I was wondering, for school and doing work I really need to improve my reasoning and critical thinking skills. Anyone here have any suggestions?
How do I improve my reasoning skills?
- Thread starter Laughingman12
- Start date
lol...i dont know..just comes with experience
do a lot of complicated word problems...trick questions...go outside?
do a lot of complicated word problems...trick questions...go outside?
NikolaeVarius
Lifer
- Oct 25, 2006
- 11,036
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In what way do you need to improve? If you're just looking for ways to structure thoughts, you could look to everything from Descartes to Russell. If you're looking for something less philisophical and more brute force, then you could find a good book on critical thinking, logic, etc.
You could also read books, many surrounding science, that cover certain failings of the mind. I'd have to recommend Voodoo Science, The God Delusion (if the religious connotations bother you then don't get it, but it's a good book on reasoning alone), Influence--The Art of Deception, Why People Believe Weird Things and a handful of other books. They're mostly layman books, but they'll give you a nice understanding of the basic psychology for how people think irrationally.
If you want a way to practice, I would have to recommend chess. There is no greater game for exercising reasoning ability, imo. Unfortunately, if you're not already really familiar with chess then the reasoning beauty behind it will likely be lost. If you are, then books by Chernev, Nunn, McDonald, etc. go over grandmaster games and discuss the reasoning process behind the moves.
That's all that comes to mind.
You could also read books, many surrounding science, that cover certain failings of the mind. I'd have to recommend Voodoo Science, The God Delusion (if the religious connotations bother you then don't get it, but it's a good book on reasoning alone), Influence--The Art of Deception, Why People Believe Weird Things and a handful of other books. They're mostly layman books, but they'll give you a nice understanding of the basic psychology for how people think irrationally.
If you want a way to practice, I would have to recommend chess. There is no greater game for exercising reasoning ability, imo. Unfortunately, if you're not already really familiar with chess then the reasoning beauty behind it will likely be lost. If you are, then books by Chernev, Nunn, McDonald, etc. go over grandmaster games and discuss the reasoning process behind the moves.
That's all that comes to mind.
NikolaeVarius
Lifer
- Oct 25, 2006
- 11,036
- 11
- 91
Logic problems, or any kind of thinking puzzle game (sudoku, crosswords, etc). But especially logic problems. Debate. Read about argument and debate and reasoning and critical thinking. Classes focused on it...philosophy, argument, etc. Google search for "how to improve critical thinking". Games that require you to think (myst, checkers, chess, risk, axis & allies, etc).
That's an odd request, but most of their reasoning skills that you see come from experience. Most of what they do (from what I've seen anyway) is basic deductive logic, but in order to deduce anything you have to have the experience to know the possible conclusions.
Grab a book or two and just exercise it using the games mentioned in this thread. You could also get in debates, but ATOT probably isn't the best place for that.
DarkThinker
Platinum Member
- Mar 17, 2007
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Take Philosophy and Logic classes that will benefit you more than anything else, if not possible pickup some Logic & Philosophy books (meant for introductory classes) and start reading, it's funtimes TBH.
DarkThinker
DarkThinker
Logic
Math homework, discrete math in particular.
A philosophy course focusing on logic.
If you wish to cut to the heart of the matter, learn the truth tables
DarkThinker
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- Mar 17, 2007
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DarkThinker
Platinum Member
- Mar 17, 2007
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I think an even simpler example for him would be logic gates in digital hardware design it's very simple to grasp.
If you have an AND gate (&) then the output of the gate will depend on both inputs being true (or 1) if any input is false (one is 1 and the other is 0) or both false (both are 0) then the output is 0
And the rest of the gates have similar reasoning but different rules for a specific output.
Hope that helped.
DarkThinker
It is funny mention this because this is the class that made logic to be second nature for me. :thumbsup:
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