How to deal with irrational thoughts? Rational and irrational thinking

15.06.2019

All of us in adulthood think in a stereotyped or stereotyped way. Stereotypes of thinking are laid down in deep childhood, and then, throughout our lives, we strengthen them. In thinking, as in all other processes in the Universe, the law of conservation of energy operates. Thinking in a stereotyped way, according to a pre-worked out scheme, is very beneficial: a minimum of energy and time is spent. And it's good if you have the right templates - rational ones. Then you think not only quickly, but also correctly :-). What if your thought patterns are irrational? You are not very lucky, but it can be fixed.

Why is it necessary to get rid of irrational thoughts?

Irrational thoughts disrupt adaptation, reduce efficiency at work and in other areas of life. In a word, they greatly interfere with life.
They are not flexible, they work in unnecessary situations.
They cause symptoms such as anxiety, depression, irritability.

Well, and to convince you that you need to get rid of irrational thinking, I will give its typical manifestations:

Striving to be perfect in everything
Fear of public speaking
Fear of talking to management
Refusal of career growth
Loneliness
Living on a lower social level
Problems in personal life
Dependence on parents
Bad habits
Increased body weight

Reasons for irrational thinking

As I have already said, stereotypes of thinking are laid down in deep childhood and are needed in order to save energy and time for making a decision and ensure survival. We face the problems of irrational thinking already in adulthood, and here's why:

Not all thought patterns formed in childhood are correct initially.
Not all thought patterns that are true for our childhood are true for us adults.

- this is a violation of thinking, as a result of which it is difficult to adapt to real environmental conditions. Most often, thinking errors appear in the following categories:

- requirements for myself: I must speak smoothly, without stammering; I must not stumble during a speech

- requirements for the outside world: they should not laugh at me

- catastrophizing: if it happened, it's terrible

- low frustration tolerance (LFT): I will not survive this.

If we chain together all the thoughts in the examples above, we get:

“I must not stumble during the report. They shouldn't laugh at me when I stutter. If that happens, it's terrible, I won't survive it." In fact, the tangle of thoughts is much larger, but by peeling the husk, we get exactly this standard scheme of irrational thinking, which is triggered every time you need to speak in public. This pattern is very common, which is why the fear of public speaking is so common in people.

Any problem, any situation in which you experience discomfort, you can sort through and find the very irrational scheme that causes discomfort (anxiety, fear, vegetative manifestations, etc.) and violates our relationship with the outside world.

Do you have irrational thoughts? Describe your problem situations, and I will find schemes that prevent you from living. In any case, the conversation about irrational thinking is not over 🙂 Subscribe to the newsletter!

Irrational and rational thinking are opposite ways of knowing. The human mind is based on rational knowledge. Irrationality gives him limitless possibilities. You just have to notice and catch them.

Rational thinking: what is it

The basis of rational consciousness is made up of real facts for reflection and logically sound arguments for making decisions. They allow you to see things in the true light, explain incomprehensible phenomena and show the shortest path to the goal.

Traditionally, a rational way of thinking is associated with the exact sciences, but in everyday life people are forced to use it to build their careers, save money for a major purchase, plan a vacation.

Rational Personalities:

sensibly assess the surrounding reality;
set realistic goals;
adequately respond to criticism;
listen to others;
support their conclusions with concrete facts;
distinguished by prudence and pragmatism;
soberly assess the possibilities - their own and others.

The determination to think rationally is a positive moment in terms of a person's work on his shortcomings.

It is sometimes difficult for people of a different warehouse, who do not know how and do not want to make plans for life, to achieve their goals, since they:

do not think about the consequences;
late everywhere;
unable to predict the course of events.

Guided by rational thoughts, a person does not commit spontaneous and thoughtless actions, minimizes the risk of unpleasant surprises. It is such a calm look at the situation that allows a person to gather at a critical moment, when passions and emotions boil around.

Methods of rational thinking

These methods are based on the use of logical methods of information processing:

Analysis- mental division of a whole into its constituent elements, the allocation of its properties, relationships and other characteristics, the definition of its structure.
Synthesis- the reunion of several elements or parts into a single integral structure. With the help of synthesis, a person mentally connects parts in new combinations, which allows him to establish connections between them and draw conclusions about their interaction.
Comparison- establishing similarities and differences between objects or objects. With the help of comparison, a person reveals various properties of objects and objects, both qualitative and quantitative characteristics.
Generalization- mental association of several objects according to some of the most significant features.
Abstraction (distraction)- highlighting the main, essential properties of objects and distraction from non-essential details.

Important! Analysis and synthesis are closely interrelated, one without the other makes no sense.

On the basis of logical methods of thinking, a wide variety of processes are carried out. They are successfully applied both in academic research and experiments, and in the field of simple everyday affairs.

Irrational thinking: what is it

A rational way of thinking discards emotions, impulses, desires, moods, impressions and all personal aspects, thereby limiting the intellectual potential. In contrast, irrational thinking “thinks with the heart”, is not constrained by any specific boundaries and basically has:

the senses;
impressions;
mystical experiences;
state of mind.

