March 2025
This is the second set of notes sent by my uncle on what is called thinking, which he said I could share. They deal with the ethereal aspect of thinking. There’s a link to the first set, on the physical process of thinking. Here, he examines the boxed-in thinking of science, Western misunderstandings on Chinese medicine, and whether or not Being and thinking are the same. It’s long, so grab a cup of coffee. What he writes is fascinating.
You can download a PDF version here.
Part 2
Bonn na Cnoc
Àird nam Murchan
March 2025
Dear Nephew,
A few weeks ago I sent you my research notes on the physical process of what is called thinking. Enclosed are my thoughts on the more challenging topic of thinking itself, on the ethereal process of thinking.
Please send me your thoughts!
* * *
2: Notes on the ethereal process of thinking.
Based on my research so far, it is clear that the physical aspects of what we call thinking are still poorly understood. It is also clear that what I have called the ethereal process of thinking has received very little serious analysis. What is it that calls on us to think? That is the question. What is this thing called thinking? Is what is called thinking the same as actual thinking?
The original word in Old English “thinken” has two meanings: “the appearance of (something)”, and “to exercise the faculty of reason, to cogitate”. It means “to say to one’s self mentally”.
Another meaning, “to seem”, has been absorbed or lost, but remains in the word methinks, “it seems to me”. Think and thank come from the same linguistic root in several European languages; German, Frisian, Saxon, Norse, English. To thank someone is to show you have thought about something they did.
What we call thinking cannot be traced from somewhere to somewhere else like a cart track. It is possible that the question on what is called thinking can never be definitively settled, now or ever.
Still, there is much that we can say about what thinking is, and is not. Thinking is not an accumulation of memories. Thinking is not simply the gathering of thoughts. Thinking does not exist in any single place. Thinking is a business of enigmatic solitude. We cannot enter someone else’s mind and have their thoughts. Their thoughts are theirs alone, which is why thinking is a lonely process for each of us. What each of us conceives and asserts is not the same, the thoughts are not identical. How they differ we do not know.
Differences in thinking create misunderstandings. Some thoughts are published or otherwise distributed, and these then occupy the minds of those who do not think. But a thought that takes occupation in another mind is not identical to the thought that was conceived.
A second point on which I am clear. We are in a world where there is a need for more thinking. There is not enough thinking, though this has always been so, since the beginning of time.
Still, today is different. The nuclear, technological era of turbo-capitalism, with widening political and social divisions calls for more thinking than before. A world of eight billion people calls for more thinking than before. While, in the past, humanity risked the collapse of the odd civilisation, today’s threats have the potential to impact everyone. The risks are existential. The future of our species, and most others is at stake. It is possible to make enormous errors within a few hours, or a few decades. The capacity for ill has been greatly augmented.
It seems to me that we can clearly say that there is not enough thinking on a large number of important issues: gender, immigration, democracy, freedom, international relations, weapons production, and many others. There is opinion but not thought. In many areas, thinking has become fossilised and unfocussed, so troubled and controversial that even to make this observation is to find oneself facing a populist wall of non-thought. Less controversial, perhaps, is thinking on climate change. It requires very little reflection to see there is not enough thinking on the topic of climate change.
You and I have talked about this many times.
Climate change can be addressed, as you have made clear. The rate of increase of warming can be reduced and brought under control. Societies need to stop burning fossil fuels. The concentration of dangerous gases in the atmosphere can be reduced, to cut global temperatures, and regain equilibrium. But societies don’t take the steps needed. They choose instead to fiddle around on the fringes, to create new business opportunities for electric cars, solar panels and windmills while all the time making the overall situation worse, and consciously. They know the consequences of what they are doing but they ignore them. The impact of climate change is visible and getting worse. Yet people do not change.
They are not thinking.
To any reasonable, thinking, person this makes no sense. It’s like a man who smokes 40 cigarettes a day developing lung cancer and deciding to smoke even more. I’m sure the majority of people in the world don’t want worsening climate change. Yet that is their destiny, and they know it.
The world is not thinking.
Let’s approach the question differently. Why do we think? Do we think because it is useful or because we have no option, because it is harder not to think? If we say it is useful, what do we mean? Does it serve a purpose? Do dead-ends exist in thought?
Thinking does not promote practical wisdom, nor solve cosmic riddles. There is nothing, no salvation to be found in thinking. It is simply something we are called to do. It is being human, and understanding where we belong, a search for truth, our individual attempts to reveal what is concealed. Trying to define thinking to someone is like trying to describe colours to a blind person.
