1. Introduction

The author's thinking about thinking is based on his chapter on Thinking in a forthcoming book on radical perspectivism (1). In the paper the author discusses the nature of thinking, specifically issues relating to its possible universalizability and specificity. In the spirit of the age old philosophical method of dialectics, he raises several possible objections to his own line of thinking, which he then meticulously attempts to answer. In the final section of the paper, he applies his analysis to education, including the significance of "critical thinking" in redefining the universal role that humans can play. Table of Contents

2. Universalizability versus Specificity

Is thinking a human-specific phenomenon, or is it something which non-humans could also engage in? This is important because if concepts can only be thought about, such as, truth, justice, education, or morality, then only those world parts  (2) that can think, can think about such concepts.

Given the fact that human conceptions are human-based, they are inescapably the result of human understanding. This is so because everything that humans conceive of is by definition based on their particular vocabulary and working principles of interpretation. If humans had a different physiology, had evolved or grown up with a totally different set of life experiences, or relied mainly on non-linguistic forms of communication, then perhaps their perception, expression, or understanding may have been different. Witness, for instance, how different are the conceptions of reality held by humans in different cultures. Humans growing up in a religious society may hold theocratic interpretations of reality, while humans raised in a mainly scientific culture may hold scientific ones. If conceptions of reality within the human species, or even within the same educated class, are diverse, then imagine how much more diverse such conceptions might be if humans were not just different culturally, but also physiologically, communicatively, intellectually, or experientially from how they are today. We might then have been literally like the aliens of science fiction who not only look often outlandishly different, but possess seemingly different conceptions of reality.

We may surmise that the more different the circumstances that gave rise to non-human world parts are from those which gave rise to humans, the stranger their actual or imaginable conceptions of reality may seem to humans. For example, if humans had no legs, but instead used a different type of physiological make up for getting around, say, propulsion, magnetism, wheels, or weightlessness, depending on their "evolutionary circumstances," then what might look like a "chair" to humans, might not be so to non-humans who never have a need to sit down. To such "aliens," chairs might be seen as representations of unknown mechanical, artistic, or other types of devices, or even something incomprehensible or not worth thinking about. Table of Contents

3. Argument from an Alien Standpoint

Let us assume the existence of aliens who can think. One may argue that no matter how different such hypothetical aliens might be, including their past individual or phylogenetic experiences, their thinking must be fundamentally of the same type as human thinking, or else they would be incapable of interpretation. This is so because thinking follows certain logical principles that are the same for all who can think irrespective of their evolutionary or individual circumstances.

If one could imagine a thinking alien with totally different life experiences than ours, it doesn't necessarily follow that the underlying "logic" of such alien is radically different from that of humans. For example, all who think can probably understand what a contradiction is, since something usually is or is not no matter what it is, and therefore applicable to anything real or imaginable. For example, regarding whether something is or is not, whatever such thing might be, it cannot both be and not be, or else it makes no sense that one should even attempt to define it. No matter how a thinking world-part interprets such thing, meaning, what such part thinks is "true" about it, in order for such part to "think," whether its thinking resembles human thinking or not, it must subscribe to certain universally held principles regarding thinking. Such principles limit the extent to which one can interpret reality as one likes, since what one says about it must also make "sense," meaning, subscribe to principles of interpretation that collectively make "thinking" itself possible.

