Outline of thought
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to thought (thinking):
Thought (also called thinking) – the mental process in which beings form psychological associations and models of the world. Thinking is manipulating information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason and make decisions. Thought, the act of thinking, produces thoughts. A thought may be an idea, an image, a sound or even an emotional feeling that arises from the brain.
Nature of thought
Thought (or thinking) can be described as all of the following:
- An activity taking place in a:
- brain – organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals (only a few invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, adult sea squirts and starfish do not have a brain). It is the physical structure associated with the mind.
- mind – abstract entity with the cognitive faculties of consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory. Having a mind is a characteristic of humans, but which also may apply to other life forms.[1][2] Activities taking place in a mind are called mental processes or cognitive functions.
- computer (see automated reasoning, below) – general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a set of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. Since a sequence of operations (an algorithm) can be readily changed, the computer can solve more than one kind of problem.
- brain – organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals (only a few invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, adult sea squirts and starfish do not have a brain). It is the physical structure associated with the mind.
- An activity of intelligence – intellectual capacity, which is characterized by perception, consciousness, self-awareness, and volition. Through their intelligence, humans possess the cognitive abilities to learn, form concepts, understand, apply logic, and reason, including the capacities to recognize patterns, comprehend ideas, plan, problem solve, make decisions, retaining, and use language to communicate. Intelligence enables humans to experience and think.
- A type of mental process – something that individuals can do with their minds. Mental processes include perception, memory, thinking, volition, and emotion. Sometimes the term cognitive function is used instead.
- The thought as a biological adaptation mechanism[3]
Types of thoughts
- Concept
- Conjecture
- wikt:Decision (see Decision-making, below)
- Definition
- Explanation
- Hypothesis
- Idea
- Logical argument
- Logical assertion
- Mental image
- Percept (see also perception)
- Premise
- Proposition
- Syllogism
- Thought experiment
Types of thought (thinking)
Listed below are types of thought, also known as thinking processes.
Animal thought
- See Animal cognition
Human thought
Human thought
- Analysis
- Awareness
- Calculation
- Categorization
- Causal thinking
- Cognitive restructuring
- Computational thinking
- Convergent thinking
- Counterfactual thinking – creating possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; by thinking "What if?" or "If I had only...". This is for correcting mistakes to avoid making them again in the future. If a person is able to consider another outcome based on a different path, they may take that path in the future and avoid the undesired outcome. It is obvious that the past cannot be changed, however, it is likely that similar situations may occur in the future, and thus we take our counterfactual thoughts as a learning experience.
- Divergent thinking
- Evaluation
- Internal monologue (surface thoughts)
- Introspection
- Learning and memory
- Parallel thinking
- Prediction
- Recollection
- Stochastic thinking
- Strategic thinking
- Visual thinking
Classifications of thought
Creative processes
- Brainstorming
- Cognitive module
- Creativity
- Creative problem solving
- Creative writing
- Creativity techniques
- Design thinking
- Imagination
- Lateral thinking
- Six Thinking Hats
- Speech act
- Stream of consciousness
Decision-making
- Choice
- Cybernetics
- Decision theory
- Executive system
- Goals and goal setting
- Judgement
- Planning
- Rational choice theory
- Speech act
- Value (personal and cultural)
- Value judgment
Erroneous thinking
- see Error for some examples, see also Human error)
- Cognitive distortions
- Fallacies (see also List of fallacies)
- Foolishness
- Groupthink
- Irrational thinking
- Linguistic errors
- Magical thinking
- Mindset
- Miscalculation
- Motivated reasoning
- Black and white thinking
- Catastrophization
- Cognitive bias
- Exaggeration
- Minimisation
- Rationalization
- Rhetoric
- Straight and Crooked Thinking (book)
- Target fixation
- Wishful thinking
Emotional intelligence (emotionally based thinking)
- Acting
- Affect logic
- Allophilia
- Attitude (psychology)
- Curiosity
- Elaboration likelihood model
- Emotions and feelings
- Emotion and memory
- Emotional contagion
- Empathy
- Epiphany
- Mood
- Motivation
- Propositional attitude
- Rhetoric
- Self actualization
- Self control
- Self-esteem
- Self-determination theory
- Social cognition
- Will
- Volition (psychology)
Problem solving
- Problem solving steps
- Process of elimination
- Systems thinking
- Problem-solving strategy – steps one would use to find the problem(s) that are in the way to getting to one’s own goal. Some would refer to this as the ‘problem-solving cycle’. (Bransford & Stein, 1993) In this cycle one will recognize the problem, define the problem, develop a strategy to fix the problem, organize the knowledge of the problem cycle, figure-out the resources at the user's disposal, monitor one's progress, and evaluate the solution for accuracy.
