Go to top
Physics of Life

Absolute thinking - definition of the concept

If you have never practiced critical thinking then you simply see what you are told to see.

Yeonmi Park (1993-) a North Korean defector.

Definition | Diagram of Absolute Thinking | Elements of Thinking | Remarks | Old Definition | Symbols of Thinking | Think Like Leonardo da Vinci | Links

Absolute thinking 

Introduction:

The definiendum of thinking in the vocabulary of The Physics of Life is as follows:

There are many definitions of thinking so it is difficult to find a universal one. The vast majority of them describe thinking as a process carried out by the brain, used to achieve a goal.

The basis for thinking is the worldview - a set models of various predefined models of concepts. Thought is said to be the creation of these models within the brain, analyzing their perceived behaviours, drawing conclusions after this analysis and making subsequent decisions.

 

Definiens:

Absolute thinking is the sum of such elements as: possessed knowledge (theoretical, practical and historical), skills of: perception, interpretation, finding patterns and combining concepts; ability to construct models allowing a full understanding of reality and, if possible, its prediction, and when accurate prediction is not possible then the probability distribution of possible events. In particular, this applies to phenomena related to life.

 


 

Remarks:

  • I was contemplating a definiendum for this concept. I had no doubt that I should use the word absolute in the sense of full, total, complete. I hesitated whether to use thinking or worldview proposed by Tom Elpel. Thinking won at the end as it describes the activity of the human brain, whilst worldview is more associated with its current state.

 

Associated concepts:




Table of elements of thinking 

Table of elements of thinking in The Physics of Life

Genetic precondition 

 

Definiens:

Thinking depends on our genetic design.

Remarks:

  1. There is no doubt that monkeys think differently than men. Other people, the handicapped, those wronged by fate and those who are equipped by the randomness of biological evolution with exceptional abilities think in a different way.

  2. Genetic design affects how we are built and how the brain functions, so it affects how we think.

Emotional thinking 

 

Definiens:

Thinking in which instinctive behaviour and emotions play a dominant role. They have been built in us by biological evolution, and these are the patterns which ensure, in the best way, survival of our species. It is basically a state of preconsciousness (prethinking).

Characteristics featuires of emotional thinking are:

  1. Automatic reactions performed in order to absorb resources, following instincts;
    From all these sets of tactics of structure and tactics of behaviours of living objects, only a few are innate and essential. Which ones? Those that are crucial to the continuation of the species, in other words, those which guarantee the fulfillment of the life objective. The most basic is to absorb resources and divide/multiply to produce the next generation. More complex living objects have additional innate tactic of behavoiur, such as the reproductive instinct and the instinct to care for offspring. These two can be slightly different according to their gender. Such instincts are characterized by the whole gamma of characteristic behaviors: marking territory, courtship, ways of acquiring / producing food, etc.

  2. Random and emotional recognition, fast and indisputable conclusions;
    This involves the immediate classification of the observed object or phenomenon to a specific, well-known category. Subsequently, further information is usually discarded. Opinions, conclusions, decisions and actions are generally formulated on the basis of the dominant stimulus, sensations, feelings or intuition.

  3. Irrationality;
    Emotional behaviour is based on our natural internal patterns. If a pattern is triggered in inappropriate conditions, it can be viewed as improper for the situation. The person performing this can be thought of as being mentally disturbed or irrational.

Remarks:

  1. Neonates and many animals

Memetic programming 

 

Definiens:

Characteristic elements of thinking resulting from the influence of memes, which are created by:

  1. Circles, such as cultural, religious, social etc., in which we were born and in which we act

  2. Family and neighbourhood in which we are raised and live

  3. Professed religion or ideology

  4. Education and how we are educated

  5. Professional environment in which we operate

We are very vulnerable to this programming. When this happens, an interesting phenomenon occurs called the curse of knowledge, which manifests itself by blocking the cognitive abilities by the knowledge already acquired. The proof of this is the story of a boy culturally reprogrammed in childhood, who never again accepted the culture of his true homeland.

Another proof of how easily humans are programmable is the Ron Jones' experiment. In just 5 days, the experimenter turned about 200 teenagers into a group presenting fascist behaviour.

Remarks:

  1. The language used by a given nation may affect its effectiveness. For example, in Polish, statistically speaking, it takes more words to express a thought than in English. The plural nouns in Polish are formed in several different ways whereas in English there is only one, with a few exceptions. The English also do not waste their time in the variation of nouns. Thus, the use of English is less expensive and allows for more precise communication. Which has led it to be the dominant language of the World at this time.

  2. The system used to express numbers also influences the effectiveness of a nation. Nations using the decimal system, which is simple and logical, and uses consistent naming to express numbers, are good at mathematics and computer programming. Children, think very logically, and if a strange system of expressing numbers does not disturb this logic (see the curse of knowledge) as they age, they will keep thinking logically. For example, the number 99 is expressed by Poles as ninety-nine {cheap way and in order of importance}, the French - four twenty ten nine {expensive and logically inconsistent, because there are exceptions, but in order of importance}, and Germans - nine and ninety {cheap but in reverse order of importance}

  3. The cultural approach is given to us at school as the only and indisputable one, which makes it obvious and natural - French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2000). Later, this pre-programmed cultural approach blocks access to other cultural approaches on the Curse of knowledge mechanism.

