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TH: "If the article were itself an example of careful thinking, why wasn't this error caught?"
Does careful thinking equal careful typing? Similarly, johnson is a terrible speller. Does that mean he's also a terrible thinker?
TH: "This conservative definition of critical thinking differs from those of liberals, which doesn't matter because no objective definition is possible of this nebulous, politicized subject.
Do all liberals who are also critical thinkers define it in the same way? I've always held a very basic definition of critical thinking, defined more or less by the juxtaposition of two words. Within the scope of this phrase, there seems to be many different ideas about how to think critically similar to how there are models of cars. The more different scholars add to the concept by structuring it and forming sub-categorizations, the more it strays from it's more general definition. Given, if it is to be useful it must have substance. Some of the more general substance, namely the blunt self reflection and intellectual honesty, are what attracted me to the idea. If I do not assimilate the structure of critical thinking as posed by Ellis, does that mean when I think critically it can no longer be termed "critical thinking?" I'm not saying I disagree with Ellis, I'm saying I haven't had the luxury of studying all various explanations of the concept.
Thinking is such a complex and broad process that even with this structuring the newer perspective still falls within the definition of the term. What arises is a large variance in what is considered critical thinking. The beauty here is that intellectual integrity should be stressed. Critical thinking itself is of course not immune to examination. If there is a variant of critical thinking that is taught which doesn't adhere to the core concept, it should defined differently.
The link you posted is interesting. I'm wondering why, 22 years after this powerful critical thinking movement, I still define critical thinking in a general fashion. Perhaps the movement still hasn't reached me?
TH: "I do not keep up with academic trends..."
Google helps. It found you an article within the last 3 decades. Good way to keep current.
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Interbane wrote:
The link you posted is interesting. I'm wondering why, 22 years after this powerful critical thinking movement, I still define critical thinking in a general fashion. Perhaps the movement still hasn't reached me?
Thank you, Interbane. Here is another valuable link, although it gives only the first few pages of the book:
Like cardsharks, language manipulators can work so fast and have so many tool of deceit that the untrained person is helpless against them. This article is about defensive, not productive thinking.
Tom
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Thanks for the links Tom, but I have a bit much on my plate. When I have time, I might read a book about critical thinking rather than a googlism. The second link is not my style. If you're critical enough in looking for the truth, even a master of deceit's tricks will be exposed.
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TH The "desirable outcome" is that the victim believe in the critical thinking con. It is not true that critical thinking is "the kind of thinking involved in solving problems." Critical thinking does not solve problems.
Can you back up this claim?
You clearly do not use critical thinking so how would you know?
The desired outcome is the answer you are looking for… if the truth is your goal than that is the desired outcome… if you are trying to figure out the best way to save money then saving as much as possible is the desired outcome…
I solve problems every day by thinking about them critically… I work in a prison and every day the inmates are trying to put something over on the officers… without thinking critically I would be a useless, gullible, dufus.
If it did not work, it would put me in danger and I would not use it.
I am well respected within my jail largely because of my ability to stay objective and think my way through problems accurately.
You can say what you will about critical thinking and its methods, but you cannot change the above facts... so rage on!
Quote:
TH It is a tool of religious propaganda. It yields "accurate results" when the victim comes to believe in critical thinking itself.
Can you back up this claim with any evidence?
What religion are you speaking of?
Are you going to use the actual definition of religion or are you going to make one up?
What does this “belief” in critical thinking entail?
Be specific.
Quote:
TH The critical thinker when confronted with an algebra problem will convert it into a social activity, seek help from friends or cheat by copying the work of the person sitting next to him. Since independent thought is anathema in critical thinking, the critical thinker will definitely not work on the problem independently.
Another assertion… can you back this one up with evidence of any kind?
Besides cheating is intellectually dishonest… and goes against the virtues of critical thinking that you have latched on to.
Also I have never seen any definition that condemns independent thinking… where did you get this crazy idea?
Unless, you mean ignore other opinions and material (even credible ones) and just look for material that suits your belief and twisting all other material into saying something it was never meant to say.
Another intellectually dishonest approach.
I find it had to believe that you (even as delusional as you appear to be) have never sought another opinion, or advice from anyone… I can’t imagine that you have never changed your mind or been convinced that you were wrong about something.
Or, are you in your opinion always right?
Later
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TH Critical thinking does not solve problems. It makes problems and is itself the problem -- a substitution of social conformity for thinking.
Then why is it that I often times have to employ my critical thinking skills alone?
Sometimes we do not have the luxury of other opinions and points of view to consider and must act alone on little or incomplete information… despite this, critical thinking still works and helps minimize the chances of making a bad decision.
