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Politics

"Thinking" - one of those words we use so carelessly - and understand so imprecisely.

Posted: Dec 8th, 2017 - 3:04 pm In Reply to: Yeah - sm

When I took my first course in logic in college, the first three weeks were spent with the professor using the "Socratic" method of teaching, which consists of presenting the class with different case situations and having students stand and present their conclusions.

It was humiliating. One by one, we took turns having our best "logical" arguments shredded to confetti and thrown back in our faces. No one escaped unscathed including one boy who I knew from a literature class the previous semester and who seemed to be smarter than God.

After 3 weeks, most of us hated that professor with a passion we normally reserved for the Florida Gators and bar bouncers who rejected our fake IDs.

But in week 4, the class shifted to the didactic method, with the professor patiently and thoroughly explaining the methods of proof, the structure of formal and informal arguments, and about a dozen of the common fallacies in logic that humans commonly commit.

In the 8th week, we returned to the Socratic format. This time, although we still got shredded (good thinking habits are hard to acquire!), it didn't happen nearly as often, and we even heard an occasional "Very nice job, Ms Hamlin" or "Exactly right, Mr. Jameson."

I took two more courses in logic after that because I had intended a career in the law which, sadly, was derailed by the premature passing of my dad and the need to curtail my education. I would finish my degree much later, and too late for any of those plans.

I mention these things because, since that time in my life, I have often thought, and even gone before our school board, to argue that we ought to begin teaching logic in high school, because in college it's an elective and most people avoid it.

Those courses in logic have repaid themselves many times over, and kept me from making a lot of errors in judgment that I might have made.

As I learned, "thinking" isn't what we commonly believe it to be. It's a rigorous process, and there's a right way to do it, and many wrong ways.

Certainly, reaching conclusions on the basis of what we WANT to believe or disbelieve is not "thinking" in any sense of the word. Our minds are treacherous and will, if allowed, build us a mental fairyland that doesn't fit reality. In fact, it doesn't exist. It might please us, or it might comfort us, or it might confirm us, but more often it's an enabler, like someone who keeps slipping us another drink. We think our thoughts, and we never consider how odd it is that we're so supremely confident in what we think even though the sad fact is that we've made many, many mistakes in judgment.

I'd bet $100 that you reached a conclusion about this post that just coincidentally fits what you WANT to believe and, even further, that you made that judgment before you finished reading it.

Yes? You can work off the debt by finding at least one course in logic on the Internet (Khan Academy has one, as do other sources) and working through the course. I promise you'll be surprised, I think you'll find it interesting, and I know you'll benefit, at least to the extent that you apply what you learn.

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