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Harish's Notebook - My notes... Lean, Cybernetics, Quality & Data Science. 
Thinking about thinking is like second order cybernetics.
First order thinking, like first order cybernetics, is about reaching goals or destinations. In first order thinking one uses one’s body to reach goals and destinations.
From the outside, these goals or destinations seems to be about somebody reaching things, fulfilling desires, needs or requirements. It seems as-if they’re striving to continue their existence, or “life”. And actually do. So “first order thinking” is in the domain of the body in moving.
We use the idea of “thinking” as an explanation for observed behaviour. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because we think.
We “think” thinking is done by a brain, (“the organ with which we think we think”), but this is a part-pro-toto. Thinking (and feeling) are the judging functions of the (human) body. The body “requires” a brain to think and a brain “uses” a body to think. Or, to put it paradoxically: “a body thinks of a brain thinking a body”.
Second-order thinking is thinking about thinking. So “becoming a question to one-self”. In second-order thinking one uses language to “think about thinking”. All I’m writing here is “second-order thinking”. Second-order thinking invokes first-order thinking and requires using a language. Paradoxically: “a thinker thinks-up a language thinking thinkers”.
We both invent ourselves and our language in second-order thinking. This explains, why one identifies one-self with one’s languages and jargons (“Every jargon is a conspiracy against laymen”) and how language is being used to belong to a group and define “who one is”.
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