How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#31

Post by oldsecondhand » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 8:26 AM UTC

akelly wrote: post #27

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

Any books you recommend on these topics?

Nigel Warburton: Philosophy - The Basics

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#32

Post by tgv » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 8:32 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

Formal logic isn't special in helping you think. It doesn't offer any tool that you can use in real life. You might just as well study chess or engine design deeply. It's the studying and problem solving that trains thinking.

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#33

Post by keiferski » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 8:51 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #32

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

Formal logic isn't special in helping you think. It doesn't offer any tool that you can use in real life. You might just as well study chess or engine design deeply. It's the studying and problem solving that trains thinking.

I found that studying symbolic logic, especially in a philosophical (language-based) context, helped me clarify my thinking. In other words, it helped me differentiate between concepts, trace arguments, and determine if something actually made sense. It’s not so much about solving problems, more about “organizing” the way you think.

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#34

Post by barrenko » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 8:56 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

Montaigne's essays did the trick for me.

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#35

Post by ignoramous » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

> Trying to understand how an intelligent person could come to an opposite conclusion will improve your thinking ability.

I don't think you can term flat-earthers intelligent. That's a dangerously low bar.

> A good method for this is: pick an idea that you are 100% sure is true. Not "the Earth is round" but "X value is good." Then search for people who disagree.

This is a neat trick (does it have name?), but the true value is in realising their fallacies to hone your own thought process, not why / how they convinced themselves through deliberation, and contemplation, and divine knowledge, and self-enlightenment, and what have you.

> Study philosophy. Study formal logic.

Philosophy ranked as the highest form of knowledge among the polymaths in the Islamic Golden Age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsafa

The encyclopedia of Ikhwan al-Safa and other such massive bodies of work are representative of Philosophy's central role among the scholars at the time: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ikhwan-al-safa/

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#36

Post by 0xBABAD00C » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

> pick an idea that you are 100% sure is true. Not "the Earth is round" but "X value is good." Then search for people who disagree.

The risk, of course, is getting convinced otherwise and having to live with that, in cases where "X value is good" is a socially useful and/or mandatory lie. Learning to think comes with its own dangers: knowing something isn't true requires more energy to hide it, and civilization is built on layers of lies. You could've gotten your head chopped off in the middle ages, for instance, for thinking anything naughty against the church and its leaders.

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#37

Post by nathias » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 9:22 AM UTC

Thinking is not one skill, it is the totality of your cognition and its uses. There are no shortcuts to take, learn philosophy, science, art, but before you can do that you have to learn how to doubt yourself and to make yourself receptive to arguments.

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#38

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 9:53 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

> "X value is good."

Thinking that this can be true or false is itself a category error - values are more like the axioms you put into a system, and can only be "good" or "bad" with respect to .. other values.

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#39

Post by runald » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 10:27 AM UTC

ignoramous wrote: post #35

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

> Trying to understand how an intelligent person could come to an opposite conclusion will improve your thinking ability. I don't think you can term flat-earthers intelligent. That's a dangerously low bar. > A good method for this is: pick an idea that you are 100% sure is true. Not "the Earth is round" but "X value is good." Then search for people who disagree. This is a neat trick (does it have name?), but the true…

I don't have any numbers on this, but I'm certain lots of "flat-eathers" are just trolls that enjoys annoying people who tries to act smug and smart, but in actuality failed to get the humour behind the flatness of earth. Anyone who is seriously trying to argue with flat-earthers have a very low bar for intelligence. Which is not to say that there aren't actual dumb people who actually believe the earth is flat, but I reckon those people are far below the minority.

Re: How to Think: The Skill You’ve Never Been Taught

#40

Post by rzz3 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 10:27 AM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #23

This is such a huge topic that any answer shorter than a book will be inadequate. But I've found two things to be helpful for learning "how to think." 1. Study philosophy. While defining philosophy precisely is difficult/impossible, it's essentially the study of thought. But, it's very important to study philosophies outside of your normal frame of reference. Read books from different eras, languages, countries, and…

I don’t enjoy reading the old language and lack of modern context. Any more modern philosophers you recommend reading? Or modern summaries of older philosophers?