Thinking requires each of us to ask questions about the world as we perceive it, but without any clear sense of the destination, of where this takes us or why. It is enough to be on the path. Thinking also requires listening, and a rigour and strictness. It requires thoughts that are not systematic or conceptual. It is a search for answers. A Japanese sword maker strives to understand the metal he works, tries to understand the effects of heat and time, the hidden riches of nature, and the strength of his whole craft. It is not business that draws him to his art but the chance of discovery. Thinking is much the same.
How to distinguish between chatter and reflection, between those with sightless eyes and noise-cluttered ears, and fat floppy tongues, who do not discriminate for the brutal contrasts in their reflections? How to open minds, not resist the unfamiliar, or that which is inconvenient or challenges us? To do that we must listen and understand before we dismiss, not dismiss before we understand. We must embrace misunderstanding.
Does thinking change over time, does it evolve? Do today’s Greeks think as the ancient Greeks? Do the Chinese think in the same way as their ancestors during the Sung Dynasty? Values have changed, and so has the language. But has thinking changed?
What provokes us to thought today? What do we call thought-provoking? The answer today is, I think, almost the same as it was for Heidegger a century ago. What provokes the most thought currently is everything that is dark, threatening and gloomy, all that is adverse. When we say that something is thought-provoking, we almost always mean something injurious, something negative.
Current thinking promotes every form of nothingness. It is nihilistic. People everywhere spend their days recording and tracking real or imagined decline. They spend their lives in fear, fretting about the threat of everything falling apart, worrying about war, and the imminent destruction of the world. Most so-called serious books, online posts, and news articles wallow in deterioration and depression while most others only offer trite empty-headed vacuity, bereft of intelligent thought. It is all so tiresome.
Why is there not enough thinking? Is it because what must be thought about turns people away, or because not enough people are able or willing to reach out to what must be thought?
Again, let’s ask Heidegger for inspiration, and examine what he calls the problem of one-track thinking.
One-track thinking has nothing to do with rails or technology. Nor has it grown out of human laziness. One-track thinking is an unsuspected and inconspicuous phenomenon, in which the essence of technology and technocracy takes the lead. What do I mean? I mean people hear the message about economic growth and market liberalism but not the one about nature. When it comes to serious issues, people think about one thing at a time. They don’t join them up. Almost all the problems of the world, from poverty to inequality, war and climate change, are all interconnected. They are all part of the same problem. They are the result of too many people living according to an economic system that is ecologically destructive by design, that calls every damaging consequence an “externality,” which it says should be ignored. That is precisely what modern economics says.
As you will see with my next set of notes, I have explored the way thinking is framed like this in much more depth, looking in more detail at that system of closed-minded thinking that is called economics.
The result of too little thinking is that the human world is not just out of kilter, it is tumbling towards useless oblivion. Nietzsche saw all this coming a century ago, of course. “The wasteland grows”, he said.
What does he mean, exactly?
According to Heidegger, he means “the devastation grows”. What is growing, what is surrounding us like a black cloud, darkening the light, is more than simple destruction. It is unthinking devastation that is growing. Devastation is more unearthly than destruction. Devastation doesn’t just threaten to sweep away all that has been achieved. It makes every recovery impossible. It blocks progress and prevents rebuilding. While destruction sweeps away even nothingness, devastation spreads everything that blocks and prevents.
The growing devastation can be mapped. It is palpable. Especially in the West, devastation haunts everyone everywhere in the most unearthly way. It stays hidden in the slow sinking sands, in the accelerating expulsion of thought people are forced to watch from the living room sofa.
People have lost their thinking in the constructed mire. No line of calculus or mathematics can express so many half-truths. People have sacrificed thinking to having views and opinions.
Having a view is not insignificant, of course. All our daily lives require it, and necessarily so.
But today’s views are dominated by notions of decline, and by those that glorify inhumanity, that anaesthetise sympathy. People have become accustomed to thinking only about themselves, seeing only false, ugly and horrible events around them, as if they live constantly in ghastly nightmares. There is not a trace of serenity and kindness in their eyes, not a hint of any gratitude for life, nor trust. The media continuously promotes jealous, conceited behaviour. It feeds negative and cynical perspectives, to mock others and encourage hatred. Why? Because the more provocative and controversial what is said, the better. The click-through revenue matters, not whether what’s said is balanced, uplifting or even reasonable. Creating an emotional response is key, and the seeds of negative emotions are so much easier to fertilise.
There is very little interest in thinking, in a thinking response.
People say anything, like neglected children. It makes the truth hard to identify. Opinions are polarised, binary, black and white, morally absolutist. Without grey, people are either horrified or numbed by the flood of dogmatic one-sided statements. All this divides. It makes consensus and cooperation harder, it creates barriers to harmony that have to be first overcome before any process can begin.
