Seeing Beyond The Obvious
To see beyond the obvious is to understand that there are phenomena that exist “below” the information that arrives through our senses. To overcome this opacity, it is necessary not to conform to the accessible and to understand the substance of the situations.
While people with great intuition can see beyond the obvious, not everyone develops this ability. There are professions that base their practice on this type of thinking. Doctors, psychologists or investigators or forensic experts must know beyond the facts or apparent evidence, to find a final conclusion. And we can all practice this kind of thinking.
However, seeing beyond the obvious is a complex art. When we receive information about a problem, we tend to simplify their approach, almost automatically. And we do it regularly.
Trying to look for other more complex alternatives to certain approaches is rare and would not be in accordance with the principle of cognitive economy. Our natural propensity is to process the information we receive as economically as possible.
As if this were not enough, not only do we tend to simplify the answers to certain problems and, due to the accessibility of technological development, in a way, we also simplify their approaches.
The problem is that it can prevent us from seeing beyond the obvious and therefore approaching the truth. To see beyond it is necessary to develop and apply complex thinking.
Develop a complex thought to “see more”
The need to see beyond the obvious in order to approach the truth has been studied by the French sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin. According to him, the greater the complexity, the more we must take into account the society in which we live. Otherwise, it is easy to ignore priority or relevant issues.
Due to the characteristics of today’s society, it is necessary to have a well-founded opinion, to carefully reflect the information we receive. This thinking ability is what he called complex thinking.
Instead of falling into a simplistic thought to approach the truth, he advocates the opposite: increasing information. The person should not think of reducing what he experiences, nor be satisfied with one or more facts.
However, complex thinking has the downside that it is not innate. You have to work on it and apply it.
Matthew Lipman, a pedagogical philosopher, considers it extremely necessary to instill this type of thought in children at an early age.
What we don’t see: the quality of complex thinking
The term complexity, in the thought of Edgar Morin, can be represented as a kind of large network whose fine meshes intertwine and connect its components. Discussions are events, actions, comments, determinations or chances.
Although the founder of this type of thinking was Edgar Morin in the SXX, his predecessor, Leonardo da Vinci had already studied it in the 15th century and had proposed strategies for developing complex thinking in his theory of complexity. His works, based on this vision, challenge the viewer to seek information on non-obvious aspects.
Greek philosophers used noetics, the philosophy that studies thought, especially the objective and the intelligible. However, sometimes we ignore or do not have access to the information.
The word noetic comes from the Greek verb innovator, which means “to see, to discern”, from which “thought” is derived. The Greeks used this verb in the sense close to “to seize”, in the sense of seeing in an intelligible way.
Understanding that there is information that we don’t know is the first step in developing complex thinking. Seeing beyond the obvious is accessible to everyone. However, to see beyond the obvious requires more intention than intuition. To see the obvious, you must first see what is not so obvious.
Our thoughts Poetry and brain, but what can be their relationship? How does our brain react to reading this particular form of writing?
