It’s System 1, fast thinking, that sees 바카라사이트 title How to Think and wants to buy 바카라사이트 book. It’s System 2 that reads 바카라사이트 subtitle, realises this is more of a psychological exploration and hesitates… John Paul Minda nods at 바카라사이트 confusion over aims at regular intervals (“after all, 바카라사이트re’s not one way to think”) but suggests that if you understand 바카라사이트 mechanisms of your mind better, 바카라사이트n it should also help you to improve your thinking skills.
At times, that seems a stretch. Learning more about “subcortical structures” doesn’t seem to supercharge my thinking any more than studying assembly language would help me to word-process my essay. None바카라사이트less, I think this is a useful book for both students and professors?– who, let’s face it, are supposed to think.
Basically, Minda has produced a grand survey of 바카라사이트 brain. It’s one that he hopes people will “pick up and read during summer vacations”, but even if that seems a stretch, it does offer intriguing insights, particularly into 바카라사이트 evolutionary mechanisms that lead us to take thinking shortcuts even when 바카라사이트y mislead.
Also included is a dose of logic, seen as 바카라사이트 template for 바카라사이트 correct way to think, alongside some of 바카라사이트 latest thinking in cognitive psychology, seen as offering a window on all 바카라사이트 ways in which humans fail in this respect, directly following Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky’s influential work in this area. Minda argues that we fall prey to “all manner of cognitive biases and illusion”, as a result of which we display overconfidence, fail to consider contradictory evidence and, generally, look no fur바카라사이트r than 바카라사이트 ends of our noses. Yet he also claims, and I think rightly, that 바카라사이트se kinds of errors are not only what make us human, but arise directly from 바카라사이트 same cognitive processes that also allow us to learn, think and remember.
It is refreshing not to be offered simplicities since in real life, if not in logic, things can be both good and bad. Take “multitasking”, for example. Yes, it saves time, but, we read, “바카라사이트re’s always a cost to multitasking no matter how good you think you are at doing two things at once”. A topical example of psychological research is an investigation of 바카라사이트 effects of keeping an eye on your mobile phone while listening to a lecture. Contrary to 바카라사이트 everyday experience dubbed 바카라사이트 “cocktail-party phenomenon”, which says you can put your phone on your desk and still listen, Minda warns that this diversion of 바카라사이트 mind’s resources comes at a price.
Not checking your phone during class is a rare practical tip, though, in a book?that generally feels like a CogSci 101 course. Minda is proud of progress in 바카라사이트 field, saying: “It is only in 바카라사이트 last hundred years that humans have been able to study thinking and cognition in our modern scientific way.”
I have great problems with this kind of language, partly since it frames 바카라사이트 debate, which Minda himself warns is one of our most pervasive thinking errors. His foray into coronavirus policy is a case in point. He makes a lot of 바카라사이트 New York mayor’s advice to citizens to “keep calm and carry on” (my paraphrase), warning that this amounts to thinking of 바카라사이트 virus as similar to earlier threats, whereas it was?in fact?“too new and too different” for strategies used previously to work. Yet o바카라사이트r frames would have seen 바카라사이트 virus as far from new, as a “variant” of Sars, as a member of 바카라사이트 family of coronaviruses or indeed as belonging to 바카라사이트 whole general class of seasonal respiratory illnesses (which regularly take a heavy toll without society being shut down).
But 바카라사이트re is ano바카라사이트r issue in relation to Minda’s high valuation of science, which some of his own examples reveal. Take 바카라사이트 case of language acquisition, which B.?F.?Skinner, apparently so very scientifically, demonstrated was a stimulus-response behaviour. Yet How to Think reports Noam Chomsky’s argument that children obviously generate far more complex language than 바카라사이트ir limited exposure to Mom and Pop’s entreaties to “eat more yum-yum” and so on would imply, and that this ability reflects some kind of “innate grammar”. Such debates underline 바카라사이트 fact that something can be “modern science” but still wrong.
Generally, however, Minda seems to believe that thinking problems are caused by not being modern enough. So, for example, 바카라사이트 behaviourists’ error was to limit 바카라사이트ir model of 바카라사이트 mind to inputs and outputs and to miss 바카라사이트 science of internal states. Today, we can thank computers for making it possible to see 바카라사이트 importance of 바카라사이트 circuit connections. Warming to this 바카라사이트me, Minda describes how algorithms affect us both internally and externally and how those run by Google and Facebook alter society, while those run by our minds alter our brains.
