How to Think - Cultivating Epistemic Empowerment - The Tools of Reality

Author: Critical-Tim
Self-Development
Self-Improvement
Self-Evaluation
Epistemology
Comprehensive Reality

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Critical-Tim
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Description:
To think is to gain a better insight from knowledge, but how exactly do we accomplish this? Many people believe thinking is just a natural skill and it cannot be understood or taught, but I believe that it can. In order to improve our understanding of the world I aim to understand the process in which we think, so that we can actively improve ourselves. We will discuss how to distinguish between true and false beliefs (beliefs are defined as something that is believed, including gravity) and how to build a more comprehensive frame of mind.

This marks the beginning of the utmost fundamental and essential concepts to grasp about the world, paving the way to empower your ability to tackle any question with confidence. If you believe a similar topic should be a part of this series, please feel free to address it and If I believe it truly is then I will consider it in as great a depth as I can for another forum of the series. This is meant to be an interactive educational forum to express what I believe to be one of the most necessary keys to understanding.

We will cover the following questions to get started:
What is a belief?
What is a belief structure?
How can we use beliefs to build our structure?
How can we use a belief structure to comprehend the world?

Coming soon on "Cultivating Epistemic Empowerment - The Tools of Reality":
Brief Description: Meant to equip you with the mental tools necessary to comprehend a complex world.
How to Debate?
How to Decide?
How to Simplify?

Looking forward to "Essential Foundations to Comprehensive Understanding - The Blueprint of Reality":
Brief Description: Meant to lay out the foundation concepts necessary to understand complex questions.
What is Reality?
What is Truth?
What is Understanding?
What is Morality?
What is God?

Final and unending series "Demystifying Philosophical Controversies - The Structure of Reality":
Brief Description: Meant to make sense of all commonly decided questions such as the morality of abortion and many others.
Is abortion ethical?
What is the ideal political structure?
How does religious text articulate reality?
What is the best way to live life?

Please help productively refine my understanding and others by using the following guidelines:
  • NUMBER 1: Please ask questions and only state a dispute with an example to improve my understanding, this forum is intended to educate with an interactive environment.
  • Be open-minded and curious. Do not dismiss or ignore answers that challenge your reality or beliefs. Try to embrace them as opportunities to learn and grow. Try to approach them with logical, critical, and professional minds, and seek to understand the evidence and reasoning behind them.
  • Be empathetic and respectful. Do not judge or ridicule other people’s perspectives or experiences. Try to comprehend their viewpoints and appreciate their contributions to the larger and more intricate reality. Try to see how different perspectives can form a more complex and complete picture of the world.
  • Be honest and responsible. Always prioritize speaking the truth and avoid making definitive claims when uncertain. Use qualifiers like "about," "I saw," "I think," or "I believe" to convey information accurately.
  • Be clear about the source of your knowledge when sharing with others. This fosters a truthful and respectful environment for discussions.
  • Be relevant and on-topic. Do not deviate from the main topic of the forum. Do not post irrelevant or off-topic comments and links that aren't productive to the questions being discussed.
  • Be constructive and creative. Do not simply criticize or reject other people’s ideas. Try to offer positive feedback, suggestions, or alternatives.
  • Be clear and concise. Try to use clear and accurate language as much as possible. To have effective communication it is necessary to speak understandably.


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I would like to hear the many perspectives all of you have before I post what my research has produced.
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Best.Korea
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For me, thinking is either imagination either solving problems, or both of those at the same time. 

Solving problems can be done using values that exist in reality or in imagination.

For example, to figure out how to fish, one takes facts from nature and then tries to solve problems and improve by setting goal and reaching them. That would be solving problems in reality.

Meanwhile, Harry Potter solves problems in our imagination. Those problems dont really exist outside our imagination.
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@Critical-Tim
Do you think, that there is a greater pre-determined purpose to the evolution of thinking and manipulative structures.

Evolution as in material development from a point of creation.