Summary:

The best example of memetic programming and the consequences associated with it is learning a native language. In childhood it comes much easier than when we are already mature people. Acquired knowledge makes it difficult not only to acquire the next one but also blocks access to it - foreign language sounds are automatically ignored as meaningless (see Curse of knowledge).
Najlepszym przykładem programowania memetycznego i konsekwencji z tym związanych jest nauka języka ojczystego. W dzieciństwie przychodzi nam to zdecydowanie łatwiej niż gdy jesteśmy już osobami dojrzałymi. Wiedza nabyta, utrudnia poźniej nie tylko nabywanie następnej ale blokuje nawet dostęp do niej - dźwięki języków obcych są automatycznie ignorowane jako nic nie znaczące (patrz Klątwa wiedzy).

Memetic programming is very durable. It is confirmed by the story of Alojz - a Pole reprogrammed to be a German who, in principle, failed to return to Polishness.
Programowanie memetyczne jest bardzo trwałe. Potwierdza historia Alojza - Polaka przeprogamowanego na Niemca, któremu w zasadzie nie udało się powrócić do polskości.

In matters consistent with programs developed by biological evolution and stored in genes, memetic programming is very fast. This is confirmed by an experiment carried out by Ron Jones, who managed to create a group of active fasists about 200 teenagers in just 5 days.
W kwestiach zgodnych z programami wykształconymi przez ewlucję biologiczną i zapisanych w genach programowanie memetyczne jest bardzo szybkie. Potwierdza to eksperyment przeprowadzony przez Ron'a Jones'a, któremu udało się stworzyć faszyzujacą grupę z około 200 nastolatków w zaledwie 5 dni.

Lifecycle of a human 

 

Definiens:

Thinking depends on gender and stage of Lifecycle of a Human:

  1. The basest role of the human female is to protect and nurture her young, whereas the human male's primary role is to impregnate as many females as possible to diversify the genetic code.

  2. In early life it is mainly about absorbing information and finding social barriers, later you question the information and the barriers. When a person is young they are protected, when they are older the normal role is to protect their progeny.

Remarks:

The fulfillment of needs level 

 

Definiens:

Thinking depends on the two following factors:

  1. on which level of the hierarchy of needs we are

  2. on which stage of Calhoun's cycle (or Glubb's cycle) the country we reside in is.

  3. depending on the level of resources or power one has, it leads to Aristocraticization or Biedocraticization.

Remarks:

  1. There is a difference between those who have nothing to lose and those who have some resources and those who have plenty of resources

  2. I was willing to risk my life for the promise of a bowl of rice - Yeonmi Park, "In order to live"

Magical thinking 

 

Definiens:

Thinking in terms of concrete and tangible objects, characterized by the conviction that one can control reality, that everything is possible and anything can happen. In explaining phenomena, people, who think in this way, appeal to the supernatural, divine beings or deities. Events occur because someone wants them to and someone controls them.

Remarks:

  1. Small children, primitive man, cognisant animals.

Mythical thinking 

 

Definiens:

Thinking associated with the beginnings of awareness, of the causes and effects and the beginnings of evaluation. It uses bivalent logic: "Yes / No", "White / Black", "good / bad". The analysis of intermediate states is rejected as expensive and time-consuming. When conclusions are drawn there immediately follows a phase of their obstinance: only accepting the facts which prove this conclusion and discarding all others [See Experiment "2,4,6"]. Any criticism is automatically opposed. People who thing in a strong mythical way are thought of as "Know-it-alls".

Remarks:

  1. Pre-adults

Reductionist thinking 

 

Definiens:

Reductionist thinking is only regading the most important factors of an examined phenomenon, rejecting the influence of other elements and searching for cause and effect linkages. This thinking is characterized by:

  1. Striving to discover the simplest rule to explain the subject and having the deep conviction that such a rule exists.

  2. Conviction that rules of cause and effect are a one-way linear phenomena. A person who thinks in this way does not understand that the same factor used in a small scale will trigger a positive reaction of a system, but a large usage will result in a negative, completely different one.

    This often occurs in medicine: the same chemical substance may be used either as a poison or a cure depending on the dosage.

  3. Dichotomous thinking is it's characteristic element.

The phenomenon of the curse of knowledge means that reductionist thinking is blocking the transition to the next level of thinking.

People who think in reductionist way, even though they understand the dilemma (a situation which cannot be solved with a single rule), argue that the answer lies within a magical formula which has not yet been discovered.

Remarks:

  1. A good example of reductionist thinking is how Isaac Newton (1643-1727) discovered two fundamental laws: the law of motion in three parts and the law of gravity. These laws are described by simple mathematical formulas. These simple equations are enough to fully understand the motion of planets and build complicated machines such as planes and missiles. From this moment, scientists started to believe that the World and the Universe could be explained by using similar non-complex formulas. And their discovery would only be a matter of time. The laws of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, later formulated by physicists, made reductionist thinking more popular.