Another trend, just as concerning. The past is being erased. Academics are finding old papers are being deleted, historical data is being removed. So many of the research papers published are funded1 by those who want a particular view to prevail2, who want to undermine academic consensus, block political action, or suppress vital information, for example, even when it could save lives3.
If the results of academic research are expected to be unpopular, it is often not funded. The papers that are published, on plastic waste, vaccines, climate change, sensitive political issues, race, gender, and a hundred other topics that require our thinking are often biased. They undermine thought. Data on climate change has been erased4. Half of all medical trials are not published. Despite this being illegal in many countries, they remain hidden5.
Two examples to illustrate this, though there countless more:
A study by the University of Oxford of 65 drug trials sponsored by the makers of new drugs, found there were favourable conclusions in 79% of them. In 30 studies where the trial was not sponsored by a drug maker, only 10% reported favourable results. The researchers concluded “the main factor associated with the results and conclusions of industry-sponsored research… is research sponsorship.6”
A second study7 found that when the results of drug trials for antidepressants were positive, 97% of them were published. When the results were negative or questionable, only 8% were published accurately. Nearly a third were published with “narrative spin” while 61% were not published at all.
All this scientific erasing and funnelling is just one example of how thinking is being consciously constrained.
The media is restricting thinking too. Information is being suppressed when it doesn’t fit a particular narrative. During the Covid pandemic, Facebook labelled a peer-reviewed BMJ article as partly false just because “the authors did not express unreserved support for vaccination”. Instagram “shadow banned” another medical paper for false content, which Twitter wrongly tagged as misleading, even though it had won a major prize for good scientific communication8.
Social media has played a pivotal role in polarising thinking on climate change too, with a bias that one academic study said poses a serious challenge to society.9 Do you remember that shooting at the Comet Ping Pong10 pizza restaurant a few years ago? It was also caused by fake media posts, designed to stir trouble, intended to inspire unthinking violence.
Countless factually wrong statements are posted online every day, yet social media firms have stopped checking. Engineered photographs, data charts, and false quotes, all designed to provoke outrage, to test people. At the same time, genuine news reports are frequently dismissed as fake. All this means sowing seeds of doubt is easier. Those websites and self-righteous news organisations that publish “fact check” articles are some of the worst offenders here. They claim their version of the truth, when it is just another opinion.
Social media damages thinking in many other ways, of course, and it has been well documented. It reduces concentration, undermines reflection, cuts stored memory, changes perceptions of value, and reduces real-life interaction. All this influences thinking and the opportunity to think, mostly negatively. It’s creating mental health problems11 too, especially among young people.
All this is clever, as well as dystopian.
People’s opinions are being carefully reprogrammed, to make them angry, or act in particular ways, to control their thinking. I have a lot of research on this topic and will send you my notes separately. When thinking is manipulated deliberately it is often very hard to perceive because it is so enveloping, so all-encompassing. It becomes an interconnected system of thought, solitary confinement for the mind.
All the examples I’ve mentioned, the preference for provocative statements, the restrictions on scientific publishing, and the media’s manipulation of the truth, is blocking, limiting, and channelling thinking.
It makes it harder for people to find a positive pathway. I will come back to this shortly.
Of course, it has always been hard to identify the truth. Manipulation of reality has always been done to restrict thinking and close pathways. The difference now is that misinformation is more widespread and disparate. It is done by so many people and organisations, and for so many different reasons. Identifying the truth has become even harder, and that means it is harder to think. The Internet and social media, developments that were meant to set insight and information free, to release people from the shackles of untruth, has made the problem much worse.
“The time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself.”12
Especially in the West, thinking has been levelled and flattened, framed within one elevation. The majority view the world in a near-identical way, without a clear understanding that their overarching picture of reality is not the only view. Western media and education systems have built this unified way of thinking with care. The structure has architects, people who designed the frame and filled the spaces, who chose the colours. They constructed a way of thinking deliberately, so that everything in the West that is called progress has been carefully shaped to fit inside a box, everything is locked within a growth-focussed, science-based, free-market liberal, hatred of any alternative, there is no God, prison.
All is careful platitude.
This manufactured worldview, which I have called “the currency of thought”, has a pernicious history that goes back centuries. Boxed-in Western thinking has been through several major iterations. As I said, I will send my notes separately. They are full of startling thoughts.
* * *
A different way to think about thinking might be to consider what should not be called thinking.
What should not be called thinking?
Thinking is not simply having an opinion or a notion. It is not having an idea, or representation of something, or a perspective on a state of affairs. Thinking is not a chain of premises leading to a conclusion. Thinking is not conceptual or systematic. All these concepts are useful to understand thinking, but they are not what thinking is. Thinking is made harder to understand because so many preconceptions stand in the way. To learn thinking, is like learning a new language, Heidegger says. It is necessary to forget the one we already know.
