more sophisticated, we distanced ourselves from nature.
Feelings come from a level above us. Chances are that they are more in 'alignment' with nature.
We need a mixture of thinking, common sense, intuition, ideas, instinct, hunch, presentiment. Could that be what we mean by ‘consciousness’. Could a level of increased consciousness replace the verification by experiments?