    Physicists were followed by others: naturalists and philosophers, economists and sociologists. Everyone focused on isolating what, it seemed, was irrelevant in the studied phenomenon, and on finding the fundamental, simple cause - effect relationship, preferably in the form of a neat mathematical formula. In the wake of the scientists, engineers followed by applying the newly discovered laws of physics to build cars, buildings, planes and more. In practice, this meant that the reductionist approach became the "only legitimate one". This approach was fixed in science when Albert Einstein (1879-1955) created his most famous formula: E = mc2. The fact that the reductionist thinking was proven by applied sciences so often made the vast majority of people intuitively perceive it as consistent and logical, and "the only right" method of thinking. Moreover, it is relatively easy to teach, which is why educational systems around the world use it from the very beginning. In this way, it evolved into the dominant paradigm of knowledge. However, as science progressed, it turned out to be too simplistic to fully explain many of the mechanisms of nature.

  2. The best example of this way thinking is politicians and journalists about taxes.
    If 1 000 000 people pay taxes, and if the rate of taxation is 10%, and the state collects 1 000 000 000
    therefore it is obvious that by raising the rate to 20% the state will collect 2 000 000 000;
    and that raising the tax rate to 60% will collect 6 000 000 000.

Attention 1 

The vast majority of people stop developing at a mixture of the mythical and reductionist thinking stages!

Abstract thinking 

 

Definiens:

Abstract thinking is the ability to create highly generalised concepts related to objects (as a reminder, the concept of an object is very general and relates to real and unreal objects), creation in the imagination of their models, and perform mental operations that enable:

  1. searching for (deep) analogies between these concepts

    1. A power plant and a mitochondrium, as far as their functionality is concerned, are the same - energy-producing elements.
    2. A castle's defensive walls and a cell membrane are the same - elements that reduces the impact of external influences on the interior.
    3. Spreading and undergoing modification is analogous to DNA and human languages.
    4. Man and vortex - our tissues change several times over our life: the food we eat and the air we breathe become our flesh and our bones, and the momentary elements of our flesh and bones pass through our body every day with our excreta. Thus we are temporary whirlpools in a flow of resources - we are not unchanging objects, but patterns that perpetuate themselves.

  2. search for non-intuitive solutions to problems:
    to discover the nature of the movement of falling objects, a precise clock was needed, which did not exist in Galileo's time. The scholar came to the conclusion that it is enough to measure the frequency precisely, and for this he was satisfied with musical hearing. Through this original measuring method, he discovered that the speed of falling objects increases in proportion to the square of the falling time

  3. transforming these concepts

  4. drawing conclusions from the analysis of models

  5. finding patterns and characteristics
    examples here may be: Galileo discovery of the characteristics of the motion of falling bodies, Newton's discovery of universal gravitation law, the discovery of evolution as a process

  6. formulating principles, laws and rules

  7. discovering primary mechanisms, i.e. the most basic ones
    the primary mechanisms of life are: an active absorption on external resources, using these resources to built itself on the basis of a design, duplication, retaining the design based on which the building process is carried out, the design should also be subject of duplication, during which it may change [More]

  8. generalization
    an example would be the use of the concept of resource, the generalised concept of resergy, and awareness that object, system and process are, in fact, the same

Abstract thinking has several levels, and can be best illustrated with maths:

  1. Concrete thinking (it is still not abstract thinking yet) - arithmetic adds specific numbers: 2 + 4

  2. Thinking using simple abstraction - algebraically adding a + b; The study of characteristics of simple mathematical operations, for example: properties of "adding" or "multiplication".

  3. More complex abstract thinking - higher mathematics. The objects are arrays, functions, records, lists, trees, systems, streams, and the operations are more complex: folding function, differentiation, integration, solving differential and integral equations, population calculus, the study of natural tendencies, the study of system stability, determination of the probability distribution in a decision-making area.

  4. The next level abstract thinking involves objects such as: mathematics, autodynamic systems composed of self-multiplying elements which interact which each other playing for resources, biocenoses and ecosystems. The operations can be: searching for natural tendencies of systems, stability studies of complex systems and determining the complex characteristics of these objects.

Remarks:

  1. If you ask a child, who thinks in a concrete way (see magical thinking) and has some mathematical competence, to answer the equation 2 + 2, you will probably see them count their fingers. Older children, entering the stage of abstract thinking, will usually be able keep their hands in their pockets.

  2. In the history of science, progress often occurs due to new types of generalizations that combine what seemed to be separate scientific disciplines. - François Jacob

  3. The development of science can be seen as a development of the effectiveness of scientific language, and as a progress at the levels of increasing abstractness and accuracy of concepts. - Jan Maria Szymański, "The Life of Systems", page. 39.

  4. Leonardo da Vinci was imbued with the passion of a discoverer. He wrote: "Versatility is a trifle, if you understand one thing, for example the proportions of the human body, you can guess the other, for example the proportion of animal bodies". The basis of Leonardo's way of thinking was analogy. He believed that the macrocosm is imaged in the microcosm, the small is reproduced in the big. If, for example, he studied the blood circulation system thoroughly, he could easily guess the course of a river, and how it branches in exactly the same way as arteries and veins. Similarly, the wood structure makes the tree different in a unique way. This system of analogies and similarities made it easier for Leonardo to move from anatomy to botany, geology, architecture, music and the like.

  5. Replacing a specific number in algebra with a letter symbol is an example of entering the "first level of abstraction". The letter symbolizes a number, that is, it can be a specific, in this case very simple, type. In the case of a particular number, we can examine its properties, for example, the natural number 6 is divisible by 2 and by 3. In the case of letters symbolizing natural numbers, we examine the properties of a somewhat higher, more generalized level. For example, the number can be even or odd, that is, that these numbers are distinguishable according to a certain criterion, which results in two disjointed sets.

