What is Critical Thinking
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Critical thinking is a series of strategies and practices to process information in a logical, clear, and consistent manner (which results in stronger ideas that better reflect reality).
It’s an important skillset because humans are extremely error prone with their thinking and tend to build their ideas based on emotions and messy mental shortcuts. Critical reasoning is about learning how to keep those emotions in check, and avoid those messy shortcuts.
Classically, those emotional arguments and mental shortcuts are called [logical fallacies](https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/common-logical-fallacies), and people often start out building their critical thinking skills by learning how to identify logical fallacies and avoid them.
Critical thinking involves evaluating the information that you are getting. The opposite of critical thinking is simply accepting what is presented to you. Whether or not it is correct is irrelevant; it’s about you understanding *why* something is or is not accurate.
One of the trends now is using ChatGPT to basically answer everything (or before that, using a Google Search and taking its automatic response). To be critical of these sources means figuring out how it got that information and how reliable that information is.
Critical thinking involves evaluating the information that you are getting. The opposite of critical thinking is simply accepting what is presented to you. Whether or not it is correct is irrelevant; it’s about you understanding *why* something is or is not accurate.
One of the trends now is using ChatGPT to basically answer everything (or before that, using a Google Search and taking its automatic response). To be critical of these sources means figuring out how it got that information and how reliable that information is.
I will try to explain it like you are actually 5yo.
Critical thinking is thinking about how you think, and realising it is easy to make mistakes. You try to work out what mistakes you might make, and try to adjust your thinking so you make less mistakes.
An easy mistake is to think everyone is the same as me. People can and do think differently.
Another one is to think I am always right. If someone thinks differently, it is because they are thinking wrong, but different isn’t wrong, just different.
Another easy mistake is to think my way is the best. If other people have a different way, they should learn my way. But how could we actually tell which is better unless we learn how to think like them first?
Critical thinking involves evaluating the information that you are getting. The opposite of critical thinking is simply accepting what is presented to you. Whether or not it is correct is irrelevant; it’s about you understanding *why* something is or is not accurate.
One of the trends now is using ChatGPT to basically answer everything (or before that, using a Google Search and taking its automatic response). To be critical of these sources means figuring out how it got that information and how reliable that information is.
I will try to explain it like you are actually 5yo.
Critical thinking is thinking about how you think, and realising it is easy to make mistakes. You try to work out what mistakes you might make, and try to adjust your thinking so you make less mistakes.
An easy mistake is to think everyone is the same as me. People can and do think differently.
Another one is to think I am always right. If someone thinks differently, it is because they are thinking wrong, but different isn’t wrong, just different.
Another easy mistake is to think my way is the best. If other people have a different way, they should learn my way. But how could we actually tell which is better unless we learn how to think like them first?
I will try to explain it like you are actually 5yo.
Critical thinking is thinking about how you think, and realising it is easy to make mistakes. You try to work out what mistakes you might make, and try to adjust your thinking so you make less mistakes.
An easy mistake is to think everyone is the same as me. People can and do think differently.
Another one is to think I am always right. If someone thinks differently, it is because they are thinking wrong, but different isn’t wrong, just different.
Another easy mistake is to think my way is the best. If other people have a different way, they should learn my way. But how could we actually tell which is better unless we learn how to think like them first?
Thinking like a critic.
In the context of food, a critic is going to be looking for flaws in the preparation, flaws in the conditions of the restaurant, flaws in the presentation…
Apply that to a theory, a statement, an opinion… You’re critiquing it.
You can get all technical about describing it, but ultimately it’s just that simple, critical thinking is thinking like a critic 🙂
Critical thinking are the steps people take to assess any potentially tricky situation. There are many forms of higher thinking that are not nessisary for critical thinking, what is most important is your recognition of the potential trick.
Something humans are unbelievably prone to is getting tricked. People’s minds are actually quite lazy, and go about life assuming their first thought is correct. This is actually a great survival tool, you don’t want to be caught wondering if that thing you see in the distance is a tiger, you should just get away.
It takes a fairly difficult problem to help our minds wake up and actually start thinking.
So the first step is to learn when to wake up your “thinking” brain. Things that make you want to buy something, or trust information.
However, some people fail at the next step as well. This is where processing comes into play.
The first major point, is that the more math you know, the harder you will be to trick, not always and it’s not consistent across the board, but in general your odds of being fooled go down when you know statistics, growth, calculus, fractions.
Next is deduction, working out the most likely answer from a limited pool of knowledge. The key here is to use one bit of information to rule out other bits of information you don’t have. You see this in murder shows, if it was raining, why did the victim leave without an umbrella? A person who was running for their life wouldn’t do xyz. These can be very useful, but should be reserved as a tool to recognize when more information is needed, not as a platform to come to conclusions.
Then comes research of logical fallacies. People have been lying and cheating for a very long time and have explained the most common tactics and how to think around them. These can be very useful in a discussion with either deliberately manipulative people or your run of the mill idiot who is repeating things they heard.
I want you to listen to this sentence.
‘The sky is blue’
Now, Instead of just believing me on what seems like a fairly normal fact.
You decide to ask yourself, why is the sky blue?
And so you take a step back from your own perspective. Because obviously when you see the sky you also see blue but that doesn’t prove it.
So you read a book, and then search a trustworthy peer reveiwed scientific article, and maybe watch a thing or two about how light prisms work and it’s reflectors and the sun etc.
And now, because you thought critically, you now know for sure the sky is blue.
Now. Apply this concept to anything political, seemingly scientific, or morally standardized.
Start with Why, How, Who. Just don’t take the first answer someone gives you, nor your own answer that you perceive.
Critical thinking it the process of asking that extra question, and then doing research through trusted sources to arrive at as close to the object truth as possible.
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