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To put our minds in order we need to realize how we think. We think by seeing connections between things, and to see connections we need to see differences. Thoughts do not enter our heads free of our making associations and differentiations. Instead, we process information, and some of us process it better than others.
When we dream our associations run wild. When we awake we orient ourselves: "Its Tuesday morning, 6 A.M. and here I am at home in Oshkosh." We orient ourselves with our mental map. Information that we gather we place on this map. Information that was not connected to this map would have no meaning for us. It would be nonsensical.
The mental map of a child is more simple than the map he will have when he is sixty. Our mental map is built with experience. It is personal, but we like to think that it is an accurate replica of realities outside our head.
Most of what we see or hear we fit into our maps without thinking about it. But some of us occasionally examine, erase lines or redraw portions of our maps. This we call reason, and it might include reduction similar to a mathematician simplifying an equation. It is also called philosophy. And as self-examination it is what "knowing thyself" is about.
NEXT: inclusion
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