There are also many ways to use forms of the word ‘think’.  A person can say that they think something is true which means they are not really sure if something is true.  A person can also say that ‘I think I will do something’ and that means they plan to do something.  Or somebody can suggest that they are just going to think through the solution to a problem which implies they intend to engage in problem solving.

The problem to solve in today’s economy is how to think to generate useful innovation. In this regard, thinking is deeply intertwined with creativity because purely speaking, creativity and thinking are the same things.  Being creative is not the ability to produce a wild array of colors on a canvas, but rather creativity is the ability to produce something valuable.

The definition of thinking is the ability to develop innovative solutions to solve problems. Thinking in the 18th Century French salons developed novel thoughts about ways to end centuries of human oppression.  That thinking resulted in the rather radical form of government created by compromise in the America constitution by 30 bickering delegates sent from 13 different formerly British colonies.

On the other hand, thinking about ending human oppression also led to the Russian Revolution and the tyranny of Lenin and Stalin and deaths of millions of innocent people.

So, getting thinking right is not easy.  Fortunately, natural selection eventually destroys the source evil thinking – but at great cost to the innocent.

We will address how to improve thinking for the purpose advancing civilization through creative problem solving and list some creative – useful – approaches.

Today, we still see this kind of collaborative thinking in all-too-obscure international organizations like Rotary which has been credited for thinking about – and then eradicating – polio around the world.  We also see extraordinary degrees of intellectual collaboration in places like the European  Center for Nuclear Research, CERN, where 10,000 scientists and technicians from nearly 100 countries share the joy derived from thinking about how to unravel the mysteries of the cosmos – then doing it. Their discoveries will undoubtedly contribute to a better life for all of us.

The problem is that over time we have turned from developing free thinking in groups about what is possible and instead, save for pockets of scientific investigation, trained the mind how not-to-think and to do so in isolation.  Rather than think as a groups, we learn  to follow rules and to memorize things as individuals.  This type of general non-thinking training has been taking place in the West for over 2,000 years.

Worse, when we are about 21 years old, when the brighter among us graduate from college, society says we can stop whatever form learning that we have undertaken. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics opines that half of what we learn is obsolete in 36 months, this is pretty dangerous.

And, it gets worse.  When the mind stops learning, it starts cognitive decline.  So, even the obsolete tricks do not work as well.

So now it is time to stop this approach to facing the world’s issues.  So let’s begin.

In effect, the brain also employs hyperlinks to link distributed pockets of information.  Even as you look at the word ‘information’, the ‘i’, ‘n’, ‘f’ etc. are stored in different hyper-linked locations in the cortex and are pulled together on demand to form the word ‘information’.  Other cognitive mechanisms examine context and ultimately give the word its meaning.  When several hyperlinks are amalgamated by the brain’s circuitry we have a new idea.

The very good news is that the brain is designed to not only acquired and use data through hyperlinks to databases owned in the mind of an individual but also data bases stored in the minds of other human beings.  When this kind of information is shared between humans the brain issues a pleasant reward.  That reward is a shot of dopamine and a feeling of profound pleasure.  It is this reward, the feeling of pleasure, which draws people together as occurred during the enlightenment in the 18th century. This collectivization of information has been a key to the growth of human civilization and continues to be essential for our survival today. .

Fortunately the brain is designed to think. After all, that is how human beings have blossomed.

We are just unraveling the mysteries of thinking – and the news is good.  For example, one of the long-standing paradigms of thinking is that dramatic ideas appear to a chosen few why have a mystical and sudden ‘aha’ experience.  That is to say, brilliant thoughts suddenly appear to the inspired in a flash of blinding light.  This belief is typified by Archimedes’ alleged joyous running down the street naked with sudden insights into what we now call specific gravity.  Inasmuch as few of us get these blinding inspirations, we assume we are not good thinkers. This belief is wrong and because it dissuades people from thinking, it is pretty harmful.

