Major life event

What is it? I’m moving. To India. Madras, to be exact.

So, my friends, after 7.5 years in the USA, I’m heading back home to where I came from. Life has, in some ways at least, come a full circle. And so I start my trek all the way across the world. Tomorrow.

The engineering of history

What to do when overwhelmed

There are times when all we see is failure, when we feel like a failure. When nothing we do seems to work, when we are unable to do the things that would work. When it seems like the world is closing in on us, when all hope is lost. When it feels like we can’t think any more, for there is too much to think through. When it feels like just giving up, and resigning ourselves to the vagaries of fate. A sense of being helpless, of being overwhelmed. And much like everyone else in the world, I too have had such occasions, especially of late. From each of these experiences I have learnt to better cope the next time around: and yet there’s always something that I hadn’t anticipated, something new for me learn. Here I list a few of these learnings in the hope that you may find them useful. Of course, this list is not definitive: feel free to fill in any voids I may have missed.

Focus your thoughts
The most clear symptom of being overwhelmed is a complete lack of focus. Your thoughts keep flitting from one task to another continuously, your mind keeps wandering all over the place, thereby getting nothing done. The first step to take when overwhelmed is to focus your thoughts. Focusing your thoughts helps turn the negative energy of being overwhelmed into a positive energy of concentration on the task at hand. Instead of a feeling of helplessness, it gives you a sense of purpose. See here for a few simple tips to help you focus. Focusing your thoughts makes you address the problem instead of simply feeling suffocated by it. Focusing also helps you increase your mental productivity by concentrating exclusively on the consequential concerns and pushing the trivial out of your mind, thereby giving you a sense of space and relief.

Evaluate consequence
Sometimes even the most trivial of matters seem like monumental issues. Your colleague gossips about you at work. You come to learn of this and feel overwhelmed with emotion and indignation. It envelopes your mind, chokes your thoughts. It seems like the reputation you painstakingly built has now vanished in an instant, that this one incident is the undoing of all your efforts. But does it really matter? Is it not likely that it will eventually be found that the gossip about is just that: gossip. And more importantly, that people’s perception of you will be shaped by your personal interactions with them and not by something someone says. The consequence of this incident, then, is negligible, isn’t it? Once you realize this, the feeling of being overwhelmed automatically disappears. Evaluating the consequence of an issue shows whether it is something truly monumental, something that you need to worry about, or simply something that is trivial, something you need not unnecessarily fret about. This immediately addresses most of the causes of being overwhelmed, for the simple enough reason that there is no point in being overwhelmed when there is no need to. On the flip side, when the consequence of a concern is far-reaching, your mind automatically attains a sense of purpose, which makes it find the resources and the vigour to address that concern satisfactorily.

Think linearly
When we are overwhelmed, our mind gets bombarded with a multiplicity of competing thoughts. These competing thoughts compete for our mental energies so that no one thought gets the attention it requires in order to follow it to conclusion. The end result: a state of paramount confusion. In order to reclaim our normal thought process we need to somehow step out of this state of confusion. To do this we need to separate these competing thoughts by thinking linearly. Thinking linearly involves sorting our concerns in order of decreasing priority and following up on them in a linear, one-after-another manner. For instance, it’s easy to get overwhelmed before a job interview. You need to do answer the interview questions satisfactorily, need to catch the train to get there on time, need to negotiate terms, need to present and explain your resume convincingly, need to iron your clothes etc. It’s like there’s so much to do, so many aspects to address. The most important thing here is to think linearly, or on a first-things-first basis: iron your clothes, then make sure you get there on time, then present yourself, then answer questions, and finally if everything else works out fine, negotiate terms. Thinking linearly prevents you from getting overwhelmed because it puts only one thought in your head at a given instant of time, allowing you to concentrate on that one thought before moving on to the next. It unclogs your mind and gives you a sense of clarity, which is absolutely essential when you need to perfrom under stress.

Think beyond yourself
The sense of being overwhelmed derives from our perception that somehow life has conspired to work against us. That the things in life which should normally for us are suddenly working against us. This leads to a sense of isolation, of despair. An important aspect of breaking away from this state is to realize our part in the wider scheme of things, basically to think beyond ourselves and into our environment. By comparing your circumstances to that of others, it helps you gain a sense of relative comfort. Thinking beyond ourselves helps us understand that our thoughts and actions have consequence not only to our lives but also to that of those we love. Making a good presentation to your Chairman may determine your prospects for promotion, thus it is important not only to you, but also to your family. Understanding this can give you a sense of purpose, and help you approach the most difficult of tasks. Thinking beyond ourselves also helps us remember that we not isolated, that there is a family and wider society for us to bank upon. This gives a sense of security, and reduces our stress levels.

Take a break
Every situation requires a specific mindset, and every mindset is best suited to a specific situation: being overwhelmed is a clear sign that your present mindset is not best suited to the task at hand. Instead of breaking your head on a task that seems unsolvable, divert your attention to something that’s more attainable. If this is not the best time for you to address this situation, take a break and come back to it later. This will give your mind something new to work on, refresh it and help it regenerate ideas for the earlier task. And when you do come back to it later, rested and refreshed, you may even realize that there was a simple solution staring at you in the face all along.

Relax, sleep on it
Your brain is a battery: it powers your body and life. And yet its reserves are not infinite: it needs to be recharged every so often, or else it will die out. When a battery is at full charge, it would probably make short task of running a camera, and yet when it is empty, it probably couldn’t power your watch. It would get overwhelmed. When your mind is overwhelmed, the normal pathways of thought in your brain become clogged. The thoughts, ideas and inspirations that occurred to you on a daily basis suddenly evaporate. As a result, the easiest tasks and the simplest decisions become insurmountable obstacles. Just like the battery, your mind needs to recharge, to relax. Sleep is an extension of conventional relaxation routines: it’s like getting a full recharge instead of a partial one. There’s something about waking up to the early morning Sun that makes you realize that you have just begun a brand new day and that you get to start from scratch. This feeling of freshness injects your mind with ideas that instinctively show you the simplest solutions to the most intractable issues..

Underwhelm yourself, do nothing
This is the one rule which I swear by the most: “When it is not clear what it is that you are supposed to do, it is best to do nothing”. When you are feeling completely overwhelmed, your mind loses the ability to think clearly. It tends to do things on an impulsive and irrational basis. And worse, it tends to make progressively worse choices leading to a cumulative catastrophe. It’s like this: untieing your shoe lace is a rather straightforward task. However, trying to do this when your fingers are frozen and numb becomes quite a challenge. And, the harder you try, the more entangled you actually end up making it. The best thing to do in these situations is to do nothing. This would probably not address the problem, but at least it won’t make it any worse. Being overwhelmed is bad enough, there’s certainly no point in aggravating the situation even more by befuddling it. After all, when you are so overwhelmed that you are unable to do anything, the only thing to do is nothing. Remember, no matter what happens, life must automatically return to its steady state sooner or later. Time heals. More often than not, you will realize that with time the problem has somehow found a way to solve itself. And this is itself not surprising for nature has its own way of dealing with itself.

Understanding symbols

The social conditioning of personal perception

Yesterday in the subway I noticed something that set my thoughts racing: a young man with shoddy clothes, unkempt hair and bare feet. Bare feet, in the subway! My subconscious mind immediately sent out the usual signal: social outcast, avoid. However, a few seconds later my conscious memory kicked in, and completely changed the entire thought process: it said ‘why outcast?’. I suddenly remembered it was perfectly normal to see bare feet in India, at home and on the street. Bare feet could hardly make a social outcast there. And that realization led to the question of why my perception changed so dramatically, of what this dichotomy actually meant.

The non-universality of social norms

Social norms are a consequence of society, of the agglomeration of people under a common banner. Society is an entity that is made for and by the people that constitute it. It exists at the discretion, and for the benefit, of its people.

The Swastika on a Harappan seal: perceived as a symbol of human evolution

The people that constitute a society determine what it stands for, and where its bounds of propriety lie. As such, these bounds of propriety are liable to be different from people to people. Social norms, then, are liable to vary over time and space: what is deemed appropriate by the people of Australia today may be deemed inappropriate by the people of Angola tomorrow. Opinions and perception, then, that are based on social norms are bound to be non-universal in nature. Take the case of bare feet for instance: bare feet in Boston could get you branded as a social misfit, and yet in India the same bare feet would make a perfect social fit. Your perception of bare feet would itself be perceived dramatically differently on Indian soil in accordance with the norms prevailing there. Who, then, is a social misfit and where? The guy in Boston for walking around with bare feet, or you in India for holding an opinion that contradicts local mores?

The influence of norms on perception

Although our perceptions are supposed to arise from within us, it often happens that those perceptions are simply the manifestations of social influence. Take for instance the popular perception of the swastika. The swastika is perceived

The Swastika as the Nazi emblem: perceived as a symbol of racial segregation

in India as a symbol of evolution and progress, while in Europe, due to its Nazi connotations, it perceived as a symbol of racial segregation. Does this mean that one particular perception of the swastika is right while the other is wrong? The swastika symbol, after all, is simply just that: a symbol. It can be taken to mean whatever you want it to mean. Its perception should only be a result of individual thought, and yet it is obvious that its perception actually is a result of social thought. Indeed, would I be necessarily wrong in thinking of the swastika as something completely different: say as a symbol of the sea? Would that necessarily make me a weirdo?

The socially conditioned pathway of thought

I am fairly confident that, given a similar context, almost all my friends and acquaintances would have arrived at the same conclusion about the anonymous young man on the subway. I believe this because I believe that my thought process would not have been very different from most others’. And this itself is hardly surprising because, after all, my acquaintances all belong to the same society, and are exposed to the same social norms. As such, it is only natural that all of us have a certain common fundamental process of thought: of processing an observation into an interpretation into a conclusion. A thought pathway, so to speak.

Bare feet + unkempt hair + shoddy clothes = Social outcast -> Avoid

Designer shoes + immaculate hairdo + form-fitting clothes = High society -> Associate

Although we may find it difficult and inconvenient to accept, our thought processes are significantly influenced by the society that surrounds us. The social norms that envelope us determine not only our words and deeds, but also our perception of the words and deeds of others. For every conversation with every acquaintance, our subconscious mind automatically tends to fit our perceptions of others into pre-allocated stereotypes of humanity: good/bad, conservative/liberal, moral/immoral, etc. Instead of interpreting a phenomenon or utterance based on our own knowledge of intent and context, our subconscious mind tends to adopt the interpretation laid down in established social norms. In other words, our thoughts and perceptions are often the instinctive results of successful social conditioning.

