Let's talk about critical thinking

How to be a scientific thinker? In the previous two articles, we talked about five misunderstandings that ordinary people need to avoid. In this article, we talk about how to think after avoiding these five misunderstandings. Let's talk about a premise first, then several methods and theories.

the reason why we should learn how to think is to be able to distinguish right from wrong. What is the first step in distinguishing right from wrong?

I remember I once said when chatting with an employee: After working for a long time, you will find that a lot of management is often emotional management. If you manage your emotions well, you will get more than half the success. I wonder if you feel this way.

If this is the case, emotions affect our judgment and the possibility of success, then how can we judge whether we are really thinking? Many realities are that you can have emotions, because it is normal to have emotions when encountering some things. The most important thing is:

Being emotional is not necessarily irrational, knowing what you want, and being emotional is not necessarily not based on facts. If you have emotions, you can honestly judge what you can do to achieve your desired goals. So the most important thing is to be clear about what you really want, know what you really want, and work hard for what you want. This is called rationality. Therefore, having emotions is not necessarily irrational.

This is also the first step for scientific thinkers to learn scientific thinking and make clear their thinking goals.

Scientific thinkers need to distinguish facts, positions and opinions.

Facts are true and false, but facts are facts. If you are an honest person, you should understand that facts exist objectively and are not transferred by people's will.

But opinions are not only determined by facts, but also by your position. Position is the beginning, fact is the argument of deduction, and finally form your own opinion according to position and fact.

So, opinions will change with the changes of positions and facts. Under normal circumstances, the position will not change. If you think carefully about any point of view, the general facts may not change. However, often we can only get some facts or what others want us to see, and even we may get incorrect facts. At this time, if the facts change, our views are likely to change.

At this point, we can define critical thinking or the thinking process of scientific thinkers:

It is also the basic thinking logic of a scientific thinker.

Now, when we think about it carefully, when we communicate or negotiate with others, we can't reach a consistent conclusion with others, which is often due to the following reasons:

I just don't compromise, our positions are inconsistent, and our starting points are inconsistent, so I have developed into a consensus. I will never change my position, that is, I want to be your enemy, and there is actually no way to talk about it. Therefore, from the standpoint, this is a starting point. If this cannot be compromised, it will definitely not be possible to reach an agreement;

although we have the same position and the same starting point, we have different perspectives on the facts. Neither you nor the other party, or one of them can't empathize, so that two people can't reach an agreement. For example, if you go to a market stall to buy apples, the other party says 4 yuan a catty, but you have to ask the other party for 1 yuan to give you 3 jins. Because you said that now is the season when apples just came down, so it should be cheaper. But there is something you don't know: Although it is the season when Apple just came down, the market price of Apple is higher now because of transportation or epidemic, and it is the cheapest in the neighborhood.

when we communicate, we can't express our logic completely through language. It causes the other person to talk about the east and you talk about the west. What the two people say is not the same thing at all, which will also lead to the two people failing to reach an agreement.

So, if you want to be a scientific thinker, you should start from your own position, take facts as the basis, and form your own opinions through reasonable logical reasoning. When communicating with others, if you want to express your views or reach a consensus with others, you should know how to compromise, change positions and make things clear. What is the purpose of being a scientist? Maybe you want to see the world more clearly. But more often, we are all ordinary people, we still need to work and cooperate with others, which inevitably means communicating with others and unifying our views with others. At this time, if you know how to think scientifically and correctly, can you not be cheated? It's ok to improve the efficiency of work.

I'm Xu Jianhang, and this is my 166th article. Welcome to join the 7 community, write one article in seven days, write together for seven years, and go to the South Pole together after seven years.