Four types of thinking

This subject is a bit connected to the previous post. I want to introduce some concepts that I sometimes use. I distinguish 4 types of thinking.

I call the first 2 types "internal thinking" and "external thinking".

Internal thinking is when you really know the things that you are pondering on. You have some experience in this area and you can predict some outcomes based on your experience.
For example, if I asked if you can prepare your breakfast in less than 5 minutes, then if you've ever prepared your breakfast yourself, you would think internally about how to answer this question. You know what 5 minutes is because you've experienced it. You know your kitchen. You know your knives, bread, eggs or whatever you eat for breakfast. You know what you need to do and you have a general idea of how long it takes you to do it.

External thinking is when someone else gives you some concepts that you don't have a point of reference. You have no experience connected to those ideas. You take somebody's word for it. You don't really know anything about this subject. Because you can't really predict anything based on this kind of knowledge, you need to constantly ask the source for further information.
If I asked you what happens to a soul of somebody who dies sucked into a black hole, unless you have some experience in this matter, if you'd try to answer this question, you'd be theorizing. That's external thinking.
Do you feel the difference?

The second 2 types I call "forward thinking" and "backward thinking".

Forward thinking is when you already have some knowledge, some assumptions and conclusions and you further develop what you already have. Expanding your knowledge, drawing new conclusions, making discoveries based on what you already know.

Backward thinking is when you question your knowledge and your beliefs and assumptions. Questions like "How do I know this is true?", "Where did this information come from?", or "What assumptions this theory is based on?".

In my opinion, it's best to avoid external thinking as much as possible and only think internally. It is also good to have a healthy balance between forward and backward thinking.

The way I see it, there's way too much external thinking going on in this world. People just take in knowledge from external sources. They don't verify it. Then they fight over who is right and who is wrong. They often fight over who interprets this external knowledge correctly, or who is drawing the right conclusions. When in reality the whole discussion is pointless. They just expand their belief systems based on concepts they don't understand. Sometimes they feel confused. Sometimes they are convinced they know everything, but they rarely question this whole way of thinking.
There's not enough internal thinking in our society. People put too much value on book knowledge, and not enough on practical knowledge.

Forward thinking seems to be dominating over backward thinking in this society. The sum of total human knowledge expands exponentially. But people rarely question the foundations of this knowledge. There's a lot of new data every day. There are new discoveries. People draw new conclusions. People come up with new ways of using what we already know.
But there's not enough investigating if what we know is true.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
― Max Planck, Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers