Collecting Veins of Thought

I think, in the reflective spiral that is getting to know ourselves and the world, it is well worth considering the qualitative aspects of our thinking. Being mindful about our thinking as well as the kind of patterns required for certain tasks is a underestimated, powerful thing.

I invite you to share your experiences of specific thinks that served as precedent, demanding of you a different modality in your thinking. For some they will be familiar but let's do a survey of "cognitive diversity" in the pool of intelligences at work and at play here.

I'll add a musing to the cauldron for us all:

I have attempted and once solved the Rubik's cube. I have never sought the formula or formulated procedure (not yet) to its resolution because that would be a very different puzzle. And when I have that I will not be able to engage this one, as described below.

The Rubik's cube is a simple example (even simple systems are capable of great complexity and meta-patterns) of a mutually interconnected system. You cannot move anything without moving something else. The first step to resolution, solvation (of the tangle), is to correct one side into a face of uniform colour. One does this by simply lining up the appropriate blocks, all other blocks are simply children of chaos and can be ignored. But from there the game changes radically. In order to do anything more than short, tentative forays and retreats one must disrupt the order you have so carefully put in place. It's like that fragile person stranded in a cave in a violent storm. They are safe in the cave but to truly reach safety they must re-enter the storm.

But it's more than that. One must destroy and create, in a single action. And this is important. One does not commit an act of creation/order which results in destruction/disorder. An act of changing is an act of both. I got to thinking how, if the causal road map of the machine is put aside, this requires a radical jump in how one thinks. One must encompass the multiplicity of any action in an interconnected system. One has to intend and plan parallel chains of causality. (And make no mistake, our world is a highly and subtly interconnected plethora of multiplicities. The butterfly effect is not for naught). To be clear: It is perfectly natural to do A to accomplish B. We can follow the chain of causal events from our intention to our action to our desire. However as soon as we do A we are also doing B and C, even if we aren't aware of such, which may be qualitatively and "directionally" distinctly different from A. A can will also have a ripple of end effects, which need to be considered in concert. And each effect is also a cause. While we may discretize each element in our minds there is in fact a continuity in concert. To think and plan thus would be greater, more whole and more mindful. I believe a great many mysteries would resolve themselves on their own behind such a lens on the world. Consider how often you say to yourself, I do A-B-C in order to accomplish X-Y-Z. Or even recognizing that this is part of a larger causality web saying, I do A-B-C to accomplish X-A-Z.

A lot of things in the world work like this. From economic systems to biological systems to social and political dynamics. Causality in systems is not always a chain of steps leading to an effect or outcome. Often causality in systems is mutually reflexive and looks more like a shift in the system as a whole even if certain components are more affected or instrumental. But how well is this reflected in the the way we think about such instances?