Critical Vs Emotional Thinking
In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman says, “In a very real sense, we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels.” Let us call the two types of brains the thinking brain and the feeling brain. The purpose of the thinking brain is to investigate the matter to find out the truth, know the facts, and identify the reality while discarding the untruth, fallacy or myth. Once the thinking mind knows the truth through investigation, it develops belief in such knowledge and then does not investigate it in the future. For instance, we learned about the law of gravity in our schools. We found them to be true as we noticed that everything falls towards the earth. We also solved a number of problems in our schools based on the law of gravity. We gradually developed so much irrefutable belief in the law that we consider the law of gravity as a fact. Once we are sure about something, we don’t question it or conduct any future investigation into the matter because we accept it as true. The thinking brain usually deals with matters pertaining to the external world, and the knowledge acquired by it is ‘objective’ because it does not depend on the perceiver and remains the same for everyone.
However, human beings also have a feeling mind, which provides information about our inner world. The feeling mind deals with emotions. Accordingly, what feels good seems right to the feeling brain, and what feels bad appears to be wrong. In other words, if something creates a positive feeling in us, it is right to us, while anything that creates a negative feeling in us feels wrong to us. For instance, if you are a meat-eater and you enjoy eating meat products, meat-eating feels right to you. However, if you are a vegetarian, you don’t like the taste, smell or even sight of a meat product, and you feel that meat eating is wrong.
The most exciting thing about this is that our thinking and feeling brains are not two separate things but part of the same reality. They are the two sides of the same coin. Hence, when our feeling mind accepts something to be right, our thinking mind starts finding out the reason for it. Similarly, when our thinking mind finds something true, our feeling minds develop positive emotions about it; we develop negative feelings about something if it is found to be false. It is for this reason that we feel happy when we acquire new knowledge, know the facts, or discover the truth. Similarly, we feel unhappy when the person whom we discover that our beloved is cheating us.
In common language, our feeling mind is identified with our heart, while our thinking mind is identified with our brain or head. However, our head and heart are not two things, but the left and right sides of the same organic brain.
Left and Right Brain
The human brain is an intricate organ. While it contains approximately 2% of our body weight, it contains about 85–100 billion neurons and trillions of connections. Your brain is the centre which decides how you think and feel and what you do.
According to modern science, the brain can be divided into two halves depending on how it processes information. The theory that the brain’s two hemispheres function differently came to light in the 1960s due to research by psychobiologist and Nobel Prize winner Roger W. Sperry. However, despite their contrasting styles, the two halves of your brain are connected by brain fibres and work together. People are often called left-brained or right-brained, depending on which side of the brain is more dominant.
The characteristics of the left and right brain can be listed as follows.
| Left (Thinking) Brain | Right (Feeling) Brain |
| Logical | Creative |
| Analytical | Intuitive |
| Liner | Artistic |
| Verbal | Nonverbal |
| Factual | Emotional |
| Sequential | Imaginative |
Right Brain (Feeling Mind) Activity
The activity of the right brain (feeling mind or heart) is based on instinct. Its judgements are spontaneous and based on intuition. Hence, such decisions are based on emotions, and often, we find it difficult to express them clearly in words or give reasons for them. For instance, when we see a person, we may not only like or dislike the person but also assign many characteristics like trustworthiness, honesty, intelligence, etc., to the person based on our gut feeling. If we are asked for the reason, we find it difficult to assign a reason immediately, though soon, our thinking brain gets active and discovers the justification for our evaluation of the thing or person. If you like the person, your mind quickly finds the positive thing about the person to justify it, and likewise, it can find negative things to justify disliking the person. However, feelings come spontaneously, and the reasons come later, and that too, only when you have to justify your feelings. If you don’t have to justify it, you simply like or dislike the person, depending on whether the person creates positive or negative emotions in you.