Critical thinking does not in any way require other opinions or participants… it does require fair, objective consideration of all available information.
For example… I can watch an inmate do something… and think critically about what he is doing and decide weather his actions are dangerous or harmless… I do not need a committee to approve my decision.
I am perfectly capable of this assessment all by my lonesome.
Critical thinking does solve problems…
So there!
Later
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Johnson, there appears to be a typo in the brief Conservapedia entry on critical thinking: "asses" should probably be "assays". If the article were itself an example of careful thinking, why wasn't this error caught?
This conservative definition of critical thinking differs from those of liberals, which doesn't matter because no objective definition is possible of this nebulous, politicized subject.
please tell me,
was the post to which TH refers even slightly ambiguous? did anyone miss the rib nudge? besides TH, it would seem?
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Feeling is First
Interbane wrote:
TH: "If the article were itself an example of careful thinking, why wasn't this error caught?"
Does careful thinking equal careful typing? Similarly, johnson is a terrible speller. Does that mean he's also a terrible thinker?
The spelling error in Conservapedia was not Johnson's, but this brings up one of the fatal flaws of critical thinking. Recently Frank wrote:
Quote:
I guess that the pasifier did not work...
I am a poor speller. I do not see the spelling of words unless I make a special effort, so I am sometimes unable to spell even common English words. When I see a misspelled word, I feel that the spelling is wrong, but I am often unable to say (conceptualize) what the correct spelling would be. In the case of Frank's "pasifier", it felt wrong, but I could not correct it. I checked the dictionary, and there is no "pasifier" nor was there a "passifier", which I tried next. Somehow -- I don't remember how -- I found the dictionary entry for "pacifier", and my bad feeling went away.
My intuition was correct; my concepts were wrong. The critical thinking movement in all its various forms is biased toward the conceptual, and concepts -- as in the spelling example -- are a derivative and secondary consequence of thinking. By neglecting the intuitive, critical thinking neglects the means by which good thinking is done.
Tom
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The role of our reasoning is not to neglect nor to champion our intuition. Rather, it’s to consider what our intuition tells us and add it to the list of options. An interesting perspective on the role of intuition in human thought is to consider it as the “feeling of knowing” that lacks content or precedes content. Those thoughts that are considered conscious and deliberate are ones where the feeling of knowing follows the content, or does not follow at all. For a full explanation of what the feeling of knowing is, read “On Being Certain” by Burton. If you don’t have the time, I’ll do my best to explain it here.
Basically what I’m saying is, intuition is in a slightly different category than conscious thought. It is the combination of mental processes which must be taken into consideration to gain a full appreciation of intuition versus conscious deliberation. For myself, I actually consider homing in on this “feeling of knowing” as part of critical thinking. It helps with those situations where you are angry that you didn’t act on the strange feeling that something is wrong. I pause and home in on that feeling.
The other day I had far too much caffeine and was rapidly philosophizing on the way home from work. Partway, I started an experiment with myself to see if I could hold two things in my head at once; both the thought I was focusing on, and a general classification of that thought. For example, when looking at the street light I would ever so briefly have the thought that it will be a few more seconds, while somewhere else(or perhaps a millisecond later), I’d have the thought that I was focusing on the “driving routine” of my conscious. This little experiment had me thinking rapidly.
I went into a gas station to purchase a soda and came back out to my car, where I accidentally dropped a quarter which started to roll under the car. Before the quarter had even hit the ground, I was convinced that it was going to roll out of reach, therefore I should just get in the car and leave. What struck me as bizarre is that I almost followed through with it, and would have if it weren’t for the alarm that the feeling of being “convinced” sounded. I paused after starting my car and thought through the past few moments. My explanation has something to do with the side effects of the mental experiment I put myself though. I laughed and opened the door to see if the quarter had rolled under the car out of reach, only to find it easily within reach but just out of sight. I grabbed it and drove off.
At various times in the past, I’ve homed in on this feeling and in most cases it’s the same as you’re describing. It’s a ‘sensation’ that is as though it’s a feeling, but isn’t an emotion. As if our thought processes come with their own devoted emotional retinue. The most familiar is the feeling of knowing, which leads to the phenomena of intuition. There is nothing that can control intuition and it’s results. However, you can train yourself to harness your intuition in various forms. If you were to do this, I would say that you’re thinking in a structured, critical fashion. I consider myself a critical thinker, but I would never neglect my intuition.
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Frank 013 wrote:
Then why is it that I often times have to employ my critical thinking skills alone?
Sometimes we do not have the luxury of other opinions and points of view to consider and must act alone on little or incomplete information… despite this, critical thinking still works and helps minimize the chances of making a bad decision.
