This got me thinking, are our thoughts really ours? Because none of our thoughts are ever original, so what if what we consider our true perspective is just a collection of other perspectives we've seen over the years? This articles got me thinking more, and I like it, so thank you!
I like to think of others’ thoughts as “Base Camp” to visit, and then decide if it is worth pitching your tent there, or does your reasoning urge you to move on and set up camp somewhere else, either with other likeminded thinkers or in solitude.
This reminds me of Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” where he talks about the decline of language and its relation to thought and politics. He also argued that use of unoriginal phrases and ideas lead to manipulation, and outlined a set of rules for the common person to follow in order to think independently. I’ve noticed my immediate acceptance of information and I think this is definitely useful, especially with ai thinking our thoughts for us. Thank you for writing this!
“If you live by someone else’s thinking, you live by someone else’s judgment” and isn’t that an outsourced mind allowing their horse to pull your cart of knowledge in their direction “without you ever giving it a thought”? We sadly are trained to comply, not to think. Saddle your own horse and put your questions and experiences in your cart of self expression, conversation and examination. Ride off into the sunrise and into the light!
Makes sense. I sometimes feel a tinge of guilt that I haven't fleshed out my opinions thoroughly, are they really defensible? Great article, your perspective is inspiring 👏.
The classic version of trivium is Grammar -> Logic -> Rhetoric.
Another version of trivium is Knowledge -> Understanding -> Wisdom(Wise Behavior that utilizes your understanding of knowledge)
The modern version of trivium is Input -> Processing -> Output.
In the grammar/knowledge/input stage, you absorb all sorts of information without judgments and prejudices even if they seem crazy. In this case, grammar means information from all sorts of sources.
In the understanding/logic/processing stage, you make sense of your information.
In the rhetoric/wisdom/output stage, you act on your understanding of information.
If you censor knowledge from circulation and add misinformation to the pool of available knowledge, people's trivium process will be poisoned.
Control by the ruling class is mostly achieved through censorship and dissemination of misinformation. Most people were trained in schools to ignore information that contradicts what they already learned, so if you feed children with a bunch of misinformation and tell them to reject things that contradict what they learned, they will reject truths.
Only after you gather all sorts of information from various sources, you can make sense of them all. Then, you act on your understanding.
Most things you learned from government schooling system are misinformation that serves the ruling class agendas. History was written by victors, so mainstream history is mostly a bunch of bullshit. However, "alternative" histories are mostly bullshit as well. It would be wise to not care too much about history unless you do hardcore history research from various sources.
So, to put trivium in practice, don't believe my claim that there is a global ruling class that censors information and pushes misinformation at the global scale. Collect information from various sources without prejudice and judgment. Only then, try to make sense of it all. Then, act upon your understanding.
Be wary of not utilizing your knowledge in the real world. Unused knowledge is useless knowledge. At the very least, I'd try to use my knowledge by teaching it on the internet or earning money with my knowledge. The last stage of trivium is output. If there is no useful output, then your research is useless.
Thank you for your piece. It's really a fascinating topic. Here's how I see it: I don't think that "judgement" and "critical thinking" are two different things. You say that "critical thinking follows logical rules" but I don't think that's a fair representation of what we call "critical thinking". Being critical means being able to assess, evaluate and judge information. Critical thinking is the ability to judge properly. Now there's a point to what you're saying: cognitive scientist like D. Willingham or J. Sweller have pointed out that there's no such thing as "critical thinking skills in general". According to them, the way to teach and develop actual critical thinking is through specific domain knowledge. Carl Hendrick puts it beautifully: you can't connect the dots if you don't know the dots. At the end of the day, it's exactly what you're suggesting ("context is everything") but I just wanted to pointed out that domain-specific critical thinking is precisely that, and that this really is the same as judging.
A well-written piece, Craig, and I appreciate your contributions to what I believe is a valuable piece of general advice for fostering educated debate, revelation, and reform.
However, if I may ask, when you state, “Don’t work backwards from a conclusion,” are you suggesting that (in terms of personal belief and judgment) we focus on an inductive approach rather than a deductive approach?
Say that I am certain in the conclusion that political transparency is unattainable in a secure democracy.
Suppose I were to adopt your suggested methodology of thinking. In that case, I should instead develop a question, “Is transparency unattainable in a secure democracy?” and make observations that lead me towards a general principle or conclusion. This is in contrast to making a claim and then finding evidence to support it, or deducing a claim based on observations that I make after I've already taken a stance (likely exclusive to observations that are conducive to this claim being probable).
Would that be a correct interpretation of your suggested line of thinking, or am I mistaken?
If that is how you suggest it, then I agree that a mind focused on inductive reasoning, which seeks to find a principle or conclusion based on what can be learned about a particular topic, is a mind that will be able to judge and think much better.
Craig, how do you override fears and the feeling to ensure and guarantee your own safety when debating someone or dealing someone who has the current belief that puts your very existence in jeopardy?
This is like talking through land mines and be careful as your perspective is valuable and deserves a safe place of respect and acceptance. Sincere conversation is ideal and mere opinion without listening to each other is not open minded sharing.
This got me thinking, are our thoughts really ours? Because none of our thoughts are ever original, so what if what we consider our true perspective is just a collection of other perspectives we've seen over the years? This articles got me thinking more, and I like it, so thank you!
I like to think of others’ thoughts as “Base Camp” to visit, and then decide if it is worth pitching your tent there, or does your reasoning urge you to move on and set up camp somewhere else, either with other likeminded thinkers or in solitude.
