COMPLEX THINKING: SKILLS, MORIN CONCEPT, EXAMPLES - PSYCHOLOGY - 2024

The complex thought is a set of mental skills that allow us to perform advanced actions, such as understanding concepts, generate original ideas, using logic and break down problems into their simplest parts. It is a fundamental type of thinking for success in many different areas, and it is closely related to intelligence.

People with a great capacity to develop complex thinking tend to be good at understanding the bases of different ideas and concepts. They are also able to find the relationship between information from different sources; and generally they have a good imagination, they are good at creating and defending arguments based on evidence.

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In contrast, people with difficulties in this area often have trouble understanding new ideas and concepts without help or much effort. Furthermore, they generally have a harder time "reading between the lines" and making inferences. Because of this, they tend to rely on their existing knowledge rather than trying to develop new ideas or ways of thinking.

However, as in many other areas, complex thinking is something that can be trained. On the other hand, factors such as each person's knowledge of a certain area, or their level of interest in it, can greatly influence their ability to use this skill in that area.

Edgar Morin's Complex Thinking

Edgar morin

The concept of complex thinking was first described by the philosopher and epistemologist Edgar Morin. For this thinker, the ability to think in a complex way has to do with the ability to connect different planes of reality with each other. Due to the increasing complexity of our environment, it is a fundamental ability to function in it.

The concept of complex thinking is contrasted with the traditional view of mind processes as linear and simple. Edgar Morin described it as an interdisciplinary skill, essential for all areas in which it is necessary to relate apparently independent information or to understand and solve complex problems.

Morin was the first to postulate some of the main characteristics of complex thinking. The most important were diaphor (whereby the consistency of a system of thought appears when a paradox occurs), recursion (the possibility of changing the system through feedback), and hologram (the relationship between the parts with the whole).

Therefore, complex thinking is a thinking strategy that tries to understand a very broad phenomenon by studying its specific components. Based on what was discovered from these components and external information, what was taken for granted about the phenomenon in general is changed.

According to Edgar Morin, the study of complex thought belongs to the field of epistemology; that is, to the area that studies the methods used to make scientific discoveries.

Complex thinking skills

Using complex thinking correctly requires mastering three fundamental skills: basic, critical, and creative reasoning. Next we will see what each one of them consists of.

Basic reasoning

Basic reasoning is based on the set of knowledge and information that we have acquired throughout our lives, through the experiences we have lived, the culture in which we are immersed, our beliefs, the social rules of our environment and the models we look at.

Based on all this knowledge, basic reasoning is responsible for performing a series of simple functions that allow manipulation. Among the most important are those of memorizing, remembering and applying in a linear way all those ideas that have been previously acquired.

In addition, basic thinking also gives us the capacity for metacognition; that is, the ability to realize what we know and what we don't. This is very important to be able to improve our reasoning processes and to acquire new information when we need it.

Although basic reasoning is the simplest of the three types, it is at the base of complex thinking; and mastering its components is essential to be able to use the other two types of reasoning effectively.

Critical thinking

The second skill that makes up complex thinking is critical reasoning. It is a set of tools that, instead of being used to acquire new knowledge as with the basic one, are used to reorganize all the ideas already present in our memory.

Thus, with critical reasoning we can rethink what we already know and find new applications for it, in such a way that it is more useful to us than simply manipulating it in the way we memorized it for the first time. It is, therefore, a more complex and difficult process to carry out than basic reasoning.

But how does critical reasoning work? Its main functions are to analyze the knowledge that we have previously acquired, thus finding patterns, discovering the main ideas and classifying the information; evaluate everything we have learned; and make connections between the different data that we have in mind, using logic, deduction and induction.

Creative reasoning

The last level of complex thinking encompasses all those skills that are used to create new knowledge from all those that have been previously acquired. It is a very complicated set of tools to use, and one that generally requires practicing before you can fully master them.

Creative reasoning starts from the base of pure knowledge acquired through basic thinking, or that which we have reorganized with the critic. From here, skills such as synthesizing, crafting, creativity, or imagination are used to develop new ideas, ways of thinking, and concepts.

All knowledge created from creative reasoning must be evaluated later by the critic. In addition, it has been discovered that to develop this third level it is necessary to have a great command of the other two. Many experts agree that these skills are what really make up complex thinking.

Complexity concept

The concept of complexity as understood today was developed by Edgar Morin in his study of epistemology and rationality. According to this author, it is the idea that all the elements of the world are interrelated, and therefore are part of systems larger than themselves instead of being isolated objects.

The complexity lies in the fact that no element of reality can be studied as an individual entity, but rather has to be understood based on its relationships with the environment in which it is found and with the rest of the elements that make up a set.

For Morin, realizing the existence of these relationships and the complexity of our environment can be a major paradigm shift. We generally tend to focus on the concrete and immediately observable; but according to his theory of complexity, this would not really be helping us to understand the world around us in its entirety.

This idea of ​​the complexity of our environment led Morin to propose a new model of education, which focused on teaching students to think rather than simply providing them with a series of data to memorize. That is, instead of focusing on basic reasoning, his proposal was to try to teach students critical and creative thinking skills.

Later, it has been discovered that being aware of the complexity of all the phenomena that surround us is very useful when performing certain actions, such as creating something new, thinking rationally or acquiring new skills.

Examples of complex thinking

The concept of complex thinking can be somewhat difficult to understand abstractly. For this reason, below you will find a list of examples in which this ability is used to achieve different ends.

- A person tries to understand the needs of a friend, who is behaving in a particularly aggressive way. Instead of getting angry and walking away from him, the individual tries to understand what may be behind him and what feelings are leading him to act like this.

- The head of a company has to resolve a conflict between two employees. To do this, you must listen to the point of view of both, try to find common ground, and decide if there is a solution that can satisfy both of you.

- A team of scientists is developing a joint project that will help advance one of the main theories in the field of physics. To do this, its components not only have to study all the information already available, but they have to formulate new hypotheses and develop tests to verify them.

- A fiction writer has to organize his ideas to create the plot of a story. To do this, you have to take into account the personalities of your different characters, their motivations, and the way they are most likely to act.

References

1. "Complex thinking" in: Faces of Learning. Retrieved on: October 08, 2019 from Faces of Learning: facesoflearning.net.
2. "The 7 key messages of complex thinking" in: Maximulation. Retrieved on: October 08, 2019 from Maximulation: maximulation.com.
3. "Edgar Morin: In praise of complex thought" in: CNRS News. Retrieved on: October 08, 2019 from CNRS News: news.cnrs.fr.
4. "Skills for complex thinking" in: Development of skills for complex thinking. Retrieved on: October 08, 2019 from Development of skills for complex thinking: dhpcfiqbuap.blogspot.com.
5. "Complex thinking" in: Possibilities for Learning. Retrieved on: October 08, 2019 from Possibilities for Learning: possibilitiesforlearning.com.