In thinking about thinking, he says the process is too often equated with logic.13 Those who want to understand thinking, frequently try to define it scientifically. This leads to the notion that our behaviour, opinions, and actions are determined by some sequential process of thought, through logical steps that are taken inside our minds. It is the approach of the “rational conscience” I mentioned earlier, the approach of the rational being. It is Aristotle’s idea of the rational soul.
Heidegger says this approach to thinking is favoured for another reason. It is preferred because it yields an assured profit for those wanting to construct a technological universe.
If thinking can be explained by science, if it is something logical, then a computer can be taught to think. This makes it possible to create artificial intelligence. The flaw, of course, is that thinking requires consciousness, and scientists have no idea what that is, or how to define it.
This approach to understanding thinking, this assumption that thought is logical, that the mind is a machine, helps people believe technology can solve almost every problem. It reinforces a vital element of what is called modern thinking. It extracts one area of understanding, one way to see the world, and extrapolates it to encompass everything, to view the world through just one lens.
This mindset, this pathway to what is called thinking, has become deeply embedded, especially in the West. It is a pillar of what is called Western thought.
Because people see the world as rational, logical and scientific, because they think it is a machine that can be regulated, they think technologies developed by humans will fix problems like species loss and climate change. There is no need to constrain the rate of population growth, no need to abandon the focus on economic expansion, no need to limit personal freedom, no need to try and live in harmony with the world. Everything is a technological problem. Everything can be understood by science, by logic. Anything not yet understood should only be examined through this eyeglass. The world is a machine. Human beings are machines. Reality is scientific, rational. All is built on the notion of logical thought.
The world is not rational. Human behaviour is not rational. Thinking is not rational. Reality is not rational.
The science-based, logic-framed way to thinking, funnels understanding. It promotes the idea that human development is unidirectional, that humanity is on a steady upward path of discovery, invention and progress. Every technological development, every new product, every piece of research, is hailed as good and useful without much thought.
Such thinking can only bring disappointment. Reality will eventually be revealed.
Like economics, the thinking system of science has taken far too great a space in the modern Western mind, far more than it should. It is viewed as something of the highest order. It is ranked higher than traditional views that see science as just one aspect of human civilisation. It attempts to push almost all thinking through the same narrow tube of ideas, to force people to adopt one approach. It is like the thinking of the Church before the Enlightenment.
At its core, technology is anything but human and yet this thought pillar of modern existence underpins the structure of almost everything. It defines contemporary reality. It denies the existence of anything that cannot be understood through scientific thought. It disregards the notion of any higher consciousness, or any universal realm, because such an idea cannot be validated by the methods it prescribes, it demands.
Nature, the world around us, cannot be fully understood through science and technology, yet scientists expect us to think it can.
Richard Dawkins, that British arch-science proponent, the man for whom there is definitively no God, whose popular profile is built on statements designed to shock (your aunt laughs when I say this), has concerns about children reading fairy tales14. He worries the ideas they contain make it hard for them to develop a scientific mind.
To me, this is a perfect example of the closed-headedness of many scientists. He’s saying, in effect, that stories which encourage children to imagine, to wonder, to ask questions about reality and what’s possible, are not useful. Does he want scientists without creative abilities, without any understanding of allegory? Stories about magic, unreal worlds and other dimensions are surely what science needs. Is the ability to imagine not essential?
Let me put the question about scientific thinking another way. Does science help humanity move forward positively?
In some ways, the answer is obviously yes. Science could make it possible for people to live better lives, and work less. It can cure diseases and help people live longer.
But if the rewards of new technologies are unfairly distributed, so most people have to work just as much as they did before, or a new technology means there is not enough work for people to earn what they need to live, and medicines are being developed to help cure diseases that have been caused by other technical innovations, by chemically laden foods, in an effort to profit on both sides, or science is used to spy on people and make weapons, how does all this help humanity move forward positively? How does science help people live in peace, with respect for one another, with tolerance, and in harmony? Achieving peace has nothing to do with science or a laboratory. It has nothing to do with logic. It comes from thinking, from imagining how such a state can be achieved, in identifying the conditions necessary, and then working to create these. Technology doesn’t help.
Don’t we all have a yearning for bright, serene Gods, for optimism, for higher attainment, and sensible leaders to guide us? As we stare from the window, don’t we all dream about another more beautiful life, where there is no jealousy, where common sense and good order prevail, where people can trust one another, treat them with respect, with cheerfulness and consideration? Should life not be a pleasure, with the joy found in the simple living of it, as Tolstoy says? Can’t humanity be beneficial to nature, and honour the unity of all things? Don’t people benefit from understanding literature, music, and art? Doesn’t everyone dream of more than the plasticine imitation, laboratory manufactured, pale shadow of life that most people lead today?
