We exist inside a Game of Thinking. We call it the universe, life, reality.
But it is the Game of Thinking, a game not played by us, but by thought.
Thinking is a fact; everything else is theory.
Thought wants us to think. If that was not true, we would be able to stop thinking. But we are not.
Thoughts are like zombies. One on one we can deal with them. When they come in bunches, we go under.
In order for war to stop, people need to do more than lay down their weapons; they need to lay down their thoughts.
Our thinking process runs our lives, yet we do not control it, create it, or guide it. Nor can we switch it off.
For it to be real, freedom has to not be a thought.
By acquiring more thought, thought acquires you. By acquiring less thought, you acquire you.
There is no need to understand black holes or string theory. Those things don’t matter, and they may not even exist. There is, likewise, no need to understand ourselves. The benefits of understanding a fool are minimal, and we are all fools. But there is a need to understand understanding itself, which is the Game of Thinking.
This book is the first of its kind that questions what is never questioned, namely thinking itself.
There are good reasons why it is not questioned, called into doubt, unmasked. One is that it doesn’t make sense to do so. Another is that we are trapped. Other reasons we will get to later. But we will question thinking, from as many angles as possible.
The Game of Thinking has two prequels:
You Think You Think: A Book for the Non-Fragmented Mind, 2018, and
Thinking: A Socially Accepted Form of Insanity, A Book for the Imprisoned Mind, 2018.
The premise of these two minimal-length books is the observable daily experience of unceasing thought activity, an activity over which we evidently have little or no control.
You Think You Think is a study in thinking according to methods from the branch of philosophy called Experiential Philosophy. Philosophers are interested in the topic of thought, if no one else. Yet, thinking is what we do sixteen hours a day. Or, as the study shows, thinking is what is done to us sixteen hours a day.
The thesis of the book is based on the recognition that thought is an activity in human beings that (1) proceeds in a fragmented way and that (2) basically cannot be halted. We cannot opt out of thinking. The conclusion is that this accounts for human suffering, lack of direction, and chaos in daily actions and decisions. This leads to the further conclusion that thinking is not something we do, it is something that is being done in us.
Hence the title, You Think You Think. But do you?
Thinking: A Socially Accepted Form of Insanity, the follow-up study, pointed out that we place such overinflated importance on originality and uniqueness that we are prime candidates for being fooled, by thought, that our creations are indeed unique and original. We are 100% unable to see ourselves in the perspective of 7 billion minds thinking thoughts all day long. To think that anything we come up with is new and original, is astonishingly naive. To think that our particular opinion on any topic is the right one, the smart one, the educated one, is severely delusional.
Hence the title, Thinking: a Socially Accepted Form of Insanity.
In The Game of Thinking, these ideas are developed within the over-arching context of thought as a game that is being played. Not by us, but in us. Games are played to win, but can the Game of Thinking be won?
William James wrote in 1890, “The only thing which psychology has a right to postulate at the outset is the fact of thinking itself.” In 1890 psychology was still philosophy. The science of psychology with its various explanatory models was developed in subsequent decades. James established an inroad, a starting point: the fact of thinking. It is the same point that The Game of Thinking starts from.
Thinking is a fact; everything else is theory.
The reader is advised that this book is written within a return-to-start modality, at the expense of the satisfactory development of pleasing explanations. This book does not teach the results of a new understanding in the area of human cognition; it aims to be that understanding itself. The text is dense and does not encourage racing through it. It pays to read carefully.
The purpose of this book is to acquire less thought, not more.
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