Having reason certainly involves thinking, but thinking does not necessarily involve reasoning. Why❓
Because everything, whether thinking or reasoning, falls into the effort of understanding or becoming aware.
The simplest process of thinking is tracing cause and effect relationships.
Can feelings also trace cause and effect relationships? Yes. So, understanding something goes beyond just thinking, but also through feeling.
Prioritizing one over the other is imbalance, as life dimensions encompass subjective (internal) and objective (external, daily life, scientifically termed "empirical"). So both "feeling" and "thinking" are needed.
Emotional Control
Some say, "using feelings is far from consideration - losing control." Actually, not really, because the consideration process carried out through thinking has been done in the emotional process, namely through instincts that prevent something felt as painful. The consideration runs automatically. Not detailed but realistic, even though it's challenging to design a plan for a broader realistic scope.
Similarly, control through detailed reasoning may lack empathy to realize hidden reasons overlooked by rational thinking.
Comparison
So, forms of thinking and empathy are essentially attempts to understand cause-and-effect relationships but in different ways.
So when someone says "thinking is superior to empathy," it's strange because both have basic functions that are not significantly different, but with their respective advantages.
Is there thinking whose foundation goes beyond just tracing cause and effect? None.
Likewise, emotions also have the same foundation, but the cause-and-effect tracing can cover many cause-and-effect points at once.
If metaphorically explained, thinking is like catching fish one by one from a pond. Meanwhile, feeling is like netting cause-and-effect relationships (various fish characteristics) all at once.
On one side, empathy is quick to conclude but not detailed. On the other side, thinking can calculate in more detail but may struggle to quickly grasp the context (the direction of its conclusion).
Using both❓Certainly enables us to analyze premises and draw conclusions that align with reality - more objective.
Reasoning
Is reasoning just about thinking❓Or also about empathy❓
More than that. Reasoning is not just thinking and empathizing (which includes imagination - thought experiments - falling into contemplation), but also praying.
So, reasoning involves thinking and contemplating (empathizing) + prayer.
Exploring Cause and Effect & Logical Consequences
Why is thinking alone not enough for reasoning❓It's enough if it's just exploring cause and effect. But it can't see the logical consequences behind it, meaning it's difficult to understand the universal truth underlying the logical consequences that underlie cause and effect.
Generalization vs. Universal
Thinking limited to cause and effect can only understand the map of cause-and-effect relationships, deeper but still limited to general probabilities (the process of induction or postulates in physics terms).
With logical consequences, it enables understanding both mathematical and non-mathematical axioms.
Expanding Perspectives
Logical consequences are conclusions from cause-and-effect relationships that, no matter how broad the cause-and-effect, remain narrow in relative terms.
So how can narrow observations (cause and effect) draw broader knowledge❓They can't, it's impossible❗️
Because "something cannot exceed its limits unless it receives an addition from outside itself" (from one cup of tea, you can't pour as much as one gallon of tea unless there is an addition from outside the cup).
Similarly, limited cause-and-effect sensing will not be able to conclude the extent of universal truth unless our senses receive additions from outside our own perception.
Knowledge Dimensions
That's why a rational person can attain a broader truth (universal) compared to a narrower truth (through limited perception). Our perception, although limited to attempting to grasp cause-and-effect boundaries, automatically draws broader insights (within the same context) when obtaining specific contexts.
The connection between a narrow perspective and the ability to grasp a wider one is through the common thread (one link - one path) of context similarity.
Example:
〰 Understanding cause and effect
1⃣ "if continuously hurt, there is a limit to returning the hurt"
... can draw even broader knowledge, such as ...
2⃣ "every imbalance will be balanced"
📌 This is because in the dimension of reason (the warehouse of knowledge), point 2⃣ "every imbalance will be balanced" is stored, which has a focal point of context, namely "balance & imbalance."
When someone is continuously hurt, their instinctive consideration decides to retaliate for the❓ "Retaliation & balance" (this is the captured context) from observing the cause-and-effect experiences (action-reaction).
Reflecting, empathizing connects us directly to the subconscious knowledge store. From the subconscious, the context being reflected upon (retaliation + balance) is sought for its similarities but from a broader perspective, and❓If not found, then searching in a broader warehouse, namely the "superconscious." These are general traits (anyone can do it), provided not only thinking but also empathizing.
Guidance
Yet there is a broader perspective when someone receives guidance from Him. Thus, from a narrow knowledge, one can gain extensive knowledge with the same context from Him (even more, from one context, gaining broad knowledge with many contexts but bound by one parent context still relevant to the situation, AND THIS CAN ONLY BE OBTAINED THROUGH PRAYER AND ACCEPTING DEFEAT (feeling ignorant but asking to be taught), BECAUSE TRUTH CANNOT BE FORCED, ONLY APPROACHED BY THOSE WHO ACCEPT DEFEAT (willing to be open and feel ignorant - but willing to learn).