Of course it’s true that we all get sudden insights.  The reality is that most brilliant thoughts come over time from social groups who link together a bunch of subordinated hunches. Here are two truths.

While inspiration can manifest suddenly, most of the thinking behind the inspiration percolates the idea over a considerable amount of time. Darwin pieced together his theory of evolution during years of thinking and discovery  on the Beagle.

Thinking also benefits from a cooperative, collective brain. Einstein stood on and among the shoulders of many who preceded him (Maxwell) and worked with him (Bohr).  At that, his ideas took a lot of time to crystallize. Einstein followed a hunch after lunch most of which, (Einstein wrote 99% of which) were dead ends.  In fact, it took Einstein ten years to move from his theory of special relativity (1905) to general relativity (1915).

About 2 billion humans live in dire poverty with daily incomes not sufficient to purchase one Starbucks’ latte.  This horrible circumstance becomes even more grave in the face of a population boom which will see another 2 to 3 billion people added to the planet’s population in the next 40 years or so. Most will appear on equatorial Africa.

The minimal projected increment of 2 billion people is greater than the total number of people that were on the planet just 2,000 years ago. Going further forward in time, left unchecked, in another 2,000 years the biomass of human beings on the planet would be greater than the mass of the planet itself.

Most humans on the planet will want to enjoy the same prosperity that Americans do. To do this, the forecasted earth population of at least 9 billion people would have to be reduced to 4 billion people – one way or another.  That would be genocide for about 5 billion people.

The planet simply does not have the resources to support this forecast of population growth.  We need to stop the growth in our species – something no species has ever consciously done.

This is one of several serious problems.  We need to think about solutions which are sensible and which can be practically implemented.  This gets us back to the fundamental problem that we do not know how to think.

Dr. Edward de Bono is a medical doctor and an Oxford PhD-trained psychologist.  He is also a prolific author and the world’s foremost expert on thinking.  While Dr. de Bono notes how important it is that we are able to think well, he also correctly points out that we humans do not know how to think. This is very troublesome given the problems that our world faces.

There is bad news in all of this.  As reported in Jared Diamond’s unnerving book, Collapse, the treacherous dilemma is that because we have forsaken our ability to think, we often fail to anticipate problems.  Worse, when problems appear we don’t recognize them.  And finally when we do identify them we do not react properly.  For example, scientists have been warning us about the potential consequences of climate change for over a decade.  The carbon dioxide level in the air and in the ocean is suddenly higher than it has been for millions of years.  Still worse – on a geological timeline 10,000 years is considered an instant.  This shocking climate variation has happened in less than 100 years – a tiny fraction of a tiny amount of time.  And, we do not have the will as a species to save ourselves.

The bottom line is that we have about five years to positively or negatively change the destiny of our planet.  Yet even with climate change clearly upon us and quite palpable, we are not doing very much about it.  And, as if things couldn’t get worse, they may.

But human thinking has gone far beyond basic survival to include a will for achievements and accomplishments.  This has provided good benefit.  All human achievements — culture, art, literature, science and technology — are the products of thinking.  After over 2 million years of modern-human evolution, thinking is the now highest form of any activity present in man.

So thinking is important and the benefits of enhancing thinking ability are extraordinary. But the benefits go far beyond material achievements.  For example, by developing one’s thinking abilities it is possible to transform one’s negative tendencies, like quick anger, into more socially appropriate behaviors. So when school students are taught to think effectively, their aggressive tendencies are reduced significantly. When neurotics are taught to think effectively, they show a remarkable reduction in their neurosis.

Business people too benefit; hundreds of new ideas are generated from still waters when a structured thinking process is invoked.  In our forthcoming world, new ideas for ways to plow forward will be king.  In a 2010 survey of more than 1,500 Chief Executive Officers from 60 countries and 33 industries worldwide led by IBM, the ability to think creatively was anointed the most important trait of managers.  Happily, hundreds of fresh, potentially ground breaking new ideas can be generated from still waters with a proper approach to thinking.