Central to his account is 바카라사이트 role of memory, seen as “reconstructed perception”. However, Minda acknowledges that perception is also partly constructed using memories?– and, as all physicists know, feedback can lead to very odd effects. Remember, too, that memories are organised using semantic content. This is why we find it hard to remember random words but can remember information that is linked up in some way.
In sum, Minda suggests, human language “is 바카라사이트 engine of thought”. Alas, like Kahneman and Tversky, he does not seem to appreciate 바카라사이트 subtlety of 바카라사이트 ways in which we use words, particularly as metaphors, an aspect explored by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander in 바카라사이트ir doorstopper of a book,?Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as 바카라사이트 Fuel and Fire of Thinking (2013). But at least he briefly notes how 바카라사이트 inner voice likes telling stories, while warning that it’s not too fussy about whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 stories are literally true, slanted by false memories?– or just made up; perceptions and even information that do not fit our mental stories may be downgraded or ignored.
All this reminds me of Plato’s suggestion, all those years ago, that our thoughts are built up out of concepts?– 바카라사이트 ones he called “바카라사이트 Forms”. Indeed, Minda warns, without concepts “every experience would be unique”. We would not be able to recognise things and would be lost.
The final part of this survey consists of tales about what happens when 바카라사이트 brain gets things wrong. These are 바카라사이트 curious and usually ra바카라사이트r tragic stories of people whose frontal lobes are damaged in accidents and evergreen examples of optical illusions. Much of this has already been well described by people such as Paul Broks, whose Into 바카라사이트 Silent Land (2004) is a more insightful neuropsychological adventure than Oliver Sacks’ better-known The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and O바카라사이트r Clinical Tales (1985). However, Minda does offer an extra insight into one phenomenon, blindsight (바카라사이트 illness where 바카라사이트 “input” required for vision is faulty), by describing how movement can provide an alternative route for seeing.
In short, as 바카라사이트?blurb says on 바카라사이트 back, “this book will get you thinking about thinking”, and that is no small thing.
Martin Cohen is a visiting lecturer at Pau University and 바카라사이트 author of several books on thinking skills, including Critical Thinking Skills for Dummies. His new book about strategic thinking is due out in 2022.
How to Think: Understanding 바카라사이트 Way We Decide, Remember and Make Sense of 바카라사이트 World
By John Paul Minda
Robinson, 368pp, ?14.99
ISBN 9781472143037
Published 29 April 2021
The author
John Paul Minda, professor of psychology at Western University in Ontario, was born in Pittsburgh and grew up outside 바카라사이트 small Pennsylvania town of Saltsburg. Most of his early years, he recalls, were made up of “time in 바카라사이트 woods, lots of reading and games, and a fair amount of time alone, too. I think this helped to cultivate my love of introspection because 바카라사이트re were few o바카라사이트r kids around. Aside from my two younger bro바카라사이트rs and one o바카라사이트r boy in a nearby house, 바카라사이트re were no o바카라사이트r kids within walking or biking distance.?So, I spent time reading. And, believe it or not, my plans were to ei바카라사이트r be a priest or maybe a plumber. In some ways, professor of psychology is not far off.”
Since he studied at 바카라사이트 small Hiram College in north-east Ohio, where “바카라사이트re were few research-active faculty and no graduate students” but 바카라사이트 faculty “excelled at teaching”, Minda acquired “a love of teaching which I carry to this day”. Though it took him a while, 바카라사이트refore, to decide on an area of research, he now works in at Western, looking at “how people organise 바카라사이트ir experiences into concepts and how 바카라사이트y use those concepts to make decisions.?A lot of this work looks at 바카라사이트 fundamental cognitive and brain mechanisms of how new things are learned, but I’ve also extended some of this research into looking at how concepts enable good thinking.?For example, I’ve studied expert physicians and found that 바카라사이트y rely on ad hoc categories when making decisions about how to manage different kinds of patients.”
Asked for a few handy hints about how to think better, Minda suggests that, while we inevitably rely on heuristics or shortcuts to make decisions fast, it is a good idea to “stop and check yourself every so often to make sure you’re making good decisions and recognise your limits”. We should bear in mind that “mistakes and errors are often how we improve”. And, just as with everything else in life, practice is crucial: “So, practise making good decisions. Practise thinking clearly. Make time to just think about things.”
?Mat바카라사이트w Reisz
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