Thinking about thinking

Think of buying a used car. You go in with a healthy dose of skepticism. You ask lots of questions and test the validity of the answers. If the salesman says it was driven by a little old lady who rarely used it, you don't just accept that - you look at the odometer.

Here's a dictionary defination of critical thinking: "the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion"

We need to engage in critical thinking in order to avoid being fooled by those who would sell us an object or an idea. I hear people making decisions based on emotion instead of reason. We make decisions based on how we feel about something or someone instead of what we think. We substitute feeling for thinking and often don't realize it.

The trick is to ask questions. Lots of them. If you find yourself frustrated and upset because of slow traffic, ask why. Why is slow traffic bad? What bad result will there be? Will the delay in your plans cause some serious loss - or merely inconvenience? Is the consequence of slow traffic worth the degree of your frustration?

Looked at another way; Why shouldn't the traffic be slow? Suppose you are on Decatur St. in the French Quarter on a Saturday afternoon. Its full of tourists (thanks goodness) and cars inch along. The traffic should be slow and its irrational to think it should not be. Much of our upset feelings result from irrational thinking. "Should" and "ought to" cause more problems than they solve.

Back to critical thinking. First we need to distinguish between thinking and feeling and know when we are doing the one and not the other. We need to recognize the difference between emotion and reason. Then, when we are using our brains to think - we need to do it critically.

I've seen people who were very good problem solvers. People with good analytical skills who could reason through a problem to a logical conclusion. Then I've seen those same people become upset at getting a traffic ticket when they knowingly parked in a "no parking" area.

OK, its a little example - not a big deal. But if you extrapolate from that to buying a car it gets expensive. It would be a shame to check the odometer, ask good questions, weigh and test the answers and then decide based on the color of the car.