Summary of the Book "Thinking" - Episode Two
As for the method of thinking, it is the way the mental process takes place, and it does not change. As for the style of thinking, it is the way required to research something, and it differs according to the reality of the thing. The mental method is named after the mind, and it means a specific approach to research that is followed to reach the nature of the thing by transmitting the sensation of reality to the brain with prior information in order to judge things. It is a way of thinking about everything, whether physics or other things.
It is necessary to differentiate between prior information and prior opinions, and to avoid opinions completely because they lead to errors in perception and interpret information incorrectly. Using the mental method with regard to the existence of something results in a correct and definitive result; because the judgment came through sensation, and sensation does not err in the existence of reality. However, if it is used to judge the thing, the result will be speculative and subject to error; this is because the judgment came from analyzing the sensation of reality with information, but it remains correct until its error becomes clear. For example, beliefs are definitive and relate to the existence of something, while legal rulings are speculative and are a judgment on reality.
After the Industrial Revolution, the Western world called for what is called the scientific method to be the method of thinking, and those impressed by Western culture promoted it, so people began to sanctify the scientific method.
The scientific method is based on subjecting matter to conditions other than its original conditions, and then observing the matter, conditions, and factors. It is specific to material matters, and requires the researcher to erase from his mind any thought, prior information, or prior belief. The result is scientific and speculative, subject to error, and not definitive.
Therefore, the scientific method is a style and not a method, and it is specific to tangible material matters, and it is not a basis; because it must have prior information, and this information must have come through a way other than the way of experimentation and observation, because it is done by transmitting reality by sensation, and the information cannot be experimental because it has not yet been obtained, so the prior information must be mental; therefore, the scientific method is not a basis but a branch of the mental method, which is the basis. Likewise, the scientific method assumes that everything that is not tangible does not exist, so there is no existence for jurisprudence, history, angels, or God, because it has not been proven through experimentation and observation, even though the existence of angels is definitive and the existence of God is definitive by the mental method.
The possibility of error must be noted in the scientific method, and the error has actually occurred in its results, but in any case, it is a correct method for thinking about material matters. Also, this method cannot produce new ideas, but rather infers them. Newly created ideas are taken by the mind directly, such as the existence of God, but knowing that water consists of oxygen is not taken by the mind directly, but was taken from ideas that the mind had previously taken and then experiments were conducted alongside these ideas, but the West, as a result of its sanctification of these ideas, began to apply them to human knowledge.
As a result of using this method, many errors appeared in communism, including their saying that nature is an indivisible whole, and that it is in a state of constant change due to contradictions, but these contradictions do not exist. They say that living things have contradictions, so they have cells that die and cells that are born, but this is not a contradiction, but rather the weakness of some cells and their death and the production of other cells, provided that dead organisms have dead cells and no cells are born. They thought that contradictions would occur in Europe, but no contradictions occur in it, but rather it is drowning in the capitalist system.
The West has also mixed between deductive ideas resulting from the mental method and scientific ideas resulting from the scientific method, so they applied the scientific method to humans, and created psychology, which is the repetition of observations on humans at different ages, and they called the repetition of observations science, which is originally not a scientific method. This was a serious error due to the error in applying the scientific method to humans; because the most important thing in the scientific method is experimentation, and this is not possible on humans.
For example, as a result of the error in using this method, the West enumerated human instincts, and concluded that instincts cannot be limited, and they said that there is an instinct of fear and an instinct of courage... and others, so their mistake was that they did not differentiate between the original energy and its manifestations. For example, the instinct of reproduction is an original energy and the inclination towards the mother for her tenderness and towards the woman with desire is a manifestation of its manifestations, and while the original energy cannot be canceled, one of its manifestations can be canceled or suppressed, so the mother's tenderness, for example, may be a deterrent to marriage, or vice versa, and so on. There are three instincts: the instinct of survival: (that is, man has a natural feeling of survival, and he acts towards everything that threatens this survival with boldness or restraint, depending on what he sees, and he has a natural feeling), the second instinct is the instinct of reproduction: (that is, man's extinction threatens his survival, so he wants to preserve it, and it is not the sex instinct; because sex unites humans and animals, but reproduction is for the survival of the human species, and not for the survival of humans and animals, and the inclination towards animals as the inclination of the male towards the male is abnormal and not normal) and the third instinct is religiosity: (that is, when man feels helpless, as if he feels helpless to satisfy the instinct of reproduction or survival, he resorts to God, so it emerges when he feels surrendered, as it emerges in applauding the leader and the hero). However, man has a vital energy, and this energy is divided into energy that must be satisfied, which is organic needs, and energy that requires mere satisfaction, which is instincts. Organic needs relate to the existence of energy, but instincts relate to the needs of energy and not to its existence, so he does not die if he does not satisfy them, but he is disturbed. However, what is said in psychology is also said in education and sociology, and it is the result of the error in applying the scientific method to humans and observing their actions. If they had applied the mental method by transmitting the sensation of human actions and linking them to prior information, they would have been guided to the correct result. However, the scientific method is correct, but only with regard to matter and not with regard to humans, such as history and ideology, so making the scientific method the basis of thinking is an error that leads to judging the non-existence of some sciences, even though they actually exist, and the scientific method is subject to error.