Creation as in an indeterminate beginning. rather than an assumptive beginning.


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Pattern Recognition and Inductive Thinking is a special ability of the human brain to not only find patterns but figure out in a logical way what those patterns suggest about what will happen next. In a broad sense, pattern recognition and inductive thinking form the basis for all scientific inquiry.
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@zedvictor4
Do you think, that there is a greater pre-determined purpose to the evolution of thinking and manipulative structures.
Evolution as in material development from a point of creation.
Creation as in an indeterminate beginning. rather than an assumptive beginning.
In what aspect are you asking if it is greater than evolution, and what do you believe is the pre-determined purpose of which to compare?
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Critical-Tim
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@FLRW
I appreciate your insight for the distinction between inductive and deductive thinking.
I believe this has helped me to better articulate my thoughts on collected and generated beliefs.
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@Critical-Tim
Well, it's all in the punctuation.

I'm basically asking, is there is a purpose to humanity greater than itself.


And I don't believe anything.

We can only compare what we know with a hypothesis of a pre-determined purpose.


As a suggestion, I would propose that the ultimate purpose might be the re-initiation and perpetuation of a universal sequence. (The BIG WHOOOOOSH)

Within that context, intellectual structures would play the role of GOD.

Which if you think about it, fits quite nicely with a lot of religious analogous ideology.

GOD existing outside of the universe...In a previous universe as it were.




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@zedvictor4
I believe that the greatest divinity was most accurately said by Marcus Aurelius - The highest divinity is known as the rational and cosmic principle known as the Logos. The Logos represents the divine intelligence and inherent order that governs the universe. It is the source of reason, wisdom, and purpose in the cosmos. I believe that all gods are metaphysical concepts that are meant to embody the spirit of different aspects of reality.

An example would be how the Grimm Reaper embodies the aspect of life known as death. There is no person with a scythe who is immortal to whom we inevitably fall prey, but the true nature and spirit of death can be represented easily in this personified manner. I believe that all gods are meant to embody these natural aspects, and that the Christian God is meant to be the ultimate metaphysical concepts or the compilation of all the other gods into the greatest concept of life, how to live it. I also believe that to walk with God means to know him, and to know the metaphysical concepts of reality means to understand the world to the deepest extent.

I don't believe in a conscious afterlife where we go to heaven or that we can look down at our descendants, but I do believe the afterlife exists in the sense of a reverberation of our existence. It is the spirit of how reality will forever be changed by the imprint we made in our life and that the universe will forever be on another course.

Back to your question. I believe the greatest purpose is to serve the greatest divinity as it would make us part of the most magnificent part of reality. I also believe this is the true nature of humanity. I believe that humans who don't follow this nature are bound to have more problems than those who follow this purpose. It's similar to destiny; it's a path that can be procrastinated and the more you refuse to accept it the harder it drives you to fulfill your purpose to embody the highest divinity. I believe it is clear and straightforward. The one who walks with God understands reality, and the one who understands reality will make good decisions for their goals, as a result they are in a sense blessed by the gods that they serve, or bring forth by acting out, by understanding.
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@Critical-Tim
Similar ideas I think.

Though to a greater degree yours focuses upon the metaphysical and spiritual aspects of the mind, whereas mine focuses upon the physicality of the universe and it's properties and the role of intellectual structures therein. 

But even though I'm not an anti-pronoun fan, in this instance I would definitely say that GOD does not require pronouns.
"To know him"...Just reinforces the certainty that GOD of the bible was simply a GOD made in the image of men. Which for sure  can be regarded as analogous, but I'm not convinced that the original intention was analogical. More of a best idea, born of a state of ignorance, reinforcing the planetary dominance of men.

Which is not to say that we are not still largely ignorant. Though 2000 years or so, of scientific observation and material progress alludes to something other than magical mystery supermen.

Though I never discount the idea that we could be the descendants of an extra-terrestrial super-hominid.

But where did they go and why do they not visit.

