Coming soon! The Kael'Nyrin Scrolls: The Atlas Edict

Articles for tag: critical thinking, knowledge, people, thinking

The Semmelweis Reflex

For quite some time I’ve been thinking that there must be a term to describe something I was observing over the last 25 years. Then I finally found it by accident today! This is not a lecture – just in case.  I found it in Bo Bennett’s book ‘Uncomfortable Ideas‘. Definition The Semmelweis reflex is ...

Reading is dead

What a bold assertion – ‘Reading is dead’? I’ll explain what I mean as I go on. Experiences in the last few years have led me to conclude that people actually: I’m not talking about novels. I’m talking about stuff that makes a real difference to personal and professional development. Oh sure, nobody has a ...

Captain Walker

Transcending language

Recently I had the experience of communicating with another person who spoke  mostly French. I speak only English – sorry (like I’m not). Both of us were using Microsoft Translate App. Those who haven’t caught up will be nosily interested in whether this is a male or female person. It is a male person, and ...

Who is Stupid?

As some will know, I have conversations with an imaginary character called Stupid. I haven’t explained much about Stupid before now. The particular features of Stupid: The above is not a full list, of course. How did this character develop? Over the years I’ve heard so many stupid utterances from people, that I have had ...

What is thinking?

In other posts I’ve looked into various errors of thinking. However, I have not actually looked deeply enough into what thinking is. So I’m thinking about thinking. Most people think that, “It’s what humans do.” Some also think that animals think. I’ve often wondered about that because I’ve seen cats do some interesting things, which ...

What is causation and causality?

What causes you a pain in the neck or backside is important. So ‘cause‘, ‘causation‘ and ‘causality‘ should be important to everybody! But these words don’t mean exactly the same thing, though they sit in relation to each other. Who said this? I did! And you bet – I see these concepts pretty differently to ...

Your deceptive mind

Just in case – I am not referring to any known person’s mind! This post is inspired by the book Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills – Course Guidebook by Dr Steven Novella. Nothing in this post refers to any identifiable individual, except where explicitly stated. This site cannot cater for ...

The nature of the flow of thought

An unusual individual has given free-willing consent to publishing this conversation. Some will be obsessed with XY’s and JS’s characteristics, identities and when all this happened – which is to miss other important things in this conversation. Human thought/thinking is a sequence of ideas and assertions using language. Its flow depends both on ‘form’ and ...

Is planning a useless activity?

What a strange question? After all, everybody knows and believes that ‘planning‘ is a good thing and it must be useful. Having thought about things people say and what they do, I have to say that overall it is a useless activity. Should I say, “Don’t get me wrong…. “? Okay – I’ll say it! ...

About spit!

Oh – I just had to post on this. Well, I was at a hotel last week. I had not been for several months due to COVID restrictions of several types. I had observed similar things at local supermarkets before getting to the hotel. So, this isn’t specific to hotels. It was a whole ‘new ...

Spoon in the bottle

I’m a bit apprehensive to make this post, only because it may cause so much anxiety or confusion! But that never deterred me before, so here goes. Well no – first off, I do not require tutorials, advice or explanations from anybody! And – I’m not into a debate on any of this, so everybody ...

Wrestling with patterns

I’ve written before on ‘patterns‘. As I go on I discover more how serious patterns are in our lives. There are of course good patterns and bad patterns. Patterns are not simply what people refer too as ‘habits’. Habits though having patterns of their own, reside within the a deeper concept of patterns (as conceptualised ...

What is Critical Thinking?

I’m actually not writing this for any person other than myself. But I am aware that occasionally people read what I write – and I declare now that my intention is not to educate, convince, change minds or improve the human race. Why? 1. That’s too grandiose an ambition and 2. I’m not hell-bent on ...