Closest to the irrational image is children's thinking, which has mobility, emotionality, vivid fantasies, spontaneity and lack of judgment.

As adults, people of an irrational warehouse prefer to develop frantic activity, but often their actions are chaotic, devoid of logic and consistency. In life, they are guided by their own ideas, which have little in common with the surrounding reality.

The irrational type of thoughts is inherent in creative people who need a flight of fancy like air. It is impossible to imagine a creative genius, a writer or an artist, operating within a strict rational framework. Personalities of the irrational type have, as a rule, a pronounced ability to influence the thoughts and desires of other people.

Methods of irrational thinking

Unlike rational, irrational cognition is not based on the logical methods discussed above, but on instant comprehension of the problem. Irrational thinking is based on:

Intuition:
- is a form of direct knowledge,
- allows you to comprehend reality without the testimony of the senses.
Insight:
- means mental comprehension of the whole, and not individual parts,
- rebuilds the situation, finds a new perspective on the problem.
Imagination:
- is a specific form of human psychological activity,
- creates a new image, a situation, a possible future using past experience.

The methods are not limited to the above forms. These include also the emotional sphere, spiritual insights, meditation practices in Eastern religions, and others.

Important! The origins of the irrational lie in the deep layers of thinking, in the unknown area of the unconscious. Hence the main dangers on this path: the substitution of the real for the desired and the launch of uncontrolled panic states.

In everyday life, one can often find destructive examples of irrational thinking. Suffice it to recall how many brilliant writers, artists and musicians in real life were helpless and had no basic means of subsistence.

Harmony of opposites

Psychologists are sure that people can exist in society without any problems, using any type of thinking.

Rational and irrational components are two sides of the same coin. Our one-sided worldview often separates them at opposite poles, while they should complement and enrich each other.

Thanks to the interaction of these opposite principles, a person's ability to find the right path in the sphere of various experiences of understanding the unknown develops.

Chapter 16 Irrational thinking

In all inductive processes we go from the particular, from the fact to the rule. As a result of induction, the conclusion is hypothetical. The judgment that induction is a transition from a judgment of fact to a judgment of a hypothetical type: if A exists, then there is B; no B, A may or may not be.

The nineteenth century was marked by a persecution of the common. The endless collections of individual facts inspired the logicians with the idea that the particular is the original form of our consciousness.

We are, at best, given the laws of abstract thought, not reality. Even Hegel rightly pointed out: “Thinking has a living progressive character, while the thesis A = A does not move from its place. And this is called the law of thought! No mind thinks, no man speaks, no thing exists under this law; therefore, the law of identity is not a law of thinking, it is not only not a law of thinking, but a statement that says nothing at all: A is A, God is God, spirit is spirit ... "

The laws of formal logic tear the living fabric of thought, cut off the imagination and invent schemes and rules that stop the development of thought and creativity itself. But living thought itself does not tolerate any stops and requires the mind to substantiate its subconscious or initial premises, encourages the mind to go beyond the rigid framework of the law of identity in order to establish the self-evidence of reality, avoiding the evil infinity of the law of sufficient reason, according to which A requires for itself a reason not into A, and into B, and B, in turn, into C, and so on.

Reason is inherently contradictory. After all, his work is determined by two laws - the law of identity, which requires the cessation of thought, and the law of sufficient reason, which insists on the boundless movement of thought. Florensky said very well about this: “The fabric of reason, woven from finiteness and infinity ... is torn apart in contradictions. Reason equally needs both of its norms, and it cannot work in either one. He cannot work, however, in the use of both, for they are incompatible. Norms of reason are necessary, but they are also impossible. The very mind is fragmented and split.”

Our logic is semi-empirical, semi-rational. The necessity of logical laws is valid only for our thinking. We cannot know only our thinking. But there can be thinking that does not obey the principles of our thinking. The law of contradiction is the law of earthly logic, with its help we are well versed in our earthly relations. This tragic position of the mind is removed only by turning to the supra-rational, or irrational, way of thinking. As Florensky points out, "but what is a contradiction for the rational ... then at the highest level of spiritual knowledge it ceases to be contradictory ... in a state of spiritual enlightenment ... there is no contradiction."

There is a special, super-rational, or irrational, thinking, which is able to perceive the world and its phenomena in integrity. This is confirmed by high spiritual ascetics, which cannot be denied so as not to show their flagrant ignorance. Usually, the experiences of such ascetics of the spirit-mystics cannot be conveyed verbally, at best - by some kind of symbols.

But for a long time, science has treated and still treats this type of thinking as psychopathology, charlatanism. In this regard, we can cite a textbook example associated with the astronomer of the past Laplace, who, in response to the remark that there is no God in his cosmogonic theory, replied that he did not need such a hypothesis.

