Mind Development recognizes five levels of Postformal thought:
- Dialectical reasoning:
In dialectics the resolution of two elements (thesis and antithesis) occurs due to contradiction or conflict resolving into a new thesis (and thus creating a new antithesis). Dialectic reasoning is a way of thinking which seeks to discover a whole new series of questions to be asked, rather than in finding 'once and for all' answers; it facilitates problem finding rather than just problem solving.
- Problem finding:
Intelligence is the function of perceiving, posing and resolving problems. Problem finding means problem discovery - insight into what is missing in the existing picture of a situation. It is an aspect of divergent intelligence and requires initiative and creativity.
- Relativistic operations:
Consideration of the relative, non-absolute nature of knowledge, which accepts contradiction as a basic aspect of reality.
- Reflective judgment:
Beliefs are justified probabilistically using evidence and arguments; conclusions are defended as representing the most complete, most compelling, or most plausible understanding of an issue available to date, based on the current evidence. See the Scale of Reflective Judgment which follows below.
- Trialectic reasoning:
Postformal operations use a more flexible logic than formal thinking, containing fewer assumptions. Although this logic is 'weaker,' it allows the development of new kinds of thinking. Trialectics is the final stage of Postformal operations. Moving beyond Dialectic argument which is based on contradiction, we can look at the pros and cons of an argument trialectically, which includes the ability to think with Three Valued Logic: thesis and antithesis exist but are viewed in a qualitatively different way, and the resolution between them is through complementarity or cooperation, giving rise to a higher degree of insight, in which a new thesis is incorporated or synthesized.
Metacognition
Metacognition is thinking about thinking, knowing "what we know" and "what we don't know." Just as an executive's job is management of an organization, a thinker's job is management of thoughts. The basic metacognitive strategies are:
- Connecting new information to former knowledge.
- Selecting thinking strategies deliberately.
- Planning, monitoring, and evaluating thinking processes.
Beyond Postformal operations: Mature Intuition and the Metavert State
The formal approach to consciousness, simplistically, recognizes identity as the fundamental element. It allows for a fixed, static, identifiable world. In a formal world we can know what to expect. In
dialectics the resolution of two elements (thesis and antitheses) occurs due to contradiction or conflict resolving into a new thesis (and thus creating a new antithesis). The process goes on and on. Moving beyond dialectic argument, however, we can look at the pros and cons of an argument
trialectically. These two elements exist but are viewed in a qualitatively different way, and the resolution between them is through complementarity or cooperation, giving rise to a higher degree of insight. Students will get glimpses of this higher realm, a taste of true wisdom, just as they may have peak experiences that offer a glimpse into the transpersonal or spiritual aspects of their being, but serious work with the techniques of Mind Development will increasingly make this a daily experience and domain general, rather than just in a specific area of expertise.
Trialectic reasoning is the transitional phase between the fifth stage of Postformal Operations and the
sixth stage of intellectual development,
Mature Intuition.
When Postformal Operations have been internalized, practiced to the degree of effortless competence, on not just a domain-specific (one's area of expert knowledge and competence) but on a domain-general basis, a sixth stage of development then naturally follows, called Mature Intuition. Work on the advanced courses of Mind Development will be of invaluable assistance in this process. When this stage is reached, all significant cognitive structures of the first five stages have sufficient maturity to be utilized pre-reflectively or intuitively. The individual can then make use of his creative and intuitive skills to become a breakthrough thinker and leader.
This state transcends introvert and extravert orientations - it is '
Metavert' - the individual can chose introspective introversion or expressive extraversion, as appropriate to his circumstances and needs. He has no neurotic compulsions nor inhibitions regarding one or the other; he is essentially free of Superego control. He can focus internally or externally at will, rather than being driven by the conditioning of his experiences and upbringing.
One may ask the question, "Does all thought take place in words?" It should now be evident that it is a question of degree. When we are dealing with a low level of abstraction, concerning concrete objects, we may think entirely without words. As we ascend the ladder of abstraction, words form an increasing part of our mental content. It may appear, from superficial observation, that people operate non-verbally at high levels of abstraction. In most cases this is an illusion... some form of imagery is being used, as a surrogate language. There is, however, Intuitive Thinking. This is not thinking in the same sense; it consists of mental operations at high speed, often in parallel and outside the frame of consciousness. At the cognitive level of Mature Intuition, words are sometimes used; however, because of the speed of the process - typically the speed of thought exceeds 1,200 words per minute and continues subcognitively - and because the process occurs largely outside of awareness as an intuitive process, there is an illusion of non-verbal thought. We can't think in terms of the speed of inner speech anymore, because in this Metavert state, thinking is transverbal.
Thought, in the Metavert state of Mature Intuition is
post-symbolic and
post-reflective - it is beyond language and beyond the scale of Reflective Judgment given above. The Metavert does not have to think reflectively, he just knows - all the reflective judgments are being made at high speed beneath the surface of consciousness, an intuitional process. He has access to the contents of both the affective and the cognitive subconscious as resources for intuition (see
The Cognitive Unconscious).
The Metavert state of Mature Intuition is not a transpersonal state; there is no sense of union with the Infinite and God. One, however, is illuminated in a certain sense. In the Metavert state one operates at a higher harmonic of intelligence, that of Certainty. Most of a Metavert's thinking is intuitive; by this I mean that one perceives, poses and resolves problems intuitively. Most of a Metavert's thinking is transverbal and visual; one is thinking in meanings rather than words; one only needs to think conventionally when one makes conclusions and in order to explain things to another person. One can do this easily, because one retains access to all the skills of Formal and Postformal thought, so much of one's experience at the Metavert level can be translated into words.
At this final stage of mind development the intellect is integrated with feeling and both of these functions are put on automatic. The remaining active thinking continues the level of the Ego or conscious self. However, the functioning of the Ego itself becomes witnessed - a higher and transcendent state of consciousness. One of the hallmarks of this state is that the self is not involved with the world. Thinking, feeling and perception can function below the level of conscious attention, just as muscular motor coordination is generally automatic and apparently unconnected to attentional processing. The entire brain literally runs in parallel, and attention ceases to be a bottleneck in any cognitive processes; attention moves to the witnessing meta-intelligence.