So many live in gloom, in fear of poverty, sorrow and death, under the light of demons, and yet they still kill each other in droves. What mishap has caused such a life on this planet? It is all so ridiculous and foolish, so disturbing in a shameful way. It does not have to be like this. Humanity can choose something better, if we think.
* * *
Another good example of closed-minded thought in the West are perspectives on Chinese medicine.
Chinese medicine is largely dismissed in the West. It is not regarded as scientific, despite hundreds of millions of people trusting it every day, and their ancestors trusting it for centuries. If it didn’t work, the practitioners would have been dismissed as charlatans.
As you know, I’ve benefited from Chinese medicine myself many times.
Unlike in the West, where everyone is considered the same sort of machine, patients are treated as individuals. Doctors ask different questions, about heat and dampness. They assess the flow of energy through the body. They examine the tongue and take the pulse from both wrists, for they are not the same.
Of course, there are many conditions Chinese medicine can’t treat. But there are many it can, and often more effectively and less harmfully than Western medicine. Yet Western science denies the efficacy. It is another example of closed-minded thinking.
A personal example, you may recall. I suffered from high blood pressure a few years ago. After trying all sorts of medicines prescribed by Western doctors who took no interest in wanting to identify the cause of the problem, and having suffered from all sorts of unpleasant side effects from the tablets prescribed, I went to a Chinese doctor. Within weeks of taking her medicine things began to improve. The most shocking outcome though was when I went back to the Western doctor and told him I no longer needed his tablets. He measured my blood pressure, found it acceptable, and smiled. I mentioned I had been taking Chinese medicine but he never asked about it, not one question. His mind was closed, only interested in what his own science told him. He had no desire to know how another cure might work. I told two friends who are doctors about it too, and the same thing happened. They showed no interest in how the Chinese medicine had worked, or even asked what it was. It made me think. What are they training doctors to do these days? What are they training doctors to think?
The Chinese approach means people think differently. For example, there is a shortage of donated blood in China, and a large trade in illegal blood. Until 1998, so few people gave blood, they had to be paid15. Since then, in an effort to persuade people to donate, they are offered gifts, as well as several days off work, and a nutrition allowance. Donors get priority access to transfusions if they ever need one. Even so, donations are around a fifth of the level in the West.
This reluctance to give blood is not down to a fear of infection, a mistrust of doctors, or the inconvenience, though these factors do play a small role.
Traditional Chinese Medicine considers blood of vital importance to the body, and any sudden loss is thought harmful16. According to Confucian thinking, our physical existence, our bodies, including our blood, skin and hair, are granted by our parents. To love and protect the body is to love and respect one’s parents. Damaging the body, even by giving blood, can be viewed as an impiety. So people considering donating blood generally ask their parents’ permission, because it is their parents who gave them life.
Donating blood is thought to lead to reduced immunity and a loss of vitality, or yuán qì (元氣) in Chinese. In Japanese this is called genki (元気), health and energy.
The concept of yuán qì dates back more than 2,000 years. It is the essential life-energy, the constitution people are born with. It contains the vital potential in every person, that is gradually used up in the course of life. Yuán qì can be conserved but never replenished.
Blood is viewed as a yin substance (as opposed to a yang substance) that nourishes and moistens the body. It provides the foundation for consciousness. The Chinese say blood “houses the mind”. Healthy blood is vital to clear thinking, good memory, good mental health, and good sleep. Blood keeps the eyes moist and bright. For women, the reproductive cycle depends on healthy blood.
This thinking makes it is easy to understand why blood is not something people are willing to donate, even in a culture where benevolence, caring and helping others is important. When someone needs blood, it is often donated by their relatives.
The Japanese, and many others in Asia, believe a person’s blood defines their personality. In Japan this is called Ketsueki-gata. Even to Western science, this idea is not as strange as it might appear. Western science acknowledges different blood types have different characteristics.
Could blood types affect personality? Could they determine thinking?
People with blood type A are much less attractive to mosquitoes but they carry a higher risk of heart disease and a much hight risk of stomach cancer than blood types O and B. Type B has 50,000x more strains of friendly bacteria than types A and O. People with type O have a lower risk of pancreatic cancer and dying from malaria, though they are more likely to get ulcers, and have a higher risk of rupturing an Achilles tendon.
According to the Japanese, people with blood type A are creative, sensible and patient, but also stubborn and tense. Type B people are passionate, active and strong, though selfish, unforgiving, and erratic. AB people are controlled, rational, and adaptable but indecisive, forgetful, and irresponsible. Type O people are strong-willed, and intuitive but also cold and unpredictable.