Thus it seems that all thinking by definition is larger than just human-type thinking. It is not inconceivable that world parts which evolved under non-human-like circumstances, could think just as logically, for example, regarding contradictions, as do humans. Such aliens may have certain logical and mathematical operations typical of elementary logic and basic arithmetic. Once such building blocks are commonly understood to be part of thinking, then likewise more complicated thought-processes may be built on such fundamental thinking building blocks, just as software programs today are built on the basis of elementary computational units. As a result, no matter how different their circumstances, it may be argued that if other world parts can think, then their thinking must be similar to humans', and therefore so are their truth interpretations. As a result, the hypothetical aliens' view of reality cannot be radically different from humans'. By using common sense we could come to understand even realities that we never encountered, as in fact we do when we study historical events which we never witnessed, but are capable of understanding. Table of Contents

4. Non-universalizability

A counter-argument to the above argument regarding the "universalizability" of thinking might be that humans think as they do precisely because of how they "evolved," and therefore because of their human-like brain and body structures. In other words, their thinking is inextricably tied to their evolution. As a result, the underlying logic of their thinking is also an "ontological extension" of their "humanness," meaning, it is what it is because humans are human-like. For example, no matter how unreal might be the things or events humans can imagine, as are today numerous fictional accounts about past historical events, or even... extraterrestrials themselves, their imaginings are still limited by human-centered conceptions of corporeal reality, such as, gravity; or common conceptions of time and space, such as, division on time into time units; or of space into delineated two, three, or four dimensional entities. None of such conceptions may be applicable or make sense in incorporeal realities, and therefore may be "unimaginable." It is impossible for humans ever to really know what is really "real," since they are by virtue of their evolution and make-up "handicapped" to thinking only in human-like terms, and therefore know only human-discoverable "realities."

As a corollary to the above argument regarding the "specificity" of human thinking, and therefore also of anything they think about (truth, reality, ethics, etc.), it may be argued that the kind of "reality" humans are capable of knowing, or think they know, is the "unreality" of their understanding. By this the author means that, no matter how real or true something might seem to humans, it may not be so from a universal perspective. There may be as many types of reality as there are non-human types of thinking. The plausibility that such types of thinking exist becomes more likely in light of the billions of stars, planets and galaxies in the universe (3), which may collectively include any number of non-human evolutionary potential for the development of alien "intelligences" that think unlike humans, and therefore have radically different perceptions of reality. Table of Contents

5. Response regarding non-universalizability

In response to the above argument regarding the non-universalizability of human thinking, it might be said that, firstly, even the argument above is based on what makes sense to humans, thus showing at least our ability as humans to think of even non-humans thinking. Secondly, if thinking were so non-generalizable, then why is it that so many of human-perceived truths can be predictably demonstrated in experience, as is the case with numerous "scientific discoveries?" One must account for the fact that at the end of the day such "discoveries" are universally applicable, testable, and repeatable, and therefore arguably "real" even in spite of the allegedly "phylogenetic" relationship between thinking and humans. In other words, contrary to the objection that human thinking is no more than an extension of human experiences, science has shown that irrespective of such experiences there is a physical reality that exists, or at least seems to incorporate all of the non-human world parts that make it be, and in that sense is "real" independently of what humans think about it. The fact that humans can come to recognize such reality is evidence of their ability to perceive realities that are not necessarily tied to their experiences, and therefore of the universalizable nature of their thinking. It follows that no matter who engages in it, human thinking is not just "human," in the sense that it reveals only human-perceived realities, but a tool for understanding all of reality. Table of Contents

6. Limited Understanding

A counter objection to the counter-objection, above, might be that such reality as humans are capable of perceiving is but one of many realities, many or most of which humans are incapable of understanding. This is so because what they perceive as a human-independent truth is actually of the same type as the conditions that allowed humans to evolve, including develop their thinking. As a result, it is essentially of the same type as humans. By contrast, humans are incapable of understanding realities whose conditions for "existing" never "interacted" with humans. Conditions that allowed thinking non-humans to become may have nothing "in common" with human-generative ones. As a result, their thinking may be radically different from human-type "thinking." Table of Contents