Perhaps we are the super-hominid, and it's up to us to colonise the universe...One day when we've sorted out all our petty Earthbound disagreements...Hmmmmmm.

But of course, we now have A.I. to consider...Alternative intelligence as I prefer to call it.

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@zedvictor4
Some people believe that humans are created by aliens who watch us from the outside of our world. I believe that it is much more probable that humans are the super species because to consider a more complicated species is less probable than us being the most complex. Therefore, I think it's rational to assume that we are the super-hominid.
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@Best.Korea
I will spare the elaboration and focus on the key points. This will allow further discussion of where it is necessary.

Introduction:
Imagine having the power to understand the world around you better, make wiser decisions, and achieve more success. Understanding how to think effectively is crucial for this. In this guide, we'll explore the foundations of critical thinking and how it can help you improve your understanding of the world.

1 - The Pyramid of Beliefs:
  • Babies are born with no knowledge; At this point everything is instinctual emotions.
  • We fear the unknown as chaos itself. This drives us to learn and understand the world.
  • Learning successfully brings us a positive emotion of accomplishment and happiness.
  • Our beliefs are like building blocks that form our understanding of the world. These blocks combined form our pyramid of beliefs.

2 - The Belief Blocks:
  • Beliefs are what we consider to be true.
  • Learning something new adds a belief block to our tower of knowledge.
  • Belief blocks can be formed inductively, or deductively.
  • The higher a belief block is, the more important and sensitive it becomes through our emotional attachment.
  • Discovering that a strongly held belief is false can devastate us based on their level of emotional connection.

3 - The Two Choices:
  • When we are wrong, we have two choices: learn from our mistakes or ignore them.
  • Learning from mistakes prepares us for a future with fewer errors, but we must bare the pain of facing our error.
  • Ignoring our mistakes cultivates unnecessary suffering with continuous errors, but we avoid the pain of facing our error.

4 - Building with Logic:
  • Logic involves building new beliefs from existing ones, such as deductive thinking.
  • True logic stacks beliefs from the bottom to the top, least emotional to most emotional.
  • Fake logic starts with the desired belief and works backward, from most emotional to least emotional.
  • Using fake logic often leads to false conclusions that are unexpected and undesirable.
  • Correcting false beliefs helps us understand the world better and make better decisions.

5 - Build your Pyramid:
  • We must not make the pitiful excuse to claim the world can never be fully understood, so why even try.
  • The world may seem complex, but learning what we can is crucial, such as learning to ride a bike, drive a car, or maintain a career.
  • Champions are not born perfect but acknowledge their mistakes using them as opportunities to grow.

Conclusion:
Critical thinking is a powerful tool for building a stronger mind. By carefully examining our beliefs, avoiding fake logic, and learning from our mistakes, we can gain a better understanding of the world and make better decisions. Champions continually seek knowledge and are unafraid to admit when they are wrong because they know that learning from mistakes is the path to success.



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Critical-Tim
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What do you think is the correlation between critical thinking and IQ?
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Isn't I.Q a measure of critical thinking?

Or a measure of one's ability to critically think?
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It seems that IQ may reflect a person’s general cognitive potential, while critical thinking may reflect a person’s ability to use their cognitive skills effectively.

Perhaps this could be related to a computer. The computer processing power is its IQ, But the efficiency of the program running on the computer is its efficiency of critical thinking. A person may have an exceedingly high IQ and exceptionally low efficiency with critical thinking. Contrarily a person may have an exceptionally low IQ and have an extremely high efficiency with critical thinking.

Person 1:
  • 200% IQ
  • 50% CT
  • Effective IQ is 100 (same)
Person 2:
  • 80% IQ
  • 125% CT
  • Effective IQ is 100 (same)
I'm attempting to demonstrate that critical thinking is the efficiency of one's IQ put to use, and that a person with a high IQ might have a low ability to critical think meanwhile a person with average to minimal IQ could compare if they refined their critical thinking skills.