- Abstraction – solving the problem in a model of the system before applying it to the real system
- Analogy – using a solution that solves an analogous problem
- Brainstorming – (especially among groups of people) suggesting a large number of solutions or ideas and combining and developing them until an optimum solution is found
- Divide and conquer – breaking down a large, complex problem into smaller, solvable problems
- Hypothesis testing – assuming a possible explanation to the problem and trying to prove (or, in some contexts, disprove) the assumption
- Lateral thinking – approaching solutions indirectly and creatively
- Means-ends analysis – choosing an action at each step to move closer to the goal
- Method of focal objects – synthesizing seemingly non-matching characteristics of different objects into something new
- Morphological analysis – assessing the output and interactions of an entire system
- Proof – try to prove that the problem cannot be solved. The point where the proof fails will be the starting point for solving it
- Reduction – transforming the problem into another problem for which solutions exist
- Research – employing existing ideas or adapting existing solutions to similar problems
- Root cause analysis – identifying the cause of a problem
- Trial-and-error – testing possible solutions until the right one is found
- Troubleshooting –
- Problem-solving methodology –
- APS (Applied Problem Solving)[4]
- Eight Disciplines Problem Solving
- GROW model
- How to Solve It
- Kepner-Tregoe Problem Solving and Decision Making
- OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, and act)
- PDCA (plan–do–check–act)
- RPR Problem Diagnosis (rapid problem resolution)
- TRIZ (in Russian: Teoriya Resheniya Izobretatelskikh Zadatch, "theory of solving inventor's problems")
Reasoning
Reasoning –
- Abstract thinking
- Adaptive reasoning
- Analogical reasoning
- Analytic reasoning
- Case-based reasoning
- Critical thinking
- Defeasible reasoning – from authority: if p then (defeasibly) q
- Diagrammatic reasoning – reasoning by means of visual representations. Visualizing concepts and ideas with of diagrams and imagery instead of by linguistic or algebraic means
- Emotional reasoning (erroneous) – a cognitive distortion in which emotion overpowers reason, to the point the subject is unwilling or unable to accept the reality of a situation because of it.
- Fallacious reasoning (erroneous) – (logical errors; see Fallacies, above)
- Heuristics
- Historical thinking
- Intuitive reasoning
- Lateral thinking
- Logic (see also Logical reasoning)
- Abductive reasoning – from data and theory: p and q are correlated, and q is sufficient for p; hence, if p then (abducibly) q as cause
- Deductive reasoning – from meaning postulate, axiom, or contingent assertion: if p then q (i.e., q or not-p)
- Inductive reasoning – theory formation; from data, coherence, simplicity, and confirmation: (inducibly) "if p then q"; hence, if p then (deducibly-but-revisably) q
- Inference
- Moral reasoning – process in which an individual tries to determine the difference between what is right and what is wrong in a personal situation by using logic.[5] This is an important and often daily process that people use in an attempt to do the right thing. Every day for instance, people are faced with the dilemma of whether or not to lie in a given situation. People make this decision by reasoning the morality of the action and weighing that against its consequences.
