YOU IMPLY, I INFER

One aspect of “thinking” is inferring. We all do it. In fact, you cannot not do it. Whenever you think, you are not only dealing with, and facing, what’s directly in front of you which is obvious, clear, objective, etc., you are also dealing with other matters. You are dealing with things that are not obvious, not clear, and instead of objective, subjective. For that you have to make inferences about what it is and then inferences about those inferences— what it means, what to do, etc.

This is inferential thinking. In Meta-Coaching, it is one of the level-three skills under listening and something that we introduce at ACMC. We also introduce it in NLP when we teach the linguistic distinction of presuppositions (assumptions) in the Meta-Model. We also introduce it in Brain Camp (Executive Thinking) as one of the fundamental aspects of “thinking.”

Inferential thinking in the field of Logic shows up as how mentally moving up and down the levels of specificity—generalization works. You might have noticed this in the book on Meta- Programs (Figuring Out People) and the two complementary types of thinking— inductive and deductive. Or in NLP terms, global and specific.