  6. The next level of abstract thinking is the perception of any particulars, abstracts or concepts as universal objects. (See systemic thinking).

Systemic thinking 

 

Definiens:

Systemic thinking is based on the analysis of phenomena as real objects, systems and processes, finding their causative factors and defining its characteristics and characteristic of their interactions.

The main features of systemic thinking are:

  1. Awareness that everything is an object / process / system and therefore:

    1. does not last forever.
    2. is the result of the interactions of causative factors, including opposing or orthogonal ones.
    3. has its own natural tendency.

  2. Awareness that the cause-effect relationship may be linear (reductionist thinking) but often are non-linear.

  3. Awareness that feedback plays a controlling role within systems, and that the processes can affect the system that created them.

  4. Awareness of disturbances, stability of systems and self-exciting phenomena, but mainly in a technical context.

  5. Ability to see flows within while analysing phenomena.

  6. Awareness of the interaction of systems and the processes generated by them.

  7. Understand the basics of information and communication

  8. Ability to solve system optimization problems

  9. Ability to build systems that stably generate given processes. This ability occurs not only in the aerospace industry, but also in the management of people, organizations and societies.

  10. Understanding of emergence and concidence.

  11. Understanding of cyclic phenomena such as Citric Acid Cycle.

Remarks:

  1. This type of thinking is characteristic for automation engineers and cyberneticians.

  2. This type of thinking generally does not include situations of limited resources, for which only part of the desired action can be performed.

  3. Our tissues change as we live: the food we eat and the air we breathe become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, and the momentary elements of our flesh and bone pass out of our body every day with our excreta. We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves. - Norbert Wiener, "The Human Use of Human Beings", page 96.

  4. How people function depends on the system they live in:

    1. Free Market versus Central Planning
    2. Two Koreas
    3. China's economic jump towards the end of the 20th century
    4. Representative Democracy versus Direct Democracy

  5. A practical example of using sensitivity analysis to study the natural tendency of a social system is discussed in Natural Pressure for Social Exploitation.

  6. Models of how society functions:

    1. Social cycle
    2. Glubb cycle
    3. A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. - Alexander Tytler (1747-1813), Scottish lawyer, writer, professor of history.
    4. How would it affect the creation of laws if they would be effective in three years time and not "immediately"?

  7. In most political systems, the rulers are not open to feedback, so they do not respond to problems according to the Correction rule and bring their subordinate societies crises and wars. Power corrupts when it ceases to be responsible for its behaviour towards the nation. It is the lack of responsibility that leads to pathology and terror.

  8. The growth of bureaucracy is caused by the lack of regulatory negative feedback.

  9. Taxation is never restricted: Let's introduce property tax. Undoubtedly, a "reform" of property tax in Poland is needed. - states Prof. Dominik Gajewski from the Warsaw School of Economics (he is paid from the taxes collected) - Municipalities get too little money. And this is the main argument. None of these state employees, living on taxes, will never argue about the effectiveness or sense of municipal expenditure. They are only concerned with how much money is collected.

  10. An interesting, but little-known, issue regarding the functioning of systems is the phenomenon of spate or overflow of messages and their consequences. To suppress the excess of circulating and constantly multiplying messages in the system, the human body falls asleep, while the society, if it does not find mechanisms to purify, on a regular basis, the growing volume of messages, gets rid of them through war or civil unrest.

Summary:

Systems theory originally it was a biological theory, then it was developed and expanded by cybernetics and system engineering, and is also included in trends in social sciences such as sociology and economics. Recently, it has also become a reference point in cognitive science and information technology, and strives for ever-wider generalizations as "systemics" or "general systems theory".

Currently, this theory aspires to a comprehensive translation of the functioning of living organisms, societies and devices / artificial systems, which on the one hand makes it universal, but on the other is an object of criticism for its excessive generality and abstractedness.

[Wikipedia pol., access 2020.02.10]

Cybernetics scientific study of control and communication (information transfer) in animals and machines.

It was created on the intersection of biology and mathematics, drawing on many separate fields such as: mathematical logic, control theory, regulation theory, system theory, information theory, computer science, game theory, decision theory, theory of abstract automata, praxeology, theory of neural networks;

[Wikipedia pol., access 2020.02.10]

Social cybernetics the scientific study of processes, goals and methods of controlling society.

Cybernetics, as a science of control processes, began to explain some general regularities occurring in all control processes, while social cybernetics are concerned with general laws governing processes of social control. Knowledge of these rules and laws can be very helpful to people who are actively involved in this kind of social processess. Like all scientific knowledge, social cybernetics can be used for various purposes: on the one hand, it can be used to achieve positive social goals more efficiently, and on the other to manipulate people, i.e. control them against their will and interests. However, even taking into account the latter possibility, it must be stated that nothing can more effectively prevent the manipulation of people than the knowledge of the general laws of social cybernetics, because the manipulation of people can be effective only when its technique is unknown to those who are subject to it. Social cybernetics refers to the idea of ​​combining social and human sciences with exact mathematical sciences.

[Wikipedia pol., access 2020.02.10]

Although systemic thinking claims to explain everything, this claim is premature. Systems theory does not take into account all the issues related to game theory, man and his properties, and highly non-intuitive phenomena (see multitudinal thinking).