- Probabilistic reasoning – from combinatorics and indifference: if p then (probably) q
- Proportional reasoning – using "the concept of proportions when analyzing and solving a mathematical situation."[6]
- Rational thinking
- Semiosis
- Statistical reasoning – from data and presumption: the frequency of qs among ps is high (or inference from a model fit to data); hence, (in the right context) if p then (probably) q
- Synthetic reasoning
- Verbal reasoning – understanding and reasoning using concepts framed in words
- Visual reasoning – process of manipulating one's mental image of an object in order to reach a certain conclusion – for example, mentally constructing a piece of machinery to experiment with different mechanisms
Machine thought
Machine thought
- Artificial creativity
- Automated reasoning
- Commonsense reasoning
- Model-based reasoning
- Opportunistic reasoning
- Qualitative reasoning – automated reasoning about continuous aspects of the physical world, such as space, time, and quantity, for the purpose of problem solving and planning using qualitative rather than quantitative information
- Spatial–temporal reasoning
- Textual case based reasoning
- Computer program (recorded machine thought instructions)
- Human-based computation
Organizational thought
Organizational thought (thinking by organizations)
- Management information system
- Organizational communication
- Organizational planning
- Strategic thinking
- Systems thinking
Aspects of the thinker
Aspects of the thinker which may affect (help or hamper) his or her thinking:
- Attitude
- Cognitive style
- Common sense
- Experience
- Instinct
- Intelligence
- Metacognition
- Mind's eye
- Mindset
- Rationality
- Wisdom
- Sapience
Properties of thought
- Accuracy
- Cogency
- Dogma
- Effectiveness
- Efficacy
- Efficiency
- Frugality
- Meaning
- Prudence
- Pseudoskepticism
- Right
- Skepticism
- Soundness
- Validity
- Value theory
- Wrong
Fields that study thought
Thought tools and thought research
- Cognitive model
- Concept map
- Design tool
- Intelligence amplification
- Language
- Meditation
- Six Thinking Hats
- Synectics
History of thinking
- Main article: History of reasoning
- History of artificial intelligence
- History of cognitive science
- History of creativity
- History of ideas
- History of logic
- History of psychometrics
Nootropics (cognitive enhancers and smart drugs)
Main articles: Nootropic and List of nootropics (smart drugs)
Substances that improve mental performance:
- 5-HTP
- Adrafinil (Olmifon)
- Aniracetam
- Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera)
- Bacopa monnieri (Brahmi)
- Caffeine
- Acetyl-L-carnitine (ALCAR)
- Centrophenoxine
- Choline
- Cholinergics
- Chromium
- Coenzyme q-10
- Coffee
- Creatine
- DMAE
- Ergoloid mesylates (Hydergine)
- Huperzine A
- Idebenone
- Inositol
- L-dopa
- Lecithin
- Lemon Balm (Melissa Officinalis)
- Lipoic acid
- Methylphenidate (Ritalin)
- Modafinil (Provigil)
- Oxiracetam
- Phenibut
- Phenylalanine
- Piracetam (Nootropil)
- Pramiracetam
- Pyritinol (Enerbol)
- Rhodiola Rosea
- Selegiline (Deprenyl)
- Siberian ginseng (Eleutherococcus senticosus)
- St John's Wort
- Sutherlandia Frutescens
- Tea
- Theanine
- Theophylline
- Tryptophan
- Tyrosine
- Vasopressin
- Vinpocetine
- Nicotinic acid (vitamin B3)
- Vitamin B5
- Vitamin B6
- Vitamin B12
- Vitamin C
- Yohimbe
Organizational thinking concepts
Main articles: Organizational studies and Organizational psychology
- Attribution theory
- Communication
- Concept testing
- Evaporating Cloud
- Fifth discipline
- Groupthink
- Group synergy
- Ideas bank
- Interpretation
- Learning organization
- Metaplan
- Operations research
- Organization development
- Organizational communication
- Organizational culture
- Organizational ethics
- Organizational learning
- Rhetoric
- Smart mob
- Theory of Constraints
- Think tank
- Wisdom of crowds
Teaching methods and skills
Main articles: Education and Teaching
- Active learning
- Classical conditioning
- Directed listening and thinking activity
- Discipline
- Learning theory (education)
- Mentoring
- Operant conditioning
- Problem-based learning
- Punishment
- Reinforcement
Awards related to thinking
Awards for acts of genius
- Nobel Prize
- Pulitzer Prize
- MacArthur Grant
Organizations
- Associations pertaining to thought
- High IQ societies
- Mind Sports Organisations
- Think tanks
Media
Publications
Books
Periodicals
Television programs
Persons associated with thinking
People notable for their extraordinary ability to think
- Geniuses
- List of MacArthur Fellows
- List of Nobel laureates (see also Nobel Prize)
- Polymaths
- List of Italian polymaths
Scientists in fields that study thought
Scholars of thinking
- Aaron T. Beck
- Edward de Bono
- David D. Burns – author of Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy and The Feeling Good Handbook. Burns popularized Aaron T. Beck's cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) when his book became a best seller during the 1980s.[7]