The consequence of social conditioning

Money - it's what we've been inculcated to measure the worth of a man by. But how correct is this?

Social conditioning, says Wikipedia, is the process of inheriting tradition and cultural transmutation passed down through previous generations. It is, in essence, the process by which a society induces its inhabitants to adhere to a certain common code of thought. Since society is a creature of evolution, it is, by very definition, an entity that is continuously evolving. Norms and mores that are felt “appropriate” by a particular generation of a society are a direct result of the circumstances and contexts that that generation of people experienced. With time, these circumstances and contexts are guaranteed to change. Change in the norms and mores of society, are therefore, inevitable. Social conditioning, however, interferes in this process by dictating the scope and even applicability of change based on certain pre-determined standards. By fixing as constant the norms and mores, social conditioning essentially obstructs the process of evolution of society, thereby endangering its very survival.

Towards unfettered thinking

Social norms are essentially the crystallization of consensus-based societal opinion. They derive from the perceptions and thought processes of individuals sharing certain common fundamentals. Thus, the morals, norms and mores that the people of a society are expected to live by are a product of the collective conscience of the said people themselves. In other words, it is the people that determine what the norm is and isn’t. As a corollary to this, it can be inferred that each individual opinion and perception has a certain specific part to play in the shaping of social norms. Indeed, it can even be said that among the duties of an individual towards society is the duty to contribute to social opinion by developing, nurturing and deploying a unique individual opinion. And this can only arise as a result of an independent and unfettered application of personal perception and thought process.

How to develop critical thinking

This post is part three of a three-part series dealing with the concept of critical thinking.

Part 1: Overview: About critical thinking
Part 2: Self-test: Are you a critical thinker
Part 3: Self-help: How to develop critical thinking (this post)

Please see the previous two posts in the series for an overview of this topic and for a self-test to get an estimate of how your thought process is structured presently. This post provides a few tips to develop the tendency to think critically. Hopefully you would find these tips useful in everyday life.

1. Think independently
Independent thinking is the first and most important step towards critical thinking. Thinking independently essentially means thinking by yourself (which is not the same as thinking for yourself). Independent thinking involves looking at an argument from your perspective, interpreting it based on your understanding of it, and forming an opinion based on how applicable or appropriate you find it. Independent thinking means that instead of simply accepting what you are told, you take the effort to analyse the argument and draw your own conclusions. It means that you gather as much information as possible about a particular topic, and form your own independent opinions in an unbiased and unprejudiced manner.

In the instance cited in the questionnaire, the fact that everyone around you has a Camry does not necessarily mean that that would be the car best suited for you too. Certainly there would be a reason why everyone chose a Camry, but it is important to understand what that reason is and how applicable it is to your life and your preferences. Fuel efficiency, reliability and resale value may all have been reasons they chose a Camry, but how important are these factors to you? Do you want to get a car that has popular appeal or would you rather drive a car that has personal appeal – to you?

Thinking independently does not mean you need to disregard other people’s opinions – it just means that those opinions must be evaluated for their merits, and not simply be taken as ordained commandments.

2. Question assumptions
Almost every argument depends on assumptions. Even if the argument is fundamentally based on well-established fact, its effect on the listener is likely to depend on assumptions. For instance, the argument “Today is Friday, we can relax the next two days”, assumes that there will be no requirement to work over the weekend. To evaluate an argument critically, the assumptions underlying it need to be evaluated for their merit. We need to check how valid the assumptions are, how applicable they are to the particular argument and how likely they are to be correct.

Assumptions can be of two types: explicit or implicit. Consider this statement: carry an umbrella today because it may rain. This statement makes two assumptions: (i) that it would rain today, and (ii) that having an umbrella would prevent you from getting wet. The first assumption is an explicit assumption because the original statement refers to it without ambiguity. On the other hand, the second assumption is an implicit assumption because the original statement does not refer to it expressly. Explicit assumptions are easy to identify and deal with whereas implicit assumptions are a bit tricky to identify.

The argument about America makes a few important assumptions, both explicit and implicit. Explicit assumptions here include the assumptions that increased defense spending directly relates to increased military ability and that advanced weapon systems directly affect the result in battle. However, the implicit assumption here is more important to consider: that increased military might on paper can actually be translated into victory in the battlefield. Indeed, just evaluating this one assumption could completely change our stance on the argument, especially given the fact that this assumption has been proven to be false repeatedly through human history.

3. Seek alternative explanations
Do not judge a book by the cover. This maxim may sound cliche but it is highly relevant to everyday life. Surely, it is easy to draw judgements from what is superficial and apparent, but these judgements do not always reflect the reality that lie underneath. In other words, it is easy to jump to conclusions, but those conclusions are not always the correct ones.

Getting struck by a block concrete on the street may be a rare and serious occurrence. It does not happen to everyone. Given its serious consequences and its rarity, it would be tempting to label this as a twist of fate. The only explanation is that fate had it in for you that day, there is no other explanation to it. Or is there? Perhaps there is indeed an alternative explanation: maybe you inadvertently strayed into a construction zone, maybe the construction worker made a genuine mistake. In this case, seeking an alternate explanation has changed the very nature of a phenomenon from destiny to coincidence.

To not draw the wrong conclusions from an argument, it is essential to evaluate the argument from multiple perspectives in order to understand it more thoroughly. To think critically, we need to seek explanations other than the apparent, explanations that may not be obvious but that are more plausible and more reasonable.

4. Evaluate reasonableness
Your employer employs you for a specific purpose: to contribute to the process of building the business. He did not ask you to leave the country, and he certainly did not cause the immigration issues that prevented you from returning to the country. Given that he has a business to run, and that your absence means you are unable to contribute your part to the business, does it make business sense for him to keep you on the payrolls? Is he really discriminating against you for not being an active contributor to the enterprise? Is this reasoning reasonable?

An argument is essentially the product of the thought process of an individual. It depends on the perspectives of that individual, and the opinions that those perspectives lead to. Arguments can seldom be classified as correct or wrong – they are simply not absolutes. However, arguments can, and should be, judged on a certain other criterion – their reasonableness. Anybody can propound any argument they take a fancy to: I can claim that Sun rises in the West, and you can claim that we grow younger every day. If each argument is to be taken at face value, how then can we evaluate its validity? They key to evaluating the validity of an argument, then, is its inherent reasonableness – how appropriate and how applicable it is to the question at hand.

5. Be willing to learn
Life is a process of learning. We learn to walk, to talk, to eat, to live. No one is born wise. The wise become wise only when they learn. There is no one who knows all, consequently there is no one who has nothing to learn. Each of us has much to learn. About the world, about our friends, about ourselves. Every event, every circumstance, every entity can be a source of learning. We do not need special classrooms or workshops to learn the most important things in life: all we need to do is to live, and keep our minds open. There is no limit to knowledge, just as there is no wasted knowledge. Every single thing we learn has some utility, and yet there is much more of utility that we haven’t yet learnt.

To think critically involves evaluating an argument on its merits. And merits can only be determined based on knowledge: what we know to be correct and incorrect. And knowledge is ever-expanding and ever-evolving: what is unknown today may be known tomorrow, what is correct today may be incorrect tomorrow. Thus, to think critically, we need to keep pace with knowledge. In essence, we need to keep learning. Pluto may have been classified a planet until yesterday, because that is what the then current knowledge dictated. But today’s learnings have changed that position, consequently so must our understanding. To not learn is to deny knowledge, and to deny knowledge is dogma.

6. Think beyond social norms
Holding hands in public was frowned upon in the 1850′s. Kissing in public was scandalous in the 1950′s. Any guesses where we are going to be in the 2050′s?

Social norms are local and transient in nature. What is acceptable to some may be unacceptable to some others, and what is appropriate today may be inappropriate tomorrow. Just because a concept seems inappropriate to you under current circumstances, it does not mean that that concept will be viewed the same way by different people under different circumstances. Marriage within family members may be frowned upon today, but the fact remains that this was the accepted norm in ancient Roman society. Does this necessarily make you right or them wrong?

Society, by definition of being the collective conscience of a people, is a reflection of the thought processes of that people. Society does not exist by itself – it only exists at the convenience of its people. As such, society is a tool that is shaped by and  serves the interests of the people. It is the people that decide what is appropriate and inappropriate for the society. The limits of society are not absolute, they are only what they are held to be. And since you are part of society, you too contribute to determining where these limits fall. And this determination must be made not on the basis of norms, which are relative, but on the basis of principles, which are absolute.

7. Follow fact not opinion
Perhaps the trickiest aspect of critical thinking is the separation of fact from opinion. Consider this: “The sky is blue. Blue is the most pleasant colour”. Of these, the first statement is fact, while the second is opinion. Facts are universally applicable: what is true for you is just as true for me, whereas opinions are not. To say “lemon is bitter” may sound like a fact, but is it really? Although most people may think of lemon as bitter, there may still be a few who think otherwise. Taste is a personal perception, what you may perceive as bitter may be perceived as sweet by me.

Critical thinking requires developing a thought process that is based on evaluating an argument on its inherent merit not on personal prejudice. Opinions, being personal perceptions, can not aid critical thinking – you need to delve deeper into the underlying fact. The recession has been here for a while. This is fact. It probably has hit rock-bottom. But this is mere opinion. Facts are absolute, opinions are not. Facts are proven, they can not be wrong. Opinions are perceptions, they can be right or wrong. If you invest now on the basis of opinion, and the opinion turns out to be incorrect, whom would you have to blame but yourself? Opinions need not be discarded, they can certainly be considered for the merit they hold. However, they must not be simply subscribed to without evaluation. To do so would be antithetic to the first step toward critical thinking – that of thinking independently. For, to do so would mean that your position on an argument, your opinion, is based on the opinion of someone else. For, this would mean that you have shaped your thought process to conform to someone else’s parameters.

8. Base your opinions on reason not emotion
Granted, you may be being subject to increased security measures at the airport due to your identity. But does this automatically mean that you are being persecuted? Could it be that you belong to a community that has a track record of anti-social activity? If so, would it be wise to disregard this fact and treat you to the same measures as all other travellers? Given the fact that many troublemakers belong to a particular community, would it not be prudent to subject members of that community to extra measures as a safety precaution? True, this may be inconvenient and embarrassing to those members of the community that are clean, like you, but does this not serve the greater interests of society?