So proposing an ideal socio-political system based on systems theory or cybernetics is far too premature.

 

People:

Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) - an American mathematician and philosopher, he is considered the creator of cybernetics. He formalized the concept of feedback, and showed its importance in such disciplines as technical sciences, control systems, computer science, biology, neuroscience, philosophy and sociology.

Norbert Wiener was one of the first to put forward the thesis that intelligence is the result of a feedback system that can be simulated by machines. It was one of the first and very important steps towards the development of modern artificial intelligence.

Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972) - an Austrian biologist and philosopher, who laid the foundations for general systems theory.

Ross Ashby (1903-1972) - English psychiatrist, pioneer of cybernetics (learning how to control machines and living objects).

 

Literature:

 

Multitudinal thinking 

Multitudinal thinking is thinking in terms of a broad spectrum of higher mathematics. It analyzes reality using set theory, statistics and probability calculus. It is not intuitive, it has to be a learnt skill.

In the old tale of the wheat and chessboard, the winner of the chess match is offered a prize. The winner asked for one grain of wheat on square one, 2 on square two, 4 on square three, 8 on the next and so on. The wealthy loser agreed, thinking that this was a poor prize. However, as we know the final number of grains is unimaginably high: 18 446 744 073 709 551 615. This is more than the yearly output for most countries.

Paradoxes:
Paradox of industrialisation, Probabilistic paradox of occurrence and Hoyle's paradox

Dilemmas:
"I/group" dilemma, Short-/long-term benefit dilemma, Prisoner's dilemma, Key dilemma of ruling, S-Nastu dilemma,…

Iterated dilemmas:
Iterated prisoners dilemma, Iterated cooperation dilemma

The paradox of industrialisation is a link between multitudinal thinking and game thinking, because profit and profitability enter the equation.

The analysis of the Kyosaki quadrant belongs to multitudinal thinking. It shows that there is a certain characteristic distribution according to the four types of employment. Since, according to The First Law of The Physics of Life, our behaviour depends on how we gain money (resergy), the distribution according to the types of employment translates into a distribution of four characteristic types of thinking.

Definiens:

Multitudinal thinking is the analysis of reality in terms associated with set theory and statistics.

The main features of multitudinal thinking are:

  1. Knowledge of set theory (a branch of mathematics)

  2. Knowledge of statistical methods - methods used for the analysis of complex systems with many interacting objects. Statistical methods, generally speaking, acquires general information about the state of a given property of each element (object) and draws conclusions from this data which are applicable to the system as a whole.

  3. Knowledge of population calculus

  4. Knowledge of probability calculus and awareness that many issues in its scope are highly non-intuitive, such as the Birthday Paradox.

  5. Knowledge of chaos theory.

  6. Basic knowledge of fractal theory. The main point of this theory is that the greatest complexity is the multiplication, sometimes many times, of a very simple rule. This is how the essence of fractals was explained by their discoverer, Benoit Mandelbrot.

  7. Awareness of the existance of the probabilistic paradox of occurrence

  8. Awareness of existence of the barrier in processing of information

  9. ★ Awareness of the operational dimension of life-related numbers.

  10. Awareness that the characteristics of certain phenomena cannot be described by simple formulas as F=ma or F=GM1M2/R2 but rather by probability distributions.
    [Example: Paul de Kruif, "Microbe Hunters" page 70 Professor Max von Pettenkofer (1818-1901) consciously swallowed a large dose of Vibrio cholerae bacteria which cause cholera and… nothing happened. Others who repeated this experiment, died.]

Remarks:

  1. Scientists, mostly physicists

  2. Skills in multitudinal thinking allow a person to understand the mechanisms of biological evolution and the its essential features.

  3. Legionella bacteria is found naturally in surface water, in moist soil, in pools, in standing water. But they are not dangerous to humans until they have multiplied to a suitably large concentration.

  4. One can acquire the ability of multitudinal thinking by studying epiedmiology and/or meteorology.

  5. Myślenie mnogościowe - kto trafia do dziennikarstwa

  6. The Paradox of industrialisation is a good example of how non-intuitive multitudinal thinking is.

  7. The microbes which change wine to vinegar actually eat up and turn into vinegar ten thousand times their own weight of alcohol in a few days. What gigantic things these infinitely tiny beings can do—think of a man of two hundred pounds chopping two millions of pounds of wood in four days! It was by some such homely comparison as this one that he made microbes part of these humble people's lives, it was so that he made them respect these miserably small creatures; it was by pondering on their fiendish capacity for work that Pasteur himself got used to the idea that there was nothing so strange about a tiny beast, no larger than the microbe of vinegar, getting into an ox or an elephant or a man—and doing him to death. - Paul De Kriuf, "Microbe Hunters" page. 65
    This is not quite a good comparison, because under favorable conditions microorganisms multiply exponentially. It's like every chopping woodcutter replicates during this chopping in two more chopping woodcutters and those in the next ones and so on.

  8. … in every generation there are the same number of ambitious and non-ambitious people, people capable of betrayal and steadfast people. People who have a great need for an ideal and people who have no ideal at all. - Polish film director Krzysztof Zanussi.

Game thinking 

Thinking in terms of conflict of interest, thinking in terms of resources, i.e. economically, thinking in terms of flow objects whose structure is a temporary state created by flowing streams of energy, material and information. Simple examples of such objects are: flame and vortex; more complex: bank account and enterprise; and the most complex is: a living object, which also replicates itself, creating similar copies.

