Ninety-ninth percentile

99.99% of what passes for thinking in humans (going by the name - "informative"), is descriptions of "what to think", as distinct from "how to think". Read any newspaper, watch any TV news program, and note that everything conveyed is simply material the reader/hearer is implicitly advised to think about, themselves.

If the ordinary human mind did not function solely as a producer of more and more information, it might discover something about, "how to think". But, this is not likely to happen, because no ordinary human can discover this distinction for themselves, and even when they hear about it - like right now, for the first time - they immediately confuse the two issues into the one they already understand quite well.

For them (and their immediate reply to this entire proposition should bear this out), "what to think" is the same thing AS "how to think", supported by the quite reasonable viewpoint: "Let me now tell you my response to what you've just said, so you can start thinking in the correct way about what you've just said." And they will, again, quite reasonably, support that viewpoint with: "By thinking WHAT I have just said to you, you will then know HOW to think correctly about your viewpoint."

Notice, how confusing this all becomes, once you put words to it - when, in fact, it's as obvious as the nose on Jimmy Durante's face. Until a person sees the distinction for himself, between "what to think", and "how to think", he can not see the distinction, even if it's pointed out directly.

When discussing purely physical matters, the difference is very clear. "How to bowl a perfect game", is completely different from "What to do (bowl the highest score possible)", and no one, typically, believes that knowing WHAT to do, is the same as HOW to do it. Yet, when discussing non-physical intellectual matters, the difference is obscured, because everybody ordinarily believes they already KNOW how to think - though they will admit, if pressed, that a few people "seem" to be able to think a little better than they (and, not so surprisingly, MOST people think a lot worse than they).

Take some recent, pressing, current events - and notice the manner in which people everywhere talk about it, attempting, as always, to cover every possible angle of thought, and viewpoint, always endeavoring to reveal (for the first time in the particular conversation) that view, or idea, or concept, that NO ONE has yet mentioned. It's all, from top to bottom, a transferring (of energy) from one to another, consisting entirely of "what to think" (first think THIS, and then think THAT, and finally, to summarize, think THE OTHER THING.)

So, in case you were wondering "what's the point???" It is this; the unfailingly quickest way to determine whether another person knows "how to think", is to listen to them discuss virtually anything - from current events to their own anecdotal history. Are they making ANY ATTEMPT at all, to reveal something about the process-of-thinking itself? Or are they completely engaged in providing you more and more FACTS (things) to think about.

There is the ACT-of-thinking (the process), and the products-of-thinking (facts), and the two are not the same - any more than breathing IN is the same as breathing OUT. You only have to look at your own inner process of considering any idea - even this one - to discover the difference, or fail to do so.

ps- even if I told you "how to think", you'd hear it as just someone telling you "what to think".