The vast majority of people live in the so-called everyday consciousness, everyday thinking. As a result, they perceive not a multidimensional reality, but an imaginary evidence, unsystematic, fragmentary and contradictory. The whole hodgepodge of the worldview of the layman rests on a contradictory mind or reason. Florensky described this type of thinking very well: “Everyday understanding of life is incoherent and inconsistent: amethodical; he has neither a definite subject nor a definite point of view. Mixing all objects and all possible points of view, arbitrarily changing one for another, moving from one to another, not realizing its mobility and uncertainty, everyday thought possesses the fullness of comprehensiveness, but in this fullness there is no order, no form, and therefore no self-reporting. It has everything, all possible wealth of thought. Everything is explained by worldly thought, it has already been explained, and it does not need anything. However, it is explained somewhere and somehow, where and how exactly - you will find it only by chance. Such a life-conception is like a huge library, not only without a catalogue, but also without a plan.”

Struggling with such an ordinary consciousness, deepening the acquired knowledge, science imperceptibly, but inevitably, loses that superficial completeness of the holistic perception of the world inherent in everyday consciousness. As a result, we have not SCIENCE, but sciences, not the whole world, but pinpoint knowledge that explains individual mechanical parts of the world.

The saddest thing is that the formal logic elevated to the absolute, formal thinking, in essence, is at war with His Majesty the Man whom they are called to serve, since a person is initially whole, in him from the very beginning there is a desire for a holistic perception and understanding of the world. Modern science is trying to understand this and adapt to this natural wholeness of man, inventing either cybernetics, or semiotics, or synergetics. But what does it achieve as a result? Nothing, because it only shifts the angle of view, but all these "points of view" themselves need a synthesis, which, being heaped together, cannot give.

Just as once folk medicine was the only one, but supplanted by the more "impudent" modern, chemical, was considered traditional, in the same way, irrational thinking was pushed to the side of the high road of historical development by rational thinking, personified by scientific and technological progress. As a result, for example, a person turned out to belong only to the physical, material world, while he is an embodied trinity of three worlds - physical, mental and spiritual, in particular - body, soul and spirit. Ancient man might not have known the "scientific" laws of nature, but he knew Nature in its entirety. And it is impossible to reach this Truth with one head, one needs the heart. But science takes the truth by force, but the increasingly expensive experiments in science bring less and less results. Science, scientific thinking has reached its limit, and most of all they experience a crisis in fruitful ideas, the key to which, again, lies within a different type of thinking - irrational. But thinking formalized by logic is afraid to cross the forbidden line. Rational explanations explain the unfolding picture of the world less and less. Quantum physicists are increasingly beginning to use the irrational "hypothesis" of God, so passionately rejected once by Laplace. Scientists can still recognize from the forms of irrational thinking its two primary stages - intuition and insight, but "enlightenment" and "revelation" will be met with "bayonets and buckshot." The most abusive word for such scientists is "mystic". They are afraid of it like fire, although in reality it is they who, with their science entangled in the jungle of evidence, and not reality, are the mystics, for they wander in the fog of decrepit, blind and deaf pseudo-scientific paradigms. And they will hide from the general public that the supposedly "pure materialist" Newton was looking for God, but discovered the law of universal gravitation. Let historians of science calculate how many scientific discoveries were the result of irrational searches, and did not follow from logical, dry-witted reasoning.

The Russian scientist N. Vasiliev denied Aristotelian logic and recognized the need for a different logic - imaginary, or the logic of another world. He admitted that Aristotle's logic is true only for our physical world of evidence, but reality is more diverse and full of evidence. And he puts forward the concept of an imaginary logic, or the logic of reality, in the sense that it is a tool for knowing this reality and due to this it is in the closest relation to reality. The new logic is devoid of this relation to our reality; it is a purely ideal construction. Only in a world other than ours, in an imaginary world, could imaginary logic become an instrument of knowledge.

At one time, the great Lobachevsky called his geometry imaginary, later it was called non-Euclidean.

No one has yet proved that only one logic is possible - Aristotelian. We just got used to believing in many things that we ourselves have not seen with our own eyes. “What is obvious to us in our world, with our structure of mind and sensing ability, can be not only obvious, but also directly untrue in another world, for beings with a different mental organization.”

Is it really necessary for a deity to think according to Aristotelian logic, according to the canons of syllogism and Mill's rules of induction? Very early, religiosity created the concept of a deity whose intelligence infinitely exceeds that of man. Why is there nothing incredible or absurd in the fact that the logic of the deity is different than the logic of man.

This means that it is quite conceivable that there may be systems of logical thinking and logical operations that are completely different from ours.

In modern logic, there are three main views on the basic logical laws: the law of identity, contradiction, excluded middle, and sufficient reason. Someone sees in the laws of logic the laws of thinking. And Vasiliev rightly remarks: “We must think of other logical laws, if we only imagine a world with other natural laws of thinking, imagine a being with a different intellectual organization.”

Mathematics itself gives us examples of imaginary disciplines. For example, mathematicians introduced negative numbers, which do not exist in nature. We must understand that there may be a different logic than ours.

An imaginary logic is a logic free from the law of contradiction. And before proceeding with the construction of an imaginary logic, we must precisely formulate the axiom we reject in order to avoid any misunderstandings. The law of contradiction asserts the incompatibility of affirmations and negations. A negation is that which is incompatible with an affirmation.

