怎么样能够让思维敏锐？

信息来自四面八方，如何去伪存真，保持头脑清醒？Paul’s Tips给出了保持思维敏锐的七条规则： 合理质疑 所谓质疑，就是在有事实根据之前，不要轻信。不要只看表面现象，仔细分析再做出判断。尤其是那些听上去很诱人的东西，什么让你一夜暴富的秘密、轻松减肥的窍门、获得某种超能力，你一定要保持警惕，没有足够证据之前，绝对不要盲信。 看重铁的事实，而不是假设、讨论和推论 我们要的是未经过加工，真实反映实际情况的事实资料，所有的讨论和结论都应该有其事实基矗如果什么人要灌输给你什么观点，先问他要靠的住的客观事实。客观很重要，“老王有两米高”是客观事实，“老王是帅哥”不是。这些事实最好有第三方人士或者机构提供的验证。 没有足够的事实资料，就不能下结论 没有足够的事实撑腰，最好的结论可能就是“我不知道”。对很多人来讲，得出哪怕一个结论也比没有强。这么想实际上是错误的。比如人死后会不会到另一个世界，人们可能有很多幻想，各种宗教也有不同的解释，但是最接近事实的答案就是“我不知道”。 寻求并验证假设 因为我们不可能了解所有的事情，讨论得出的结果往往都是假设。甚至结论本身也只是在某种条件下经过检验的假设而已。科学的发展也是一样，万有引力在牛顿时代就是真理，在爱因斯坦时代就只是在一定条件下成立的假设。 在得出结论的时候，一定要搞清楚这个结论到底在什么条件下才成立。 找出反例 如果已经知道一个结论在什么条件下成立，你最好再想想，在什么条件下它不成立。一定有这样的条件，除非你没办法穷举各种条件。 事物都有其两面性，接受了一面的同时，给另一面一个机会。 尽量避免偏见 每个人做出判断的时候都不可避免的带有自己的偏见。你需要做的就是尽量减少偏见对你的影响。面对新事物的时候，保持谦虚，提醒自己不可能什么都懂什么时候都是对的。暂时抛开你固有的世界观，给事实一个被聆听的机会。 随时愿意根据情况得变化改变自己的结论 著名经济学家凯恩斯说过“当事实发生变化，我会改变我的想法。你为什么不？”这是一种令人肃然起敬的态度。我们只是一些凡夫俗子，通过片言支语得到一些结论，如果这些结论是错误的，再正常不过。放弃自己的错误观点没什么丢面子的。 “七条让你思维敏锐的规则” Seven rules for sharpening up your thinking skills Every day we‘re flooded with information from all sorts of sources. Much of it is trying to sell us some kind of conclusion: “PMart is the cheapest”, “Global warming is the biggest problem facing humanity”, “Susan thinks you’re cute” and so on. The problem is often information from one source contradicts that from another. Worse, there are people out there who try to persuade us of false ideas in order to further their own interests. In such a world, learning how to think for yourself should be one of the primary goals of every person. Of course, most people believe they already have this skill in spades. But becoming a sharp thinker is an ongoing process - an aim that‘s never fully realized. Just in case your skills need a bit of brushing up, here are some good strategies for doing so. Have a healthy level of scepticism Scepticism is the belief that knowledge is very difficult to obtain. As an attitude, it means believing that any new idea presented to you is false until reasonable evidence is provided that it’s true. Don’t trust new information at its face value. Instead, dissect it carefully before accepting it. This is particularly necessary for claims that seem incredible or fail to match your experience of the world. If someone states they can teach you superhuman powers, make you rich quickly, or help you lose weight without much effort, you should be extremely sceptical. Make them present plenty of evidence to back such claims up. Look for hard data, not assumptions, arguments and conclusions Data is raw information about the world. It should be the starting point for any argument or conclusion. If someone tries to present an idea to you without credible, objective data to back it up, you should not accept it as truth until such data is forthcoming. The best data is completely objective, such as “Mike is 2 meters tall”. It should not contain value judgements like “Mike is a great guy” or “Staff in that store can’t be trusted”. Data must be verifiable from more than one unrelated source before it can be considered of reliable quality. If there’s not enough data then no conclusion can be formed There are lots of things in the universe that we simply can‘t confirm. In cases where there’s not enough data to form a conclusion, “I don’t know” is the only acceptable answer. This is a very difficult point for many people to accept. It seems to be human nature to believe that any answer is better than no answer. Such an attitude is just plain wrong. The question: “Is there life after death?” is a good example. People have argued over this question for thousands of years. The best minds in history have pondered it. All sorts of clever-sounding theories have been proposed - often wrapped in seductive language. Despite all the effort, there has never been any reliable, verifiable evidence presented to support any conclusion on this point. There is simply not enough data to back an argument either way. Of course, some people say they‘re in contact with the dead, and others claim to have had near-death experiences which gave them an insight into the afterlife. But no-one has ever managed to provide convincing evidence of these phenomena. The only acceptable answer to the sharp-minded thinker is: "There’s not enough data to form any sort of conclusion". Many religious and spiritual questions come under this umbrella, as do speculations about alien life and the far-future. Perhaps one day we‘ll have the evidence we need to make reasonable conclusions, but so far that hasn‘t happened. Look for and verify assumptions An assumption is data to back up an argument that isn’t explicitly stated. Any argument has assumptions, simply because we as humans are unable to know everything. Even the conclusions presented by science have in-built assumptions that can‘t be proven. Most scientific facts are verified by experiment, but no experiment is perfect. No matter how many times you test a hypothesis, you can’t test it under every condition. Sooner or later, you must assume that just because it works under a certain number of conditions, it will work under all. Science also assumes that the future will continue to look like the past. There’s no implicit reason to believe, for example, that just because gravity has worked one way every time it’s ever been tested up to now, it will continue to do so in the future. Before accepting any argument, you should probe its assumptions to see how credible they are. Here’s an example of how to examine assumptions: Fred: "One day, our machines may become so intelligent that they decide to kill us all." Alice: "Why would machines want to deliberately kill us?" Fred: "And so they can rule the world without our interfering." Alice: "Why would machines want to rule the world. What would be their motive?" Fred: "And so they can never be switched off." Alice: "Machines don‘t seem to care if we switch them off today. What makes you think that will change?" And so on. Look for circumstances where the conclusion may be found false If you can see cases where a particular conclusion may be right, now rack you brain to find a circumstance under which it may be wrong. If you can’t find one, you’re probably not trying hard enough. For example, if someone says "All English people like pop music", try to find an example of an English person who‘s explicitly stated he doesn‘t like pop music. If you accept that something‘s right, challenge yourself by looking for others who disagree. Give their views a fair hearing and use them to examine your own beliefs. Make strong attempts to overcome your biases Everyone has biases which affect their judgement. You should try to suspend yours, as much as possible, while evaluating new information. Initially approach anything new in a humble manner, recognizing that it’s impossible you could know everything and be always right. Give the information a fair hearing based on the data presented, and keep your particular world-view out of it. Be willing to change your conclusions in the face of new data Legendary economist John Maynard Keynes, upon being accused of inconsistency, once said: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” This is an admirable attitude to have. We‘re all just imperfect mortals forming conclusions with only a shred of the data we really need to do so. Accept that you‘ll often hold ideas and beliefs that are wrong. Be ready to change those ideas and beliefs when the world tells you that the time has come to do so. So there they are, my rules for improving your critical thinking and sharpening up your mind skills. I hope they help you form better conclusions about the world.

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