 

Definiens:

Game thinking is an analysis of reality in relation to the conflict of interest. It's characteristics are:

  1. The basis of game theory is a conflict of interest understood as competition for limited resources. Therefore, everything that is related with the concept of resource is crucial in this theory. Economics is a science that deals with resources, due to this, economics is very important in game thinking.

  2. Ability to apply game theory to create cognitive models and predictive models.

  3. Awareness that each game has its own characteristic elements.

  4. Ability to see the rules of cause and effect according to their nature, namely: linear as linear and non-linear as non-linear.

  5. Awareness of the existance of Matrix, which is caused, among other things, by the use of von tactics by everybody.

  6. Awareness of the existence of different kinds of dilemmas (in relation to resergy) and that they can cause endless discussions with one of the parties temporarily triumphant.

  7. The ability to solve complex optimization problems while taking into consideration the probability distribution.

  8. Knowledge of the supercompensation phenomenon and issues related to training.

  9. One of the key elements of game thinking is the knowledge of information theory. How information arises, how it is processed and its role as a causative factor. We must always keep in mind that information, as a resource, is neither additive nor conservative.

Game theory should be included in biology as a field closely related to life. Every living object absorbs resources to replicate. In turn, the multiplication of living objects quickly leads to a situation of resource scarcity, i.e. a conflict of interest. And that is what game theory explores.

To understand what mechanisms led to the differentiation of cells in multicellular living objects, the knowledge of the economical Law of Comparative Advantage, is crucial.

Iterated prisoner's dilemma and Iterated cooperation dilemma are a natural transition from game thinking to life thinking.

Remarks:

  1. Sports coaches, athletes, military strategists, successful businessmen, some politicians

  2. We play to the end and there are two goals
    - Kazimierz Gorski [Head coach of the most successful Polish national soccer team]

  3. The "right thing" does not win in politics because it is right. It's not like we will put forward the right argument and it will be done because we are right. That's how it is in mathematics. It is different in politics. In politics, the thing that was best fought for, wins.
    If you fight the best and sacrifice for the wrong things, for harm and loss, then there is harm and loss… and unhappiness.

    - Michal Marusik speech on 2020.01.19 IVth Edition of the Frederick Bastiat Award

  4. The Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838-1916) is included in empirical criticism, which is also known as "second positivism". He demanded the removal from science of "metaphysical" concepts such as "atom", "force" and "cause" as well as religious concepts. In his opinion, the laws of science are only an economic description of the facts
    - Wikipedia pol. 2009.05.17

Life thinking  

 

Definiens:

Life thinking is the analysis of reality which depends upon particularly specific systems, namely living objects, their populations and the interactions between them. The main features of a living object are:

  1. their constant multiplication,
  2. active absorption of external resources, which are mainly other living objects or their elements,
  3. and that they use specific behavioural programs which were developed in the course of biological evolution.
This results in:
  1. The self-excitation of the process of biological evolution, which, by the phenomenon of creative destruction, perfects the successive generations of living objects. A necessary condition that this improvement occurs is a strong selection function which, from the current generation, selects the living objects that have the best methods of absorption and multiplication. See Calhoun's Experiment and S-nastu Hypothesis.

  2. Optimization of absorption of necessary and unnecessary resources in given external conditions. This optimization is related to the ability of balancing resergy.

  3. A conflict of interest which is researched by mathematical game theory. There are some typical dilemmas of interest such as: I/group dilemma, prisoner's dilemma, short-term and long-term benefit dilemma, male/female dilemma;

  4. Typical emotional behaviours of living objects shaped by the process of biological evolution in their subsequent iterations. These mainly concern human beings. Examples are: syndrome of attraction, syndrome of authority, red-eye syndrome, groupthinking syndrome, Kali's syndrome, syndrome of Machiavelli, Kali's syndrome, My impotence their fault syndromme, and so on.

the characteristic features of life thinking are:

  1. Awareness of barriers to objective observation.

  2. Awareness that each measurement is affected by an error and that there are barriers in processing of information which, in consequence, lead to blurred and/or approximate perceptions of reality.

  3. Understanding of the self-excitation phenomenon (see Ex nihilo), including the self-excitation of Biological evolution, resulting from The Duality of Nature.

  4. Awareness of disturbances, stability of systems and the phenomenon of self-excitation in relation to biology and populations.

  5. Taking into consideration that systems may be flow systems. The first concept to be understood is that living objects are flow systems, and the second one is that flow systems can change their characteristics dynamically;

  6. Understanding that a nation can be regarded as a stream of living objects. A stream which is powered by births and/or imigration and weakened by deaths and/or emigration. Understanding of the How Life Is Competing model, i.e. perception of life not through the prism of one living object, but through the game of different populations of living objects competing for resources. Awerness of the issue of Game within a group.