This reminds me of Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” where he talks about the decline of language and its relation to thought and politics. He also argued that use of unoriginal phrases and ideas lead to manipulation, and outlined a set of rules for the common person to follow in order to think independently. I’ve noticed my immediate acceptance of information and I think this is definitely useful, especially with ai thinking our thoughts for us. Thank you for writing this!
I’ve read 1984, Animal Farm, and Road to Wigan Pier. I really like Orwell’s stuff, I plan on having a deep read into 1984 soon!
Oh cool. Animal farm is a good one and I’m actually reading 1984 right now.
What do you think of it so far?
How far in are you?
> Disagreement = collaboration (not combat)
This is genius! Because when you connect seemingly unrelated ideas, unique ideas, unique perspectives, they become even more unique!
Powerful, Craig. 🔥 “Your perspective is an offer, not a law” says it all—curiosity over certainty, respect over ego.
Thanks for reading :)
Thought Provoking
“If you live by someone else’s thinking, you live by someone else’s judgment” and isn’t that an outsourced mind allowing their horse to pull your cart of knowledge in their direction “without you ever giving it a thought”? We sadly are trained to comply, not to think. Saddle your own horse and put your questions and experiences in your cart of self expression, conversation and examination. Ride off into the sunrise and into the light!
Makes sense. I sometimes feel a tinge of guilt that I haven't fleshed out my opinions thoroughly, are they really defensible? Great article, your perspective is inspiring 👏.
Fucking awesome Graig I will be thinking in a different way now, thank you
What you are missing is trivium.
The classic version of trivium is Grammar -> Logic -> Rhetoric.
Another version of trivium is Knowledge -> Understanding -> Wisdom(Wise Behavior that utilizes your understanding of knowledge)
The modern version of trivium is Input -> Processing -> Output.
In the grammar/knowledge/input stage, you absorb all sorts of information without judgments and prejudices even if they seem crazy. In this case, grammar means information from all sorts of sources.
In the understanding/logic/processing stage, you make sense of your information.
In the rhetoric/wisdom/output stage, you act on your understanding of information.
If you censor knowledge from circulation and add misinformation to the pool of available knowledge, people's trivium process will be poisoned.
Control by the ruling class is mostly achieved through censorship and dissemination of misinformation. Most people were trained in schools to ignore information that contradicts what they already learned, so if you feed children with a bunch of misinformation and tell them to reject things that contradict what they learned, they will reject truths.
Only after you gather all sorts of information from various sources, you can make sense of them all. Then, you act on your understanding.
Most things you learned from government schooling system are misinformation that serves the ruling class agendas. History was written by victors, so mainstream history is mostly a bunch of bullshit. However, "alternative" histories are mostly bullshit as well. It would be wise to not care too much about history unless you do hardcore history research from various sources.
So, to put trivium in practice, don't believe my claim that there is a global ruling class that censors information and pushes misinformation at the global scale. Collect information from various sources without prejudice and judgment. Only then, try to make sense of it all. Then, act upon your understanding.
Be wary of not utilizing your knowledge in the real world. Unused knowledge is useless knowledge. At the very least, I'd try to use my knowledge by teaching it on the internet or earning money with my knowledge. The last stage of trivium is output. If there is no useful output, then your research is useless.
Thank you for your piece. It's really a fascinating topic. Here's how I see it: I don't think that "judgement" and "critical thinking" are two different things. You say that "critical thinking follows logical rules" but I don't think that's a fair representation of what we call "critical thinking". Being critical means being able to assess, evaluate and judge information. Critical thinking is the ability to judge properly. Now there's a point to what you're saying: cognitive scientist like D. Willingham or J. Sweller have pointed out that there's no such thing as "critical thinking skills in general". According to them, the way to teach and develop actual critical thinking is through specific domain knowledge. Carl Hendrick puts it beautifully: you can't connect the dots if you don't know the dots. At the end of the day, it's exactly what you're suggesting ("context is everything") but I just wanted to pointed out that domain-specific critical thinking is precisely that, and that this really is the same as judging.
Wow thought provoking. I felt a sense of guilt reading through this.
A well-written piece, Craig, and I appreciate your contributions to what I believe is a valuable piece of general advice for fostering educated debate, revelation, and reform.
However, if I may ask, when you state, “Don’t work backwards from a conclusion,” are you suggesting that (in terms of personal belief and judgment) we focus on an inductive approach rather than a deductive approach?
Say that I am certain in the conclusion that political transparency is unattainable in a secure democracy.
Suppose I were to adopt your suggested methodology of thinking. In that case, I should instead develop a question, “Is transparency unattainable in a secure democracy?” and make observations that lead me towards a general principle or conclusion. This is in contrast to making a claim and then finding evidence to support it, or deducing a claim based on observations that I make after I've already taken a stance (likely exclusive to observations that are conducive to this claim being probable).
Would that be a correct interpretation of your suggested line of thinking, or am I mistaken?
If that is how you suggest it, then I agree that a mind focused on inductive reasoning, which seeks to find a principle or conclusion based on what can be learned about a particular topic, is a mind that will be able to judge and think much better.
Craig, how do you override fears and the feeling to ensure and guarantee your own safety when debating someone or dealing someone who has the current belief that puts your very existence in jeopardy?
Stay open minded, know that your perspective is not worthless, and do a Socrates; know that you know nothing. That’s one answer I would give :)
This is like talking through land mines and be careful as your perspective is valuable and deserves a safe place of respect and acceptance. Sincere conversation is ideal and mere opinion without listening to each other is not open minded sharing.