Western science says this is all nonsense. It dismisses Chinese and Japanese ways of thinking about blood as superstition or pseudo-science. Yet hundreds of millions of people in Asia and other parts of the world disagree. Ironically, Aristotle and Hippocrates also believed there was a link between personality and blood17.
Because Western science defines the parameters of what is accepted as science itself, its thinking is tautological. To require or demand scientific proof of absolutely everything around us is to shut out almost everything that is not yet understood. A proof of everything is not just impossible. It is also unnecessary, inappropriate and undesirable. Many of the things that matter cannot be objectively, logically, explained.
Restricting thinking to what is called logical thinking, is not logical thinking.
Science also provides an excellent illustration of Heidegger’s notion of one-sided thinking. It explores elements, not the whole. It attempts to understand a period in time, without trying to understand history, because it cannot do so, scientifically. History cannot be understood though mathematics or logic, any more than a quadratic equation can explain our emotions.
There’s a short story by Hermann Hesse called A dream about the Gods. In it, a man approaches a large stone building full of light and finds it is The Temple of Knowledge. Inside the “Priests of Science” are talking to a large group of people. They are explaining how in the past people believed in Gods; in the Gods of War, Love, Thunder, and so on. Many in the audience laugh. Now, say the priests, thanks to science, people know better. Then the sky darkens and a cold wind blows. Lightening strikes and the people run from the temple in fear, trampling over the narrator. When he recovers, he staggers outside and finds the city in flames. The clouds above him slowly part and several great figures step forward into the world. It is the Gods who were banished by science.
Gods don’t have to be real to influence thought, to change how people see the world, or how they behave. An allegorical God has value too.
The beating heart of history, poetry, art, language, nature, human behaviour and God remain completely outside the realm of what is called science, far from its weak grasp, for it has no mechanism to approach them. These elements of existence lie at our core and yet science has no access to them because it is not thinking.
Scientists have cajoled, pushed, and shoved us all into a box of unitary thought. The sciences are necessary, but their limits need to be remembered. Our minds have views on everything. But when people are told to look at only one side of everything, and told to forget that it is only one side, they lose sight of the other sides. Truth is diminished.
* * *
Let’s ask the question another way: what causes thinking? Or does this take us back to the start? Is what is called thinking, what calls on us to think, the same as asking what causes us to think?
When it comes to thinking about thinking, Heidegger says we should take care not to form opinions too quickly, to pigeon-hole everything in a flash. We will “need bothersome detours and crutches” to understand, he says, and these will cause us to “run counter to what we expect”18. But then, if there is not enough thinking, running counter to what we expect is perhaps what is needed.
What if the pathway to understanding thinking is unpleasant, or it seems hopeless or superfluous? If we think it foolish to think about what is called thinking, is it better to remain outside? Perhaps. Thinking is not a universal requirement. It is not for everyone.
How much of what is called thinking is tied to what is called Being?
Immediately we run into a problem, certainly if we think about this word in English. In English, the meaning of being is relatively simple: “a living thing”. That is far short of what we mean. The German word, Dasein, is much more what we need.
Being is something that is conceivable, and so capable of existing. It is the essence of a thing. Being is that which constitutes existence. This is why I added a capital “B”. I want to show that I mean more than a living thing, a mere personality.
As I write in English, understanding of this idea probably needs further explanation. What do the Greeks say about Being? Can that improve our understanding of this concept? Parmenides says, “one should both say and think that Being is.”
Okay. But that’s simple. What else can be thought or said about Being? Only that “it is”. Being is. Saying “it is” tells us everything and nothing. It speaks nothing of the existence or essence of what we mean by Being.
What is this thing called Being? Is it thought?
Is Being thought? Is Being the answer to the central question we are trying to explore? Let’s be bold. Are thinking and Being the same thing? Is thinking the only concrete proof of our existence, the proof of our Being? Kant says Being is one of the most un-analysable of concepts. If this is true, and Being is thinking, then it must be equally difficult to analyse thinking. Understanding thinking would be an attempt to understand Being. The process “offers no way out”, said Aristotle.
Are we confusing Being with awareness? Descartes’ first principle was “I think therefore I am”. When he says “I am” does he mean Being? It doesn’t seem quite the same. “I think therefore I exist”. Is that what he means? Existing and thinking are not the same. “I think therefore I exist”. Is that what he means? A car exists, but it does not think.