7. Limits of Scientific Thinking

To further support the above counter-objection, it may be argued that when humans perceive the world through science they are actually looking in the mirror of themselves-as-the-larger-background-that-gave-them-birth. Consequently, their thinking ends up being of the same type as the conditions that allowed them to evolve. This is so even if humans were altogether excluded from being, had not yet come to be, or for some reason were destroyed. In other words, the fact that this world can be shown to exist even without humans does not mean that our thinking scientifically about the world is therefore proof of the universalizability of our thinking: we are still incapable of perceiving anything more than what is essentially our primordial or potential selves in the form of a generative context that allowed us to become. Our scientific view of reality, then, and by extension truth, is not "true" about reality, but merely of our own generative conditions. To really understand reality, we would have to engage in diverse forms of thinking which humans are incapable of because, as argued earlier, of their particular biological make up. It may be further argued that even when humans use their imagination to generate fantastic realities, as in science fiction, their ideas are likely to be tainted by some type of human-centered understanding. Table of Contents

8. Imagination

As a counter-argument to this idea of the human-specificity of the type of thinking done by humans, one could analyze our ability to imagine as evidence of the human ability to conceive of non-human realities, and therefore universalize our thinking. For example, we could imagine different truth-systems that are the result of diverse biological or physical circumstances. This means that no matter how fictional or imaginative the circumstances, we could still understand such realities, however un-human-like such realities might be. After all, unless one were to find a totally unhuman-like reality which humans earlier were incapable of perceiving, it cannot be said that human thinking is actually incapable of perceiving such reality, or else they would not have "discovered" it. If such reality did exist and humans discovered it, it would mean that human thinking is indeed capable of perceiving, analyzing or understanding non-human like realities, and therefore is of a universalistic, as opposed to merely human-limited nature. Witness the constant discovery of not only so far "unknown" realities regarding the universe, but also our ability to self-correct our thinking through such techniques as multiple observer cross-checking, so that we minimize human bias in interpreting reality. Unlike linear and non-reflective types of thinking, we are also capable of thinking about thinking, as proposed Rene Descartes (4), and others before and after him. Table of Contents

9. Humans as the Argonauts of Cognitive Self

We may conclude that so far we failed to find a convincing argument in favor of the non-universalizable nature of human thinking. Humans' view of reality is neither by definition human-biased, nor incapable of representing the universe-as-is. The human ability to think is not just "human," in the sense of being rightfully human-owned, but more broadly universal, in the sense that humans can think as a result of a universe that "allowed" us to think. Seen from that angle, it may be said that the universe is thinking about itself through humans.

This ability of humans to think "universally" doesn't mean that there can be no human-centered thinking which is biased or "blind." Such thinking has been historically commonplace. What it means is that human thinking can be revealing of universal truths. Because of their ability to think, which child psychologists have long ago discovered is inevitable in almost every child's mental development, humans have been endowed with a mission from which they cannot easily escape. If humans are, according to Sartre (5), condemned to be free, they are from a cognitive standpoint, condemned to think. Like a non-discriminating lighthouse that sheds light not only on its surroundings, but also on itself, so is human thinking both revealing of the Other and self-enlightening. When done abstractly, it becomes ethereally representational. In their never-ending search for a Golden Fleece, humans find it in their cognitive self. They are their own best Argonauts, except what they discover in the end is that their thinking is never their own to possess, but merely to understand the "other." Table of Contents

10. The Embodiment of Evolution

While stars and planets give universal principles a corporeal reality, the human body, including the infinitely complex structure of our brain, makes thinking itself possible. Our bodies may ultimately become, through evolution, the physical representation of universal ideas. Every part of our bodies will not be for nought, but increasingly for a purpose, albeit interactionally designed as much to serve itself and others, as to shape the environment. Unlike the hidden creator behind Aristotle's teleology, during our evolution we have no one creator. We become as much the creators of our environment, as in existentialist phenomenology, and therefore also of our future. Our bodies always have had the signature of universal principles written on them, except in biological microcosm. Our thinking is gradually liberating us from ourselves, as in thinking critically, partly through the institutionalization of such thinking in universities (6). Instead of acting merely instinctively, emotionally, or selfishly, none of which are ultimately consistent with thinking itself, we are self-socialized to think, and therefore truly live the life of reason. Our corporeal and incorporeal realities gradually become two harmoniously blended sides of the same cognitive coin. Beyond conflict and despair, humans learn to represent, and therefore become peaceful. They may yet embody the ontology of universal interconnectedness or "oneness," as in a radically perspectivistic return to the pre-Socratic ideas of Parmenides (7). Table of Contents

