PROCESSES THAT DEFINE A RATIONAL, INTELLIGENT HUMAN BEING

PERCEPTION provides us with information.

MEMORY stores the information from perception for future use.

THINKING utilizes the knowledge provided by perception and memory and combines and organizes it into new patterns and combinations.

PERCEPTION represents the present.

MEMORY reinstates past experiences.

THINKING reaches toward the future, toward something that has yet to be brought into existence.

Customarily, all three of these processes (PERCEPTION, MEMORY, & THINKING) are going on at the same time; together they constitute what is called COGNITION, a group of processes by which a person achieves knowledge and command of his or her external and internal worlds.

If a person possessed only the ability to perceive, he or she would be bound to the immediate present. Add memory to perception, and a person becomes a creature with a past as well as a present. By adding the power of thought, a person is able to project himself or herself into the future. Through thought, a person can rearrange both his or her internal and external worlds to suit his or her fancy and his or her needs.

THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT MENTAL PROCESS THAN THINKING, UNLESS IT BE THAT OF TRANSFORMING THOUGHT INTO APPROPRIATE ACTIVITY.

Thinking is an active search for something that the person wants and needs. It is an internal trying-out process, a testing of and an experimenting with reality. It reflects a need to explain and to understand, and a desire to create.

TO PERCEIVE THE WORLD CORRECTLY, TO REMEMBER ACCURATELY, TO THINK EFFECTIVELY, AND THEN TO ACT APPROPRIATELY--THESE ARE PROCESSES THAT DEFINE A RATIONAL, INTELLIGENT HUMAN BEING.