Metacognition, Self-Awareness, and the Liberation of the Mind

If you can't understand your own thinking processes and know the why's and how's of how you came to believe what you believe, then you are vulnerable to manipulation and can be put into a sort of mental bondage by the ideas and beliefs you hold.

     Metacognition and self awareness are essential to both avoiding and overcoming mental slavery and vulnerability to psychological manipulation.  

    Metacognition is defined as the "awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes." In a sense, it is thinking about how you think and why you believe what you believe. Having a high level of effective metacognition is absolutely essential in the gaining and maintaining of free thought. Without metacognition, free thought would be impossible. 

       Inducing and nurturing metacognition in human beings helps to liberate the human mind from the clutches of ideologies and belief systems that often dominate the behavior and choices of those people whose minds they govern and control. 

Metacognition and self-awareness helps prevent people from subscribing to the various forms of extremism and if properly nurtured and honed, metacognition can even prevent things like wars, oppression, and crimes against humanity.

Having people of power and decisionmakers able to think about how they think and why they believe what they believe to a significant and advanced level can lead to more productive and effective insight on policymaking and their own choices and may make their operating approach more independent of a narrow and constricted ideology instead of just acting in the interests, and being in bondage to, the particular ideology they subscribe to.

Metacognition is one of the highest levels of free thought a human being can achieve. The ability to self analyze, have insight on one's own behavior, thinking, and personality is a massive step in the right direction for achieving the greatest liberty a human being can achieve; the liberty of the mind.

    Metacognition enables you to master yourself in ways previously thought to be impossible. It enables self-control and gives you a power over your own mind that makes you a stronger person and fosters a depth of character and personality on a level previously inaccessible. 

        If you can master your thoughts and think about your thoughts, you have real, tangible mental liberty. It allows you to open doors to new patterns and methods of thought, which only serves to enhance and amplify your mental liberty. 

       Lack of metacognition and self-awareness means you can be enslaved to an ideology or belief system or a narrow pattern of thought and you wouldn't even be aware of the bondage. You would be a true believer and be a willing servant of the belief system, but your lack of insight and inability to self-analyze and self-evaluate would render you incapable of exploring and exercising alternative methods of thought and alternative viewpoints.

      In order to achieve maximum liberty of the mind as a human being, metacognition (thinking about your thinking) and mental self-awareness are absolutely essential components of mental liberty and aid in the avoidance and overcoming of slavery of the mind. I just wish more people had this capacity of thought nurtured and honed to a much greater degree than it has been in our world.