Abstract

What is abstract thinking? Well you would think (in a very linear fashion) that abstract thinking would come out of an abstract brain, which has been described to me as non-linear and sometimes non-verbal and also something that I display in bucket loads.

Well most thinking is non-verbal except for the most plodding of the plodders who have to spell it out step by step. So I will pass over this one.

I found (through Google) that linear thinking is ‘a process of thought following known cycles or step-by-step progression where a response to a step must be elicited before another step is taken’. The Socratic method follows on from this.

I also found that non-linear thinking is ‘human thought characterized by expansion in multiple directions, rather than in one direction, and based on the concept that there are multiple starting points from which one can apply logic to a problem’. This means nothing to me (no joke intended) other than a restatement of the question. All this describes is the everyday set of complex problems that we face and the exact reason why linear thinking was invented; that is to have a uniform and agreed method of making decisions that can be effectively communicated between different people.

My view is that all people have non-linear thinking going on; this is because the brain is a huge non-linear computer. Dreams are a clear example of non-linear thinking that we all have.

I recently ran into a cousin of mine having a quiet smoke after a busy day – he was deep in contemplation, a form of less-conscious non-linear thinking, and when I interrupted him and asked what was on his mind he had already forgotten because he has no mechanism to link his ‘daily’ brain with the guts of his brain.

The difference between the majority and the minority (of people) is that the former do not have a conscious manifold connecting their everyday more-linear GUI brain to their non-linear core. Their loss.

The trick of course is to run both linear and non-linear processes simultaneously and have your own Rosetta Stone so that there is a very efficient and effective transfer of information between the two. I solve problems in both parts of my brains but it is far more effective to dress up the chook in linear feathers (i.e. pretend the thought came solely from linear thinking) before trying to flog it to the general public.

Except of course if you are an artiste. Then you can do what the hell you like and sometimes even pretend to have a linear part of your brain when, for example, discussing why a piece of art is a social commentary on some matter or other.

One problem with our education systems is that they almost entirely focus on teaching the ‘non-natural’ linear thinking approaches to such an extent that many people come out of school with a disregard for their non-linear functions. The non-linear part of the brain is not exercised or given nutrition and we end up with a bunch of people who make all their decisions with their linear GUI brain. Think of the single Sydney girls with their lists of things they want to have in a partner. The disconnection between the real non-linear core and the artificial (but very useful) linear GUI has to lead a bunch of the psychological issues that we see in society these days.

And after that little discourse on non-linear and abstract thinking and brains I suppose I can see why someone might think that my brain is abstract. Abstract not in it’s internal workings (but probably so) but in its appearance to others. I try to look linear (except in this ‘hidden’ blog where I couldn’t give a rat’s) but you can’t fool all the people.