Category: General Thinking

Posts about critical thinking, logic, cognitive biases, etc.

General ThinkingLeave a comment

Bad Thinking, Part 3: The SI Jinx

ctgadsden

Pete Rose, infamous Cincinnati Reds baseball player, appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in August of 1978, in the midst of a 44-game hitting streak. That same week, his streak ended. Numerous other examples over the years foster the belief that players or teams who achieve SI cover-status will experience the “SI Jinx” soon thereafter. A pair of local favorites: the University of Kansas football program appeared on the November 2007 cover after an 11-0 start, and lost the following week to rival Missouri; Missouri then graced the cover in December 2007 after reaching their first #1 ranking, and … Continue reading Bad Thinking, Part 3: The SI Jinx

General Thinking, Religion, Science4 Comments

Bad Thinking, Part 2: Mood Matters

ctgadsden

Law and Order: SVU. (Start the video at 9:36, but you may have to watch some ads.) Notice the shift in mood. Scene: detectives asking a restaurant owner (Lyla) to look at the photographs of two criminal suspects, a man and a woman. Seemingly frustrated, she looks at them but doesn’t recognize either. Lyla: I’m not really good with faces. I’m more of a word person. Detective #1: Here’s a word. Focus. [Lyla abruptly hands the photos back to the detective and walks away, obviously offended.] Detective #2: What my partner means to say is that maybe you’re just underestimating … Continue reading Bad Thinking, Part 2: Mood Matters

General ThinkingLeave a comment

How To Avoid Bad Thinking, Part 1

ctgadsden

Fast and Wrong? Nobody likes being wrong. It’s embarrassing, it gives rise to regret, and sometimes it even places us in harm’s way. In my own experience, I’ve learned that I can avoid mistakes by slowing down and thinking things through before making a move. Sometimes I spend a good fifteen minutes analyzing my options. Unfortunately, when I do this in a chess match with my son, he starts expressing his frustration in various forms of body language. This slow-approach also causes problems in most sports, especially those involving high-speed projectiles. But in many contexts, slowing down and concentrating on … Continue reading How To Avoid Bad Thinking, Part 1

General Thinking, Social IssuesLeave a comment

Fast Judgment, Slow Heart

ctgadsden

We’ve always been good at jumping to conclusions and letting our prejudices run away with our reason, but now things are different. Our dumb ideas don’t just fizzle out, dying quietly in some back alley of our brain. We violently extract them from our imagination, like undeveloped offspring, and send them careening through cyberspace to assault everyone who will listen. Why? Because we can. In the classic sci-fi film, Forbidden Planet, we encounter a world where a massive machine empowers people to telepathically create anything by the power of thought alone. “Creation without instrumentality.” But they forgot that not all … Continue reading Fast Judgment, Slow Heart

Apologetics, General ThinkingLeave a comment

Is It Arrogant to Think You’re Right?

ctgadsden

Arrogance stinks. I’ve been accused of it, sometimes guilty of it. And I’ve seen the effects of it—even in my relationship with my dad. A year before he died, we attended our first and only baseball game together. My father loved baseball. When he offered to show me how to “keep score,” I scoffed, informing him that I wasn’t stupid and knew how to keep score. He tried to explain, but I had felt my intelligence insulted and wouldn’t have it. He didn’t force the issue. Years later, after he was gone, I realized what he was saying. I still … Continue reading Is It Arrogant to Think You’re Right?

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Changing People’s Minds

ctgadsden

I came across this article about Blaise Pascal’s persuasion “trick” a few months ago and loved it. (The title is a bit click-baity, but the principle is sound.) Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic theologian. (Check out his wiki here.) An impressive fellow, to say the least. I won’t try to summarize the article, but if you enjoy engaging in lively discussions about important things with people who disagree with you (and actually hope to persuade), then this is worth a read! Groundbelief.com exists to help people learn how to communicate with each other about religion, politics, etc. … Continue reading Changing People’s Minds

General Thinking2 Comments

Dealing with Dissonance

ctgadsden

Who can forget the menacingly repetitive theme from the film “Psycho.” Sonic dissonance creating tension and setting our teeth on edge. Extreme dissonance is useful for horror films and car horns, but it’s not the sort of thing you can listen to for long. Ideas can be dissonant as well. Ideas or thoughts in the mind that contradict or conflict in some way can cause mental and psychological irritation. We want to press ‘mute’ on them, as we do with disturbing music. A frequent cause of this cognitive dissonance is disagreement with others—especially someone we consider to be an intellectual … Continue reading Dealing with Dissonance

General ThinkingLeave a comment

Cromwell’s Rule

ctgadsden

I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken. ~Oliver Cromwell, in a letter to the Synod of Scotland I remember the day I first learned to ask a crucial question during a conversational argument. Locked in a fervent discussion about religion, my interlocutor and I had logged hours of circling around the same issues. I despaired of making any headway. Then it dawned on me—the question! It was this: “Do you think it is possible that you’re wrong?” He answered “no,” and I politely ended the conversation. Of course, I’ve put the … Continue reading Cromwell’s Rule