THE MIND BUILDER

This ""Self-Teaching Guide to Creative Thinking and Analysis"" is a high-minded and demanding--and exciting-- foray into the constructive science of language, with the word as means to the extension of meaning. The aim here is to ""heighten conscious control of the patterns of thought most of us use more or less intuitively."" The text explores and analyzes the role of words in thing-making, qualification, classification, etc.; shows how ambiguity can lead to meaning changes and growth. Exercises based on these aspects of verbal action follow, ranging from very easy to very difficult; answers are given. The process of learning is based on the efficacy of Professor Albert Upton's 1960 experiment which by raising I.Q.s of students by ten points in one school year, gave evidence that the study of the relation between words and meaning could improve thinking. Some of the material here is directly applicable to such tests. But, for those willing and able to follow the steps in thought laid out here, it is the aspect of general problem solving through higher conceptualization that may be the goal.