What Does Critical Thinking Mean To You?

NoNukes writes:I think critical thinking simply means examining the reason for your beliefs as well as examining your perceptions. Since our perceptions are colored by our experiences and prior adopted beliefs, challenging the evidence is simply not enough.

Stile writes:I understand trying to show others what your belief is and how you arrived there. That's one thing.
But trying to show others that your belief is not in vain? Why do you care if others think your belief is in vain or not?If you care because you want "everyone to have peace in their lives" or some other nice thing... then... yay!
If you care because you want the approval of other people... then I don't think you're doing it right. I think that's a counter-productive motivation for such an important belief.

Dr.Adequate writes:If critical thinking means anything, it must be defined as a way of thinking, not by the outcome.

Thinking As A Science writes:When they think at all, the last thing men think about is their own thoughts. Every sensible man realizes that the perfection of a mechanical instrument depends to some extent upon the perfection of the tools with which it is made. No carpenter would expect a perfectly smooth board after using a dented or chipped plane. No gasolene engine manufacturer would expect to produce a good motor unless he had the best lathes obtainable to help him turn out his product. No watchmaker would expect to construct a perfectly accurate timepiece unless he had the most delicate and accurate tools to turn out the cogs and screws. Before any specialist produces an instrument he thinks of the tools with which he is to produce it. But men reflect continually on the most complex problemsproblems of vital importance to themand expect to obtain satisfactory solutions, without once giving a thought to the manner in which they go about obtaining those solutions; without a thought to their own mind, the tool which produces those solutions. Surely this deserves at least some systematic consideration.

RAZD writes:Confidence should never be considered absolute, while faith can be. Faith is more like trust, and it is more of an emotional aspect.This does not mean that there is no room for faith in critical thinking, just that one should be wary, we can have faith in an assumption that is not tested, based on our core beliefs and knowledge (our worldview), but we should be wary because it is untested.

roxrcool writes: You want to believe what you have always believed and this is your default position. A safe position. Moving beyond what you want to believe is not something you are actively seeking, but you are curious and keep picking at it a tiny bit at a time.

CSI writes:In his classic Invitation to Sociology, Peter Berger (1963, 23) states, It can be said that the first wisdom of sociology is this-things are not what they seem. I would alter the wording slightly-things are not always entirely what they seem-and propose it as the first wisdom of critical thinking. The recognition that the world is often not what it seems is perhaps the key feature of the critical thinker’s worldview.

Taq writes:I think the underlying question in this thread is whether or not subjective experiences are a valid way to confirm anything.

Faith writes:That would take me back to the two most intense years of my life during which I was reading voraciously about all the religions and occult practices. That led me into "spiritual" experiences of a very intense sort, some beautiful, some scary.

Wiki writes:A hallucination is defined as sensory perception in the absence of external stimuli. Hallucinations are different from illusions, or perceptual distortions, which are the misperception of external stimuli.[5] Hallucinations may occur in any of the five senses and take on almost any form, which may include simple sensations (such as lights, colors, tastes, and smells) to experiences such as seeing and interacting with fully formed animals and people, hearing voices, and having complex tactile sensation,

Taq writes:Do you consider that to be critical thinking?

Faith writes:Most people have spiritual experiences in the context of some kind of spiritual discipline but mine were happening just from reading and thinking intensely about such things.

CS writes:One time, I was sober, I was woken up in the middle of the night by some deep raspy voice speaking some weird foreign language. After I woke up, I could still hear the voice. It was coming from right above me. I sounded like some demonic spell or something. Like an incantation. Scared the shit out of me.I sat up in bed and looked around for the source, but couldn't find one. It eventually stopped talking and that was that.

Faith writes:SOMETIMES they could be hallucinations or even fraud of course, but the ones we're discussing here aren't like that.