I may not see things in the room, but she might be. The thing may or may not be present in visual perception. The proof of the existence or presence of the glass, and not of water, can only be that we must taste its contents. And the taste itself will serve as the basis for the assertion that it is in the glass. That is, the only logical basis for negation is incompatibility.

It is necessary to build a logic where there would be no our negation, which boils down to incompatibility.

In our world, direct perception gives only one kind of judgment - affirmative, but we can assume such a world, such logic, where our perception will give two types of judgment: affirmative and negative. Therefore, they can form grounds for simultaneous affirmation and denial.

In addition to logical (rational) thinking, there is illogical (irrational) thinking, which in most cases is denied existence, the right to have its own logic. But, as history shows, most of human development has passed and will pass under the sign of irrational logic. Man plunged into the world of physical reality, which is most consistent with the logic of the so-called scientific thinking. However, most of the scientific discoveries took place and are taking place, as many scientists admit, suddenly, spontaneously, as a result of some kind of “illumination”, “inspiration from above” or in dreams, as was the case with Mendeleev. However, for some reason, all this is ignored, and the logic of linear thinking is stubbornly imposed on us. Primitive man with his thinking is perceived and presented as something wretched, worthy of a condescending pat on the shoulder. Only our high scientists - philosophers and psychologists - are unaware that the so-called "primitive" people had a history of many millions of years with the brilliant development of civilization behind them, that they are fragments of a post-cataclysmic state. Only a few research scientists understand that the so-called non-logical thinking, "prehistoric", is not at all chaotic, disordered. It has its own logic, its own order. Only in the place of formal logical connections are “mystical”, supersensory, superconscious connections, instead of the law of the excluded middle there is the law of “mystical participation”, or the feeling of unity. This law in ancient thinking, so thoroughly supplanted by scientific, logical, is the main one. This thinking is expressed in the ingenious formula "Man is like the Cosmos" . The holistic thinking of the ancients established connections and relations between the phenomena of the social, cosmic and cultural order: the structure of the Universe and the human body, between life and death, between a blade of grass and the Cosmos; all this great Unity the man of antiquity called Life, God.

Without detracting from logical thinking in the least, it should be noted that the cognitive possibilities of the irrational type of thinking are also no less rich and have their own merits. This type of thinking resolves all the contradictions and antimonies created by the mind between the subject and the object, the real and the obvious, the whole and the part, the thing and the meaning. Irrational thinking implements the basic principles of dialectics - unity, causation, development, universal methods of cognition - analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction, generalization, comparison, etc.

Children's thinking is distinguished by concreteness, liveliness, emotionality, rich imagination, lack of rationality. It is this that is closest to irrational thinking. It is no coincidence that Christ advised people to be “like children,” that is, to make their consciousness childlike, spontaneous, joyful, and creative. And already now there are concepts among psychologists that irrational thinking is more primary in comparison with logical thinking. Irrational thinking is based on a heart understanding of the world, and rational thinking is based on logical abstraction. Thinking became more precise, but wholeness and liveliness, connection with the world, were lost. Between man and the world stood his mind. On the other hand, it has produced a powerful logical and methodological apparatus, against which it is difficult to object.

But, unfortunately, in the consciousness of mankind, with the help of science and technology, the opinion was established that only the consciousness that relies on the five external senses is real, and the rest of the reality, perceived "supersensibly", is a hallucination, schizophrenia. But the irrational state of consciousness has the right to exist, since, for example, we spend a third of our lives in an unusual state of sleep, in which our usual state is turned off, and we see some new reality, much of which can come true in this world. Scientists have discovered certain substances in the brain that arise when thinking and introduce it into the so-called altered states of consciousness. That is, the body naturally warms up and stimulates thinking, or, conversely, thinking itself stimulates the appearance of such substances.

Rationalistic thinking, intoxicated with the successes of science and technocracy, increasingly restricts our access to irrational reality, denying the right to exist to non-logical thinking. Rationalism has led us entirely into the outside world (especially monstrous is the latest invention of technocrats - the computer with its innumerable possibilities). Man is increasingly turning into a biological stump with technocratic appendages - insensitive, heartless, short-sighted, half-deaf and terminally ill. But from nature itself, a person needs a connection with the world of Reality, and not technocratic evidence, therefore, already in ancient times, a person began to artificially bring his consciousness into an altered state in order to enter a different reality. This was done with the help of tobacco, even stronger drugs, including alcohol, and music. Even the rats, already crazed from the technocratic pressure, prefer to quench their thirst not with ordinary water, but with alcohol, if such a choice occurs. Cutting himself off from the noosphere, a person thereby sharply reduces his creative abilities and possibilities, because he draws all his ideas and images from this subtle energy-information world, still mythical for science. For scientific thinking, very satisfied with its technocratic victories, it is fundamentally impossible to marry irrational thinking with its suspicious worlds, dreams and visions. ““It cannot be, because it cannot be” - such is the convincing logic of logical thinking, because it has long been known that “stones cannot fall from the sky.” And they suddenly began to fall and more than once, due to the fault of these asteroid stones, cataclysms occurred on Earth, sweeping away all these clever professors from the surface with their more than wretched evidence. Well, it remains to wait for another asteroid to fall from the sky. Maybe Fom will convince the unbelievers and, moreover, those who do not want to know anything new “illogical”. In the meantime, we will fasten a system of “logical lenses” on long hooked noses and through them we will look for pieces of what our feelings and reason throw at us from our generosity.

