Thinking With Pre-Assigned Tasks

Abstract

Suppose I happen to be looking out of the window and see round the comer a vehicle painted red speeding by, with a loud siren sounding. It is well known that, if a red vehicle is speeding and sounding a siren it is a fire-brigade hurrying to some fire. My conclusion that here is the fire-brigade hurrying off to some fire presents itself in quite an unintended manner, as my accidental apperception was unintended, too. This would be an example of spontaneous thinking. In this kind of thinking we make an inference without having in mind any pre-assigned aims to be achieved. On the other hand, our thinking may be directed by pre-assigned tasks, our inference may have an aim appointed in advance toward which it is to tend. For example, a schoolboy (the son of my neighbours) once asked me ta check whether or not he has solved his geometry problem correctly. In connection with this I began to doubt if it is really true that the sum of angles of a triangle is equal to a straight angle. I drew a triangle for myself and wondered how to make sure that the sum of the angles of a triangle is really 180°, how to infer it by means of what remained in my memory of geometry.