Talk:Reflective thinking

Some interesting thoughts. and I see how you might relate them, but the linkage doesn't seem as clear in your writing.

Personally I can see two types of meta-cognition, Thoughts about thoughts, or Introspection, and Cognitive processes that control cognitive processes. Since my own work lies below the recognized level of thought, I tend to use the second definition more than the first. At this level, reflection has more to do with the ability of the brain to monitor and control its own processing mechanisms, than it does with introspection.--Graeme E. Smith 14:30, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

You might want to look at this, as an educational resource, Perhaps split some of the ideas here into separate pages or chapters, using a menu of subpages, or think about it more as a lesson based on a lesson plan. Also there are <ref> </ref> tags that allow you to imbed references without taking away from the narative of your work. You will need a <references/> tag to get them to place their contents at a suitable location in the article, but that brings together the references so that they can be looked at as a whole, while still allowing you to imbed a link to the reference in the area where its contents are logically placed in the narrative.--Graeme E. Smith 14:50, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

many thanks for that

In my terminology I am trying to avoid the use of meta of any sort. Thinking to me is limited to the effort to sort out your ideas or thoughts. It is the property of the disciplined mind as John Dewey calls it. It is a systematic mental procedure to allow you to trace your mental operations that need to be identified in lieu of ideas, thoughts and other nominal structures.

I want to identify the instructions rather than the data. The instructions that are operations to me as I have no idea of what goes on in the mind, consciously and more often than not unconsciously. I accept a simple model of a human psyche consisting of reason, emotion and will and I find that will is in charge, it is will that triggers an action, including mental operations. I admit, that you cannot really be in full control of what you think, but what you can do is to replay it in slow motion, provided that i supply you with the operations that you can immediately recognize and identify.

While we get the sensory input, we cannot produce a symmetric output with our body, despite the fact that we want an image, a picture to get a gist. All speakers try to put words together in a fashion that allows us to recreate a picture in the mind of the speaker. The picture that has been condensed, transformed and manipulated since the original input. The picture that we will never be able to replicate, but recreate from our own repository using the verbal clues and cues.

I have got the list of the mental operations and many more, and I am grateful for the hints on how to structure the materials.

Regards Genezistan 18:20, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

There are two slight problems I see with your idea of using a model of reason, emotion, and will, and that is, that there is no scientific basis for the assumption that the brain works in a manner similar to that suggested by the Greek Philosophers when they invented reason, and there is also reason to question the assumption of Will, as the primary motivating factor.

Quite simply, as far as psychology is concerned, these two terms are obsolete.

If you think about it a bit, you might realize that the reason that the Greek Philosophers invented Reason, was simply because, normal human cognition, is often irrational. They attempted to graft on a system of formalized reasoning, onto a much softer, and less rigid domain of operation.

Let us take a case, in point. We can predict a rational (Reasonable) solution for the marginal utility of a gamble. If we test the human brain however, we find that the output of the human brain does not follow this reasonable solution, but instead, follows an irrational pathway that results in quite a number of people being addicted to gambling.

To illustrate why will is no longer an acceptable model of motivation, we need to realize that according to Libett's work, which is admittedly controversial still, Volition cannot happen until 500 milliseconds after a stimulus is presented. This 500 milliseconds is not empty however, the MMN, and MMNn traces as discovered by EEG and MEG, seem to suggest that there might be epochs of attention during the 500 milliseconds, that are crucial to selection during a choice, and that choices are made by intentional processes that are previous to the 500 millisecond, and only the final decision is made via volition. Many stimuli drop out of the system long before the 500 milliseconds are up, suggesting that they are dealt with at lower levels of processing. If this is true, much of what we think is volition is probably intention, a lower level of processing that does not involve consciousness. This suggests that Will is an illusion brought about by reflective processes, that associate the decision with its Conscious image after the fact, rather than indicating a causal basis between will and decision.--Graeme E. Smith 21:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

That is a good point again. I find the Greek terminology obsolete myself. Another author has found that decisions are based on instinct or inspiration as they come just a little sooner than conscious decision. When I say Will is dominant, I mean in conflict situations in fight between reason and emotion in case of an impasse. But the issue is real and it is the issue of observation or rather the issue of defining borders and frontiers of an event. In my view this can be resolved by agreement, just as in the case of birth and death it is dealt with on consensus. Death is defined as the moment your brain is dead, when it is not supplied any more Oxygen. But for some more time it is till alive at enzyme level when the enzyme production finishes, then we are finished for good indeed. And you know the debate about the start of a life in the foetus, etc. I am sure that most decisions are made from the guts, and that is also where most of the serotonin is produced, not the brains. But that is another issue. I am ready to use any paradigm to start off my subject on the mental operations viewed post mortem, that is looking back at what may have taken place inferring from the output, mainly verbal though.

