Comments on: A Short Introduction to Critical Thinking http://blog.vornaskotti.com/2009/12/04/a-short-introduction-to-critical-thinking/ Eadem mutata resurgo Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:24:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Janos http://blog.vornaskotti.com/2009/12/04/a-short-introduction-to-critical-thinking/comment-page-1/#comment-300 Janos Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:31:01 +0000 http://blog.vornaskotti.com/?p=782#comment-300 It's of course easy to operate in a world of black and white truths, which has the unfortunate downside of not corresponding to the real world. You are right - nobody is completely objective and to claim so is totally silly. Everybody has a bias and everybody has their own pet ideas. The thing is, most people are not aware of their own bias and principles, which is the mistake number one. They have an idea they stand behind, but they haven't actually investigated the idea at all: what is it based on, why it appeals to them, does it stand to critique, whatever. It just feels intuitively right, "just the way things are", and quite often people don't even want to change their mind. Any attempt to prove the idea wrong, or even slightly inaccurate, is seen as an attack against the person himself. And this is the problem. Freedom of thought can only be found when you can question your own ideas and values. Questioning them doesn't mean you'll have to throw them out of the window if you get even a whiff of contradictory evidence, it just means keeping your mind open to the possibility that you might be wrong. And I know, admitting that is tough, especially publicly. I've done that now and then in conversations and it really throws the other side of the conversation off. Then again, finding the flaws in your thinking and refining the idea to correct them might help you make your position stronger. One thing people should be taught far more strenuously is to ask "why?". Why is someone advocating a certain point of view, why are things the way they are and why am I thinking like this about these issues. There is no better inoculation for extremist and reactionary views. It’s of course easy to operate in a world of black and white truths, which has the unfortunate downside of not corresponding to the real world. You are right – nobody is completely objective and to claim so is totally silly. Everybody has a bias and everybody has their own pet ideas.

The thing is, most people are not aware of their own bias and principles, which is the mistake number one. They have an idea they stand behind, but they haven’t actually investigated the idea at all: what is it based on, why it appeals to them, does it stand to critique, whatever. It just feels intuitively right, “just the way things are”, and quite often people don’t even want to change their mind. Any attempt to prove the idea wrong, or even slightly inaccurate, is seen as an attack against the person himself.

And this is the problem. Freedom of thought can only be found when you can question your own ideas and values. Questioning them doesn’t mean you’ll have to throw them out of the window if you get even a whiff of contradictory evidence, it just means keeping your mind open to the possibility that you might be wrong. And I know, admitting that is tough, especially publicly. I’ve done that now and then in conversations and it really throws the other side of the conversation off. Then again, finding the flaws in your thinking and refining the idea to correct them might help you make your position stronger.

One thing people should be taught far more strenuously is to ask “why?”. Why is someone advocating a certain point of view, why are things the way they are and why am I thinking like this about these issues. There is no better inoculation for extremist and reactionary views.

]]> By: kris http://blog.vornaskotti.com/2009/12/04/a-short-introduction-to-critical-thinking/comment-page-1/#comment-299 kris Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:11:35 +0000 http://blog.vornaskotti.com/?p=782#comment-299 It's so easy to say what we should do, so hard to actually do it. :-( I don't think anyone actually lives by the rules they lay down, however fine the rules may be. They just pick and choose whichever truth suits them, and filter the evidence either consciously or subconsciously. It's possible to bend all of these rules to support conflicting viewpoints, yet conflicting viewpoints cannot both be true. People develop an emotional attachment to a particular idea, and to discard that idea feels like an act of betrayal. The pleasure they get from defending that idea outweighs the pleasure they get from finding the truth. Even worse is when there's been a bitter argument over an idea, people cannot stand admitting that a person they hate is factually correct. In the end people aren't looking for the truth, they're looking for a sense of satisfaction, and if the truth is unsatisfactory they may decide to ignore it. It’s so easy to say what we should do, so hard to actually do it. :-(

I don’t think anyone actually lives by the rules they lay down, however fine the rules may be. They just pick and choose whichever truth suits them, and filter the evidence either consciously or subconsciously. It’s possible to bend all of these rules to support conflicting viewpoints, yet conflicting viewpoints cannot both be true.

People develop an emotional attachment to a particular idea, and to discard that idea feels like an act of betrayal. The pleasure they get from defending that idea outweighs the pleasure they get from finding the truth. Even worse is when there’s been a bitter argument over an idea, people cannot stand admitting that a person they hate is factually correct.

In the end people aren’t looking for the truth, they’re looking for a sense of satisfaction, and if the truth is unsatisfactory they may decide to ignore it.

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