Howto Think

How to Think, Norwood, 1
How to Think
Rick Norwood
Introduction
Thinking is what we do best.
We are not as strong as an ox or as fast as a cheetah, but we build machines that are
stronger and faster than any animal.
Many people avoid thinking. They drown out their thoughts with television, they walk
and drive chatting on a cell phone, they eat at restaurants so noisy – well – so noisy that you
can’t hear yourself think.
Any kind of exercise, including mental exercise, is painful when you are out of shape, but
the rewards of mental exercise are great. You feel better, and you feel better about yourself.
When I was in school, it was often said that the whole purpose of education was to teach
you how to think. But recently an educator told me, “I know many educators who are turned off
by the notion that ‘learn how to think’ means something.”
I believe that “learn how to think” does mean something, something important. Many
people tell me they want to learn, and want their children to learn. I have no patience with
educators who pat their students on the head and tell them how special they are. School should
be a place where people learn. Lifelong learning keeps you young.
Conrad Hilton founded the Hilton Hotels. He made more than three hundred million
dollars and he made it by thinking. Here is what he had to say about how studying mathematics
taught him how to think: “For me, at any rate, the ability to formulate quickly, to resolve any
problem into its simplest, clearest form, has been exceedingly useful.”
This book will help you think more clearly, solve problems more effectively, and express
your ideas more persuasively.
[1] Hilton, Conrad, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Volume 44, No. 3,
September 1997, p. 932.

Table of Contents
Chapter One: Hear Yourself Think
Chapter Two: Mind Control
Chapter Three: New Thoughts for Old
Chapter Four: Garbage In, Garbage Out
Chapter Five: Good ideas
Chapter Six: Reading
Chapter Seven: Ask the Next Question
Chapter Eight: Sleep On It
Chapter Nine: Lying, and Other Bad Habits
Chapter Ten: Angry Thoughts
Chapter Eleven: Fallacies
Chapter Twelve: Advanced Thinking
Chapter Thirteen: Changing Your Mind
Chapter Fourteen: Conclusion

Chapter One
Hear Yourself Think
The city of Pompeii, in Italy, lies at the foot of the volcano Mt. Vesuvius. In the year
A.D. 79, Mt. Vesuvius erupted and Pompeii and all its citizens were buried in ash. As a result,
we have today an ancient city preserved from the ravages of time.
In the streets of Pompeii there are deep, parallel grooves, worn by wagon wheels. The
wagons traveled as easily in the grooves as a train does on tracks, but when the driver of the
wagon wanted to turn, he needed help. There were men who loitered on street corners and for a
small fee would lift the wagon out of one set of grooves, turn it, and set it down pointed in
another direction.
This chapter is designed to help you lift your thoughts out of the set of grooves they are
in and turn them in new directions.
First and most important, you must give yourself time to think.
There are good times to think and bad times. Thinking about the problems and worries of
the day just before you try to fall asleep is a bad time – worry keeps you awake. Read a good
book, instead.
Another bad time to think is when you are drunk or stoned. Clear thinking requires a
clear head. You have probably had the experience of being sober and listening to a drunk, so you
know what I mean. You may get interesting ideas when you are “under the influence”, but you
need to evaluate those ideas in the clear light of day.
It is also very hard to think clearly when you are scared or angry. Clear thinking requires
a calm mind. Dealing with angry thoughts is the subject of a later chapter. For right now,
concentrate on ideas that do not make you angry.
A good time to think is while traveling. Turn off the radio or iPod, put away the cell
phone, and turn your mind to a subject that interests you. Listen to the interior monolog in your
head, to the stream of consciousness.
William Shakespeare was one of the first writers to portray in drama what we now call
the stream of consciousness. Hamlet proclaims: “To be or not to be,” and we understand that we
are hearing his thoughts. In Lawrence Olivier’s film version of Hamlet, the famous soliloquy is
done with a voice over, a film technique that suggests that we are hearing what a character is
thinking.
Some people have an interior monolog going on in their heads all the time. Others do
not. An artist friend assures me that when he is painting there are no words in his head, only
pictures. Musicians think music. But rational thinking requires words. Listen to the words in
your head.
Here are some suggestions of things to think about.
Think about your own life. Try to remember things that you did in each decade of your
life. Try not to fall into the trap of thinking about how things might have been if they had been
different. Instead, think about things as they were. What was your life like in that decade?
What made you happy? What made you sad? What did you do? How did you decide to do it?
What thoughts led you to make the decisions you made?
Think about all of the places you have lived. Remember, as clearly as you can, each
room you have lived in.