- Tony Buzan
- Noam Chomsky
- Albert Ellis
- Howard Gardner
- Douglas Hofstadter
- Ray Kurzweil
- Marvin Minsky
- Steven Pinker
- Baruch Spinoza
- Robert Sternberg
Related concepts
Awareness and perception
Main articles: Awareness and Perception
- Attention
- Cognition
- Cognitive dissonance
- Cognitive map
- Concept
- Concept map
- Conceptual framework
- Conceptual model
- Consciousness
- Domain knowledge
- Heuristics in judgment and decision making
- Information
- Intelligence
- Intuition
- Knowledge
- Memory suppression
- Mental model
- Metaknowledge (knowledge about knowledge)
- Mind map
- Mindfulness (psychology)
- Model (abstract)
- Percept
- Perception
- Self-awareness
- Self-concept
- Self-consciousness
- Self-knowledge
- Self-realization
- Sentience
- Situational awareness
- Understanding
Learning and memory
- Autodidacticism
- Biofeedback
- Cognitive dissonance
- Dual-coding theory
- Eidetic memory (total recall)
- Emotion and memory
- Empiricism
- Feedback
- Feedback loop
- Free association
- Heuristics
- Hyperthymesia
- Hypnosis
- Hypothesis
- Imitation
- Inquiry
- Knowledge management
- Language acquisition
- Memory and aging
- Memory inhibition
- Memory-prediction framework
- Method of loci
- Mnemonics
- Neurofeedback
- Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
- Observation
- Pattern recognition
- Question
- Reading
- Recall
- Recognition
- Recollection (recall)
- Scientific method
- Self-perception theory
- Speed reading
- Study Skills
- Subvocalization
- Transfer of learning
- Transfer of training
- Visual learning
See also
- Artificial intelligence
- Human intelligence
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Gestalt psychology (theory of mind)
- Outline of psychology
- Place these
- Creative thought processes
- Emotionally based thinking skills
- Abstract thinking
- Adaptation
- Argument
- Association of Ideas
- Assessment
- Autistic thinking (see Glossary of psychiatry)
- Backcasting
- Belief
- Causality
- Casuistry
- Chunking (psychology)
- Code
- Communicating
- Concept-formation
- Conceptual metaphor
- Conceptual thinking
- Constructive criticism
- Conversation
- Creativity
- Creativity techniques
- Decision-making processes
- Deconstruction
- Dereistic thinking (see Glossary of psychiatry)
- Design (and re-design)
- Dialectic
- Discovery
- Distinction (philosophy)
- Distributed cognition
- Emotion
- Entrained thinking
- Emotions
- Expectation
- Experimentation
- Explanation
- Extension (semantics)
- Forward thinking
- Fuzzy logic (fuzzy thinking)
- Generalizing
- Gestalt psychology
- Heuristics in judgment and decision making
- Holism
- Inference
- Inquiry
- Intelligence
- Intentionality
- Interpretation
- Integrative thinking
- Intuition
- Inventing
- Judging
- Kinesthetic learning
- Language
- Learning
- Linguistics
- Logical argument
- Logical assertion
- Memorization
- Mental function
- Meta-analytic thinking
- Metacognition (thinking about thinking)
- Meta-ethical
- Metaphor
- Methodic doubt
- Mnemonics
- Morphological analysis
- Multiple intelligences
- Multitasking
- Natural language processing (NLP)
- Nonduality
- Object pairing
- Organizational thought
- Perceptive processes
- Personal experience
- Persuasion
- Philosophical analysis
- Philosophical method
- Planning
- Po
- Preconscious
- Prediction
- Projecting
- Rationality
- Recognition primed decision
- Repair
- Rethinking
- Reversal
- Self-reflection
- Semantic network
- Semantics
- Semiotics
- Sensemaking
- Situational awareness
- Storytelling
- Stream of consciousness
- Subconscious
- Suspicion (emotion)
- Substitution (logic)
- Synthesis (synthetic)
- Theories
- Thought sonorization (see Glossary of psychiatry)
- Thinking processes
- Thinking outside the box
- Translation
- Thought disorder
- TRIZ
- Unconscious mind
- Understanding
- VPEC-T
- Working memory
- Cognition
- Cognitive space
- Cognitive style
- Cognitive bias
- Cognitive computing
- Cognitive biology
- Cognitive deficit
- Cognitive dissonance
- Cognitive linguistics
- Cognitive module
- Cognitive psychology
- Cognitive science
- Cognitive space
- Cognitive style
- Comparative cognition
- Group cognition
- List of cognitive scientists
- Situated cognition
- Spatial Cognition
- Argument mapping
- Cognitive bias
- Criticism
- Empirical knowledge
- Facilitation (business)
- Pseudoscience
- Rationality and Power
- Knowledge management
- Scientific method
- SEE-I
- Self-deception
- Skepticism
- Source criticism
- Conscience
- Consciousness
- Deism
- Empiricism
- Epistemology
- Fantasy
- Fideism
- Foucault/Habermas debate
- Fuzzy-trace theory
- Inquiry
- Intellect
- Knowledge
- Language
- Logic
- Mimesis
- Mind
- Nous
- Practical reason
- Rationality
- Rationality and power
- Reflective disclosure
- Models of scientific inquiry called scientific reasoning.
