What Does Critical Thinking Mean To You?

It the antecedent PROBABILITY principle. We have taken the most rational step given our prior experience and current knowledge. We might find that the bridge is in fact closed when we get there, but no amount of thinking, critically or otherwise, could tell us that until we arrive at the damn bridge.All that you and RAZD's kind of critical thinking can tell us before the event is that the bridge might be closed - well, thanks a lot brain, that was really useful. (You know, blindingly obvious, but at best useless.)The rest is just a repeat of the above.

As explained, it involves thinking critically only when thinking critically is necessary.Otherwise we don't waste our brain space forcing ourselves to conclude that we can't know something that is at best irrelevant and at worst debilitating.The example we are given is the fork in the road where we have to decide whether to take the one with the bridge or otherwise. We are forced to think critically. It's a truism to say that we can't know whether the bridge is out or not. It's also totally useless.Critically thinking, it would be plain wrong to assume that because we don't know absolutely if the bridge is there or not, that we can't know what the best decision to make is. That decision has to be taken on what we DO know which will be based on our experience and knowledge.

That's circular.In any case, you can think critically with whatever you have available. If your conclusion is that you don't have enough information to decide - and information can mean past experience which gives a clue to probability of outcome - then you're thinking critically.

Merely concluding that you don't have enough information to decide, is thinking critically. Then you would legitimately conclude that you don't know that the bridge is there. Which is thinking critically.Though it's rather difficult to imagine how you could arrive at such a neutral position - you'd either believe that the bridge was there because you have prior experience of it (like your Mississippi bridge that you don't even think about anymore) or you have a real reason to believe it won't be (because there was an earthquake last night.)

Of course you are. You've assessed the situation, thought about it, used whatever you had available to make a decision. We can ask no more of critical thought. Of course in the real world you would have other information to help you form a decision about the best course of action. You see other traffic heading that way or coming towards you. If the fork was onto a 4 lane highway, if you're in a country with well maintained infrastructure etc it's likely the bridge is there. If you're on a dirt track in a three day storm you'll think rather differently. Well sure, but that's just cheating. The task is to make a decision with partial knowledge and arrive at the course of action most likely to succeed. To think rationally through a problem. Of course the only way of actually KNOWING is to drive to the bridge but that's not critical thinking - the class dunce can do that. Critical thinking isn't only applied in the presence of perfect information, how could it be? Besides, you have stacks of information - as you point out about your Mississippi bridge.RAZD's position is that you can never know that the bridge is open until you get to it. That's true but dumb and has nothing to do with thinking critically.

It would be an unusual situation where you had zilch to go on, but assuming you found one, so long as you recognised that there was nothing at all to go on and you might as well toss a coin, that would be critical thinking because you've thought it through and formed a rational conclusion.If instead, you removed the entrails of a chicken and studied it or omens, you wouldn't be.

Dunno, I live in Southern England. The coin flip was a metaphor for "i don't know" nothing wrong with "I don't know" so long as you've arrived at that conclusion by thinking about it rationally.

You're not engaging with the question Phat.If the question was reversed and I was asked what evidence would begin to change my mind I could cite almost unlimited stuff. If prayer healed a broken arm instantly, if there was evidence of a global flood, if an organanism was found without a carbon base, if there was a population bottleneck 10,000 years ago, if the Turin shroud carbon dated to 2,000 years, if a communion wafer contained human DNA, if a tablet of the correct date had 10 commandments written on them - and on and on and on. Some of these things would throw all sorts of science into question, some would Lend evidence for a Godlike intervention.Over the years, scientific discoveries have pushed back the boundaries of simple biblical belief, with the exception of a few creationist fruitloops, it's now retreated to a wholly ephemeral place of personal belief where it can't be touched by reality.What I've been reading in several threads lately has simply baffled me - endless pages of narcisistic, self-referencing drivel. Simply making up endless amounts of stuff that amounts to no more than literary criticism. Creating multitudes of untestable ideas about what biblical stories mean without a thought to the fact that the evidence is that they can mean whatever a charismatic teller of the stories want them to mean.It reads like a desparate attempt at consolation - the idea that this is what there is seems to terrify the life out of believers.So put that fear aside for at least ten minutes - what could change your mind?

But that is precisely what is going on in the Calvanism thread - claims are being made about god that are entirely contradictory. So much so that different branches of the same religion were created from pure fantasy and are still being fantasised about centuries later. People believe precisely what they want or need to belief. Phat's desperate need to believe is evident to anyone reading his stuff. Mormonism was a pure invention which non-Mormons can see as utterly silly, why can't you use that kind of analysis on your own fantasies?Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

If some people have a need to believe and some do not, what does that say about the actual belief? You'll be aware that many people believe totally different things about their gods than you do - how can that be? Doesn't it suggest to you that people might be inventing things to believe in, just so they can feel more secure?Put it another way, if there is a god and only a single god, why would he make people with different emotional capacity to believe in him, then punish those that don't have those emotions? Why would he present himself in totally different ways to different peoples and tribes over different eras? Doesn't the fact that over millenium there have been thousands of different Gods available for believers point to the possibility that gods are human inventions?