Emotion clouds judgement. When you feel strongly about something, from the heart, it is likely that your mind will be biased by that feeling. “My country is best”, is a feeling experienced by many people. Such a feeling can bias opinions about one’s country: we could tend to overlook its economic situation, its cultural emptiness and its military history. Emotion is a not a sound basis for evaluating an argument. Since emotion arises from the thought process of an individual, it is likely to different from individual to individual. As a result, what is sensible to you from your emotional standpoint could be completely insensible to someone else from his emotional standpoint. Indeed, just as you think of your country as being best, there may be millions others who their of their respective countries in the same vein.

On the other hand, reason is a logic that is based on knowledge and fact. It is universal and can not be denied or deemed inapplicable or inappropriate. Reason allows you to view an argument away from emotion, from a detached and unbiased perspective. Without the baggage of emotion, it allows you to think freely, clearly and logically. Reason gives you a sense of moderation and prevents you from backing yourself into extremities. It allows you to form opinions based not on relative measures, such as morals, but on absolute measures, such as principles. An opinion based on reason will always be sensible, defensible, and most importantly, reasonable.

9. Have the courage of conviction
Every individual thought process is different, which means that each of us likely to have differing thoughts, perceptions and opinions. As such, it is very likely that each of us would run into situations where our opinions are contrastingly different from that of those around us. In these situations, it would be very easy to dissolve our opinions and simply adapt to the common position. This would, however, be tantamount to a dissolution of your individualism. This would amount to forfeiting all the effort invested in developing your own critical thought process. An essential ingredient of critical thinking, then, is the ability to have the courage of conviction: the courage to believe that your opinions, even if different from everyone else’s, are well-founded, justified and reasonable.

This does not mean that you should close your mind to contradictory opinions and facts – that would be dogma. All it means is that if you have reason to believe your opinions are reasonable, you should develop the conviction to defend those opinions until you are presented with opinions or facts that influence you to change them. It means evaluating the merits of contrasting opinions, but not getting cowed down by them.

It is not difficult to find people that have a particular opinion in private but completely change it in a group setting – in order to conform with the views of others. This lack of conviction in opinions arises from a lack of belief in the reasoning behind that opinion, a feeling that they may be ridiculed in a public setting. The courage of conviction can not developed artificially: it arises naturally from knowing that your opinions are based on reason, facts and principles, on measures that are in-transient, universally applicable and absolute. For these reasons, the courage of conviction is a direct consequence of the process of critical thinking. When you develop an opinion after thinking about it in a critical fashion, you get the courage to believe that that opinion is sensible and defensible. For instance, it is my opinion that no multi-ethnic society can survive as a nation-state for long. I believe this opinion of mine is well-founded, justifiable and reasonable, and as such I have the conviction to defend this opinion in a discussion. However, I am always open to hearing arguments to the contrary and to change my opinions if the counter-arguments are convincing.

10. Accept the consequences
The ideal world is guided by reason and principles. But this is not an ideal world – it is often guided by emotion and conveniences. Given this, a person who has developed the habit of thinking critically, a habit of basing his thought process on absolute measures, may find himself in socially uncomfortable positions. The easy solution here would be to conform to social standards, but is this the correct thing to do? Bending over today for reasons of convenience would set a precedent: what happens the next time a similar situation comes up? When does the cycle of buckling to pressure, when you know it is not right, end? Obviously, the correct thing to do in these situations is to stand your ground and accept the consequences.

Accepting the consequences means standing up for what you believe in, for acting on your convictions without fearing the consequences of doing so. If Anne Frank had feared the consequences of standing up to the system, the world would have been much diminished today. If standing up for principles at the workplace means your getting fired, perhaps it would best to get fired. Perhaps it would be best to unshackle yourself from an environment that does not value the principles that you do. For, to remain compliant under such an environment would mean mortgaging your individuality to an objective that you do not agree with. Such compliance can only lead to an attrition of your critical thought process. Sure the consequences of standing your ground may be costly in terms of the conveniences you have come to take for granted, but it would still give you a sense of contentment, of satisfaction of having defended your convictions.

Many people prefer to conform and comply for one simple reason: fear of consequence. Regardless of their personal opinions, many prefer to accept thoughts that are socially current simply because they do not want to inconvenience themselves with the consequences of challenging common practice. They fear ridicule, they fear ostracism, they fear non-conformity, they fear differentiation. They fear fear itself. How, then, is one to express individuality? How, then, is one to enrich society? How, then, is society to evolve? The fear of consequence is extremely debilitating because it completely annuls the process of critical thought: all the carefully reasoned opinions you have held come to naught. We are then back to square one.

Are you a critical thinker?

This post is part two of a three-part series dealing with the concept of critical thinking.

Part 1: Overview: About critical thinking
Part 2: Self-test: Are you a critical thinker (this post)
Part 3: Self-help: How to develop critical thinking

Take this self-quiz to determine how much of a critical thinker you are presently. There are no tricks or special talents involved here: only your own honesty in answering the questions. At the end of the test, check your score against the reference chart provided. Feel free to answer the poll below.

Each question below is in the form of a statement. After reading each statement, answer this common question: do you agree with the statement or not (yes or no). Keep a track of how many times you answer ‘Yes’.