  7. Understanding of the complex influence of Yang and Yin, namely reasoning in categories of Opposing factors and Orthogonal factors

  8. Knowledge of the Three Principles of The Physics of Life, namely:

    1. Duality of Nature,
    2. Biological evolution and
    3. Pursuance.

  9. Awareness that the ecosystem is an autodynamic system.

  10. Awareness of the Syndrome of Context.

  11. Skillful use of the population calculus.

  12. Practical knowledge of psychology and sociology.

  13. Awareness of the curse of knowledge.

  14. A thorough knowledge of the most important experiments of The Physics of Life.

  15. Avareness of the existence of the phenomenon of naturally false messages

  16. Knowledge of the Lifecycle of a human

  17. Knowledge of the Calhoun's cycle and the Glubb's cycle.

  18. Ability to take a risk and learning on one's mistakes.

Remarks:

Practical experience  

 

You'll never learn anything special, you'll never be remarkably creative, and finally, you'll never achieve a spectacular success if you don't feel the negative consequences of your decisions on your shoulders and the positive ones in your pocket.

This applies to individuals and social groups.

Jan Kubań

Definiens:

Absolute thinking can not be taught. Most of its elements have to be experienced. Theoretical knowledge must be confronted in its application and result from one's own life experiences.

Gathering of this kind of experience involves analyzing and drawing conclusions from:

  1. Involvement in useful ventures.

  2. Taking all the consequences of one's own decisions and actions, both positive and negative .

  3. Wise goals - setting and achieving them effectively.

  4. People management and leadership, but true leadership, not one by proxy.

  5. Building effective teams performing appropriate tasks.

  6. Directed breeding of animals or plants.

I was lucky that I experienced the simultaneous start of a huge part of the nation to improve its material conditions. Every Pole were convinced that they would set up a business and succeed. After reading a couple of biographies written by rich people, it seemed so easy. The dreams of all these people have been verified by life. Most businesses simply failed. Not only did they earn nothing, many of them lost a lot. Those who succeeded have learned the hard way, and often damaged their health. Only a few have earned really a lot. And only a few of these few have achieved great and real success. Real, because it was achieved not thanks to the cronyism, bribes, arrangements, breaking the law and commandments, but resulting from customer satisfaction.

The most important moral that came from this situation was that all these people eventually realised that, when starting a business, A/. many of their ideas were wrong and B /. and they subsequently discovered they knew little about their business.

Real practical experience is acquired over the years, achieving ambitious, outstanding goals, struggling with misfortunes, adversities and competitors, bearing full responsibility for actions and decisions.

Remarks:

  1. I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. - Confucius

  2. Proper assessment and accurate decisions come from practice and experience.

  3. Some things can not be learned, you need to experience them.

  4. Free soloing… it is about perfect execution or certain death - Jimmy Chin

  5. There is also another major difference between entrepreneurs and politicians (and the economists advising them). If an entrepreneur makes a mistake, he and his company lose (and most often it is a lesson for him and other entrepreneurs "don't go this way").
    However, when an error is made by a politician or an economist, it affects millions of people in a given society and everyone of them loses (most often it does not concern the politician or the economist, because they always find excuses that they planned wealth for society, only others disturbed them).
    Unlike entrepreneurs, economists and politicians do not learn from their mistakes, and this is not a signal to other politicians "don't go this way".
    - Prof. Witold Kwaśnicki

Attention 2 

In the above diagram there is a strange, white chevron. It is a symbol of the operation called the logical conjunction. It is used to emphasize that, in order to acquire the skills to think in an absolute way, a person must have simultaneous knowledge of systemic thinking, multitudinal thinking, game thinking, life thinking and to gain relevant practical experience in all these areas.

Moksha 

 

Definiens:

Moksha, in The Physics of Life, is defined as the state of human consciousness manifested in the liberation from the illusions, delusions, and the emotions of the group and self. It is a state of consciousness which has almost perfect knowledge of ahamkara - the weaknesses of self and the nature of surrounding objects and the nature of the interactions between them. To achieve his state a person should seek to:

  1. Fully understanding the cause-and-effect relationships that govern matter, energy and information at a very high general level.

  2. Releasing the characteristics of the Self that can be found in Ahamkara and Kali's Syndrome.
    People achieving Moksha think objectively about the interests of all, not just their own. They perceive dilemmas and potential conflicts of interest impartially.

  3. Understanding Ahamkara and being resistant to its vulnerabilities.

  4. Understanding Matrix and being resistant to its vulnerabilities.

Remarks:

  1. A true leader always submits to the interests of the nation above their own. - Marcus Tullius Cicero.

  2. The name is derived from the Indian philosophy of liberation.

  3. Moksha, in the meaning of The Physics of Life, is consistent with the concept of moksha in Hinduism. The main discrepancy, however, is that the person in the state of moksha does not leave the circle of samsara - does not become immortal.

Absolute thinking  

 

Definiens:

Absolute thinking is the ability to perceive and analyse reality, such as it is. This thinking is characterized by:

  1. Awareness of the unity of all sciences and using a multidisciplinary analysis of reality.

  2. Awareness of all the aforementioned elements of thinking and:

    • ability to apply the correct thinking to the analysis of a given situation or phenomena

    • ability to look at a phenomenon through the prism of all the types of thinking of which absolute thinking consists.

Remarks:

  1. "The unity of science" lies in the fact that reality or its elements should be considered from the point of view of all scientific disciplines.

  2. Man is basically a system built with suitably arranged chemical particles and is the product of a process, a series of events that lead to a complete reorganization of the ecosystem. This process transformed the unstructured mixture of RPD-type chemical particles into self-multiplying living objects, so successive generations become more and more organized and purposeful in terms of achieving the life purpose. The definiendum of this process is biological evolution.