Suppose you happen to meet a stranger XYZ on a train and strike a conversation with him. At first, you discuss issue A, where the person supports your opinion on the issue. You like the person because he supports your view and creates a positive feeling in you. Your thinking mind now has to find justification for liking the person. Accordingly, it quickly picks up the attributes of the person you already like and drop the attributes you dislike. These attributes may be his education, profession, religion, caste, race, nationality, etc. Now, after some time, you start discussing an issue B, on which the person has a totally opposite view than yours. He challenges your view now and then provides irrefutable evidence to prove you wrong. You start losing the argument and also face humiliation before the audience. You now develop very negative feelings like hatred and anger against the person. Now, your thinking mind will work to find out the attributes of the person you dislike and ignore those attributes you like. For instance, when you liked him earlier, but later, when you hated the person, your focus would shift to his caste and profession while ignoring his religion and education. Our feeling mind is very creative and good at connecting the dots and finding patterns between unrelated activities. Hence, it is the source of creativity.
Our right brain decides everything based on emotions, which work very fast because emotions are binary, such as love and hate, like or dislike. It quickly evaluates the positives and negatives of a person, thing, organization or issue and then passes a spontaneous judgement based on instinct.
Our instinct is partly inborn, which can be called basic instinct. This instinct is present in us through our genes, which are the result of our millions of years of evolution. These basic instincts like fear, anger, lust, and jealousy help us survive in the world and procreate.
However, humans are not like any other animals, which are slaves to their basic instincts. We update our knowledge throughout our life by learning new things. As a result, we also acquire new instincts which can be called ‘learned instincts’. These acquired instincts are subjective and vary depending on the person’s knowledge, skill, and experiences. Initially, these activities are unnatural, and we have to use our rational mind (Left brain) extensively to learn how to use the knowledge. However, with extensive practice, our acquired knowledge and skills get internalized and become our learned instinct. Thereafter, we develop intuition to use such knowledge, and we can quickly solve complex problems in life.
It is important to understand that acquiring new knowledge or skills starts first with the left brain when we acquire external knowledge deliberately and effortfully. However, when we practice the knowledge repeatedly, we master the skill, and it becomes a learned instinct that shifts towards the right brain. For instance, initially, we use the thinking brain to learn to drive or swim, and deliberately apply the theories, practices, and knowledge to develop the skill. However, after we have driven or swam for several days and months, the knowledge gets internalized and becomes our instinct.
Left-Brain (Thinking Mind) Activity
The left brain is developed by acquiring knowledge and skills. We spend close to two decades and sometimes even more of our lives gaining knowledge and skills from our schools and colleges. We learn different subjects like mathematics, science and history to understand the world better. We develop verbal ability and communication skills through reading, writing, listening, and communicating. Our learning continues throughout our lives as we learn not only from books but also from the experiences of self and others. No wonder, for a civilized modern person, his learning instincts are far more powerful than his natural instincts.
The newly acquired knowledge and skills remain superficial until you internalize them with constant practice. It is not natural for humans to have analytical ability, which requires determining the pros and cons of all options and then choosing the best option. Similarly, we have no inherent ability to ascertain the difference between right and wrong unless we acquire accurate knowledge of the subject.
We develop our analytical ability by understanding logic and reasoning, which helps us find out the truth using the first principle. The ability to analyze is the key to critical thinking, which is necessary to ascertain the truth. However, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time since the knowledge acquired by other human beings for ages is shared, and we can use it as it is, without wasting our time rediscovering it ourselves using the first principle.
However, the world is constantly in a state of flux and ever-changing. The world we live in today is not the same one that existed in the past when some of these principles were discovered. Just like you can’t dip your hand in the same water twice in a river stream, you also never encounter exactly the same problem twice. Even if the problems are the same, you are not the same person who solved the problem in the past. Hence, while the existing piece of scientific or philosophical knowledge helps us understand the world faster, it may not be very useful in solving real-life problems when human elements get involved and the world has changed.
For instance, the law of gravity existed millions of years before Newton discovered and formulated it. However, like other laws of nature, the law of gravity remains the same even today and will remain the same for millions of years in future. Likewise, the boiling point of water (H2O) will remain the same throughout the world, whether you take the water from India or America since water molecules remain the same at all places and times.
