Living with AI | ACTION 7 | Use Critical Thinking

You may believe that you already look, listen and then think critically about every bit of information that comes your way.

Regrettably, the chances are that like many others, you don’t.

Yes, I just said, the chances are that most of the time, you don’t think critically at all.

What you and what most people do, when approaching new information, is to filter it in terms of past experiences, or in terms of what you already know.

The problem with this process or this way of thinking, is that we become complacent or take for granted the validity, reliability and objectivity of what we already know, failing to recognise that our assessment of any encounter is likely to be influenced by what we have already seen.

That false sense of security and misplaced confidence means that we don’t ask any of the questions that we should be about the information that we receive.

As we don’t ask those questions, the problem is then compounded further because we then fail to look into the subject as deeply or in as much detail as we really should.

Sadly, most of us alive today have been failed by our education system. Unless you are focused on subjects such as philosophy within higher levels of education, there is no part of any syllabus within mandatory areas of schooling that teach critical thinking or the ability to think critically in a fully objective way – when this is a skill for life that every human living in an information-based environment should be automatically trained to have.

The question over whether this omission was and continues to be deliberate is one for debate elsewhere.

However, you can quickly teach yourself to become proficient as a critical thinker, IF you want to understand everything at a level and in a way that is beneficial to you.

Read or listen to everything thoroughly. Then ask and find the answers to questions like these:

• Why is this being done?
• Who is doing this?
• Why are they doing it?
• Whose purpose does this really serve?
• What is the real benefit for them?
• What is the real benefit for me?
• What is the real cost to me?
• What are the alternatives?
• Why are the alternatives not being used?
• Do I actually need this, or do I just believe I want it?

Yes, it sounds like a lot of work.

However, by going through these questions or questions that typically begin with Why, How, What, Who and words just like them, you will soon change the way that you process information and the way that you think about new information.

Critical thinking will quickly become second nature with practice. As with the benefits of practicing any skill, you will just get better and better and more efficient at using it the more you do so, until you don’t have to even think about it.

Being an objective reader and listener will just become another part of who you are.