Our thinking is not one unified information-processing system. Thinking is composed of multiple modules, each employing a unique mental process directed at discrete types of information. Memory, reasoning, intuition, planning, problem solving — each represent a module of cognition. Our overall cognitive functioning is the outcome of these modules working together to process our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. By recognizing the various modules that constitute our thinking, we can learn to adapt and change the relative force and integration of these modules of cognition.
The modularity of our thinking gives rise to a wide diversity in mental abilities. The dynamic interaction between these modules determines our mental life. The modularity of cognition underlies our mental uniqueness, and accounts for the subtleties, in which we all seem to think in our own unique manner. These differences are more nuanced than the more familiar notions of multiple intelligences developed by Howard Gardner.
Multiple Intelligence delineates broad categories of human ability in areas such as interpersonal intelligence, kinesthetic, mathematic, and visual-spacial intelligence. It is well established that we each have unique strengths and weakness among these types of intelligence. Modularity of cognition is more refined and describes how we function within any of these more general intelligences.
We each have our own way of thinking, independent of the knowledge we possess. Differences in mental flexibility, practical reasoning, and intuitive judgment are all manifestations of the interaction of our modular, cognitive processes. Awareness of the module nature of cognition helps us appreciate that in addition to multiple points of view, there are actually different ways to comprehend experiences and thoughts.
When we can identify the modular components of our cognitive functioning, we can work to increase our creativity and cognitive flexibility. A high degree of modular integration is manifested in areas such as open-mindedness, as well as being able to distinguish between knowing and understanding, and to tolerate paradox, ambiguity, and ambivalence. Through creatively shifting among our modular capacities, we can enhance adaptiveness and contextual awareness.
Open-Mindedness
Open-mindedness, the ability to consider diverse contexts and conflicting facts, is a manifestation of cognitive-processing flexibility. Open-mindedness is not merely collecting a breath of knowledge within one cognitive processing system, but also having the ability to switch cognitive systems. This allows us to apprehend knowledge through various cognitive systems, including those that are less familiar to us. When we are being open-minded, we are not only open to new facts but to new ways of looking at the same facts. We can look at a situation through the lens of our emotions, values, and intuition, while we remain aware of the contextual complexity of the contingencies and apparent facts. Fully actualized open-mindedness is more than being open to a new idea or experience. It is the capacity to shift between different modules of thinking, the ability to shift cognitive-focusing strategies.
The modularity of human cognitive processing and how to better integrate various cognitive strategies is the focus of How we Learn, by Benedict Carey. Carey asserts, optimization of the learning process is not just the result of study time, but study method. Taking naps, changing study environments, and daydreaming can all enhance the learning process. In addition, the modular nature of memory can be harnessed to enhance learning through priming and multiple exposures.
Knowing versus Understanding
Another manifestation of the modularity of cognition is reflected in the distinction between knowing and understanding. Knowledge is not understanding. This distinction is the foundation of good judgment. Practical wisdom, or judgment, is based on having an understanding of what will actually work in a given situation.
The distinction between knowing and understanding was eloquently described by Isaiah Berlin Link, in a 1996 essay for the New York Review. He asserted that at the core of having good judgment lies our ability to distinguish between knowing and understanding. Berlin pointed out how having a lot of knowledge does not lead to good judgment, in and of itself, but must be tied to having understanding. Understanding is knowing how and when to apply our knowledge. This requires a wider type of comprehension that emerges from the ability to apply our personal experience in a given situation. Understanding includes appropriately analogizing the current situation to others in a way that culminates in making the best choice.
Berlin looked at judgment from a traditionally humanistic view. He pointed out the limitations of the Enlightenment gospel, that deductive knowledge reveals all. Paradoxically, using exclusively the tools of hard science, Daniel Kahneman comes to conclusions about our use of knowledge that sounds very similar to Berlin’s humanistic inferences. Both Berlin and Kahneman are exposing the limits to thinking without understanding.
The modular nature of our cognition is also manifested in our extensive use of heuristics. Mental heuristics are cognitive short cuts, a type of reasoning based on recognition of what we believe is a familiar pattern. We experience our heuristics as a feeling of knowing all about the situation at hand. This deep sense of veracity makes it difficult to reflect on our heuristics.
The capacity to critically reflect on our heuristics is essential to adaptive good judgment. We must be able to reflect on our heuristics to distinguish between an accurate heuristic that will lead to beneficial or intended consequence, and an erroneous heuristic that leads to unintended or harmful consequences. An understanding of the modular nature of our cognition can help us critically assess our heuristics.
A good example of over-application of non-adaptive heuristics is manifested in the fate of Longterm Capital, a large hedge fund investing in bonds in the late 1990s. Longterm Capital was among the earliest adopters of hiring brilliant mathematicians to develop sophisticated predictive models, algorithms, to control their trading in the bond market. The company employed a gaggle of Ph.D. math geniuses and a noble laureate to write these algorithms. This fueled Longterm Capital’s belief in the invincibility of their trading strategies and overtime they became so confident in their algorithms that they abandoned the prudent strategy of spending money on insurance through hedge positions to eliminate downside risk. They felt they did not need to hedge their bets; after all, they had never had significant losses in many years. Yet, in 1998, Longterm Capital had devastating losses and failed; had it not been for the bailout by brokerages and banks under pressure from the Federal Reserve, it would have collapsed. Longterm Capital failed because Russia defaulted on their bonds in 1998 and no part of the algorithm employed a provision for this extraordinary event.
This is a keen example of the difference between knowing and understanding. Knowing exactly how to trade bonds in one set of circumstances is not understanding how to trade bonds. The algorithm was a heuristic that had worked in the past, so they thought they could trust it in the future. This prevented them from asking larger questions based on other perspectives such as history, chaos theory, or any other theory beside their own. As human beings we all reason through algorithms, or heuristics.
Good judgment is a manifestation of good heuristics and the work of cognitive psychologists and researchers like Daniel Kahneman can help us learn about the limits of our heuristics. Kahneman has illustrated countless ways of reflecting back on our heuristics to correct for biases, including the confidence bias that took down Longterm Capital. However good our heuristic is, we must remain aware that it is only a heuristic and not deep, reflective reasoning. Phronesis, the Greek word for practical wisdom, is knowing that you are using a heuristic and remaining aware that this is not the same as deep understanding.
Fundamentally, human heuristics are actually analogies. We collect mental representations of similar contexts and use that as predictive. When we combine the utility of our established heuristics with an understanding of our limits and biases, we will act more wisely. However, rational thinking and correcting for biases only uses a limited range of the modularity of our cognition. Other modular capacities include intuition and tolerance for paradox. We need to utilize these capacities in order to maintain our perspective when reflecting on our heuristics and the predetermined judgments they generate.