Thinking with Labels, Thinking with Causes

TL;DR, status

I make a comment on two modes of thinking, thinking with labels and thinking with causes.
In my experience, students at the undergraduate level have been conditioned into thinking with labels. Some may benefit from developing a stronger ability to think with causes.
Thinking with labels and thinking with causes both have utility. One is not strictly better than the other. At different times, people may experience one or the other being over- or under-developed or over- or under-utilized.
This has probably been observed and commented on elsewhere. I haven’t checked. I’ve included some related ideas at the end of this post.

What will happen is that which should happen based on the abstract descriptors of the system.

What will happen is that which the system is capable of and incentivized to make happen.

Thinking with labels	Thinking with causes
The "ice cream machine" will produce ice cream.	The thing labeled "ice cream machine" will not produce ice cream if it is more strongly incentivized to always be broken. Its real name should be "needs-repair-machine" or "repair technician salary generator".
Artificial neural networks have neurons. Brains have neurons. Artificial neural networks will behave like the brain.	The thing labeled "neuron" in an artifical neural network and the thing labeled "neuron" in a biological brain operate on different mechanisms. Some parts of these mechanisms are similar, others are different. Artificial neural networks may behave something like the brain, but this depends on the similarty and importance of the shared mechansims, among other things.
The thing labeled "justice system" will produce justice	The thing labeled "justice system" may or may not produce justice, depending on the actors in the system, their abilities, their goals, and the structure of the system.

Ken Wilber’s “Spiral Dynamics” model of individual and societal development names “Blue Energy” as the fourth of eight stages of development. Blue Energy roughly maps onto “thinking with labels”. It supersedes Red egotistical energy, imposing role-based hierarchy. It is superseded by Green energy, which is pluralistic, relativistic, flattens hierarchy, and emphasizes the validity and worth of individual subjective experience.
Robert Kegan’s Constructive Developmental Theory posits 5 stages of development: Impulsive Mind, Instrumental Mind, Socialized Mind, Self-Authoring Mind, Self-Transforming Mind. What I am pointing at maps roughly to the difference between Socialzed and Self-Authoring stages of development.