Think about the most important people in your life. For each person, ask yourself what
that person wants out of life and whether that person is successful in getting what they want.
Think about trips you have taken. Try to remember, as clearly as you can, places you
have visited and people you have met.
Exercise One: Start a journal of your thoughts. Write down the interior monolog in your
head. Record a little of it, as best you can word for word. Write answers to the following
questions. How much time each day do you spend thinking? How often are you consciously
aware of your own thoughts? What subjects you think about most?
The purpose of this exercise is to make you more aware of your own mind and how it
works.
Chapter Two
Mind Control
Chapter One was about finding time to think and about becoming more aware of your
own thoughts. This chapter is about taking control of those thoughts.
Imagine yourself behind the wheel of a car that is out of control. It swerves wildly from
side to side. The motor races, but the car does not go faster. You turn the wheel; the car does
not respond. You push the brake pedal to the floor, but the car does not slow down. It is a
frightening situation to imagine.
Most people are in an even more frightening situation. They are not in control of their
own thoughts. No wonder such people try to avoid thinking. They often imagine that they are
stupid or that there is something wrong with them. They fear that their life is on the wrong track,
or that the world is on the wrong track, and that there is nothing they can do about it.
In most cases – in all cases unless you have a medical condition that affects the brain –
there is nothing wrong with you. The problem is that your schooling did not teach you how to
think. Even worse, as we will see in Chapter Nine, your head has been filled with lies, most of
them from advertising.
There is something you can do about it. You can take control of your own thoughts. You
can learn to break into negative thoughts, and replace them with productive thoughts. All it takes
is practice.
We start with something simple.

Certain thoughts have worn a groove in your mind. Some harmful thoughts may enter
your stream of consciousness repeatedly, but they are hard to get rid of, so instead of starting
with harmful thoughts, we are going to begin by practicing on a thought that is harmless but
useless. This practice will teach you how to recognize and break into thoughts you do not want.
Later, we will tackle the much harder task of breaking into harmful thoughts
Here is an example of how I stopped thinking one minor but useless thought.
For a long time, whenever I sat down to breakfast, I thought of a book I read as a child
called “The Riddle of the Stone Elephant”. There was nothing wrong with these thoughts. There
was nothing right with these thoughts. They were repetitious thoughts. They had worn a groove
in my brain.
Because I listen to my own thoughts, I noticed what I was doing, and decided that I had
better things to think about over breakfast, better books to remember, plans to make for the day
ahead. I decided to clear that particular cobweb out of my mind. I began to break into the
thought as soon as it began. Now, I do not think about that particular book at all – or I didn’t,
until I remembered it as an example of a thought I had gotten rid of. Now I’ll have to get rid of it
all over again!
If you say that this is trivial, you are right. Begin by controlling trivial thoughts. In time,
move on to thoughts that are more difficult to control, but start with something easy. Practice
makes perfect.
Exercise Two: Identify a useless thought that is wearing a groove in your mind. When
you notice that thought beginning, interrupt it. Force yourself to think about something else.
You may not succeed the first time you try. It takes practice. But with practice, you will learn to
clear your mind of a useless thought. That useless thought may never go away entirely, but you
can at least cut it short.

