Ourcrazymodern?

Throughout life but in particular since encountering the Tilted Forum recently I've been wondering about how people think. Can we have concensus when we all think differently? This is possibly an inadequate & (too) wide-ranging a question for tilted philosphy but I'm "STILL wondering" why we can't all just get along, because I think it's just us here...apologies to Pink Floyd.

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Wilkerson

Yes. Yes we can.

Gilda

Most people don't think enough. A great many people operate at a level not much above instinct, never thinking through the long term consequences of their decisions and actions and words, consequences that effect both themselves and others. If people thought more, we'd have a lot fewer kids dying from binge drinking and a drastic decrease in driving fatalities, particularly those related to drunk driving. We'd have a lot less intolerance for those who are different from us. We'd have fewer people getting in problems with debt from credit cards and overspending on luxuries. We'd have less of a culture of competition where sporting programs at many schools are more highly valued than academics and looking better than and having more than others is how we value our worth as people.

People don't think enough.

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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

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Willravel

I think that 'thinking' is a very broad term. Thinking before one acts is different than pondering the meaning of life, for example. Do you mean the amount of though or the type of thought processes?

Jinn

Couldn't say it better myself.

People DEFINITELY don't think enough. Proof enough is that I hear "I'm sorry" and "I don't know why I did that" WAAAAAAAAYYYYYY more than "I'm overthinking this." I'd rather the person think about it next time than apologize.

I'd rather be hearing "I'm overthinking things" - it would be a sign that SOME thought was happening, at least.

And on a side note, there is a lot of credible research (which I just started reading) showing that people actually think at different speeds. And the latest Uni study showed that happier people think "faster" than depressed people. Correlation or not, it's interesting.

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

dcloues

Generally speaking, we don't think enough. But there's a lot more to it than that. I don't mean to say that we should all sit around and think our ways through life - we'd all be pretty thoroughly miserable if there were nothing more to life than thought. Like Gilda said, there would have a lot less credit card debt if people would just stop for a moment and think before each impulse buy. But, at the same time, it's beneficial to avoid spending hours on every little question that confronts us. We're great at making fast decisions precisely because we don't think about it very much. It would be impractical to spend five minutes comparing every possible brand choice when you go grocery shopping, for example-you'd spend hours at the store. So, more important than active thinking is, I think, more intelligent conditioning, and more thoughtful reflection after the fact in order to change the result of the next thoughtless decision. I'd argue that good drivers don't work any harder at it than bad drivers - they just developed different/better habits. I don't have to think hard about drinking responsibly, because I developed safe habits. When you get good at a game such as chess or backgammon, you spend less and less time consciously thinking through moves - you just know the good ones. And so on.

Unfortunately, most of our habits are pretty strongly trained into us, and on larger scales (national, international) there's a combination of things preventing speedy progress: we have exceedingly bad habits to begin with (we resort to hatred and war far too quickly) and those habits take an exceedingly long time to change.

Gilda

You seem to agree with me, but I disagree a bit with your application there. Apologizing when one has done wrong and realized it afterwards is just basic courtesy, something we have far too little of.

I'd rather the person apologize and think about things the next time.

I'd also disagree regarding grocery shopping. Most people should take more time to consider costs, nutritional content, and so forth. A little effort up front tends to pay off in terms of health benefits later on.

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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

dcloues

That's true. I didn't pick the greatest example. With regards to grocery shopping, a lot of those things are decisions that need to be made only once. If I need to buy X product that I'm not particularly familiar with, I'll spend a little time deliberating the choices. I'd even say that the time needed to compare nutrition facts and cost isn't much more than the time needed to compare the flashy labels on the front, but it is certainly a more thought-intensive process. Once I've picked, unless something significant changes (a new brand comes onto the market, my choice goes away for some reason), it's a decision I only need to make once: after that, it's as simple as walking up to the shelf and grabbing that specific item.

Gilda

Sure, but it's a case of thinking more than necessary that is essentially harmless, while not enough can cause problems.

