Over-Thinking Thinking

The other day, I was working on some physics homework and was completely and utterly lost as to how I got a particular answer. Not that the answer was wrong, but the entire process of getting to that answer was baffling. I began to think about the thinking process; it some times feels like my mind is subconsciously working out a problem while my conscious mind desultorily wandered. I began to think of psychology and the critical thinking process, how we move from one thought to the other. Problem solving with math related problems can be broken up into a few different thought processes. I start by determining what I need and use that to find necessary formulas – this gets tricky when there are multiple formulas or when unexpected thing represent important variables. The next step is to rearrange the formula and insert the information that you know. It becomes challenging when there are multiple unknown variables, this is when you choose to adopt another formula and do a separate set of equations to find one unknown or use to formulas in one equation. The next step is fairly straightforward: use the formula to determine the value of the unknown. It becomes more bothersome if you realize that the answer you got does not make sense, like 15 m/s for someone on a bicycle or 2.1μ.

Problem solving is the main function of directed thinking and breaks complex ideas into smaller, more manageable thoughts. This process is comparable to the process of digestion. Enzymes are sent out to break down complex molecules, like carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, into small molecules that are easy to digest, like simple sugars, triglycerides, and amino acids. Thoughts are broken down to make it easier for us to comprehend or ‘digest’ information that we receive.