Chapter Three
New Thoughts for Old
Years ago, I took a creative writing class from the novelist Samuel Delany. He gave me
the best advice I ever had on creative thinking. “Reject the first thought, and a better thought
will come.”
It is important to try to stop thinking useless or harmful thoughts, but it is also important
to know that when you break into the trivial thoughts or bad thoughts, better thoughts will
naturally follow.
Try to think a thought you have never thought before. It doesn’t have to be a profound
thought. It can be a silly thought. The goal here is originality.
This may be easy for you, it may be hard. Don’t give up. Keep trying until you succeed.
If you cannot think how to begin, I’ll give an example of a thought I have never thought before,
but after I do, I will need to put some restrictions on your original thought, so don’t read on until
you have given this exercise a try without a hint.
Back already? Here is a thought that I have never thought before. Roller skates make
lousy salad dressing. Now, if you are still trying for an original thought, I am going to put some
restrictions on your original thought, to prevent you from imitating mine. No vehicles, no food.
Keep trying. Don’t give up.
When I was in grade school (this was back in the days when teachers thought that
thinking was important) one of the exercises in the grade school reader was to come up with
similes. I still remember one of them: “Angry as a _______ .” Well, “Angry as a bear,” of
course. But then the book said, “Don’t use ‘bear’!” I can still feel my frustration. I knew “bear”
was the “right answer”, and couldn’t understand why the book didn’t want me to give the right
answer.
The book was trying to teach me to think. Part of good thinking consists in rejecting
clichés and coming up with original ideas. Angry as a honking horn. Angry as an umpire.
Angry as a squeaky rocking chair.
Once you are in the habit of rejecting clichés, your mind will start giving you better ideas.
Exercise Three: There is a game people play on computers using www.google.com. The
challenge is to try to come up with a google search that gets exactly one hit. It is a good exercise
in training your brain to come up with new ideas. It isn’t easy. For example, I just tried “roller
skate salad dressing” and got more than one hundred thousand hits. I did a little better with
“lapidary Sri Lanka kitten” – only 271 hits. I’ve only beaten the game once. I don’t remember
the phrase that did the trick, but it must have been really weird.
Chapter Four
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Charles Babbage, who invented the first mechanical computing machine, wrote, “On two
occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into
the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able to rightly apprehend
the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”
There is an abbreviation used by people who work with computers: GIGO. That stands
for “Garbage in, garbage out”. It is a reminder that the best and most powerful computer in the
world will not give right answers if it is given wrong data.
We open our mouth and words come out. Unless we are preparing to give a speech, we
usually do not think about what we are going to say before we say it. Just as we often allow our
stream of consciousness to run through our mind with little conscious control, so our words flow
from our mouths. Most people, however, watch what they say. They ask themselves, “Am I
repeating myself? Am I talking too much? Am I saying things I shouldn’t?” People who don’t
watch what they say, who just ramble on, we call “motor mouths”, and avoid.
You can learn to watch your own thoughts in the same way you already watch what you
say.
I remember my father telling me a story about a woman whose poodle got wet, so she put
it in the microwave to dry it off. Cooked the poor beast! I listened uncritically, and believed
every word. Only later, when I repeated the story to somebody else, did I realize it was a joke,
and a sexist joke at that.