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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Ourcrazymodern?

What excellent, thoughtful observations, everybody!
Will - by thinking I meant anything that might be thought to comprize it, including the thinking we sometimes do without being aware of it, leading to flashes of insight, maybe to "instinctive" reactions, to great kindness or unfortunately its opposite. IMO, many people don't think enough most of the
time, but obviously that's not so here at the TFP!
JinnKai, can you point me towards the research you mentioned?
My thanks to all.

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Lizra

I think people might think about themselves too much...sometimes getting rather neurotic with personal "overthought", but we don't think enough about broad topics that don't have to do with oursleves....that's just my opinion though.

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Happy atheist

Ourcrazymodern?

What broad topics don't have to do with ourselves?
Issues=baggage, even if it's new=food for thought...yum!

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SirLance

I was thinking that I think too much, but then I thought I might have overthought it.

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Nerojb

Thinking is good...but there are some people that I really dont want to hear. Overall...we are all ingnorant to a degree, but take voting as an example...people complain and lament that the majority of americans dont vote...do we really want everyone to vote? If you watch the OC stay on the couch I dont want you to pick my leader.

So rambling aside...all in all it may not be such a bad thing that some people dont think.

host

In my experience, most people don't seem very curious, and the consequence is that they do not develop a wide variety of interests. They cannot repair their own cars, bicycles, or furnaces, for example, because they had no inclination to look over grandpa's shoulder to find out what he was doing under the hood of the car.....eager to learn how things worked.

I probably sound like a broken record....forgive me.....but the best way to make an acquaintance and initiate a conversation is to ask someone about themselves. Most people enjoy talking about themselves, but they do not seem interested in asking questions of others. I've learned a lot, asking questions and I've become a generalist....I can talk to just about anyone about any subject because I know a little bit about a lot of things.

Only an incurious society could elect a man as their president, who attends a briefing set up just for him, on a threat as great as the approaching CAT 5 hurricane, Katrina, and not ask a single question. It was alos reported that he asked no questions when the bi-partisan ISG group that he handpicked, presented him with it's final report on the war in Iraq. He had no questions for the group of former secretaries of state who he met with about two years ago.

So we have an incurious leader of an incurious people.

I'm pretty sure that thinking begins with "thinking to ask". The internet was established rather late in my life. When I get into a movie that comes on TV, I am inclined to search imdb.com on the desktop computer I have next to the couch in the den, and I check the actor's bios and their other work.

I google or wiki anything that I become curious about, on the spot, at home or on my internet ready merged cellphone device when I'm out. I use it much more for that than for talking.

Before the internet, I used to find myself reading anything that I could get my hands on, newspapers and magazines, mostly. I noticed that most people in a doctor's waiting room or in line at the DMV, do not spend their wait time reading. When I lived in Manhattan and rode the subway, I noticed that almost everyone was reading a periodical or a book. There are a lot of successful and prosperous people in Manhattan.

Even the cabdrivers in NYC can be seen reading, when they wait inline at the airport, bus, or rail terminal for fares. When I vacationed in Mexico, I noticed that all of the cab drivers played checkers with bottlecaps, and none were reading.

I'm fascinated by history and only recently by genealogy. I've outgrown a tendency to ever feel bored, the internet has helped with that, as well as inertia....the more I learn, the more I want to know. I've known a number of people with advance degrees who impress me as incurious and unintelligent. I question the reliability of my suspicions about them, though.

If I was not observing and mulling over the habits of those around me, reading and searching the internet, asking people questions, finding out how things work, needing to find out more about everything that I encounter, and following up on these inclinations, what would I have to think about, talk about, or write about?

Ourcrazymodern?

W is one of the most glorious examples of not thinking; thanks for bringing him up. Fearless leader of the free world and all.
When we elected the body as governor, people from Wisconsin felt free to poke fun...this is worse.
I'm thinking that thinking is the bulk of what we have. Can there be too much?

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT