IOnehas to be able to determine A is A before a moral construct is applied. It 's an easy thing to screw up too. Often we 're lazy. We ignore parts of our morality for expediency or we ignore or exercise ignorance of the metaphysical world. Spending some time on a regular basis in examining how we know what we know is useful in examing challenges

We (my husband and I) are going through a very unique experience at this time where the ability to think things through is critical to controlling loss.
I would surmise that thinking starts with turning off emotions and putting yourself into the situation (mentally).
Then... projecting multiple ends based upon what information you have.
Given enough time, you will be able to come to a hypothesis based upon the info given, ... the people/things involved and then conclude that the experiment can be repeated and the results will be the same (well, more-or-less when it comes to people).

"...imagine if lions could think they would raise live stock so they would not have to deal with the other animals out there..." Ants herd aphids http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200... does that count.?
I know this isn't easy. Do some reading on Aristotle and his syllogistic logic. I believe he referred to it as the art of right thinking.

N. Branden covered this very well somewhere in his writings........I cannot remember where, but it is out there and is excellent........I could find no contradictions (which would reveal an error).

Knowledge (of reality) is open ended.......thus, "until the day one dies".

I believe you should try to analize things, which is great because it can be applied to everything in your daily life! From friends and relationships, to conversations, news and anything published in the newspaper, and books and movies as well, obviously. The good thing is that mankind will always bring new things to analyze, although many may be considered crappy.

Mucho gracias.

Of course our ancestors were thinking. They could not have accomplished over the course of time what they did if the did not think.
A lion cub MUST learn the methods of catching food from its mother. The do not think about the method. once learned they do not go any further with their education. imagine if lions could think they would raise live stock so they would not have to deal with the other animals out there. And if lions could think why not tigers or bears. Animals do not think as humans do, they simply do not have that capacity. Now a tangent; there is a group of what appear to be people that actually function like animals. The missing link as far as I am concerned. As for me I prefer not to be considered a part of the same animal world as the lion.

remember this? .for some, thinking is simply the
process of rearranging their prejudices....... -- j

p.s. Rand did teach How to think -- and did it well !!!

I watch my cat when I play with it. I would say that there are brain associations going on, and the cat learns from past experience and continually tries different things to get what it wants. The cat is "thinking" and I doubt its all "instinctive" or built in. The cat reacts to changes in the environment caused by my independent actions. The cat does learn from past experiences, however, and stores the data in its brain. I say that this is at least entry level thinking. I dont think it understands concepts, however.

According to Rand:"Thinking....is the process of defining identity and discovering causal connections. The faculty that works by means of concepts, is: reason. The process is thinking." Pavlov could make dogs salivate by repeating certain behaviors, and most higher animals can be taught in that manner, but that is not thinking because it doesn't lead to reason.

You should read Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, which directly addresses the nature of human conceptual thought. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of thought and how we know what we know. More generally, read Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.

There is a lot more to Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand's philosophy than politics. Every political philosophy presupposes an ethical philosophy, and every ethical philosophy presupposes a philosophy of the nature of reality, the nature of man, and the relation between them, including how and in what form we know reality.

Good question!

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it."
Henry Ford

You had to be thinking to even post the question.

Our ancestors were hunter gathers. When they were stalking an animal to kill for food were they "thinking"?
"Thinking requires reason." Here you are just substituting one word for another. Before you can ask "How to think" you must define "thinking". How do you know that "A lion catching its food is not an act of thinking"?

1. A is A: things are what they are (by the very nature of reality contradictions do not exist)
2.You start with sensing, because there is no other way to know anything about the world.
3.categorize concepts. ex: differentiating a human from a rock
4.as a rational being(human) create a larger integrated base (conceptualization)
5. test concepts
6.what methods do you use to draw your conclusions? You can use logic or the irrational(I am not using this term derogatorily-but I would say in the irrational, you've made an error, you are ignoring evidence, or you have ill-defined an underlying concept)

To answer the question, what is thinking? My two cents.

First, the mind produces three types of thoughts: concepts, judges and reasonings.

Usually thinking is associated with reasoning, which is the combination of judgments to deduce new knowledge.

Logic is the set of rules to construct correct reasonings, therefore a reasoning against logic is incorrect.

Logic has three Aristotelian principles: identity (Ai is A); non-contradiction (nothing can be and not be at the same time); third excluded (there is no other alternative, either something is or it is not). Much later, Leibniz added the principle of sufficient cause for everything (there must be a cause for everything).

Thinking requires reason. A lion catching its food is not an act of thinking. To suggest that an animal has that capacity means that ................................!
you can fill in the blank.

I would begin by comparing humans to our fellow mammals. For example, if you watch lions running down a zebra or wolves after a deer would you conclude that they are involved in a "process of identification and integration"? Would Ayn Rand say they are "thinking"? If the answer is yes, then is "thinking" a mammalian response to bodily needs tied to one's survival such as hunger? Maybe all living things "think" at some level. Is the most basic "thought" a living creature can possibly have be merely a response to a stimulus?

I only heard of Ayn Rand a couple of years ago when I had Netflix send the first Atlas Shrugged movie.
My old dino brain is not sure how I found my way here but I it's a good place for a Constitutional Libertarian. Someone here helped me to define myself as such by the way.
It's accurate.
You're never too old to work on being a renewed intellectual.
No one ever reaches the point where he "knows it all."

Thinking has always been a process.
The words "Reasoning and Reasonable."
The words "Wisdom" being the proper application of knowledge.

One must develop Knowledge, and Experience either via personal experience or via observation of others, in order to apply that knowledge into a productive form of wisdom.

I learned how to be who I am by NOT doing what I observed my Father doing. I love my father dearly but the man could screw up a wet dream.