11.Education

Elsewhere the author describes the type of education that may lead humans to developing universalizable or world-representative thinking (8). Suffice it here to mention that when education promotes unadulterated critical thinking, by which the author means thinking which is self-aware, analytic, disinterested, honest, and logical, then inevitably it promotes the gradual universalization of human existence. This is so because of all the reasons mentioned earlier, including the inner logic of thinking itself. Assuming that humans continue to think so, they may cognitively become one with universal principles of existence.

In modern terms, critical thinking may lead our students at all levels of education to ever higher levels of empathy, propelled as they are by the force of their arguments to acknowledge the underlying logic in everything, instead of merely inside this or that social group or "lobby." Such thinking may in turn bring about greater regard for the plight of others, both human and non-human. Unlike forcing civilization on others through conquest, conformity, censorship, or suppression, an education that promotes unadulterated critical thinking ultimately breaks down human-self-centeredness to its fundamentally observable but changeable characteristics (9). Such education may hasten the replacement of our monstrous ego with the life of compassionate reason. The burning question is not whether humans will finally emerge as intellectual butterflies, since they are inevitably on the road to doing so, but whether they do soon enough to avoid becoming dangerously entangled in a self-centered contest of pride, or, worse, start wars that may cost them their survival. It is in that sense that a good education is not only a matter of living well, but literally of life and death. Table of Contents

ENDNOTES

1. Humans in the World: Introduction to Radical Perspectivism, forthcoming, published by AuthorHouse, Summer 2006. Henceforth abbreviated as HW. Back to text

2. By "world parts" the author means both human and non-human parts of the universe. Back to text

3. As the saying goes, there are more stars in our galaxy alone, than grains of sand on planet earth! To add context to this dizzying vastness of our galaxy, there are billions of such galaxies in the universe. There are numerous sources of information on the universe, both in print and electronically on the Internet. For example, see Columbia Encyclopedia's brief article on the universe on the Internet at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/universe_MatterandEnergyintheUniverse.asp It takes millions of years for light to travel from one end of a typical galaxy to another. It is estimated that it would take 10 billion years for light to traverse the diameter of the universe! To add a little more perspective, in a single second light travels about 8 times around the earth! Finally, there is a tremendous variety of environmental conditions in the universe, each one of which, we may surmise, may "evolve" life differently, meaning, cause living organisms to develop differently to be able to adjust to their respective environments. For example, there are all types of stars, planets and solar systems, from black holes to red giants, albeit at the same time some commonly found elements and processes, such as, carbon, gravity, and birth and death cycles. Back to text

4. Meditations on First Philosophy, in Margaret D. Wilson, ed., The Essential Descartes, Mentor Books, 1969. Back to text

5. Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, tr. Hazel Barnes, The Philosophical Library, 1984. Back to text

6. See author's article on The Universe and the University: What Do they Have in Common? (paper presented at the College of Arts and Sciences Lecture series, Chicago State University, Harold Washington Hall Room 202, March 19, 2003). Back to text

7. David Gallop, Parmenides of Elea: Fragments, Univ of Toronto Press, 1991. Back to text

8. See chapter on "Education" in HW. Back to text

9. Such suppression may take internalized forms, as in the suppression of emotion and instinct in Freud's version of civilization. Other "extroverted" forms of oppression may include the forced imposition of one political system on another, including imperialism of all types, economic, ideological, or even "democratic;" the erection of an illusion, as in a religious eschatology of retributive justice; or more perniciously some Man's Burden to Civilize the Other. Back to text

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