- Speculative reason
- Truth
- World disclosure* Identification (information)
- Knowledge management
- Multiple intelligences
- Multitasking
- Pattern matching
- Personality
- Self-reflection
- Semantic network
- Stream of consciousness
- Thinking Processes
- TRIZ
- Hypervigilance
- Neurobiology
- Philomath
- Evidential reasoning
- Attacking Faulty Reasoning
- Distributed multi-agent reasoning system
- Evidential reasoning approach
- Figure Reasoning Test
- Inductive reasoning aptitude
- International Conference on Automated Reasoning with Analytic Tableaux and Related Methods
- Knowledge representation and reasoning
- Mathematics Mechanization and Automated Reasoning Platform
- Mental model theory of reasoning
- Procedural reasoning system
- Psychology of reasoning
- Qualitative Reasoning Group
- Reasoning Mind
- Reasoning system
- Renaissance School of Art and Reasoning (Sammamish, Washington)
- Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning
- Thinking
- Buckminster Fuller: Thinking Out Loud (documentary)
- Critical-Creative Thinking and Behavioral Research Laboratory
- History of political thinking
- Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines
- Partial concurrent thinking aloud
- Po (lateral thinking)
- Six Thinking Hats
- SolidThinking
- Straight and Crooked Thinking
- Systematic Inventive Thinking
- The Art of Negative Thinking
- The Lake of Thinking
- The Leonardo da Vinci Society for the Study of Thinking
- The Magic of Thinking Big
- The Year of Magical Thinking
- Thinking about Consciousness
- Thinking about the immortality of the crab
- Thinking Allowed
- Thinking Allowed (PBS)
- Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl
- Thinking outside the box
- Thinking processes (Theory of Constraints)
- Thinking Skills Assessment
- Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
- Unified structured inventive thinking
- When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes
- World Thinking Day
- Lists
- List of neurobiology topics
- List of cognitive science topics
- List of philosophical theories
- List of psychology topics
- List of cognitive scientists
- List of cognitive science topics
- Glossary of philosophical isms
- List of psychology topics
- List of cognitive biases
- List of emotions
- List of memory biases
- List of mnemonics
- List of neurobiology topics
- List of NLP topics
- List of psychometric topics
- List of thought processes
References
- ↑ Dictionary.com, "mind": "1. (in a human or other conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind. 2. Psychology. the totality of conscious and unconscious mental processes and activities. 3. intellect or understanding, as distinguished from the faculties of feeling and willing; intelligence."
- ↑ Google definition, "mind": "The element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness."
- ↑ Danko Nikolić (2014). "Practopoiesis: Or how life fosters a mind. arXiv:1402.5332 [q-bio.NC].".
- ↑ Ivan Fantin (2014). Applied Problem Solving. Method, Applications, Root Causes, Countermeasures, Poka-Yoke and A3. How to make things happen to solve problems. Milan, Italy: Createspace, an Amazon company. ISBN 978-1499122282
- ↑ "Definition of: Moral Reasoning". Retrieved 21 July 2011.
- ↑ http://quizlet.com/dictionary/proportional-reasoning/
- ↑ "History of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy". National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
External links
- Fries, Daniel F. "The Uniqueness of Human Relaxed Thinking". Corpina Nootropics (Nov-Dec 2013). Retrieved 2007-04-23.
- The Psychology of Emotions, Feelings and Thoughts, Free Online Book
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