[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/) # What is thinking (T)? ## The research claim The literature names roughly thirty-eight kinds of thinking β€” critical, creative, analytical, strategic, design, lateral, systems, and on down the list. Each names an operation, a domain, or a standard of evaluation. None says what the operation does to information, and none distinguishes itself from the others at the level of mechanism. None states what would show it was wrong. There is one thinking. It takes information (I) and organizes (O) it into meaning, and meaning is a mental model (𝕄). The named kinds are that one process under different contents, constraints, or standards of evaluation β€” not different processes. The consequence is a distinction the field mostly leaves implicit. Thinking is the process of organizing information. A mental model is information organized. Process and product are different things, and a construct that names only one of them will mis-sort cases where they come apart. ## What would confirm it Thinking (T) is information (I) passed through organization (O) to yield a mental model (𝕄). Thinking is organizing. Information goes in, a mental model comes out, and the organizing is what happens in between. Read in symbols: thinking (T) takes information (I) and carries it (β†’) by way of organizing (the O above the arrow) into a mental model (𝕄). The arrow is the process; what it points to is the product. ## What would refute it Thinking is something other than organizing. Either information is not what goes in, or a mental model is not what comes out, or what happens in between is not organizing. Read in symbols: thinking (T) is not (β‰ ) the operation that takes information (I) and organizes it (O) into a mental model (𝕄). Denying the whole expression denies any one of its three parts. ## The evidence, and why this status Thirty years of work converge on the same operation, and most of it was not designed to. Computational, experimental, corpus and applied studies, on different populations, each putting the claim somewhere it could have failed. Two of the programs push in opposite directions, which is the part worth noticing. One trained people to recognize organizational structure and measured what happened to their thinking. If thinking were not organizing, training people in a mechanism that is not the mechanism should have done nothing. Cognitive complexity moved, after exposures under three minutes. The other supplied no instruction at all and watched tens of thousands of people organize anyway. One intervenes and one observes, and they fail in different ways. A third program went after the four patterns one at a time. A fourth was aimed at something else entirely β€” asking experts to name the world's most pressing problems β€” and found their disagreement tracking how each of them had organized the question. Nobody designed that as a test of this. One study takes on the strongest incumbent rival directly, shows that it omits organization, and names the cases it mis-sorts as a result. Divergence on hard cases is how construct validity has been established since Cronbach and Meehl. Agreement on easy ones decides nothing. Two are worth reading as a pair. A 2006 argument predicted that systems thinking frameworks built as methods would turn out to lack empirical support. A review of 400 papers measured exactly that nineteen years later, with citation running slightly negative against empirical grounding. The prediction was on the record long before anyone could adjust it. ## Supporting evidence (12 publications Β· 3 studies) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2025). The structure of thought and reality: empirical evidence for the three universal laws linking mind, matter, and meaning. Journal of Systems Thinking.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/504) - [Cabrera D (2006). Systems Thinking (Doctoral Dissertation). Cornell University.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/86) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2025). The Pareto Structure of Thought: empirical discovery of the six foundational mental moves. Journal of Systems Thinking.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/500) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L, Cabrera E (2022). The β€œFish Tank” Experiments: Metacognitive Awareness of DSRP Significantly Increases Cognitive Complexity. Systems (MDPI).](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/346) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L, Cabrera E (2022). Distinctions Organize Information in Mind and Nature (D). Systems 10(2):41.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/318) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L, Cabrera E (2022). Systems Organize Information in Mind and Nature (S). Systems 10(2):44.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/345) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L, Cabrera E (2022). Relationships Organize Information in Mind and Nature (R). Systems 10(3):71.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/338) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L, Cabrera E (2022). Perspectives Organize Information in Mind and Nature (P). Systems 10(3):52.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/337) - [Cabrera D, Mandel J, Andras J, Nydam M (2008). What Is the Crisis? Defining and Prioritizing the World's Most Pressing Problems. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6(9):469-475.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/124) - [Cabrera D (2025). Critical Thinking: Broken by Design β€” Diagnosing the Flaws in Our Most Trusted Cognitive Tool. Journal of Systems Thinking.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/465) - [Cabrera D, Silberman D, Cabrera L (2025). Popularity Without Proof: A Systematic Empirical Review of Systems Thinking Frameworks. Journal of Systems Thinking.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/481) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2020). Defining Learning.: Defining Learning. Handbook of Systems Thinking.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/285) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L, Cabrera E (2022). Fish Tank treatments. Systems (MDPI).](https://dsrpevidence.org/experiment/324) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2025). Systems mapping. Journal of Systems Thinking.](https://dsrpevidence.org/experiment/487) - [Cabrera D, Cabrera L, Cabrera E (2022). Rorschach Inkblot. Systems 10(2):41.](https://dsrpevidence.org/experiment/339) [All research questions](https://dsrpevidence.org/claims)