Role of Metacognition in wisdom and consciousness
Metacognition is the ability to think beyond cognition or cognition about cognition or thinking about thinking and knowing about knowing, which means awareness about awareness.
In other words, metacognition is knowing about the mysteries of the mind and how it acquires awareness, consciousness, and thinking.
Such a skill is the higher-order thinking or metacognition and is acquired and used to reach the level of transcendental genius level of consciousness.
Understanding and knowing about all these mechanisms of the mind could benefit individuals and societies to acquire an out of box thinking. Such a mind could take societies and civilisations out beyond the boundaries of ignorance.
The term metacognition was first coined by American Psychologist John H Flavell, who defined the concept as, “Knowledge about functioning of cognition and to take control of the cognitive process in the human brain.”
In the domain of cognitive neuroscience, the metacognitive skills have the greatest role in the development and growth of the prefrontal cortex, which is the CEO of the brain and is responsible for all types of mental organisation, command, planning and delivering tasks and duties to all other parts of the brain.
The functions that program the brain by goal settings, task completion and giving direction towards mission and passion facilitate the growth of prefrontal cortex.
This makes the brain smarter and focused, optimises its achievements and maximises its function and capacity.
The metacognitive theory indicates that we can change our attitude and behaviour by giving a higher frequency of positive thoughts to our mind and body, usually by sticking to the self-help and positive psychology.
This improves the frequency of positive thoughts, which ultimately impact greatly our overall mental well-being, success, and ultimate happiness.
This is because the brain gets more growth with positive and optimistic thoughts rather than judging things and people with a negative point of view.
For example, if we believe that using less fuel and electricity will reduce the gas and electricity bill, on the other hand, it will also save the planet from being more polluted with heat and gases; similarly, quitting smoking will save our health, money and also protect others from getting negatively impacted by passive smoking.
On the other hand, this too will protect our environment and planet. The global artwork is one of the best types of metacognitive training and knowledge.
Our mind perceives from the artifact of global art, music and literature (book novel and fiction industry).
By training our mind with metacognitive abilities, we can bring back the wandering mind to more worthwhile tasks rather than (wondering) by using our mental capacities in non-productive and worthless ways.
Applying metacognitive strategies in schools and developing metacognitive abilities in young students will enable them to learn more and have clarity in thinking. 11. 1 Transcendental and Metacognitive Brain. Why are Metacognitive Brains More Stable than Cognitively-Aware or Scholarly Brains?
The difference between the cognitive and metacognitive brain is that the metacognitive brain is more stable, functional, and creative.
Research paper, “The Triangle of Spirituality Intelligence Metacognition and Consciousness,” published by Athanasios Drigas and EleniMitsea, described that the scientific community recognises spirituality as a fundamental factor of human intelligence in the history of human beings.
Researchers from diverse fields of knowledge such as psychology, medicine, educational sciences, economy and business management have recognised the notion of spiritual intelligence as one of the most controversial and highly debated notions.
The result of this research study shows that spiritual intelligence is the backbone of every other human intelligence.
Spiritual intelligence integrates and transforms every physical, intellectual and emotional ability from self-awareness and self-knowledge to higher consciousness.
Our metacognitive abilities and executive functions in our brain develop and mature when we are able to organise our knowledge at a hierarchical level.
At a higher level of thinking metacognitively or at a transcendental genius level, one could develop the habits and norms of self-observation and self-regulation by giving attention to our emotions and impulses to our inward reality.
So, by this inward attention, we could become capable of controlling our emotions and impulses.
By this inward attention or higher-order thinking on our true self, we can focus our attention toward our real problems and make our mind a problem solver and the world a worth living place.
Life becomes easier for us consequently, which gives us mental flexibility, stability and optimisation to our external environment
It is a well-known fact that intelligence is the only factor, which contributes in neuroplasticity or brain development; in western culture, mysteries about the historical development of knowledge and mental healing by meditation were brought in and introduced by eastern cultures and their mystics.
In most of the eastern traditions, it was thought that spiritual mysteries have the ultimate answer for the nature of knowledge, intelligence and consciousness.
World-renowned psychologists such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung, Raymond D. Fowle, Carl Ransom Rogers have mentioned in their theories that spirituality plays an important role in the development of human personality; in most studies, it was found that spiritual intelligence is the superior and more integrative form of intelligence that is blended or acquired by the proper development of our thinking mechanism.
—To be continued.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in London.