1. You are looking to buy a car. Everyone in your circle of friends and family drives a Toyota Camry, so it is best for you to buy one too.
2. The United States reigns unchallenged in the world. Its spending on defense is larger than any other nation ever. Its military possesses the most advanced and sophisticated weapon systems ever developed by mankind. Thus, the United States is the most powerful nation ever in history.
3. You are walking on the street when a block of concrete falls on you. This must be ordained by fate.
4. You are a foreign national working here for long. Suddenly, you are unable to report to work due to immigration issues, and your company fires you. Surely, your employer has discriminated against you due to your status.
5. You have lived all these years thinking Pluto was a planet. Now it is not possible to think of Pluto as anything but.
6. Marriage with close family members is wrong. It doesn’t matter who does it or for what reason, it is simply wrong.
7. The economy has been in recession for a while now. This is the best time to invest in stocks because everyone feels the economy has bottomed out.
8. You belong to a numerical minority community. Every time you go to the airport, you are singled out for a special search. Surely, you are being persecuted due to your race or ethnicity.
9. Your political views greatly contrast that of your friends. The next time a discussion comes up you would rather stay silent than being completely ridiculed.
10. You are uncomfortable about helping your company subvert a rival product. Surely, it is best to play your part in the process rather than risk losing your job.

No. of ‘yes’ answers | Are you a critical thinker?
0-3                         |               Largely so
4-7                         |          Moderately so
8-10                       |               Hardly so

This questionnaire is not meant to be a comprehensive test of any sort – it is only meant to give an indication of how your thought process is structured presently. Indeed, if you do think critically enough, perhaps the first thing you would try to evaluate is the very validity of this article. And in that case, I would feel happy to simply have written something that incites your critical thought

About critical thinking

This blog is about critical thinking. Except, as I suddenly realized, I haven’t made any effort to clarify what exactly critical thinking is. Critical Thinking, as defined by the Wikipedia, is purposeful and reflective judgement about what to believe or what to do in response to observations, experiences or arguments. In essence, critical thinking is a concept that ascertains whether your opinions are the result of your own reason-based thinking or otherwise.

Critical thinking is essential for human evolution. It nurtures the concepts of freedom and liberty by allowing each person to develop and hold his own opinion based on his perception of circumstances and surroundings. It prevents social norms from being frozen in time by encouraging every generation of people to reconsider and re-evaluate social practices for their propriety and applicability at that point of time. For instance, most debates over the Constitution would disappear if everyone were to realize that that document was meant to be applicable at the time it was written, not centuries later. Critical thinking prevents the crystallization of one person’s thought into a system that governs the whole society: from opinion to pronouncement to convention to custom to rule to law (think of communism). It ensures that the system works not just in the interests of one person but in the interests of society as a whole (dictatorships).

Given the importance of critical thinking, it is obvious that each of us should ideally inculcate this habit. Instead of simply accepting what we are told, we need to develop the tendency to question, investigate and judge on our own. But how exactly can we develop a habit of critical thinking? This, as with much else in life, is a matter of perception. Different people use different approaches to develop this habit. But before we attempt to address an issue, we first need to acknowledge its existence i.e before we go about trying to develop the habit of critical thinking, we need to evaluate where we stand presently. A self-evaluation is the best way to do this. Thus, this piece about nurturing critical thinking is broken into three separate posts:

Part 1: Overview: About critical thinking (this post)
Part 2: Self-test: Are you a critical thinker
Part 3: Self-help: How to develop critical thinking

Hopefully, by the end of this exercise you would have learnt something about yourself, and perhaps also a few methods to nurture your process of critical thought.

How to focus your thoughts

We all have our bad days. Days when we can’t seem to get anything done, days when we can’t think clearly, days when we just can’t focus our thoughts. The cause could be anything – from strains in relationships to worries about the economy to frustrations about the workplace, but the consequence is almost always the same – significant loss of productivity, be it in personal life or professional. I’ve had my fair share of such days. However, I’ve learnt that the issues of the mind can usually be solved by procedures of the mind. I’ve learnt that there are simple approaches that can help us focus even in the midst of everyday madness. Please see the list below for my observations, and feel free to add your own in the comments section.

Focus on the distraction
When you lose focus your thoughts seem to wander, drift all by themselves. Often times this is not an aimless, direction-less drift. It is a drift in a particular direction that you did not consciously wish to take, probably since you had wanted to focus your thoughts on something else. However, since your subconscious mind seems so distracted and does not let you focus on the task at hand, perhaps you should consider focusing on the distraction instead. Every task requires a particular mindset. Every mindset is best suited to a particular task. Perhaps your present mindset is not best suited to the task you are trying to focus on, perhaps it would be best suited to the distraction that keeps cropping up involuntarily. Focusing on the distraction allows you to perform productively at something you were going to have to do anyway, and re-energizes your mind to focus on the primary task later. Indeed, you might even realize that the distraction was actually linked to the primary task, even if only in a peripheral manner.

