On Dynamic Thinking
I’ve been wondering lately about the nature of human’s thinking. It seems to me when we approach any sort of consideration, both on past, present or future events, that our thinking can be categorized either as static or dynamic.
I derive these terms from statistics (regression) and economics, and perhaps it’s a classification I’ve made myself without any grounding, but bear with me. Static thinking can be seen as considering a situation as either being or not being, without any changes taking place at present or in the future.
This is what’s so often encountered in the news, a certain event has happened, or a person has taken a certain action. No consideration is given to whether or not what happened is part of someone’s strategic plan to get to another situation. Neither does the author give any consideration to contextual matters. It is only natural that things evolve to be static, when a regular person wakes up and has 10 to 15 minutes to read a newspaper, they only want facts, which are easier to portray when you say ‘so and so has done this’. This may be considered factual, but reducing all to surface level facts eliminates the why, and a why cannot be explored extensively in a 100 word article.
Dynamic thinking on the other hand does take this into account. Events are considered and nuance is granted. You take into consideration what led up to someone’s action, how things came to be and what incentives exist that might underlay the action. In business, it’s common wisdom to consider incentives first, then what the person claims to have as motivation.
Dynamic thinking is something most often found in books and in universities. For instance, when you read a biography of Napoleon, you’re guided by the author in how to perceive actions undertaken while keeping the end goal in mind. This makes sense because it’s written after the fact, there’s documentation of what happened, the actual events taking place in the real world, not just in the world envisioned by Napoleon himself. Now Napoleon was great at envisioning his goals on the battlefield. Only by planning out every phase of a battle and taking into consideration all possible reactions by the opponent are you able to be victorious so often. But in the 18th and 19th century, I’m sure the general public had little idea of how prepared he was and what his exact plans were. In universities it’s the same story, even nowadays, when education is little more than cramming courses into your head without due questioning (de omnibus dubitandum est), each program generally has a history course of some kind. This is not to entertain us, but to make us understand how things came to be what they are, and how can you change things and lead them to a better future if you don’t understand where they come from?
The one most important lesson you likely learn in University is that it’s always best to keep your mouth shut about most topics. I don’t mean this in the literal sense, but in the sense that playing dumb about anything will grant you the opportunity to catch a steeper learning curve on the topic. In the literal sense, you should actually do the exact opposite, for if you approach life in a dynamic fashion, and not see your actions as being judged statically, you provide room for improvement and actual knowledge. In the first years of university, a lot of students will consider their being statically. They’ll approach it as “I’m not smart enough, I don’t know anything about this” and let that statement create a life of it’s own, a life that’s more robust then their own minds according to them. With the approach where you consider yourself a certain static thing, in this instance not being smart enough to succeed, you forego all opportunities of getting better. Subconsciously you’ll encounter new topics and instead of questioning everything about it, looking things up, reading books and engaging with the professor, you’ll be like a deer frozen in headlights.
Distinguishing between these two states of thinking is quite important as the ever-fastening news cycle, and more importantly, entertainment cycles (e.g. TikTok or Shorts), don’t give consideration to events in a dynamic manner. Most people, once they realize the dynamic nature of their primary activities, stop allowing for it in other activities. A person who works in IT will use all the faculties of their brain to successfully do their job, will do the same in their hobbies, be it boxing or golf, and not consider any other topic as anything other than entertainment. Now entertainment isn’t what it used to be 100 years ago, it’s something that’s available everywhere, anytime. Instead of making entertainment an activity, it’s something to fill the time with, so you don’t think about the nature of your entertainment anymore, but instead just let it penetrate your mind without further consideration. Those who provide entertainment are aware of this change in consumption, so they themselves won’t go the extra mile in creating something complex. Characters aren’t dynamic anymore, they stay static. This carries over in faster entertainment like YouTube or Instagram, and before your know it you get a cancel-culture. People are either good or bad, no in between, no further consideration, and no forgiveness.
Such an attitude isn’t how our socitiety came to be. There’s no need to have an opinion or judgement about everyone. Our brain cannot employ all its faculties successfully on such a scale, so needless to say it’ll fail to give proper consideration to the dynamic nature of events. Judge yourself first, and through self-improvement you’ll find the things you care about. Why waste energy badmouthing someone you’ve never had an actual personal conversation with? Happiness is having a dog (or cat).
In conclusion: People tend to think that words can explain all. Categorize it and it is what you say it is. There is a fundamental flaw in this type of thinking, things aren’t what you say they are. Calling something a dolphin doesn’t make it a dolphin. The essence of what I’m saying is, words are derived from things, things aren’t derived from words. Trying to capture something by ascribing a term to it doesn’t make it that term. Most everything in life is larger than that and naturally escapes the confinement of human categorization. In the real world, things just are, they exist whether you like them to or not. Life is then essentially our brains trying to make sense of reality, and static thinking is just a first step in exploring that. Dynamic thinking is where we align our understanding better with what is versus what is not;
And perhaps there’s another type of thinking converging completely with reality -> Physics maybe? I’ve read Feynman describe physics as the science of nature, and mathematics its language.
Nevertheless, aiming for a dynamic way of thinking allows us to approach reality much better. While travelling Scotland and reading Epictetus, I came across the following passage: “Getting an education means learning to bring our will in line with the way things happen - which is to say, as the ruler of the universe arranged. He arranged for there to be summer and winter, abundance and lack, virtue and vice - all such opposites meant for the harmony of the whole” (book I 12 On Satisfaction) I understand this not as religious prose, but as a hint of the necessity of understanding the distinction between what is, and what our brain makes things out to be, a distinction that could lead to two very different outcomes. Looking under the hood, considering various perspectives, a history, and reducing the emotional lens from our considerations are essential in bringing our will closer to nature.