The sentence could also be: “I am aware and therefore I exist”. I am aware that I exist. Is awareness the same as thinking? Pushkin is aware he exists. He understands pleasure and pain. He pats my face gently with his paw to wake me when he needs to go out during the night. The squirrels and birds in the garden are aware they exist. They know desire. They have memory. They make judgements and evaluations. The birds know when they are to be fed. They take turns at the feeder. They understand time, not sunlight. The days shorten and lengthen yet some come to feed at exactly the same time each day. The squirrels pause and consider before they leap, to raid the bird feeder. We move it. They recalculate. They make judgements. They learn what works and what doesn’t. Are they not thinking? Does this not show they are self-aware? Pushkin is most certainly self-aware!
I believe Heiddeger is slightly mistaken here. He says animals do not think because they never “confront” anything. He says this shows they do not perceive themselves; they do not perceive themselves because they cannot speak. Yet animals confront the world all the time. They confront a threat. They confront your aunt when she goes out to feed them. They get closer to her, as they become familiar with her. We must not assume these other creatures do not speak just because we do not understand their language. That is the one-sided thinking of science.
Is a tree aware it exists? Can it think? Is thinking a different level of consciousness from awareness? What did Descartes really want to say here? He writes of existence. Is awareness of our existence all we can be sure of? An imbecile can be aware of his existence. But does he think? Does he understand that everything around him is ambiguous?
* * *
What else can we ask, that might help us understand what is called thinking? What do we need to avoid?
And here we have an answer. If everything that is thought-provoking is calling us to think, let us not be the “last man”, says Nietzsche. Let us not be the generation that does not think, which is what he means, when there is so much that needs to be thought about. We seem to be in grave danger of not thinking enough, of making everything small.
“The earth has become smaller, and on it hops the last man who makes everything small.“19
Humanity does not seem able to rise up to the task. We have invented happiness say the last men, the ones who are not up to the task. People must learn to listen with their eyes. The world is becoming more thought-provoking and yet our nature is undetermined. Humans are told they are rational animals, trained to be rational. This is a misunderstanding. They are not yet brought to their full nature because they still think they are rational animals. We need to be carried beyond ourselves and yet we appear unwilling to despise what is so despicable, to overcome our current nature and find a bridge to our real nature, a better path.
This does not mean casting off into the ocean to make titanic rage the rule. We must learn to be, be rendered capable of Being, fitting servants of the earth. That will not come by wielding high purpose powers, and a technological transformation of the planet. That is not thinking. It will not come from an unbridled, degenerate imagination. It will not come by us pushing those who are shallow and misconceived into power, to be the top functionaries in government and international organisations. It will not come by us dreaming of a coming Superman who will lead humankind towards some paradise. All that takes us headlong into the void.
Humanity needs people of action, yes. But it first needs people of thought. Almost all of today’s public figures, almost all those who sit in the limelight, are about as far from Supermen and Superwomen as is humanly possible. I cannot identify any candidate to be one of Nietzsche’s “Supermen” in the West at all. What counts for action today, international gatherings and associations, conventions and agreements never gets beyond ideas, and proposals for what should be done. What is interesting, what needs thought, is too often reduced to the indifferent and boring.
So we hide the wasteland within. We let others think for us, and we let the rhythm of history decide our fate. Before the Enlightenment it was the Church that thought for us. Then it became science, politicians, the media. Now it is economics. They tell us what to think, what to believe, what to get angry about, what to celebrate. They tell us how to celebrate, how to weep, what to care about, an endless stream of empty thoughts fed to us, to keep us docile. It has become ever-simpler, all this coercing, coaxing and threatening.
At one time this perspective was not held; it is still not held elsewhere. Thinking was, and still can be, a pathway built on a moving ocean that is impossible to anticipate.
Can we find the path to thinking, even if we start from a great distance away? Is there some bright ray of hope that we can shine into that obfuscation which so depresses the world and that lighter-than-air nothingness that fills so many minds, by design? Can we gather thoughts that please us, that take us forward positively? Is there some way of thinking that does not oppress us, that can be dragged in by force?
How can we melt this frozen wasteland? What thoughts are there for joyful things, beauty, graciousness, and kindness? Are these ideas to be left to our individual feelings and experiences, blown from the winds of thought? What of the mysterious, and those things that offer real food for thought? Where are the ideas that offset this malice-soaked evil that is fed to us?
It is there, if we look, if we take a different route. We all know that. If we look in another way, just for a moment, in another direction, we can all see there is a different path ahead. This should be our highest concern. We must move ahead, and think freshly, but not dismiss so much of the past that we lose good thought.
Modern thinking dismisses the work of past thinkers too easily, those like Parmenides or Heraclitus. These men, and so many others, are not museum pieces of intellectual history, to be placed on display for scholarship, their thoughts forgotten. There is plenty good thought in human history that can be gathered and built on. The way that is left behind us, past thought, does not simply remain there. It builds onto the next step, and projects us forward. But we must take care not to let it lead us unthinkingly. We must take care not to adopt traditional thought just because it is traditional. That risks making us prisoners of a past destiny. Traditions are full of self-deceptions to entangle us and block thinking, that prevent us from hearing and seeing alternatives.
