Today I found myself having yet another discussion about perhaps the most important tool you can ever learn about next to WORDS themselves. That tool is critical thinking.

I bring up critical thinking quite a lot in various replies, and in my posts. There is a reason I do this. I personally consider it one of the most valuable TOOLS I have ever learned. Yet, I almost didn't learn it. I also want to qualify that I am STILL learning it and getting better through practice, and observation.

When I think of big world problems whether they are government, philosophy, climate, etc. I largely see vast amounts of these exchanges where those trying to solve the problem clearly were not exposed to perhaps the most important tool for this mission. What I am referring to is Critical Thinking. When I speak of critical thinking I am referring to more than True, False, And, Or, Not, as those while being a part, are actually the easy part. For many people that may be the only part they are exposed to. I am more often referring to logical fallacies. I use them, you use them, and I see the world using them in mass quantities. Until you know how to identify them it is usually something you don't know that you are doing. Furthermore, when someone challenges you on them you don't know what they are talking about, and you suspect they are simply being stubborn and trolling you. This generally is not the case. This is something they do not teach in schooling. I went through many years of college and I was exposed to it in TWO classes that I easily could have avoided. I mostly was first exposed to it purely by chance.

I see people often calling another person a Troll when I am simply a spectator reading their exchange. What I see is clearly different than either of them. I see two people trying to have an exchange on opposing ideas and neither of them have ever been given the tools necessary to help guide them through such a conflict. They may think they have those tools, but odds are from what I have seen of the education system they do not. They could have those tools though. Yet it does require a few things first.

• An understanding that we are never truly done learning.
• Willingness to be wrong, and realize that being wrong is not bad, it is simply an important part of learning.
• Understanding it is not always about right and wrong. Often both sides may be right about some things and wrong about others. Sometimes they may both be wrong. Sometimes they both may be right. Without understanding the perspective of each person it can be difficult to determine this. This is especially true if you have not been taught the tools to help with this.

There are a lot of different logical fallacies. I am constantly practicing and trying to improve my own understanding and facility with them. I consider the only tool we learn in education that is more important than critical thinking as being WORDS themselves. Without them critical thinking would not work either. I would not call it more important than mathematics, but I would consider it equal in importance to mathematics.

Yet it is easy to go through education without being taught any of it. If you are like me your first exposure to it might be purely accidental and by chance.

I've written articles about parts of this before. I will continue to do so in the future. I believe it is perhaps one of the most important things to speak about. I profess that I am essentially an Anarcho-capitalist, but I've come to believe that until the vast majority of the population truly understands critical thinking, that my current ideal view of future self-governance and voluntarism will not work. If critical thinking is the norm then I do believe it is achievable, and the population would be equipped to attempt to answer questions that come up at that time that we likely do not know now.

It is more than likely any of you that made it this far already know what I am talking about. In fact, my true audience that I am interested in this particular article most likely did not make it this far. I hope one or more people do.

For who is that audience? People that have heard this before and would like to learn more about critical thinking. There are a lot of places to do this. I will provide a few. I'll also link to a few of my older articles that were a similar topic. You will not become an "expert" (I'm not a fan of that word) you will simply be starting a journey of learning about a new tool. It is a tool we don't master, yet we get better at using and appreciating with practice.

The Critical Thinking Community
Critical Thinking Skills - from SkillsYouNeed.com
Critical Thinking Flashcards - Quizlet
Critical Thinking - flashcardmachine.com
Logical Fallacies Flashcards - Quizlet

As I stated, I am no expert or master. I am constantly practicing and pushing myself on these things as well. For even though I have read everything above about these things that does not mean I have internalized it and use it instinctively. That is where the practice comes in. I can read an engineering book, that doesn't suddenly make me a master engineer. It simply gets me started along a path. This to me is a thing of wonder. A Philosopher was someone who loved learning, loved knowledge.

Never stop learning...

Steem On!