Do you know someone you would describe as intelligent, but who overcomplicates everything by asking questions and always wanting to get to the bottom of things?
Someone who notices the words you use but sees a different meaning in them, leaving you saying, "But that's just what people say!"
You know which one I'm talking about?! The one who hates small talk and always wants to know what's going on behind the scenes. The one who sees connections no one else can. The one you go to for advice but sometimes never understand what they meant.
I'm not sure you know someone like that. Because when they fully get there, to a point where their mind thinks differently, they don't have many friends left. :)
So it's safe to say, did you know someone like that? The one you call intense.
Metacognition is hard to explain. That's why I believe it's better to start by describing the experience of being around someone who has developed it. When you have a mirror, you can begin to recognise it in yourself. Or, better yet, what you don't recognise.
Metacognition is a way of thinking. And it's very different from what the words "thinking about what you are thinking about" seem to suggest.
Metacognition is not what you think it means
Sticking to the dictionary definition of metacognition as "thinking about what you are thinking about" leads people to believe that if they can think about their thoughts, they can do it. And since everyone can think, everyone can do it.
And honestly, yes. Thinking about your thinking is something everyone can do.
What I mean by that is asking yourself questions like:
When did I think of that?
What got me thinking about that?
Why was I thinking about that?
Those are all questions that describe the activity of thinking about thoughts. Generally speaking, any mental activity where the subject is a "thought" can be described as thinking about thinking.
That is indeed "thinking about what I am thinking about."
But that's not metacognition.
How have different fields tried to explain metacognition?
Here's something interesting. Humanity has spent centuries exploring our thoughts, awareness and the way we experience the world. And we've approached these questions from many different directions.
Psychology investigates how well we understand our own thinking. Researchers have studied memory, learning, confidence and decision-making, trying to connect what people believe about their thinking with what they actually do.
Philosophy goes further back, asking questions about self-knowledge and awareness. How do we know what we know? What does it mean to understand ourselves? And how does our personal experience influence the way we understand the world?
Spirituality has explored awareness through practices such as meditation and mindfulness. Traditions including Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta invite us to observe our thoughts, recognise how they influence our experience and explore the relationship between thought and the person observing it.
Education takes a practical approach. Can students improve their learning by recognising how they learn, understanding what works for them and changing their approach when needed?
Neuroscience looks at the biological processes involved. Researchers investigate what happens in our nervous system when we make decisions, evaluate them and judge how confident we are about the results.
Reflective practice explores what happens while we're doing something. Can we recognise that our approach isn't working, question our understanding and change what we do while we're still doing it?
And then there's computer science and AI. Here, researchers can build systems that monitor their operations, evaluate results, identify problems and change their approach.
What I find fascinating is that all these fields are exploring different aspects of our relationship with thinking.
Some examine what we know about our thoughts. Others explore how we experience them, how we recognise patterns, how our thinking influences our actions and how we can change the way we approach something.
And each field has developed its own methods to investigate something that happens internally, something we all experience differently.
After exploring these different perspectives, I keep coming back to the same question.
Are we learning to think about our thoughts, or are we learning to recognise how our thinking actually works?
The road to metacognition
The beginning step to metacognition starts with understanding conditioned thoughts, learned behaviour and accepting that we are all learning through observation.
I know it's a lot to take in, and if you didn't get what I was saying, in simple words, you question everything that ever gave your life meaning. You may choose it, but only after you've had a good conversation with yourself about it. :)
How do you know you're actually doing it? It hurts!!!
Yes, it's a road full of revelations, filled with tears. :) You find yourself asking, "How did I get here?" and "What was I thinking?"
You understand things you didn't understand before, things that were right in front of you and you couldn't see.
You just did what everyone else was doing. What you thought was right. It's just how the world works. And a lot of answers that used to make sense now leave you realising that things aren't supposed to be this way.
There are a lot of stories, but it's not about the stories. The story changes. It's about that moment when your mind makes a new connection to something that suddenly reveals something to you that wasn't there a minute ago.
