SIGNIFICANT THINKING

The motto of Uppsala University could now be revised. "To think freely is great, but to think correctly is greater" can easily be defended. The opposite works just as well. It depends on what meaning one puts into the qualifications "free" and "correct" and in the function of "thinking". Free reflections can encompass correctness, and vice versa. If we retain only the prevailing ingredients in the motto, we would at least formulate it like this:

To think freely is great

to think correctly likewise

Our thinking can have many expressions and levels, ranging from conceptually reductive and unconsciously system-framed cognitions to wisdom-oriented reflections. Between these, of course, are many types of thoughts: everyday, culturally related professional, academically intellectual, philosophical, analytically psychological, poetic, etc., etc.

We can fruitfully use metaphors in our thinking, in order to enrich our understanding when we are at the frontier of our knowledge and need to broaden and/or deepen our insights.

Many people's thinking and knowledge are based on experiences of concrete and measurable phenomena. In our experimental research, we also often strive to isolate variables and repeat events. Although this is so, we still tend to generalize these often constructed experimental conditions.

We mostly project unconsciously and seek to be objectively oriented, without significantly understanding that there is not a single objective event that does not also have a subjective aspect. In our thinking, we are often unaware of our producers, directors, and scriptwriters in our psyches.

In quantum physics, we have for about 80 years been aware of a very significant uncertainty, namely that depending on how we consciously relate to observed phenomena, they will appear differently to us; and not only that, the observed phenomena change by being made conscious.

However, we have not significantly internalized this knowledge, but generally express ourselves in the style of: "that's how it is" or "that's who I am". We rarely add significant comments about how our momentary awareness and prevailing conditions color our experiences, in a style like: "today, on October 13th in Uppsala, people appeared autumn-cloudlessly and orange-tonedly beautiful to me, which unfortunately I rarely experience otherwise".

If we were to become even more aware, for example with the help of contemplation and meditation, we would increasingly experience that we can influence our perception - let's say of a tree - so that we simultaneously with observing the tree can revise the experience of it. And not only that, if we develop meditative states to increasingly less conceptual, clear, and not significantly disturbing levels of consciousness, we can also reach a point where we can perceive on a subtler level that the tree changes by being contacted by our consciousness. Here we have connected to quantum physics' uncertainty principle.

So, what should one hold on to now? Well, we will need to actualize the question of becoming more responsibility-conscious, an area that probably harbors most of the conditions causing the problems we earth dwellers have.

If we also want to understand more why the discussion of free and correct thinking has not led to a more inclusive level, it is partly because we have not sufficiently integrated a significant paradigmatic reflection - or motto thinking - and partly because pride, among other things, gets mixed into the play. The motto has been formulated on a large, heavy, central, and venerable university building. Humans generally do not yet have that wisdom consciousness that enables us to see through and beyond pride-limiting and ignorance-darkening approaches and instead tune ourselves with naturally clear-sighted dignity, like a statesman who is free from being identified with any political party.

If we desire cultivation of significance consciousness, which is relevant here, we also need to liberate our thinking from ingrained dualizations. We must remind ourselves that nothing in the entire multiverse has independent existence. Without exception, everything exists thanks to mutual dependencebetween many conditions.

When we have understood that in certain contexts it is most relevant to apply free thinking and in another a correct thinking, and that these ways of thinking can shift, mix, and be nuanced in all sorts of ways depending on prevailing background paradigms, we will naturally increasingly - more or less explicitly - express ourselves in some form like: "the most significant way of thinking is..."

The development of such an attitude is facilitated when we become sufficiently consequence- and wholeness-conscious and have a sound and fruitful vision of the continued journey of our lives. In such a vision, we need to be fairly liberated from envy, pride, dualizations, desire, ignorance, and unawareness. Then enough wisdom can be present so that we can distinguish between, among other things, everyday, academic, spiritual, wisdom-spiritual, and enlightenment-oriented systems and visions.

We naturally have to understand at a fundamental level that our brain's thought activity is a necessity for us humans and that it enables us to orient ourselves in this world and is our tool and coordinator for the human body's fantastic orchestra. But our thinking can also complicate things for us. In our time now, human identity perceptions are in many places rather consumed by cognitions around the idea that a polished intellect and good thinking ability are among the best things one can have. With such an imbalance, whereby approximately one branch on the tree of life is generalized to become the entire tree, unfortunately our helpful instrument can also become hindering...and instead of leading us to learn at a certain developmental level to use our reflection in a more light-hearted and wisdom-toned way, it can prevent us from this through adherence to conceptual patterns or traditions, so that our consciousness is prevented from dispersing conceptual clouds and from naturally residing in clear space-like awareness and having it in our, particularly, academic world.

Our academic studies should in one way or another, depending on faculty, gradually contribute to - with the help of, among other things, free and correct thinking - opening us to more wisdom-toned significance awareness, which should be a university's background paradigm, its motto. Such a paradigm would at least need to be composed of the following five basic chords...namely to cultivate:

1) a principally meaningful goal vision,

2) the insight that we living beings essentially have a similar essence nature,

3) a heartfelt mirror-like consciousness,

4) the spreading of more light to our dark universe and

5) the dispersion of more obstacles that cloud our clarifying reality consciousness.

If we have integrated a decent portion of these qualities, we can more naturally and responsibly lightly realize that our discussion of free and correct thinking can now be brought to a new level and that the university's motto in Uppsala could be changed to:

To think freely and correctly is great

to think significantly is greater

......

Uppsala, October 14, 2013

Jörg Fitz

Licensed PsychotherapistFormer teacher in philosophy of science at the Department of Psychology,

Uppsala University