Developing the Mind

Learning How To Think, Not Simply What To Think

Personal development often begins with the mind. Before we deliberately change something, we usually have to recognize that there is something we want to change. Before we understand an emotional pattern, we have to notice it. Before we question a belief, we have to become aware that we’re holding it. Before we choose a different direction, we have to recognize that another direction exists. The mind participates in all of these processes.

But when we talk about developing the mind, it’s easy to confuse having more information with becoming better at thinking. They aren’t necessarily the same thing. We can accumulate tremendous amounts of knowledge while remaining unable to question our assumptions. We can become extremely educated within one perspective while having difficulty seeing through another. We can learn how to defend our conclusions without learning how to examine how we reached them.

Knowledge matters. But so does the instrument we’re using to interpret it. Developing the mind isn’t simply about increasing what we know. It’s about developing how we observe, organize, question, interpret and use what we know.

We Experience The World Through Interpretation

Something happens. Then we make sense of what happened. Those two things can occur so quickly that they seem like one event. Someone says something. We interpret what they meant. Something doesn’t go according to plan. We decide why. Someone behaves differently. We construct an explanation. We experience an emotion. We identify what caused it. Sometimes those interpretations are accurate. Sometimes they aren’t. One of the first things we can learn is to recognize the difference between: What did I actually observe? And What did I conclude from what I observed?

That small distinction creates an enormous amount of room for development. If we confuse interpretation with observation, questioning our interpretation can feel like denying reality. If we recognize the difference, we can say: This is what happened. This is what I currently think it means. Now let’s see whether that explanation holds up. That doesn’t require us to distrust everything we think. It requires us to understand that thinking is a process, and processes can be examined.

Observation Comes Before Judgment

I’ve returned to this principle repeatedly because it applies to so many areas: Observe first. Interpret second.

We can apply it externally. What actually happened? What information do we have? What information are we missing? But we can also turn it inward. What am I thinking? Why did my mind go there? What assumptions am I making? What outcome am I expecting? What am I afraid might happen? What do I want to be true? What would I have to reconsider if my current conclusion were wrong? That last question can be particularly useful.

Sometimes we aren’t defending an idea because the evidence overwhelmingly supports it. We’re defending everything that depends upon it. A belief can become connected to identity, relationships, status, security, worldview or previous decisions. Changing one conclusion can require reconsidering several others. That makes thinking emotionally complicated. The mind doesn’t operate independently of the rest of us.

Our Minds Build Models

We cannot consciously process everything happening around us at once. So we simplify. We categorize. We recognize patterns. We develop expectations. We construct models of people, situations, ourselves and the world. That’s useful. If we had to approach every experience as though we’d never encountered anything remotely similar, functioning would become extremely difficult.

The problem isn’t that we create models. The problem comes when we forget that the model and the thing being modeled are not identical. Our understanding of another person is not the person. Our understanding of ourselves isn’t necessarily complete either. Our explanation for why something happened isn’t the event itself. A good model helps us navigate what we’re observing. When observations repeatedly contradict the model, however, we have a choice. We can distort the observations to preserve the model. Or we can update the model. That ability to revise matters.

A Strong Mind Doesn’t Have To Be A Rigid One

Mental strength is sometimes confused with certainty. Pick a position. Hold it. Defend it. Never allow anyone to change your mind. There are certainly times when holding a position despite opposition requires strength. But refusing to reconsider something isn’t automatically evidence of mental strength. Sometimes it’s simply rigidity.

A strong mind should be capable of saying: “This is my current conclusion.” And also: “Show me what I might be missing.”

Those statements aren’t contradictory. We can hold a position firmly while remaining willing to examine it. We can listen to an opposing argument without surrendering our own. We can understand another perspective without agreeing with it. We can discover that someone we disagree with is correct about one point without adopting everything else they believe. And sometimes we can discover that we ourselves were wrong. Being wrong is not necessarily a failure of thinking. Remaining wrong because our identity cannot tolerate correction is a much larger problem.