On the contrary, the knowledge dealing with human beings keeps changing with time and place because as humans acquire knowledge, they apply it in their actions and gradually change their behaviour. As a result, societies are transformed as the beliefs and behaviours of people change. For instance, the knowledge of evolution and the Big Bang has convinced a vast section of humanity that God is not the creator of humans, and hence, we don’t have to obey the commandments of God, who have always been believed to be our creator. Similarly, when scientists discovered the true cause of the plague and eliminated it from humanity through vaccination and medical treatment, hardly any educated human being would believe that God sent a plague to punish us for our sins. However, even in today’s world, billions of people would believe these myths if they don’t have the latest scientific knowledge. Hence, their behaviour would be different from those of those who possess such knowledge.
Likewise, the moral values of today at any given place can’t be the same as what existed thousands of years ago. Further, the moral values also change across the nations, and there may be little similarity between what is morally correct for America, China, India and Iran. Even within the same nation, these values may vary between urban and rural area, and even within the same geographical area, they may vary based on education.
Hence, we have to develop certain skills which are so fundamental that they can help us understand real-life problems accurately and solve them using our existing knowledge and skill with a little improvisation and creativity.
System 1 and System 2
In his book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, the Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman divides the mind’s processes into two distinct systems. The System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort. ‘System 2’ is the slower, effortful, analytical mode where reason dominates. It involves learned knowledge and skills, including complex computations. System 2 makes decisions after considering all facts and evidence after due analysis. However, many mental activities can be internalized and then become fast and automatic through prolonged practice.
For instance, you use system 1 to calculate 7×8 (56) because you have already memorized the table up to 10 (sometimes even up to 20) during your childhood. However, if you are asked to calculate 341×78, you will always have to use System 2 of the mind to do the maths since you can never memorize all the tables of all possible numbers. However, you have learned the technique to calculate the multiplication of higher numbers, using only the table up to number 9, which you have memorized during childhood. Hence, when we make complex calculations, we use both System 1 and System 2 to get the results.
Thus, System 1 and System 2 work together and are often interchangeable. For instance, in college, my favourite subjects were maths and physics. I used to enjoy solving the problems of these subjects. With extensive practice, the know-how to solve problems became a System 1 activity as I would know intuitively which formula to use and which step to follow to solve the problems. However, twenty-five years later, when I used to teach these subjects to my daughters, I had forgotten most of the techniques. Hence, I often had to use System 2 to find the right way to solve the problem. However, after teaching my two daughters for a couple of months, my memory was refreshed, and the know-how again sifted to become the System-1 activity. Hence, I was able to solve the problems easily using my intuition.
We can find a similar transformation in the case of emotions as well. When we meet a person for the first time, we are often driven by our rational mind, with little or no emotional attachment. However, after living together for some time, when we got to know each other more closely, the relationship became emotional, and then, instead of using our thinking mind, we used our feeling mind to deal with the person. We tend to develop emotional attachments and start loving even with our pets and even inanimate objects like our cars and home. However, if our loved one hurts or betrays us, System 2 gets active to find the person’s negative traits, which drives negative emotions of hatred against the person.
Development of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking does not mean we should become emotionless. Only machines can be unemotional. However, a critical thinker tries to understand his emotions rationally and never allows the emotional mind to dictate the rational mind.
Humans are emotional animals who want to maximize their happiness and minimize their pain. Emotions are natural, while rationality is a skill that requires great effort, which would sometimes mean sacrificing your happiness and accepting legitimate pain.
We are born emotional. Young children manage the world with emotions. Their right brain (emotional mind) is more powerful than their left brain (rational mind). However, as they acquire worldly knowledge and learn to reason, their left brain activities increase, and their rational mind develops. Most people, however, depend on instinct and emotions for decision-making, as they don’t develop their critical thinking.
It is important to understand that none of the left-brain activities is inborn or natural, and we need to acquire rational knowledge and practice it to develop our rational minds. Unfortunately, most knowledge acquired in schools and colleges is useful only for passing the examination and getting a good job. They have little application in the real world. Further, the development of critical thinking is hardly taught in any school. As a result, even highly educated people remain irrational and fail to develop critical thinking skills. If we fail to develop our left brain to become more rational, we will continue making irrational decisions based on intuition and emotions.
To become critical thinkers, we have to acquire accurate knowledge of logic, reason, and scientific methods, understand the concepts of cognitive and emotional biases, and practice them in our daily lives. With practice, we become natural critical thinkers and start deriving happiness and joy by applying critical thinking concepts to know the truth and make the right decisions in every walk of life.