 


 

Absolute thinking - Remarks 

To think absolutely, in general, means:

  • An awareness that such a way of thinking exists and is composed of the aforementioned elements.

  • Skillful and appropriate use of the each of the aforementioned ways of thinking to the analysis a phenomena;

 

Systems, to which absolute thinking is applicable, are usually a very complicated issue because:

  1. they have many different processes occuring in them;

  2. there is a lot of interference and feedback between the processes, not only in respect of the given process, but also on the process-system relationship, which means that the process generated by the system may change the system itself.

  3. it is extremely difficult to teach how to analyse such systems because their visualization is nigh on impossible: they are unable to be drawn, nor is it able to show changes in the many processes and elements of the system over time. A solution may be to film the systems, but even then it is difficult to show the simultaneous courses of action during the same situation from alternative points of view,

  4. they relate to social systems whose elements are living objects, and these are genetically programmed in a similar, but different way. This programming manifests itself in, for example, the form of emotions, which significantly, irrationally and inexplicably affect the decision-making process. This results in the highly unpredictable behaviour of the system,

  5. inherently unpredictable non-linear phenomena can have enormous influence on a system,

  6. the essence of the processes related to achieving the goal by living objects is the confrontaion of tactics. The two most important elements of this are: recognition of the tactics used by the enemy and using our own tactics to confuse them, to put it simply, cheating. See von Croesuss tactics, von Neumann tactics and von Sociall tactics.

 

 


 

Absolute Thinking - Old Definition 

Definiens:

Absolute thinking consists of three main types of thinking:

taking into consideration the specific systems which are living objects. Their main characteristics are: the active absorption of resources and multiplication. Mainly, living objects absorb other living objects or their remnants. This results in:

  1. optimization in the absorption of necessary (and unnecessary) resources in the given external conditions;

  2. conflict of interests, shown in detail by the mathematical theory of games. Generally, these conflicts are defined in typical dilemmas of interest, such as, for example, the I/group dilemma, prisoner's dilemma, short-term/long-term dilemma and male/female dilemma;

  3. emotional behaviours of living objects created in subsequent iterations of biological evolution, such as, for example: syndrome of attractiveness, syndrome of authority, red-eye syndrome, group thinking syndrome, Kali's syndrome, Machiavelli's syndrome, "My weakness their fault" syndrome, etc.

 

In essence, absolute thinking consists of:

  • To be consious of these three types of thinking;

  • Skillful and proper use of each type of thinking to analyse the phenomenon;

  • Taking into consideration that living objects are flow systems and that social systems, of which living objects are part of, are flow systems as well. Moreover, be aware that the parameters of these flows can change dynamically;

  • Taking into consideration that living objects, and the systems they are in, are products of biological evolution, in which they are constantly evolving. Because of this, the absolute thinker should be aware of the gerpedelutionary classification of groups

  • Fully understanding natural barriers to objective observation. One of these barriers is typical emotional behaviour, which applies both to the observer and the observed. Therefore, you should be free of observer bias, such as: prejudice, vanity, self-interest and the interests of groups to which you belong;

  • Awareness of natural barriers in the processing of information, that results in the inability to make a hundred percent faithful simulation of the behaviour of complex systems.

 

Systems, to which absolute thinking should be applied, are usually very complicated because:

  • Many processes occur simultaneously

  • In living systems there is a specific kind of feedback where the process generated by the system changes the system itself;

  • It is difficult to fully analyse such systems because, as an individual, you are not able to see all aspects simultaneously. As the solution we can consider movies, but even then it is impossible to show lots of different perspectives of one event in a one given moment. Usually, it is sequential.

  • The analysis of social systems should consider the behaviour of all its elements - living objects. And these, as products of biological evolution, are genetically programmed in similar, but crucially different, ways from each other. This programming manifests itself, for example, in the form of human emotions that significantly, in a way that is hard to rationally explain, influence the decision-making process. This results that the living system behaves highly unpredictably.

  • Non-linear phenomena are important parts of living objects and the systems they are in.

  • the core processes applied by living objects in achieving their goals is the competition between tactics. The two most important elements of this competition are: identifying, at all costs, the tactics of the opponent and hiding our own or misleading the opponent for our own tactics - to put it simply, cheating. See von Neumann tactics, von Croesus tactic and von Sociall tactics.

Because of all of this, absolute thinking is very hard to teach. One should be self-motivated and devoted to achieve enlightenment.

 

Absolute thinking - Symbols 

 


 

How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci 

In "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci", author Michael Gelb does a superb job of capturing the essence of Leonardo’s genius and laying it out in a practical framework for self-improvement. Here are the 7 key areas that shaped Leonardo’s genius which you can use as a framework for your own self-improvement:

  1. Curiosità (curiosity): an insatiable quest for knowledge and continiuous improvement.
  2. Dimostrazione (demonstration): testing knowledge through personal experience rather than taking others explanations for granted.
  3. Sensazione (sensation): the continual refinement of the senses to sharpen observations and responses.
  4. Sfumato (fogging): a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty.
  5. Arte/Scienza (art/science): the development of the balance between science and art, logic and imagination, “whole-brain” thinking.
  6. Corporalitá (corporality): the cultivation of fitness and poise because a healthy mind requires a healthy body.
  7. Connessione (connection): a habit of weaving together multiple disciplines around a single idea, recognizing and appreciating that all phenomena are connected.