Critical thinking does not in any way require other opinions or participants… it does require fair, objective consideration of all available information.
I would think that independent thinking is the foundation of critical thinking. The end desire is to be able to come to your own conclusions and not allow yourself to be unduly influenced by others.
According to a recent study sometimes we turn off executive function when we ask advice from experts, especially when dealing with something complicated.
"While the field of neuroeconomics has made progress in understanding the neurobiological basis of risky decision-making, the neural mechanisms through which external information is integrated in that process had not been studied before this," says Berns.
Study participants were asked to make a series of financial choices between a guaranteed payment and a lottery while undergoing MRI scanning. During portions of the testing, the participants had to make decisions on their own; during other portions, they received advice from a financial expert about which choice to make.
"Results showed that brain regions consistent with decision-making were active in participants when making choices on their own; however, there occurred an offloading of the decision-making process in the presence of expert advice," says Jan B. Engelmann, PhD, Emory research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and first author of the study.
Unfortunately, I think we can easily come to depend too much on an "expert" or some other authority figure and this "offloading of the decision-making process" can lead to being ripped off or something worse, especially when said authority figure is a charlatan or cult leader telling us to drink Koolaid.
I would think that independent thinking would also lead to a more internal locus of control. With my children I try to instill the idea that they should take control of their lives (drive their own boat) as much as humanly possible. I always quote that Rush song: "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice . . ." because sometimes if you don't take decisive action things can happen to you as a result of not making choices while you still have the opportunity. This is not very deep, I know, but I think it's something worth repeating.
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TH In the case of Frank's "pasifier", it felt wrong, but I could not correct it. I checked the dictionary, and there is no "pasifier" nor was there a "passifier", which I tried next. Somehow -- I don't remember how -- I found the dictionary entry for "pacifier", and my bad feeling went away.
Good for you, your intuition led you to a typo.
You will notice that I did spell it correctly on page 4.
Critical thinking does not make a person infallible... but it does reduce the risk of making bad decisions and following wrong conclusions.
Quote:
TH The critical thinking movement in all its various forms is biased toward the conceptual, and concepts -- as in the spelling example -- are a derivative and secondary consequence of thinking. By neglecting the intuitive, critical thinking neglects the means by which good thinking is done.
Where do you see that intuition is removed or even marginalized in critical thinking?
Or do you have evidence to back up this assertion?
At the very least an intuitive proposal is another idea to be considered… just don’t get your panties in a wad if an intuitive point of view does not last in the long run… intuition is dodgy at best.
At any rate, I do not ignore my intuition either… being a critical thinker does not require any such rejection, but I think my intuition through as Interbane does.
Later
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TH A feeling is not "an intuitive proposal" nor is it an "idea."
Don’t be silly Thomas… Look at the context... was your feeling about something, did something feel wrong?
Something being wrong is an idea and a proposal.
If the feeling is hinting at something as in your example… than you have information to be explored.
Accepting the feeling as fact would be the claim of a lazy thinker… checking into that feeling and confirming it with credible facts is critical thinking.
Your exploration into misspelled words was critical thinking based off of an intuitive feeling.
In an attempt to confirm your feeling you had to check the spelling of the word Pacifier to be sure your feeling was correct… that little act of confirmation was critical thinking… and it gave you good results and kept you from possibly being embarrassed by making a false claim.
See you do think critically… even without knowing it.
Thank you for that excellent example as to how anyone can employ critical thinking to their advantage!
Later
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Frank: "Thank you for that excellent example as to how anyone can employ critical thinking to their advantage!"
Thomas is a liberal propagandist!
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Frank 013 wrote:
Don’t be silly Thomas… Look at the context... was your feeling about something, did something feel wrong? . . . . Your exploration into misspelled words was critical thinking based off of an intuitive feeling.
Nonsense. I have studied context theory, and you haven't, and God save me from critical thinking!
I also have the same bad feeling (baloney detector response) about critical thinking that I had about "pasifier." None of you so-called critical thinkers have credentials in critical thinking. None of you have specified critical thinking courses taken or critical thinking books read. I know more about critical thinking than the lot of you put together because I have at least look up and read a few webpages on critical thinking. So put up or shut up. Give me the sources of your knowledge of critical thinking or go do some reading. I will not accept your bizarre claims to superior thinking on faith.
Critical thinking is a pseudoscience, even if taught at Berkeley. General Semantics is taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I found it in a niece's textbook six years ago. My late cousin Ernon Sidaway studied General Semantics in law school at the University of Florida in Gainsville. Cow1 is not cow2, etc.
Quote:
. . . I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Matt. 11:25
May God have mercy on your critical thinking souls.
Tom
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