What is abstract thinking?

Question

I was told that shrinkage in my frontal & temperal lobes is going to affect my "abstract thinking." What exactly does this mean, and how will it affect my life? What does "abstract thinking" involve?

Answer 1

Abstract thinking is thinking the does not make sense, thinking that is confused, disorganized, and cluttered.

Don't worry this type of thinking is no great loss. You're going to be fine!

Answer 2

Well, concrete thinking deals with what's in front of you, what's tangible. You're directly "hooked into" your five senses and responding to what is right there.

The more abstractly you are able to think, the more you can "simulate" a situation in your head and explore it according to whatever rules of logic you lay down -- just like you could simulate something on a computer.

Abstraction is tied to imagination and empathy -- personal or impersonal. You can imagine how something would "play out" or how someone might respond to something.

I think the big thing is that abstract thought "infers" what could happen, by applying what one knows in a new way. A concrete thinker can imagine things too -- but it's usually a copy of something they have already experienced. Once they experience it, they can repeat it in their head.

Abstract thinkers take their experiences and "project" what's possible beyond what their experience. They're not bound by the past memories, they use them as stepping stones to go even further than their experiences have gone.

(So you get a mechanical engineer who is a concrete thinker -- he applies his past knowledge in his current job -- while you get an Einstein who takes what he knows and uses rules of logic and imagination to extrapolate and "guess" at what else might feasibly be out there. Make sense?)

I don't know what sort of thing you are facing or how extreme it will be. For "mild shrinkage," it would be much like not getting enough sleep, probably -- tired people tend to just focus on short-term stimulation and their ability to abstract logically diminishes a bit.

For more shrinkage, you will probably find yourself "living" right where you're at, dealing with your current situations without lots of speculation about what could be. You'll be thinking more "inside the box" and might need outside triggers or advice to bring to light some new ways of looking at things.

(Without more details, I can't really project further than that...)

Hope you're okay,and that whatever it is is not too bad. If it's mild, you probably will not notice a great deal.

Answer 3

Abstract as opposed to literal thinking. In other words, we use metaphors in our common dialog, such as "it's raining cats and dogs." We know without a doubt that cats and dogs are not falling from the sky. That is an abstract term. So with this condition, you might find it more difficult to separate the abstract from the actual.

Answer 4

i think its trying to understand something thats not right in front of you