We must break free. We need to reject what has failed but also understand that a haughty contempt for all that is now, all that has been, will not help either. It will take more effort, more thought, if we are to escape the uniform one-sidedness.
Thinking about thinking today is to think about this process, to undertake a journey across an ever-changing landscape where it is impossible to take a firm hold, but where there can be hope if we seek it out. An adventure into the unknown, a search for the essence of truth, the essence of beauty, the essence of grace. We must turn away from melancholy and despair, stop drifting blindly. We need to shake the foundations of thinking until the last century becomes the tragic chapter in a poorly conceived story. This shaking of the foundations does not necessarily mean revolution and collapse, though it might. What’s needed is a new equilibrium, a position of rest that has not been achieved because that place is at the heart of the shock that lies ahead. Humanity lags curiously behind.
Humanity’s thinking, especially in the West, is falling far short of what is needed. It is not capable of wisely confronting the coming challenges, the historical shape of which we can already glimpse, that concern our fate on Earth. All those things that are undecided stand out clearly and even here, the danger is that there is no decision, that these matters which must be decided are pushed aside because those who claim to think about them are not thinking. Their thoughts are too narrow and faint-hearted, deprived as they are of consideration and proper reflection. We have mislaid the instinct to see this, to repair our thought.
One reason humanity lags behind is that our nature is still not fully developed, as I said. Our future is not assured because rationality still trumps sound thought. It trumps reason. There is unity in both, not in one alone. Reason says humanity needs to discard the boundless, purely quantitative striving for non-stop progress. Rationality says otherwise. It negates a quieter, more self-sacrificing way, where decisions are made carefully and speech is economical.
Today’s one-sided way of thinking is hard to change. This view, this blindness, that ignores reality and the essence of things, has puffed itself up to appear many-sided. It has been masked to appear harmless and neutral. This one-sided view, this flat, surface-deep, perspective that thinks it deals with everything, reduces all to the so-called precisions of the technological process by its uniformity and mindlessness.
Science no longer recognises sunrises and sunsets because it has unequivocally shown that they are an illusion of the senses. And yet we still await the rising of the sun with a quickening pulse and a sense of beauty in our hearts, even though we have experienced it hundreds of times before. It is that sense that needs to be recaptured, to lead us forward.
We need to listen more carefully, and hear the call to break free from the hand that has guided us.
* * *
My dear Nephew,
That is a heavy meal for you to digest. Let me know when you are ready for me to send you more. I don’t want to overwhelm you.
I am now researching the two other approaches to understanding thinking I mentioned: what I have called the currency of thinking, and how language impacts thought.
I am sending you what I have for now and will write again soon.
With love
Max
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2Reproducibility and Research Integrity, House of Commons Select Committee Report, May 2023 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmsctech/101/summary.html#
3https://catalogofbias.org/biases/industry-sponsorship-bias/
4https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-web-pages-erased-and-obscured-under-trump/
5https://senseaboutscience.org/alltrials/
6Catalogue of Bias Collaboration, Holman B, Bero L, & Mintzes B. Industry Sponsorship bias. Catalogue Of Bias 2019: https://catalogofbias.org/biases/industry-sponsorship-bias/
7Erick, H et al, (2008) Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy, New England Journal of Medicine Volume 358, No 3. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa065779
8https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o95
9Modgil S, Singh RK, Gupta S, Dennehy D. A Confirmation Bias View on Social Media Induced Polarisation During Covid-19. Inf Syst Front. 2021 Nov 20:1-25. doi: 10.1007/s10796-021-10222-9. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34840520; PMCID: PMC8604707.
10https://www.marubeni.com/en/research/potomac/backnumber/19.html
11Riehm KE, Feder KA, Tormohlen KN, et al. Associations Between Time Spent Using Social Media and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems Among US Youth. JAMA Psychiatry. 2019;76(12):1266–1273. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.2325
12Nietzsche, F, Thus spoke Zarathrustra
13Was heisst denken, Part 1, Lecture II, third page.
14https://theweek.com/uk-news/58836/richard-dawkins-fairy-tales-are-bad-for-children
15https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmrv.2016.11.001
16https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440231152404
17Høyersten, J. G. (1997). From Homer to Pinel: The concept of personality from antiquity until 1800 AD. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 51(5), 385–394. https://doi.org/10.3109/08039489709090734
18Was heisst denken, Part II, Lecture V, last paragraph.
19Nietzsche, F, Thus spoke Zarathrustra
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