There is evidence, comprehended by our senses, and there is Reality, comprehended by the heart and other subtle energy centers of the soul. Evidence is from time, and Reality is from eternity and includes this temporary evidence.

So for someone the stone falls because there is a law of universal gravitation, and for someone the stone falls because he wants to fall. And if I wanted to, I would have started to fly.

In Taoism and Buddhism, there are original exercises aimed at the student's knowledge of all the limitations of logical thinking. For example, it is proposed to think about the fact that clap is a derivative action of two palms, and what will be the clap of one? In Sufism, parables serve this.

Human thinking is called by nature to combine two realities - sensual and irrational. These two realities intersect in his mind.

The connection between two types of reality - grossly material evidence and subtle energy Reality can be carried out in different ways, up to inadmissible ones - magic and drugs. But the most faithful and best is the purity of thinking - the purest channel and the only correct one, for thought is psychic energy, and psychic energy is everything. Pure highly moral thinking will ensure the removal of information from the supersensible Reality.

If we compare the patterns of thinking of ancient thinkers and modern philosophers, we will be convinced of the advantage of the former: the ancients limited the general and more concretely from each other, the unity of the concrete and the general was alive and whole. Yielding to scientific thinking in analysis, the thinking of the ancients surpassed it in synthesis, in integrity.

Worldview truths are usually revealed in irrational or mystical thinking, when a person, as it were, turns off his intellect and earthly feelings and surrenders to the sixth sense, called intuition. The highest essence of things and phenomena lies beyond the limits of modern intellectual comprehension of the world. This knowledge is holistic, it cannot be transmitted in terms of rational thinking. Since it is impossible to analyze, compare, measure. This higher knowledge is revealed to man in the form of meanings or symbols.

At one time, the famous thinker O. Spengler announced the completion of the cycle of "Western natural knowledge". To save itself, science, and hence scientific thinking, must integrate its separate divisions. The ways to save science that has fallen into crisis lie in attention to man, in the humanization of science, in the transition to new forms of thinking as a way of cognizing the all-encompassing Reality. This thinking must become truly creative, that is, combine the previously incompatible - the rational and the irrational. Creativity is based on the heart, on straight-knowledge. The era of smart heart thinking is coming.

How, bypassing complex logical formulas, did the irrational unfold in integral thinking into a single meaningful picture? This tool was imagination . Thanks to the logic of imagination, holistic thinking overcomes the obstacles of rational thinking, the so-called "common sense", and brings a person to new creative horizons. At all times, creativity owes its existence to the imagination, which is given extremely little attention in logical thinking. It is imagination that allows one to perceive the world in integrity, in synthetic unity: alive, full of meaning, while common sense cuts this entire world into pieces with a scalpel in the form of formal logic and receives dead abstractions that are not interconnected and even enter into contradictions. Rational thinking, which has its own formal logic, is contradictory by its very nature, while holistic, creative thinking does not know such contradictions. Comes to curiosities. So, in mathematics, the criterion of the truth of a new formula sometimes becomes its beauty, and not long, incomprehensible to the scientist himself, logical proofs. And the criterion of beauty is the basis of holistic creative thinking. Scientific thinking spends a lot of effort to solve the problem of the synthesis of natural science knowledge, but again searches with the help of only formal logic, although the impossibility of such an unnatural synthesis has already been scientifically proven (Heisenberg - the uncertainty relation, Bohr - the complementarity principle).

Here we need a different logic - intuitive. This was once discussed by our domestic outstanding thinkers N.A. Vasiliev and P.A. Florensky.

intuition (sensory knowledge) is the highest form of the mind at this and the next evolutionary stage in the development of human thinking. This is a kind of heart thinking. Straight-knowledge arises together with the awakening and growth of Psychic energy processed by the fire of the heart. Humanity faces the challenge think and decide with your heart . In the meantime, there is a bias towards brain intelligence.

The highest form of thinking is spirit of understanding when the world is perceived directly by the spirit itself, or by the monad. We can indirectly judge this intensity of fiery thinking by the outstanding feats of the spiritual ascetics of mankind, who have not allowed human consciousnesses to fade at all times. Spiritual thinking is a reckless service to the Common Good, it is an eternal self-sacrifice, it is an instantaneous action on all planes of being, it is an integral unity of thought and action, in which there is nothing personal. Here thought is a fiery feeling and at the same time a fiery action. This is an indissoluble tri-unity, which makes it possible to perceive and understand all cosmic phenomena, live the life of universal unity and act according to the laws of this universal unity.

irrational art thinking

The problem of the dominance of the subject in the objective embodiment (objectification) of irrational thought when creating an artistic image is considered; the unity of the artist (subject) with the images of the object, the emergence of sensual fragments of being, as well as the rational construction of the artistic image in the mind of the subject.