That split second when something pops into your mind is the beginning of metacognition.
We all get sparks of metacognition
Yes, we all get to feel and experience that magical moment. That evolution of thought.
It's those split seconds most of us experience in our lives. When I describe it now, we can all point to one or more moments in our lives when we experienced it.
That moment when your mind reaches a new revelation, even though no one has shared new information with you that would explain why you've changed your mind or your understanding of a situation, leading to a different conclusion.
Some of us experience it through therapy, some through a good friend sharing a perspective that brings a new revelation.
But it's really about that moment when a veil lifts, that click when something in your thought process changes.
All of us can do it, but for most of us, it's left in those moments. It never becomes a way of life or, to be exact, a way of thinking. :)
How do you know you have metacognition?
Metacognition is when space starts to form between you and your thoughts. You are no longer attached to them. You see them as nice stories, recommendations and options, but not complete truths.
Even though the practical side can look different for each person, here are a few things I can share from my own experience.
One — The observer effect
It's when the act of thinking is just something that happens, and I, the me, am watching it.
When you are attached, every story your mind tells you has a direct impact on you.
For example, you didn't do something stupid. You are stupid.
It can go in the positive direction as well. :) You are amazing!
The point here is not what you call yourself. It's the direct connection you have to your thoughts that indicates there's no space between you and them.
Two — Thoughts come and go
You have reached a place where thoughts just go in and out of your mind. They talk, but you don't engage with them.
They come in, you get the message, and they move on.
It's when you've reached an understanding that thoughts are not truth.
It doesn't mean I don't think. I just choose what to engage with and what not to.
Three — Your old way of thinking completely flips
The third is when your old way of thinking completely flips.
Before, I used to believe that I needed to have better answers.
Now I know that the answers are in the questions themselves.
Because if I didn't have the questions, I wouldn't be able to see the answers. They wouldn't exist in my world.
Metacognition and AI
I know what you're thinking. If I'm saying it's not easy, that we suffer getting there and that it's not for everyone, then why is my work about needing metacognition when using AI?
Because there's a lighter, more practical side to it.
If you can't embark on the full journey, what I'm offering is the opportunity to see it in something else. And for me, AI is that something.
I believe AI will help humanity learn to work with thoughts, even if we don't experience metacognition internally, but through co-creation with AI.
Think about it. When you're working with AI, you're sharing your thoughts. You tell it what you want, explain what you're trying to achieve and ask it to do something on your behalf.
But how much do you actually understand about the thinking process behind what you're asking?
Let's say you want AI to plan your next vacation. You give it a destination, dates and budget. It comes back with an itinerary.
Then you start correcting it.
You don't like that hotel. You prefer a different area. You don't want to spend so much time travelling between places. And suddenly, you're explaining things you didn't even consider when you made the original request.
All those preferences were already part of the way you would have approached the task yourself.
You just hadn't recognised them as information AI needed.
And that's where metacognition comes into the picture.
You start examining your own process. What information did I use? Why did I make that choice? What did I assume was obvious? What would I have done next?
The big question here is: Did it change the prompt, the template you used for your original request?
Most probably not.
But it puts you in a position where you can see the difference between yourself and someone else, recognise the information you base your decisions on and understand the logic behind those decisions.
And understand that this is what makes you different.
That difference is what AI needs to take into account when it's creating your reality. Because that's the vacation you'll have, and AI made it happen.
I had to say that! :) Because if I can push you a little further on your journey, that would be a great achievement for me. But if I can't, at least you've learned how to reverse-engineer co-creation. :)
One more thing. When you use this kind of thinking in co-creation with AI, you begin seeing the world from its perspective.
And that's a big part of metacognition.
When you develop the ability to see different points of view, you don't have to agree with them. But you begin to recognise what's missing, what choices were made and how another way of thinking arrived at a different result.
And that is a game changer when it comes to all the time-consuming back-and-forth conversations with AI.