Perspective Changes What We Can See

Where we stand affects what becomes visible. This is true physically. Standing at the bottom of a mountain provides information unavailable from the summit. Standing at the summit reveals relationships impossible to see from below. Neither perspective contains everything. The same applies mentally.

We can look at a problem from inside our immediate experience. Then step outward. How might the other person see this? What does this look like within the larger relationship? What happens if we examine it across five years rather than five minutes? What does it look like from the perspective of an organization? A community? A society? Humanity?

Moving outward doesn’t necessarily make the larger perspective morally superior. It gives us different information. Sometimes we also need to move in the opposite direction. A broad explanation can hide the individual person living inside it. Statistics can describe populations while telling us very little about one particular human being. Perspective-taking therefore isn’t simply about climbing higher. It is about becoming increasingly capable of moving between levels and understanding what becomes visible from each one.

Intelligence Isn’t The Same As Wisdom

A capable mind can do remarkable things. It can also become remarkably good at rationalizing what we already wanted to believe. Intelligence can construct arguments. It can identify patterns. It can solve problems. It can manipulate information. But the ability to think effectively doesn’t automatically tell us what deserves thinking about, what purposes our abilities should serve, or when our reasoning has become disconnected from reality.

That’s where the rest of the person becomes important. Emotion contributes information. The body contributes information. Experience contributes information. Values influence direction. Other people challenge our perspective. Consequences test our conclusions. Mental development doesn’t mean allowing the mind to dominate every other part of ourselves. It means making it increasingly capable of working with the information the whole person provides.

Technology Makes Mental Discipline More Important

We now have access to more information than most people throughout history could have imagined. A phone can answer questions in seconds. Search engines can retrieve enormous amounts of information. Artificial intelligence can organize ideas, generate explanations, compare possibilities and participate in complex reasoning. These are extraordinary tools.

But every tool that increases our ability to obtain answers also creates an opportunity to stop practicing the process required to reach them ourselves. The question isn’t whether technology is good or bad. It’s whether we’re using it to extend our capacity or replace it.

A tool can challenge our thinking. It can also become something we ask to think so we don’t have to.  That distinction will probably become increasingly important. The more capable our tools become, the more responsibility we have to understand what portions of our own capacity we’re choosing to exercise.

We Have To Be Able To Think About Our Thinking

Eventually mental development becomes recursive. We use the mind to examine the mind. What patterns does it repeat? What does it avoid? Where does it become rigid? What subjects immediately produce defensiveness? What conclusions does it reach too quickly? Where are we highly curious? Where have we stopped asking questions? Which beliefs have we actually examined? Which ones did we simply inherit? Which ideas have survived serious challenges? Which have never been challenged at all?

We don’t have to live in permanent uncertainty. The purpose isn’t to become incapable of reaching conclusions. It is to develop conclusions that can withstand examination—and to remain capable of revising them when they cannot.

The Mind Has To Return To Life

There is also a limit to thinking. We can analyze something indefinitely. We can continually seek another perspective.  Another explanation. Another piece of information. Eventually thought can become another way of avoiding action. At some point we have to decide. Speak. Move. Try. Fail. Succeed. Observe what happens. Then think again.

This is why I keep returning to the present. We can descend deeply into thought. We can rise into abstraction and perspective. But eventually whatever we’ve learned has to return to the circumstances in front of us. A developed mind should help us participate more consciously in life, not merely become increasingly sophisticated at thinking about it.

So perhaps mental development begins with a different set of questions than simply: What do I know? We can also ask: How did I come to know it? What am I assuming? What would change my mind? Can I understand a perspective I disagree with? Can I recognize the difference between observation and interpretation? Can I tolerate uncertainty long enough to investigate? Can I update my understanding without experiencing correction as a threat to who I am? And finally: What am I actually doing with what I’ve learned?

Because the objective isn’t to fill the mind until nothing else fits. It’s to make the mind increasingly useful as an instrument of awareness, understanding, perspective and choice. Learning matters. Knowledge matters. Intelligence matters. But perhaps one of the most important things we can ever teach the mind is how to continue examining itself.