The problem of the unity of the rational and the irrational has been one of the most important problems of philosophy since the very moment the latter arose, for what is philosophy if not thinking about the structure of the universe and the person immersed in it: is the universe rational, or is it fundamentally irrational, therefore, unknowable and unpredictable: are our means of cognition of being rational, or is it possible to penetrate into the depths of being only with the help of intuition, insight, etc.? Such questions are not entirely correct, because the separation of the rational and the irrational is not philosophical. Just as there is no middle ground without much, existence without non-existence, day without night, so in philosophy there is no rational without the irrational.

In art, this is one of the important points: determining the degree of use of rational and irrational thinking. A good example is the emergence of impressionism in art, where the basis is irrational thinking, rationalism here acts only as shaping (the ratio of large and small, rhythms and movements). Neglect or conscious rejection of the rational or irrational layers of being leads to truly tragic consequences - not only an incorrect theoretical scheme arises that unites reality, but a deliberately false idea is formed about the universe and the position of a person in it. Let's remember our recent past. The existing ideology simply forbade the irrational and ordered to consider the world as extremely rational.

In art, this was expressed in the formation of a detail in a picture as a separate part that carries semantic and artistic value. By means of a detail, which was, in fact, a cult, it is possible to solve any rational problems in politics, economics, religion. But will the image in this case be a work of art if it lacks an irrational principle?

It is customary for us to think that rational thinking, that is, the human mind, curbing "unconscious" emotions, or intuition, as something subconscious, is involved in the process of creating a work of art. Academician B. Raushenbakh believes that irrational thinking is no less important for scientific and artistic creativity. This is significant, as it opens up new areas of creative impulse that defies rational explanation. Irrational thinking leads to discoveries no less than in the case of intuition or rationalism. From the position of irrational thinking, we are able to realize the abstract creativity, inclinations and discoveries of the same Malevich. Although it is sometimes difficult to understand, that is, almost impossible, what in the artist's work was the product of rational or irrational thinking. The insight into the laws of gravity, weight, gravity, the awareness of "nothing", zero, etc., is probably the fruit of irrational thinking, which creates in art a certain meaning that is adequate to the laws of the existence of living matter.

Each person from the moment of birth has a certain reference point in his development. If we consider development as a straight line with many points, then it is generally accepted that the initial development of a person, proceeding from a rational perception of the surrounding reality, in the process of acquiring life experience, moves towards irrationality:

Empirically observing human activity, one can determine the point on the straight line between irrationalism and rationalism. In this case, we are talking about the aesthetic anthropology of a creative person in a certain form of development (irrationalism - rationalism).

The degree of human creativity has a decisive role in achieving success, a high level of development, no matter what form of development it is in. Nevertheless, preference in creativity is given to the irrational form, the artist finds his dominant as a driving force, a source of excitement in the mind, it flares up and lives until the irrational beginning ends with rationalism.

The dominant of the evolutionary process pre-exists, it is given by nature. The artist himself sets his dominant and then devoutly, devotedly serves it. Man is the slave of his dominant and master. Dominants flare up, live and, having resolved, go out. They are unusually diverse: they can differ in strength, in activity, in time of existence. Several dominants can be combined, alternately owning the subject.

Dominant - the stimulus of creativity. If we proceed from the fact that the dominant is a thought or a feeling that dominates all feelings and thoughts, then the creative principle can be both irrational and rational.

Let's take the work of Leonardo da Vinci as an example. Even in the well-known painting "La Gioconda", the construction of the composition, the discreet color speak of the prevailing rationality of the author. He does not observe a definite movement from irrationalism to rationalism, the latter is his prerogative. Malevich's "Black Square", his Suprematist compositions are also rational and logical, the difference is only in the conventionality and form of the image.

In the world of art, what belongs to aesthetics and is limited today by the framework of the aesthetic ideal is already rational in itself. The viewer cannot treat this as a “miracle”, because “miracle” is something that is inaccessible to logic, and logic is explained primarily by the search for an image of random combinations. After his irrational hesitations, discoveries, disappointments, the Creator subconsciously seeks to rationalize the product of his feelings into a coherent system. The question arises: “Where is the image and its culmination formed?” It depends on how art can be subjective. If we turn to dreams, analyzing the works of Freud, then we can treat the dream as a "hidden" rational thinking. The dream is more often illogical due to the lack of information, so it is unconscious in nature. In essence, an artist who is in a state of searching for a new image (this is, first of all, a form and a plot) behaves ambivalently, deceiving himself (or the second “I”) in order to find the state that he is looking for.

But if the dream is unconscious, then the image obtained thanks to it is rational, Dali's paintings can serve as an example. In this case, the rationalization of the dream occurs. The viewer sees a dream embodied on canvas, already built according to the laws of composition, logically explainable, in a certain sequence. The same thing happens with the artist who empirically observes the object - in order to create an image, he irrationally attunes himself to it. This is where hard-to-explain things begin - an anthology of a creative personality. Intuition and the human hand as a tool make unconscious movements, collect a heap of lines, spots, generalizing them into one whole, empirically observing the object in parallel, giving rise to an artistic image.

It is curious that a person empirically observing the created image cannot control the actions of this image in his fantasies (representations), they exist separately, on their own. In order to radically change the movement of fantasies, the artist resorts to improvisation. He draws on the plane a detail of his fantasy, which helps him to transfer it in himself to another plane or state, which can radically change or open the next facet of a new image in the picture.

Plunging into the contemplation of our "I", we discover the driving reason for our existence - the will. Looking at the world lying in front of us, we are convinced that the will manifests itself in everything, starting with the reflection in a puddle of grass, trees, of various textures and ending with the person himself, the latter himself builds relationships with time, space and reason through awareness of his "I".

If the subject is able to feel the length of time in direct proportion to his way of thinking (irrational), then it can be assumed that the objects around us, both thinking and non-thinking material parts (of the space around us), generalized with the external environment, are constantly in isolation from the subject. Most of it is only an object of knowledge, they exist only as changing material particles of objects. They exist as objects in dynamics, and they do not exist as subjects of the thinking particles of the material world for a single group of individuals. Example: the subject empirically observes the dynamics of a material object, cognizes objects without coming into contact with them, but through irrational thinking, using feelings, tries to rationalize the system of movement of material moving particles.

To generalize and find the desired artistic image, the artist isolates his gaze, as mentioned above, from material particles that are not in contact with the subject. Rationalizing all thinking and non-thinking objects into one harmoniously built composition (scheme), the irrationally thinking subject, as if resisting, leaves himself a niche for the expression of free will. The particles, subjectively built by the artist, move, and also stay at rest for some time, arranged in a certain order, in compliance with the laws of the material and non-material nature of phenomena. The task of the creative subject is to recognize the system of movement and distribution of the mass of objects in space or plane, and objects that are not included in an empirically observed image are generalized by the subject into one movement or rest. What does the cognizing subject do with such objects, or how do objects influence the irrational thinking of the subject? Let us recall the length of time in sensations, as discussed above. Something similar is happening now, we are pushing the boundaries of material nature with its unthinking material particles (objects), with rationally built patterns of movement and rest, and sensual irrational images that arise inside the subject. The peculiarity is that the greater the distance between the two boundaries of rationally constructed objects and irrational images within the subject, the more the image used by the subject is designated. Example: an artist, composing a composition of a future painting, closes his eyes to eliminate the empiricism of reflective particles, left alone with the images of objects that arose on the basis of irrational thinking.

The unity of the artist (subject) with the images of the object reveals associative links based on emerging sensual fragments of being.

Such images are difficult to coexist with an empirically observed object, symbiosis is practically impossible, disharmony arises in rhythmic constructions (you can use this only as an experiment).

Thought processes divorced on different sides organize a qualitative associative array of the future artistic image. But the irrational thought of the creative subject feeds on empirical observations and psychological emotional contacts with other subjects, there is an involuntary convergence of the two opposing sides of the material and non-material worlds. It is important that the subject himself chooses thinking and non-thinking material objects, can subjugate them and create a favorable situation for cognitive activity.

From the life experience of many well-known creative subjects, there is a reflection on the offensive of everything rational on the subjective inner side of a person: he defends himself, finding various methods and ways of thinking.

Everything that destroys the irrational thought of the subject is generalized, as was said above, into unthinking material objects in the form of one whole movement or rest. Since real time and precise material objects do not exist in irrational thinking, in its sensory sensations, in the subject, creativity wanders doubtfully and constantly gravitates towards the materialization of its ideas. Since the world of objective objective realities is a secondary world, and not the primary world of phenomena, a creative personality defends its primacy, despite the weakness and ease of judgment, realizing that the objectification of thought within the framework of the material world is another product of human activity.

In society, the essence of a creative person is within the framework of aesthetic moral ideals; an irrationalized idea is not perceived. The striving of the material world to rationalize, to subjugate freely wandering thought, to systematize scientifically irrational thought leads to the depersonalization of art.

Irrationality is first of all sensibility, and where sensibility is, there is an image. The absence of irrationality is the absence of an image, and where there is no image, there is no art.

Is it possible to call Malevich's "Black Square" or "Red Oval" an image? In our opinion, this is not an image. These are some values of the order of things, which Malevich himself characterizes as a concentration of energy, a measure of space, time, or the zero value of any object. These meanings of things are not even Suprematist symbols, framed in a rhythmic, color, constructive or spatially constructed shell. The art form is plastic. Plasticity is built according to the laws and dependencies proposed by the artist. Malevich's works depend not only on the original plastic language, but also represent a new way of thinking. The structure of art is rooted not only in the public consciousness, but also in natural organic matter, which nourishes many areas of human talent.

Thus, the consciousness of mankind has its source not only in society, but above all in organic nature. Each of these sources establishes its own causal relationships, its own patterns of development of art.

NATA CARLIN

Rational thinking differs from irrational in that it is based on logically sound arguments and facts for reflection and decision making. Irrational thinking is an incoherent train of thought that does not have a strictly built logical chain and is based on assumptions and feelings. Irrational thinking arises from a person's desire to believe in their fantasies.

