What is Critical Thinking
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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 🙂
Utilizing your experiences and applying logic to draw your own conclusions. It contrasts with someone who doesnt think for themselves, or isn’t rational or analytical. It can also relate to “street smarts!” Someone with good critical thinking is able to read the room well and understand when they’re safe, threatened, mocked, or being hit on. If you’re a good critical thinker, it can mean you’re good at picking up social queues and analyzing them for rational patterns. Amongst other things of course!
People who mindlessly toe the party line in politics/religion/you name it, they are essentially the opposite of critical thinkers.
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 🙂
I got curious about hammering out the actual definition when I noticed other people were using it in a way I assumed was incorrect. But I started considering that there might be more to it than that. So I called a bunch of people and asked them to give me a very detailed explanation of the definition as they knew it. Nobody had the same definition. There were people I’ve known for 20 years whose definitions were not what I expected.
So I read a bunch of definitions online, none were the same. I found a website for an organization specifically dedicated to promoting critical thinking and read the definition on their website. This definition was an ESSAY.
One thing I noticed was that most of the people I talked to gave definitions that were connected to their fields of study/expertise. My scientist friend essentially defined it as applying the scientific method to things, my teacher friend defined it around having conversations with lots of different view points, my programmer friend said something about understanding systems, me (artist) defined it as methodically searching for the most appropriate framework to view a situation.
Anyways I bring this up because the answer is actually complex and a bit amorphous. It’s one of those concepts people tend to assume they have the right definition, or at least the one that everyone else means. But people don’t stop to define it often enough to make sure that that’s true.
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.
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.
A lot of people are missing the “critical” part of critical thinking. In order to get closer to the truth, you need to challenge your ideas, which often requires to confront them with information or opinions that contradict them.
If your hypothesis can pass all these tests, then it becomes a strong candidate to what could be the objective truth (if such a thing exists).
To take different logical info into consideration before doing something or having an opinion about something.
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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