The crux of our disagreement shows up in this little metagame. You think people need to be told what to think, while I think they should think for themselves. Your thinking might fail, but you will be better off for trying. At the very least, you will not frustrate your interlocutor asking for verbose explanations, because they can show you one corner of a square and you can find the other three.
My first reply was demonstrating how thinking for yourself does work. You do not need literature, just a steady stream of problems to forge your critical thinking skills against.
From your reply,
I agree in many cases this ability is bounded by an individual’s intrinsic talent at doing so—whether by desire, intellect, hardiness, or such.
I realized you also think it can work, but only for those privileged enough with intrinsic talent. From your original comment, the argument seems to be: critical thinking can practiced and is useful, but only for those privileged enough to spend time on the endeavor; most people are better off just learning from books.
I strongly disagree with this idea that critical thinking is for the privileged. I think it is quite the opposite: only the privileged grow up in cultures that show them the best resources to learn from. Everyone else gets indoctrinated into the local cult, where football or magic worship takes precedence. Even those a little luckier learn studying is important, but being the students have no way to differentiate between “Linear Algebra Done Wrong”, “Linear Algebra Done Right”, Khan Academy, and MIT OCW, assuming they even find these resources.
Every state usually has one or two MATHCOUNTS clubs that win almost every year. In my day, it was Frost Math in Massachusetts, Quail Valley in Texas, and Desert Ridge in New Mexico. Why, even in very competitive states, is this so? Because some are privileged to be taught by better coaches, with better resources.
Yes, with the right resources, you can learn a lot faster from emulation than innovation. Only the very privileged get these resources. Everyone else is better off developing their critical thinking skills. How can you call it a privilege to think for yourself, when very few seeking to rise up the ranks get the opportunity to not think for themselves?
Your thinking might fail, but you will be better off for trying.
I simply disagree. There is no meaningful benefit to me to, for example:
figure out how to assemble an Ikea desk while ignoring the manual
deciding what bodily exercises are more or less effective, without consulting both folk knowledge and academia
learning any skill with a clear progression tree, whether be it the piano, martial arts, mathematics olympiads, in the absence of any tutor
You do not need literature, just a steady stream of problems to forge your critical thinking skills against.
That is predicated on an external progression tree. Consider how you would have developed your critical thinking skills if the questions had to all be developed by yourself too.
There is no guarantee from the world, for a wide variety of domains, that any obvious ladder of expertise acquisition exists. Especially with regards to the nebulous “life problems” the OP discusses, wherein there are often more societal traps to induct people into ladders of self flagellation.
Imagine a world where 90% of math textbooks simply came filled with metaphysical questions that were wholly and entirely unrelated to the art of problem solving. And you know someone who has probably figured out which books are really correct, because you see at a meta level that that someone appears to be Very Good At Problem Solving, but the only thing that chucklefuck does is to withhold knowledge and await your independent rediscovery of mental frameworks that are studied specifically for how rare they are to be developed in the total absence of external inputs.
Note: don’t take things literally. In a modern sense “books” are whatever social sphere and algo feeds and sekrit klubs and whatever else their info is subsisted on. I claim OP’s behavior boils down to a desire to hang that knowledge over people, to inflate the perceived difficulty of what they know.
I think it is quite the opposite: only the privileged grow up in cultures that show them the best resources to learn from.
OK, sure. That’s not a disagreement, that just means you should beat up the OP, because I believe they are perpetuating it.
I have absolutely zero problems with some blood of the earth redefinition of accessibility as innate sin and personal intellect as virtue. Insofar as the negative response to my first comment was predicated on readers’ pattern matching to various contemporary apparatchiks of equity, I regret not putting my political allegiances more front and center.
Because I do not have access to your internal state and cannot independently verify that my model obtained an accurate reading of your intent.
I claim: You believe I am attemping to troll you in some manner, by forcing some unnecessary work unto you.
I claim: There is a sincere and obvious moral reason why I should not read intent into an opposed party, even with AI assistance.
I claim: The act of me doing so, right now, is obviously impolite, and should be avoided in any polite conversation.
Please: don’t resort to meta-games. Stick to what is true, and only what is true.
The crux of our disagreement shows up in this little metagame. You think people need to be told what to think, while I think they should think for themselves. Your thinking might fail, but you will be better off for trying. At the very least, you will not frustrate your interlocutor asking for verbose explanations, because they can show you one corner of a square and you can find the other three.
My first reply was demonstrating how thinking for yourself does work. You do not need literature, just a steady stream of problems to forge your critical thinking skills against.
From your reply,
I realized you also think it can work, but only for those privileged enough with intrinsic talent. From your original comment, the argument seems to be: critical thinking can practiced and is useful, but only for those privileged enough to spend time on the endeavor; most people are better off just learning from books.
I strongly disagree with this idea that critical thinking is for the privileged. I think it is quite the opposite: only the privileged grow up in cultures that show them the best resources to learn from. Everyone else gets indoctrinated into the local cult, where football or magic worship takes precedence. Even those a little luckier learn studying is important, but being the students have no way to differentiate between “Linear Algebra Done Wrong”, “Linear Algebra Done Right”, Khan Academy, and MIT OCW, assuming they even find these resources.
Every state usually has one or two MATHCOUNTS clubs that win almost every year. In my day, it was Frost Math in Massachusetts, Quail Valley in Texas, and Desert Ridge in New Mexico. Why, even in very competitive states, is this so? Because some are privileged to be taught by better coaches, with better resources.
Yes, with the right resources, you can learn a lot faster from emulation than innovation. Only the very privileged get these resources. Everyone else is better off developing their critical thinking skills. How can you call it a privilege to think for yourself, when very few seeking to rise up the ranks get the opportunity to not think for themselves?
I simply disagree. There is no meaningful benefit to me to, for example:
figure out how to assemble an Ikea desk while ignoring the manual
deciding what bodily exercises are more or less effective, without consulting both folk knowledge and academia
learning any skill with a clear progression tree, whether be it the piano, martial arts, mathematics olympiads, in the absence of any tutor
That is predicated on an external progression tree. Consider how you would have developed your critical thinking skills if the questions had to all be developed by yourself too.
There is no guarantee from the world, for a wide variety of domains, that any obvious ladder of expertise acquisition exists. Especially with regards to the nebulous “life problems” the OP discusses, wherein there are often more societal traps to induct people into ladders of self flagellation.
Imagine a world where 90% of math textbooks simply came filled with metaphysical questions that were wholly and entirely unrelated to the art of problem solving. And you know someone who has probably figured out which books are really correct, because you see at a meta level that that someone appears to be Very Good At Problem Solving, but the only thing that chucklefuck does is to withhold knowledge and await your independent rediscovery of mental frameworks that are studied specifically for how rare they are to be developed in the total absence of external inputs.
Note: don’t take things literally. In a modern sense “books” are whatever social sphere and algo feeds and sekrit klubs and whatever else their info is subsisted on. I claim OP’s behavior boils down to a desire to hang that knowledge over people, to inflate the perceived difficulty of what they know.
OK, sure. That’s not a disagreement, that just means you should beat up the OP, because I believe they are perpetuating it.
I have absolutely zero problems with some blood of the earth redefinition of accessibility as innate sin and personal intellect as virtue. Insofar as the negative response to my first comment was predicated on readers’ pattern matching to various contemporary apparatchiks of equity, I regret not putting my political allegiances more front and center.