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afflicts much adolescent and young adult thinking that predisposes them to assume that how the
world looks to them (now) must be the way the world is. This egocentrism, combined with their
formal logical abilities, leads them to prematurely conclude that something is a genuine
contradiction in spite of evidence for both lines of evidence. Researchers in adult cognitive
development have identified a later, more complex kind of reasoning that transcends these
limitations (without abandoning formal logic), that characterizes more mature thinkers. Some
have termed this metasystemic thought.
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According to these researchers, metasystemic thinkers are able to think about their formal
operations, and so transform their understanding of systems (performing third-order operations)
and synthesize the truths of multiple systems of thought that were initially perceived to be
contradictory at the level of "single-system" thought. Rather than viewing these concurrences as
genuinely contradictory, leading to an either-or affirmation of only one of the options, the
metasystemic thinker sees such concurrences as a call to integrate the options into a fuller, richer
understanding.
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This happens as the genuine insights of the different systems are rationally
understood and accepted, resulting in the forging of a new "synthesis" of ideas/systems that
compose the "metasystem" (without regressing into preformal thought and affirming invalid,
unsubstantiated, irrational conclusions).
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This stage requires more complex reasoning and
metacognitive skills:
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first, knowing when to temporarily "suspend" the demands of the LONC
in order to fairly assess all the evidence, and secondly, if the evidence is sufficient, being able to
affirm both sides of the concurrence as true, in the absence of an actual harmonization of them
according to the LONC. At first, this requires living with a certain amount of disequilibrium,
given that the two (or more) bodies of evidence appear to contradict. Yet each horn of the