10. How do we think? Any Idea?

We see that most times when we say "I am thinking", we are really solving a problem or recalling from memory or choosing something from a range of alternatives. If we look at 'thinking' as a process to produce a certain knowledge object/item from facts and information (including 'tacit' assumptions and 'trusted' theories/practices).

A) We could 'think' of 'joining' the pieces (of a jigsaw puzzle) together. But in thinking most time we would only have some of the pieces but not the 'picture' of the puzzle. We could build many pictures from the available pieces, then choose one picture that looks 'best-fit' our purpose (or target).
    [pieces of facts+information] -->[Memory]+[Thinking]--> [(new) complex knowledge]

B) We could 'think' of 'dividing' a given but 'incomprehensible picture' into small pieces that we could understand. Then, we could think of the possible big picture from those simpler pieces.
    [complex facts+information] -->[Thinking]+[Memory]--> [pieces of simple facts]

These 2 thinking modes (called 'bottom-up'(A), 'top-down'(B); 'synthesis'(A), 'analysis'(B); 'constructionist'(A), 'reductionist'(B); and so on) are usually applied alternately within a thinking 'session'. We may break a structure into component parts and use these parts to build a (different or same) structure. Remember (see 9. We think therefore we exist.) that we may switch from learning to thinking and back again and again until we 'know' for sure.
    
Here we would say that thinking produces (as a result) a (new) 'knowledge' (item) which also gets stored in our memory (brain and/or hardware devices e.g. paper, web page or 'model'). And that we -- every one -- can think.

How fast can we think?
This is difficult to measure. Even when we ask people to think on the same thing (e.g. what a simple shape is), people have different reaction times, different memory capacity and content, ...

What influences the way we think?
Culture, tradition and environment all affect our thinking. We have evidence that 'situations' can impact our thinking (and produce 'uncommon outcome'). It is well-known that many people think 'wrong' but believe that they think 'great' (with 'self-justifying' reasons or information). There are incidents that suggest some thinking based on not just 'past' (recorded or known) information and (trusted) 'theories' (acceptable alternatives) but also on 'future' (pre-monition or foreseen) information (from some realms/worlds of spirits and devas).

A challenge for today:
When we look at a mirror we see a reflection of ourself, nearly true in every details but right-is-left. Is thinking a process over reflections under certain lights on some media? Are they true reflections in all details? Should we really expect the same outcome from people thinking on the same thing but by many different reflections depending on viewpoints? (The blind men and an elephant!)
    Is this possible (when 'universal' means 'everywhere and every time'):
        Think(universal 'truths', universal 'logics')  --> universal 'knowledge' ? or
    Is thinking only an art -- not yet a science!

<NB> Generally, we can solve problems using some combinations of

(1) copying -- when the problems already have good solutions; 'not re-inventing'
(2) asking experts -- when we trust certain advice for good solutions; see 'Oracle Machine'
(3) trial and error -- when we think and experiment with ideas until we have a solution.
(4) reasoning -- when the problems allow (logical and mathematical) computation; see 'Eureka'.

Imagine an ant at the origin of a 4 dimensional space (axes are labelled by (1), (2),... ). The ant takes steps in search for a 'solution point' (somewhere in this space). The 'path' to the solution is just a series of (4-D) points in this space. We are not ants, can we find a 'shortest' path?
 
We can also learn using combinations of above. But, we would like to learn so that we 'know' by experiencing both the steps in the learning and the knowledge. This means less of (1) and (2).