Complex Thinking and Human Survival

   Thinking shapes the human condition far more than people realize. Aside from the natural world and the interaction of physical systems, human thought is the most potent driving force for change and advancement in the human condition.  

    

  All social, economic, political, and technological systems that exist in our world have come from the minds of human beings. The vast majority of societal and social constructs and systems stem from human thought. 

   

      As a result of this, the species is only as advanced as its thinking.  The engineering of complex systems can only come from complex thought. If thinking isn't complex and multidimensional, then the human systems designed and engineered by human thought will often not be complex and multidimensional enough to account for the volume of variables in complex social, economic, political, and physical problems to solve them to any  significant and effective degree. 

      In other words, you need complex thinking to solve complex problems. Simple thinking only leads to simple solutions, and the physical world's (and abstract world's) complexity is self evident and cannot be sufficiently addressed by simple solutions that are the natural result of simple thinking. 

       Complex thinking is difficult. It requires practice, discipline, and rigorous trial and test to hone it enough to be of any real utility and sophistication. Natural intelligence doesn't hurt either. Unfortunately, complex thinking can be intimidating and many people shy away from it because of the mental challenges involved. The tragedy of this is that many people who can offer a valuable contribution to society and the development and improvement of complex systems are scared away from doing so. 

     The real problem is most people are just lazy thinkers. Our culture doesn't always stimulate deep thought and meaning, and what sells and what is popular is hardly ever deep or thought provoking most of the time. Most of it just appeals to the base pleasure and emotional receptors of the human mind. Simple things that make you feel good. The "drugs, sex, rock'n'roll" approach or the dumbed down culture that celebrates hedonism and material luxury. 

     Hardly any deep thought comes from this. 

Another hindrance to deep thought is that deep thought and complex thinking can lead to the development of new ideas and ideologies and the hypothesizing of new complex systems that can be a threat to the power and status of established authorities and elites. Systems that benefit a certain group of people make those people defend the systems with all the resources at their disposal. 

 This can lead to the quelling and shutting down of alternative thought that can prove problematic to the power that many of those systems give to those people. 

   Complex thought that blows paradigms wide open and revolutionizes the understanding and engineering of complex systems can prove very problematic to powerful people.  Deep thought, creativity, and complex thing is always a threat to the powerful who are benefiting most from systems simpler than the complexities of new and avant-garde thinking. 

      Unfortunately, not everyone is able to engage in and understand complex thought, nor is everyone able to engineer complex systems, but if you want to solve complex social, political, environmental, economic, technological, academic, and just human problems in general or advance society or humanity as a whole to a significant and holistic degree, complex thinking is an inescapable necessity in these endeavors.