Rational thinking is a process, not a result

This way of thinking is the ability to build logical chains, draw appropriate conclusions and. The desire to think rationally is a positive factor for working on your own shortcomings. Guided by logical reflections, a person does not act spontaneously, thereby excluding unpleasant surprises. Rational thinking allows a person to see things in their true light, explains the inexplicable, calms and shows the shortest way to achieve the desired result. This method helps, which is currently considered paramount.

To learn how to think rationally, follow these guidelines:

Start each reflection with a search for proven facts. Sometimes this is difficult to do, but without them it is impossible to build a logical chain that will lead to the right conclusions and the right actions;
In thinking, be guided by the fact that your point of view (as well as those of others) may be wrong. Ask your friends about their vision of this fact.

Do not judge the actions and behavior of people only by external manifestations. Do you think that a friend avoids communicating with you? What are your conclusions based on? On logic or assumptions? Find out the truth, don't guess. Find confirmation that you are the one being avoided. Maybe a person is in trouble, and he seeks to limit communication with everyone. He is not up to you;
Do not think out phrases for your opponent, do not imagine what he is thinking about. Listen carefully to the interlocutors, and perceive only what they say to you;
Doubt the sincerity of the words and actions of a person? Speak directly, expressing grievances and asking questions.

The Benefits of Rational Thinking

The benefits of rational thinking can be seen in a simple example. You have heard reproaches and dissatisfaction from the interlocutor, expressed in the rejection of your views and behavior. The first impulse in this case will be to answer the person in the same way. But what do you get in case of a scandal? Mutual hostility, mental discomfort, and prolonged. It is better to preserve your own dignity and peace of mind. A person with rational thinking will do it easier - he will analyze his own actions that caused criticism and discontent, and accept the opinion of the one who criticized him. He will try to find a consensus - to reach an agreement on the issue on which both have their own opinion. At the same time, it will make it clear to the opponent that it is possible to resolve issues by amicable agreement, without offending or humiliating the views of the interlocutor.

Rational thinking contributes to the fact that a person regains peace of mind. You can give an example of how people think when flying in an airplane that has fallen into a zone of turbulence:

An irrationally thinking person at the same moment imagines his own death in all details.
A rationally thinking person thinks that there was a similar situation, and everything ended well. In addition, the percentage of air crashes in the total number of flights in the world is negligible.

In any case, it is better to be calm and cool until the very end than to "wind up" yourself, making the situation worse and panicking.

Rational thinking is typical for people in the following professions:

Mathematicians;
Military;
Physics;
Chemists, etc.

In every field where knowledge of the exact sciences is required, people use rational thinking.

Irrational thinking - feelings and emotions

People who do not know how to separate facts from fiction and build logical chains of thought use irrational thinking. It is difficult for them to foresee the events and the result of certain actions, which leads to spontaneous actions and unnecessary experiences. However, rational thinking is impossible without the presence of an irrational (spiritual) component. For example, an artist cannot explain the principle that he uses in the selection of colors. It turns out that he contradicts the laws of logic, while creating masterpieces of fine art.

However, the layman needs to be taught to deal with manifestations of irrational thinking. It is necessary to analyze events and facts in order to exclude the possibility of thinking irrationally.

extremes.

When evaluating this or that situation, do not fall into extremes like “all or nothing” or “this is definitely black, but this is white, and halftones do not exist.” To deal with such manifestations, there are several rules:

There are no bad and good people, they all have their own advantages and disadvantages. In every person you can find positive qualities and “close your eyes” to negative ones;
Eliminate words from the lexicon that express the extreme degree of something. For example, "always" or "never". Do not use them in relation to others and to yourself;
Leave aside the categorical thinking. It's better to admit to people that you suffer from temper tantrums, rather than claiming that you are a quick-tempered person. This is how you justify your shortcomings.

"Nightmare".

Change your attitude towards such thoughts:

Think about the fact that the situation that has arisen is a problem, but not one that guarantees imminent death or the end of the existence of the universe;
Compare the current situation with a truly terrible event - the death of a loved one or the condition of people in Nazi concentration camps.

Comfort yourself with the following thoughts:

“This is a trifle that is not worth focusing on it”;
"Unpleasant, but not fatal";
"Everything will be fine";
"The earth will not leave its orbit, and humanity will continue to exist."

"End of the world".

If you are used to exaggerating the destructive power of a particular problem, imagining the terrible consequences of the situation that has arisen, calm down with the following thoughts:

Learn to expect from life not only blows, but also good moments;
Constantly repeat to yourself that the outcome of the situation may be bad, but the probability of this is negligible.
Don't worry about what might happen. The key word here is "may". Most likely, this will not happen at all, and you are just wasting your nerves;
Try to design several scenarios, and calculate the percentage probability that the outcome will be the worst.

"I can not do it anymore".

This belief is not only of people who use irrational thinking, but also of those who. Reformulate the expression and convince yourself that life is difficult for you now, but gradually you will overcome this barrier.

The main thing is to answer yourself the question of whether this is really your problem? Or are you just experiencing someone else's pain, passing it off as your own.

March 22, 2014, 11:21 am