How to be a thoughtful person?

There is a Jewish proverb that "God laughs when human beings think", but a person without thinking may hardly be called a real person. Our greatest strength comes from the thoughts in our heads and the strength in our hearts.

Usually, if a person lacks insight into things, we can say, "He is not a thoughtful person." But what is thought? How can a person become thoughtful? Today, I want to talk about my thoughts.

I say this not because I feel qualified to talk about this issue, but because what I am interested in and have been studying for years are all ideological issues. I think I do have some experience in methods, which is worth summarizing.

What is thought?

First of all, thoughts are opinions. When you have an opinion on something, you are thoughtful. According to my observation, most people don't really have their own opinions until others tell them. The more opinions, the closer to the essence, the richer and deeper your thoughts will be.

Here we should pay attention to two problems:

(1) The opinion is not true. Viewpoint is a systematic judgment and understanding framework based on facts, and facts are the basis of viewpoints. The more facts you know and master, the easier it is to make your own judgment. (Note: This proposition is neither a sufficient condition nor a necessary condition, but it holds in most cases. However, the fact itself is not an opinion. We can see such people, who are very knowledgeable, but have no thoughts.

(2) The viewpoint is not necessarily correct. Wrong thoughts are also thoughts. Since an opinion is a judgment, it is of course possible to misjudge it. However, more often, it is difficult to judge whether an idea is correct, and most ideas are only correct within a certain range.

So, you can ask yourself: Do you have your own opinions on most things and can defend these opinions, that is, can you give reasons to support these opinions?

If the answer is yes, then you are thoughtful.

How to become thoughtful?

People are not born with ideas. Ideas are acquired through diligent study and thinking. I don't deny that there is talent in it. Some people are naturally more thoughtful than others. However, methodology is also very important, and mastering the correct method is really conducive to forming one's own views.

To learn to have opinions, we must first know the structure of opinions.

All the views in the world, if subdivided, have only four components:

(1) facts. That is, objective existence is 100%, such as "the sun rises in the east".

(2) premise. This is the basis of inference, and it is an axiom that does not need to be proved, such as "the shortest straight line between two points". Many premises are value judgments.

(3) logic. That is, the rules of reasoning, just as sports competitions must abide by rules, thoughts also have their own logical rules. Logic is mathematics in essence, so Marx would say, "Any subject is not perfect until it can be expressed by mathematics." .

(4) conclusion. That is, the last point of view.

So we have such a simple formula: fact+premise+logic = opinion.

Let me make a simple analysis and demonstration. Many people say that the income tax of high-income earners should be raised. How did this view come from?

(1) The "fact" is that the social income distribution is uneven, and some people are poor and some people are rich;

(2) The premise is that narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor is conducive to social development.

(3) "Logic" means that raising income tax is a means to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.

(4) "Conclusion" is the previous viewpoint.

With this formula, we can understand that the so-called "no thought" is nothing more than one of the following situations: you lack enough facts, or you don't have clear personal values, or your logical analysis ability is not enough.

On the other hand, how to become thoughtful is nothing more than strengthening efforts in these aspects: knowing more about background knowledge, clarifying personal values (that is, don't be ambiguous, always ask yourself whether you are for or against it and why), and cultivating your own logical analysis ability (one way is to do more math or GRE logic problems, or program more).