Think! And what is it?

Think think! I am sure that everyone in childhood has heard this call more than once, mixed with reproach and indignation. In essence, it meant only one thing: you are an idiot! Encouraging you to think was the heavy duty of a teacher, a parent, an older brother, or a volunteer neighbor. And they especially did not believe in the fruitfulness of this call. And you felt it. And that’s why he was completely dumb. It was at the moment of the call that all ability to think left you. Which, of course, only inflamed the situation, brought it to the point of absurdity, in the final of which a scandal followed.

Already growing up, I asked myself: what does it mean to think? How does a person think? A writer, for example, with words, an artist with colors, a musician with a melody. I believe that this is also a strong simplification. The process of thinking eludes man. The mind is closed on itself, there is no third device that would be able to fix the moment of the birth of a thought.

In short, thinking in the true sense of the word is a mysterious process. We don’t know how we think. That is why we resort to external impulses, the most cruel and fruitless of which is the call to think. They add to it: you have to, otherwise I’ll turn off the computer (or you won’t go to the Christmas tree, you won’t get sweets, I won’t let you out for a walk). There are also incentives: if you do it, we’ll go to the zoo (or: if you get a «five» in a quarter, we’ll give you an iPhone, you’ll go to Milan with us, etc.).

Surprisingly, the same thing continues into adulthood. The employee is either threatened with dismissal if he fails to cope with the task, or they are promised a promotion or a substantial bonus. The stick and the carrot are regularly used both under socialism and under capitalism. There doesn’t seem to be anything else.

• What the Brain Tells: Lecture Notes by Dick Swaab

Here it is appropriate to recall the Karl Dunker test, invented in the 35th year of the last century. It is also called the «mystery of the candle.» There are: a candle, a box of matches and a box of buttons. It is required to fix the candle on the wall so that the wax does not drip onto the floor or onto the wall. The task is not difficult, a matter of time. It is necessary to overcome the moment of functional fixation: you look at the box and see only a container for buttons. Solution: pour out the buttons, fasten the box with the buttons on the wall and put a candle on it.

Based on this test, Sam Glucksberg conducted an experiment, intending to determine the role of a stimulus in solving a creative problem. The first group was told that their scores would be taken as the average of all other groups. They decided to encourage the second group: everyone whose time falls into the top 25% of results was promised $ 5, the best among the best — $ 20. The price of the dollar, as you understand, was different at that time.

The result was amazing: the second group took an average of three and a half minutes more time to solve the problem than the first.

It was a small revolution: the carrot-and-stick mechanism didn’t work. The stimulus, designed to sharpen thought and accelerate creativity, acted in the opposite way: it dulled thought and interfered with creativity.

The experiment was repeated many times, and the result was always the same. It turned out that the external stimulus “if you do this, you will get this” works only under certain conditions, but when solving new, creative tasks, it not only does not work, but often harms.

Needless to say, since childhood we have been solving only new and only creative tasks. And then, unless we are talking about primitive physical labor, we always deal with tasks that require independent thinking and an unexpected approach.

There is an expression similar to Odessaism: a person works for the interest. But we understand it in an extremely primitive and unambiguous way, namely, for material interest. Material interest is present, of course, in every work. There is nothing to argue about. But creative work does not come down, and never did come down to it.

• Maria Falikman: «A person cannot be written to a USB flash drive»

In every person, if not vanity, then ambition lives: to do it first, to do it faster and better than others. These properties are always kept in mind by a reasonable leader, parent or teacher. And of course, they work more accurately than other incentives.

But this is still not a solution to the problem. If only because these properties are not equally developed in different people. And most importantly, they are not aimed at the passion for the subject itself, but only at achieving results at any cost. Real creative achievements come only when the interest is contained in the subject itself. A person is in love with a problem and is tormented by the fact that he cannot find a solution.

And one more thing: he is free. Between him and the task that he set for himself, there are no intermediaries and goaders. That is, the secret, including the pedagogical one, is to develop in the person who is faced with the task, internal motivation. Make sure that the task is perceived as personal. And at the same time provide complete freedom. Such disciples and workers are disobedient and willful. But only they know how to think, that is, to give meaning to life.