Approach from the periphery
Charging into battle straight at the formation of enemy tanks is a valiant thing to do, but not always the intelligent thing to do. Sometimes you require tact and subtlety. Sometimes it is prudent to approach the enemy from his periphery. When I find myself unable to focus on a particular task, I try to focus instead on something indirectly related to it. If I am stuck in the programming of a mathematical formulation, I switch to writing out its fundamental theoretical derivations. When I’m done with the derivations, not only have I regained the zest to program the formulation into code, but I have also learnt something valuable regarding the mathematics lying behind it. Focusing your thoughts on a peripheral task gives your mind the freedom to drift and thus re-energize, and yet keeps it in the space where it can be productive to the primary task itself.

Isolate your focus
When you find yourself unable to focus on one particular thought, it is probably because there are too many thoughts running around in your head. This multiplicity of thoughts dissipates mental energy and thus dissipates your focus. The obvious remedy here is to pick one particular thought – depending on your priorities – and follow it exclusively, in a step by step fashion. Picking one particular topic allows your mind to develop and follow a train of thought dedicated to it in an organized manner. Think of your mind as a bowl of noodle soup, each noodle representing one particular thought. Looking at this bowl, it is difficult to identify one particular strand of noodle and follow it through its length. You need to separate that strand from the rest of the soup, and hold it in isolation to identify it properly. Before I sat down to write this piece, there were competing thoughts in my head regarding arguments on this topic and arguments on a different topic. My mind was constantly switching from this-article-mode to that-article-mode, which was not helping my productivity. Separating these thoughts helped me follow one to conclusion (this article) while storing the other away for later use.

Shuffle things up
The human mind dislikes routine. Routine prevents the mind from acquiring new experiences and limits its exposure, thereby dumbing down its creativity and causing it to lose sharpness. Thought by definition is an energy that originates in your mind at one particular instant of time, something that is original and instantaneous. Routine does not require thought simply because it does not require originality. In fact routine is antithetic to originality and thus to thought itself. For these reasons, losing focus when working on routine tasks is not surprising. Given that routine tasks still need to get done, the easiest workaround is to shuffle your task-list. Simply re-prioritize and re-allocate time slots for each task. This achieves two objectives: it presents your mind something different to work on thus triggering its focus, and it also keeps you fresh and interested by killing boredom.

Focus on your inner voice
Is there a voice at the back of your mind that keeps bothering you every time you try to focus? A voice that you try to suppress but manages to resurface nevertheless? In that case, perhaps you should listen to what it is saying. Perhaps there is something you are missing in your current thought process. Perhaps there is a better way to accomplish the task at hand. While writing this article I was repeatedly bothered by something at the back of my head, something I couldn’t exactly place because I was trying to focus on writing this. And yet that voice in my head kept distracting me every now and then. And then I realized what it was – I had left some eggs to boil on the stove and completely forgot! After attending to that concern, I was back at the computer and typing away happily – no more distractions to bother.

Relax, defocus
The simple complications of everyday life can build a lot of stress on your body as well as your mind. When the mind is under stress, it loses its ability to think clearly due to competing and conflicting thoughts. Chaos and confusion cause your mind to lose focus by dissipating its energy. Your mind can best focus on something when it is relaxed. A relaxed mind is a clear mind, and a clear mind is a mind that can focus thoughts with laser-like intensity. Relaxing also makes your mind refreshed and re-energized, thus increasing creativity and productivity. Defocusing, i.e. thinking of “nothing” is a particularly powerful way to clear the mind. See here for a few simple tips to relax your mind.

How to nurture your intuition

I took the GMAT yesterday. I got a decent score, but less than what I had hoped for. I was disappointed, but not surprised. Disappointed because I got lower score than I’d hoped for, and yet not surprised because I “knew” this was the score I was going to get. This exact score. How did I know? Intuition. Something in my head told me this would happen, I grasped on to it, and since this wasn’t the first time I got this “inner voice” speaking, I did not ignore it. Sure enough, it turned out to be uncannily accurate, just as it almost always has been. It’s interesting isn’t it, this ability to see ahead in time?

Normal perception of the world is guided by the six senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. However, these senses only allow you to perceive the world in restricted three-dimensional space i.e. these senses signal to your mind those entities or phenomena that are presented to you in your physical vicinity at that particular instant of time. Intuition supersedes these senses by allowing your mind to perceive entities and phenomena that are separated from you in space as well as time. Think of it this way: when you walk down the street, you can see the vehicles on the same street but not those around the corner; on the other hand, intuition can show you vehicles that wait around the corner!

It is important to understand what intuition is and what it is not. If you’re running late and hope that your flight got delayed and it is, that is not intuition, that is coincidence. If you dream you could fly away jumping from the roof of the Empire State building, that is not intuition, that is fantasy. Intuition is an insight, a thought, that arises from your subconscious mind. This thought in the subconscious mind is based on the experiences the conscious mind has gone through and the knowledge it has gained, and so is based on only what can be explained by the conscious memory. Intuition can not be forced by the focus of the conscious memory (like hope), nor can it account for impractical or unreasonable thoughts (like fantasies).

The ability to intuit can be a very handy asset. By allowing you to look into the future, it allows you be prepared for it. Forewarned is forearmed. Intuition can not be explained by science. It is not quantifiable or tangible, it does not follow reason. Human intuition derives from the most fundamental sense of perception of any animal – instinct. For this reason, intuition is not a skill that can be acquired, instead it is a capacity that resides inherent in every human being. It only needs to be acknowledged, nurtured and utilized. Based on my experiences, here are a few tips that could help.