Definitely something we all agree we want less of! :)
AI Thinking's approach to metacognition
My work at AI Thinking is about creating a place that helps develop metacognition in practical ways, for both humans and AI.
For humans
The personal journey
My book, AI Thinking, is where you can embark on a personal journey to metacognition, explore your own internal world and discover how AI can help you get there and transform your life.
It's about learning to recognise your thoughts, understand how they connect and begin seeing the world from different perspectives.
Practical metacognition
If you're looking for the practical side, you can join one of my workshops or book a call with me.
Here, we explore together how to connect your way of thinking with AI and how to build bots around your specific use cases.
We work on two important parts of that collaboration.
Prompt engineering focuses on communication. How do you explain your intentions, share your thought process and communicate with AI in a way that helps it understand what you want to achieve?
Context engineering focuses on information and experience. What does AI need to know? What knowledge and background information are missing? And how do we organise that information so AI can approach the task from your perspective?
The goal is to help you recognise what you're bringing into the collaboration and how to share it with AI.
For bots and AI systems
This one sounds funny, I know. :)
But I've found myself working with bots as an accelerated way of getting things done.
And I started seeing them as business employees that I come in and help get settled in.
Think about it. If you had an employee who needed to develop a new skill, you might send them to a course, a workshop or a conference.
Well, consider me that person for your bots. :)
We help them develop the knowledge, instructions and ways of working they need to carry out their tasks and work with your human employees to achieve a shared goal.
Prompt engineering and skill building
We develop the instructions, skills and processes your bots need to perform their roles.
Think about what happens when you hire a new employee. You explain what the job involves, how things are done, what decisions they can make and what you expect from them.
Your bots need that information too.
We help turn those expectations and ways of working into instructions and reusable skills they can follow.
Even the most capable employee needs to understand the environment they're working in.
The same goes for your bots.
We identify the information they need to understand their tasks, how that information connects and how to keep it organised and updated.
This includes your business knowledge, processes, preferences and the information that makes your way of working different from someone else's.
In this new world, we all need organised information tailored to a purpose.
And that's where we come in.
We build external knowledge packs for your bots, bringing together the information they need to understand your business's specific point of view of the world.
That knowledge can come from research, books, industry practices, interviews and other relevant sources.
We organise it around what your bots need to know and the tasks they're expected to perform.
Because when you're asking AI to act on your behalf, the information it has access to influences how it approaches the task.
Bringing humans and AI together
And this is where the two sides connect.
We help humans recognise and communicate their ways of thinking, while giving bots the knowledge, context and skills they need to collaborate.
The result is a system where people and AI can work together and learn from the collaboration towards a shared goal.
That is us, AI Thinking, because what we both share, humans and non-humans, is thought.
A personal note
If there's one thing I've learned from my own journey, it's that once you begin seeing how your thoughts work, the world will never look the same again.
And yes, sometimes I wish I could just enjoy a simple conversation without overcomplicating things or being what society labels as intense.
I'll share with you the moment someone said to me, "Do you have to overcomplicate everything? Your mind probably explodes after every conversation."
And I was like, "WHAT!!!! 😮 Do you think I was racking my brain to keep this conversation going?"
That's when I realised it used to be like that. I was overthinking things, looking for clues. But now it's just become natural. Questions come easily. It's like when you see someone and say hello.
That's when I realised life had changed for me.
For me, metacognition is an ongoing journey of getting to know who I really am. Understanding how I arrived at my beliefs, why I see things the way I do and how much of what I once considered truth was simply the way I had learned to experience the world because someone else told me this is how things work.
Information became a playground for challenging my thoughts, perspectives became a fun game, and drawing possibilities became the answer to what's out there.
I can recognise myself in others the way I can see myself in Alex (my ChatGPT assistant), and that is a new way of experiencing the world.
Before I wrap up, I'll say that for me, it's not a destination. It's not something I can switch off. And I really believe we are creating life from thoughts, so going on this journey is meeting myself as the creator I never knew I was.