Critical Thinking is the art of using reason to analyze ideas
and dig deeper to get to our true potential. Critical
thinking isn't about thinking more or thinking harder; it's
about thinking better. Honing your critical thinking skills
can open up a lifetime of intellectual curiosity. But the
journey isn't all rosy. Critical thinking requires a lot of
discipline. Staying on track takes a combination of steady
growth, motivation, and the ability to take an honest look
at yourself, even in the face of some uncomfortable facts.
Question your assumptions.
We make a lot of
assumptions about almost everything. It's how our
brain processes certain pieces of information, and how
we get along in everyday life. You could say they are
the foundation of our critical framework. But what if
those assumptions turned out to be wrong, or at least
not entirely truthful? Then the whole foundation
needs to be re-built, from the bottom up.
What does it mean to question assumptions?
Einstein questioned the assumption that
Newtonian laws of motion could accurately
describe the world. He developed an entirely
new framework for looking at the world by
redescribing what he thought happened, starting
from scratch.
We can question assumptions in a similar way. Why
do we feel the need to eat in the morning, even
when we're not hungry? Why do we assume that
we'll fail when we haven't even tried?
What other assumptions are we taking for
granted that might crumble upon further
examination?
Don't take information on authority until you've
investigated it yourself. Like assumptions, taking
information on authority can be useful. Instead of
double-checking everything anyone says, we tend to
label information as either coming from a trustworthy
or not trustworthy source. This keeps us from double-
checking every piece of information that comes our
way, saving time and energy. But it also keeps us from
getting to the bottom of things we perceive as coming
from a trustworthy source, even when they don't. Just
because it was published in a magazine or broadcast
over TV doesn't mean it's necessarily true.
Get in the habit of using your instinct to
investigate questionable pieces of information. If
your gut isn't satisfied with an explanation, ask
the person to elaborate. If you don't question a
fact, read about it or test it yourself. Soon
enough, you'll build up a pretty good sense of
what deserves more research and what you've
determined to be true in your own judgment.
Question things. You've already read about
questioning assumptions and questioning authority
figures. Now you're about to be told to
question...everything? Asking questions is perhaps the
quintessential act of critical thinking. If you don't
know what questions to ask, or don't ask the questions
in the first place, you may as well not get the answer.
Finding the answer, and finding it elegantly, is what
critical thinking is all about.
How does ball lightning work?
How do fish fall from the sky in the middle of
Australia?
How can we take meaningful steps to fight global
poverty ?
How do we dismantle production of nuclear
weapons worldwide?
Honing Your Questioning Skills
Understand your own biases:
Human judgment can
be subjective, frail, and spiteful. One recent
study found that parents who were given corrected
information about the safety of vaccines were less
likely to have their children vaccinated. Why? The
hypothesis is that parents given this information
accept that the information is true, but push back
people it damages their self-esteem — something that
is very important to most people. Understanding what
your biases are and where they may affect how you
deal with information.
Think several moves ahead.
Don't just think one
or two steps ahead. Think several. Imagine you're
a chess grandmaster who's dueling with someone with
the capacity to think dozens of moves ahead, with
hundreds of permutations. You have to match wits with
him. Try to imagine the possible futures the problem
you're working on may take on.
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, famously
understood the benefits of thinking several steps
ahead. He tired Wired Magazine in 2011: "If
everything you do needs to work on a three-year
time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot
of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a
seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing
against a fraction of those people, because very
few companies are willing to do that."
When
the Kindle first hit stores in 2007 it was more
than three years in development, at a time when
e-readers were on nobody's radar.
Read great books . Nothing beats the
transformation of a great book. Whether it's
Moby Dick or Philip K. Dick, great writing has the
power to frame debate (literature), enlighten
(nonfiction), or unleash emotion (poetry). And reading
isn't only for bookworms. Elon Musk, the tech giant,
said he mastered rocket science by pretty much
"reading and asking questions."
Put yourself in other peoples' shoes. Empathy can
also help you develop your critical thinking skills.
Whether it's improving your negotiation tactics or
understanding literature better, putting yourself in
the shoes of others will help you imagine their
motivations, aspirations, and turmoils. You can use this
information to get leverage , be persuasive, or just plain
be a better person. Empathy doesn't need to be
heartless.
Set aside at least 30 minutes a day to improve
your brain function. Carve out 30 minutes in your
busy day to make your brain more sleek and powerful.
There are dozens of ways that you can do this. Here
are just a few ideas:
Solve a problem a day. Spend a little bit of time
figuring out a problem and then try to solve it.
The problem could be a theoretical or a
personal one.
Find the time to exercise consistently. 30 minutes
of aerobic exercise — as little as a walk around
the neighborhood — can help improve brain
function.
Eat the right kinds of foods. Avocados,
blueberries, wild salmon, nuts and seeds, as well
as brown rice play an instrumental role in keeping
your brain healthy.
adjusting all your perspectives
When you want to use
your critical thinking skills to act — because
armchair philosophy can get old after too long — it
helps to know what your options are. Lay them all out
there, and then weigh the options. We often pigeonhole
ourselves into believing that we're stuck with only one
option, when other options
Surround yourself with people smarter than you.
You want to be the big fish in the little pond,
because it makes your ego feel good. Well, throw away
your ego . If you really want to learn, get better at
something, and develop critical thinking skills, hobnob
with people smarter than yourself. Not only can you
bet that the smart people themselves rub shoulders
with people smarter than they are, you can also bet
that some of that intelligence is going to permeate
your perspective.
Fail until you succeed. Be fearless in the face of
failure. Failure is just another way of figuring out
what doesn't work. Use failure to your advantage by
learning from your lessons. The popular myth out there
is that successful people never fail, when the truth is
that successful people fail until they succeed, at which
point their success is the only thing that's visible.
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