Look at yourself from outside
Intuition is a form of instinct, and instinct is the natural reaction of the subconscious mind to external stimuli in the environment. To tap your intuition you need to understand your environment, and your position in it i.e. you need to look at yourself from a third-person perspective. Doing so allows your mind to follow a potential chain of events and track external stimuli, and pre-emptively generates reactions to them. For instance, my intuition of the GMAT score came when I pictured my emotional state after writing the exam – this led to the realization that I would be in this particular emotional state due to making this particular score.

Keep your mind relaxed and clear
Intuition is the result of the focus of the subconscious mind on one particular chain of thought. For intuition to function optimally, the subconscious mind must function optimally. For the subconscious mind to function optimally, the conscious mind must function optimally. Chaos, confusion and lack of clarity hamper intuition by dissipating thought energy in different directions, thereby preventing its focus. Intuition best occurs when the mind is relaxed and clear.

Listen to your inner mind
All humans have the capacity for intuition, but only some manage to tap into it. This is because only some people manage to be conscious of their subconscious mind. Think of it this way: intuition is a thought process that occurs continuously in your subconscious memory. It bubbles up into your conscious memory only fleetingly, just for an instant of time. My intuition came to me in a flash, and it was gone in a flash. This flash of insight does not stay on top of your memory – you just have to catch it before it disappears.

Try this experiment: close your eyes and think of an object, any object, for 30 seconds. Allow your mind to follow any train of thought related to that object. After 30 seconds, write down every particular thought that occured during that time. Repeat the process. You will notice that with every repetition the amount of thoughts you write down increases. This is not because you are thinking more, but rather because you are grasping on to your thoughts better i.e. you are able to notice the thoughts in your subconscious memory more thoroughly. This is the list of thoughts I came up with just an instant ago when I thought of an apple:
apple, red, yellow, stem, root, tasty, seed, tree, apple tree, apple tree in my friend’s home, friend, call friend about weekend plans – flash!

Act on its advice
Having listened to your inner mind, the next obvious step is to act on it. I learnt this the hard way: sometimes when stepping out of home I would feel that I’d missed something. But I’d think that I hadn’t and so would ignore this feeling and carry on. Once well on my way outside it would hit me that I’d missed my wallet or cellphone or keys etc. Getting an insight allows you to see things you would otherwise not see, but the more important thing is to act on that insight. If intuition tells you there’s a monster lurking around the corner, what good could it possibly be if you just keep walking straight into its waiting mouth? The key to utilizing intuition is to not allow the flash of insight to fade away or be ignored. When you feel a flash of insight from within, take a moment and act on it.

Plan to your intuition, but not excessively so
So I knew I was going to make a particular score. But what good would it have been if I had not planned to it? Planning to your intuition does not mean you need to suspend your life and focus exclusively on the turn of events this has revealed. Instead, it just means that when you make plans, modify those plans to account for these insights as well. I had already made plans to apply to certain colleges before I got my flash of insight, the insight just made me change my plans so as to include colleges that would be suitable to that particular score. Also, it is essential that you plan for a backup in case your intuition fails you: this prevents you from excessively hoping for and obsessing over the insight. This is especially true when you are not fully confident of your intuitive abilities.

Do not obsess over it
It is great to have the ability to intuit – but it is important not to let this rule your life. Intuition is meant to be a thought that arises naturally from within your subconscious mind. Forcing your mind to artificially focus on a particular thought changes its very nature: it ceases to be an intuition, and instead becomes an obsession. And then, all bets are off. Intuition happens when your mind is allowed to think freely, obsessing over something restricts this freedom significantly. When a flash of insight occurs to you, do not get hooked on to it, simply grasp it and store it for later use. Be aware of it and take corrective action, but still get on with your life. Do not try to game it either – there is no particular plan of action that will give you an intuition, or give you an intuition that will be true for sure. It is just a thought that must arise naturally, and it surely will at the right circumstance.

Track its performance
Some people get an intuition every minute of the day, others’ have hardly ever experienced this phenomenon. Some people’s intuition works all the time, some others’ hardly ever. It is not surprising that there will be large variations person-to-person: after all, intuition is a capacity that resides within the mind, and every mind works differently. Just as with everything else in life, the ability to intuit can also be judged based on performance. The performance of your intuition in the past can predict its performance in the future. In other words, intuition can itself be intuited. Observe what has worked best for you: when do you get your intuitions – when sleeping or when awake, what kind of intuitions do you get – about events or entities, about yourself or about others, how accurate have your intuitions usually been, etc. Tracking the performance of your intuition also gives you the confidence to plan to it: I was earlier very skeptical of this phenomenon, but with time I repeatedly observed that these flashes of insight were almost always exactly accurate.

Follow its evolution
Intuition is a form of instinct, it is a consequence of the process of evolution. And intuition can itself evolve – into conviction. When you repeatedly get an intuition about a particular phenomenon with a large degree of success, it gives you the confidence that that phenomenon will pan out in that particular way every time in the future as well. What this means is that after a certain amount of time you wouldn’t need intuition to tell you that something in particular will happen – you will simply know it for sure.

End note: I think of intuition as both a boon and a bane. A boon because it lets you look ahead and so plan for what is in store, a bane because it frustrates you that you can not change the future even though you can look into it.