AI and formal logic cannot supply a definition for natural or informal logic so the term reasonable is not defined either. And the syllogisms and formal logic are a very poor device for describing human thinking or languages as I hope to demonstrate.

Thanks a lot Genezistan 07:14, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome, I personally think that instead of looking for logic, we should be studying satisfycing systems. An example is a system that preserves success rather than truth. As a mind experiment I developed a 3NT neuron (NT means Neuro-Transmitter) and was able to show how it,partially demorganized itself, and how it actually described a superset of logic that was variable across the interval between NAND and OR. Since then I have put more emphasis on soft computing than on logic, because logic turned out to be less expressive than my 3NT neuron.

Currently I am working with the constraints that Neural Networks place on the architecture of tissues in the brain, and the psychology of the resultant neural circuits as suggested by Architectonics studies. The results are encouraging.--Graeme E. Smith 15:03, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Check out some words for me please

In the above passage there are a few words that I do not understand, in addition to the main message, which is also a hard read for me.

See: satisfycing demorganized

If I understand you rightly, you are involved in identifying biological entities displaying properties that are interpreted in formal logic terms. One of my assumptions is that when we have an encounter with something for the first time, then we record the event or the input at at least two locations simultaneously with one location dedicated for a generic experience and another one for specifics. Whatever is in control of such an operation behaves like a wave, a phase shift and can switch between the two locations seeing the source either in generic or in specific terms.

In my Foundation Ontology Language set Objects, Properties and Relations are sufficient, and they are in fact the three aspects of the same thing. I can show you how an object is created as a result of mental operations, and I also believe that whatever you learn about something you see for the first time, will be automatically generalized. So when you next talk about the thing you will grammatically speak of your experience in plural (e.g. These Russians are nuts, etc. after seeing just one.)

Regards,

Genezistan 16:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Satisfycing, is a term that I think means having to do with satisfaction of requirements. An example of a satisfycing system, is a system like evolution where the mechanism of choice is the need to satisfy the survival test. Elements that satisfyce, continue on to become part of the genetics of the next generation. The study of Satisfycing Systems as opposed to truth preserving systems such as logic, is a Soft Computing discipline.

DeMorganizing is a term beloved by Computer Engineers, who love to be able to make OR gates act like AND gates and visa versa. DeMorgan's law states that Not A and Not B = Not(A OR B) By Partial Demorganization I suggest that the Wired-OR nature of the neuron can be turned into a NAND function allowing neurons with 3NT or more interfaces to do selective roles.

I am not sure how I should respond to your first statement about formal logic selection, I am not at all sure that is what I am doing. Especially since I make a case for not basing neural reasoning on logic. Perhaps this is a misunderstanding, or perhaps you are commenting on the way I am limiting the species I judge as conscious?

On the simultaneous storage of knowledge in two locations, My guess is that this is an illusion of the fact that the first storage mechanisms are all unconscious so that we do not become aware of the stimulus until it has been stored in a number of different locations in the brain. My memory model involves 10 stages of memory only the last two of which are available for evaluation consciously. I should warn you that, if my model is correct, the memory of a specific object is a middle function of memory, and is not available to the first level of storage.

Generalization is probably a function of the Associative areas of the cortex, which are thought by the followers of Hoefstadter to involve slippery connections that loosely link elements together, and then direct them into sub-nets associated with responses to questions such as what where, and maybe even when. This cannot be applied to an object before the object has been isolated, and so it is an even later stage in memory than the isolation of the specific object.

In a sense, resolution of objects, Properties and Relations takes up about 3 of the 10 stages in my memory model. There are a couple of stages that come before, and about 5 that come after, that are needed to make the memory architecture of the model to work in a similar manner to the brain.--Graeme E. Smith 22:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Introduction and Objectives

Perhaps this material can become more accessible and interesting if it begins with an introduction and a statement of learning objectives. What might a student learn by completing this course? How might a student benefit? What questions might be answered by this course? Thanks! --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 11:12, 9 April 2017 (UTC)