It is easier to think critically about what you say than it is to think critically about what
you think. As an example of this, you will get more out of this book if you talk it over with a
friend.
Why is it so important to watch what you think? For the same reason that it is important
to watch what you say. If what you are thinking is bad for you, it will do you harm. You need to
recognize certain kinds of ideas as garbage, and stop thinking them.
Many thoughts are pleasant or useful, and some thoughts are unavoidable. But many
people spend time, some a great deal of time, thinking thoughts that are both useless and
unpleasant. Some people make themselves very unhappy in this way.
Learning to break into these negative thoughts can turn your life around. I’m going to
call thoughts that are useless and unpleasant “garbage”. This chapter is about throwing out the
garbage.
I once knew a person who kept everything. Their house was full of garbage. They were
also often depressed. Because the person was a relative of mine, I wanted to help them out, and
rather than give them advice, I went to their house and started throwing out the garbage. I did
not ask them “Do you want to keep this?” Instead I told them, “I’m going to throw out
everything that looks like garbage to me. If I start to throw out something you really want to
keep, just say stop.” Out went all the old newspapers. Out went medicine that was beyond its
expiration date. Out went food that had gone bad. When I was finished, I opened all the
windows, and let in fresh air. It was amazing how much difference throwing out all the garbage
made.
In this chapter, you will learn about three kinds of mental garbage, but I cannot throw this
garbage out for you. You have to do that yourself. If you are working through this book
seriously, then you have already learned, in Chapter Two, how to break into a thought until the
thought goes away. Now, the challenge is to put that ability to work. Many people find this very
hard. For a variety of reasons, they want to hold on to the garbage. But mental garbage is
something you have to get rid of by your own effort. Nobody can do it for you. Take your time,
and don’t become discouraged. This is not something that is going to happen overnight.
The first kind of mental garbage to throw out is negative thoughts about yourself. If you
ever find yourself thinking, “I am stupid,” or “I am ugly,” or “I can’t do anything right,” break
into that thought. Interrupt that thought with a loud, mental no. “I am…NO! But I really am…
NO!” If you do this on a regular basis, better thoughts will come.
But, you may say, “I really am ugly and stupid. I really can’t do anything right.”
No. You are human. Every human being has times when they are ugly and stupid and do
things wrong. It is part of the human condition. And every human being has times when they
are beautiful and smart and do things right. That’s part of the human condition, too. Get over it.
Move on.
How do you recognize mental garbage about yourself? Ask yourself this question. Am I
using this thought to learn about myself, so that I can be a better person? Or is this thought just
making me unhappy? “I am stupid,” is a useless thought. “I am stupid, so I’ll go back to college
or read a good book or be more careful,” is a useful thought. “I am ugly,” is a useless thought.
“I am ugly, so I will pay more attention to my clothes, bathe more often, and smile more often,”
is a useful thought. “I never do anything right,” is a useless thought. “I never do anything right
because I have bad habits and I will get the help I need to change those bad habits,” is a useful
thought.
Here are some of the excuses that people make to continue thinking destructive thoughts.
“I need to keep thinking this thought because I really am ugly.” So what. If you really are ugly,
and you really can’t do anything about it (which is unlikely), then thinking about it makes you
unhappy and accomplishes nothing. Break into this thought.
Another excuse is, “It is my own fault that I am stupid.” So what. If it really is your own
fault, then do something about it, but meanwhile thinking this thought without doing anything
about it makes you unhappy and accomplishes nothing. Break into this thought.
Another excuse is, “It is my mother’s fault that I never do anything right.” So what! You
can’t change your mother and you can’t change the past. The thought makes you unhappy and
accomplishes nothing. Break into this thought.
It will take practice, but you can learn to break into harmful thoughts. When you do,
better thoughts will come.
The second kind of mental garbage to throw out is regret. There is no use crying over
spilt milk. There is no use thinking about it, either. “If only I had… ,” break into this thought.
“How different things would be if… ,” break into this thought.
Many people spend a great deal of time going over the past, and wishing that the past was
different from the way it was. They find a strange satisfaction in becoming soggy with self-pity,
or in daydreaming about how much better things would have been if only their life had been
different. There are few thoughts more useless than these.
Think about the future. Plan how to do better next time. Replace regrets with plans.
One of the most persistent and hurtful kind of mental garbage is thinking about groups of
people as if they were individuals. “All Jews…,” break into this thought. “All Frenchmen…,”
break into this thought. If there is one thing that experience about the world teaches us, it is that
people are not all alike.
I once had someone, a highly-educated person, tell me, “I don’t like Southerners because
they are prejudiced.” This person was indulging his own prejudice against Southerners without
even realizing it.
If you feel yourself bristling at my suggestion that your prejudices are ill-founded,
welcome to the human race. Everybody is prejudiced. The difference is not between people
who are prejudiced and people who aren’t. The difference is between people who embrace their
prejudices and people who try to set them aside and judge individuals as individuals, not as
members of a group.
There is a reason why prejudice has such a bad reputation – and why you naturally look
down on all prejudices except your own. Scientific studies show that the difference between
individuals is much greater than the difference between averages. For example, suppose there is
a small difference between the running ability of the average Scotsman and the average
Irishman. There will be a much greater difference between the fastest Scotsman and the slowest
Scotsman and there will be a similarly great difference between the fastest Irishman and the
slowest Irishman. If you pick someone for your track team based on whether they are from
Scotland or Ireland, your judgment is unreliable.
Why is it so important to try to fight prejudice? Prejudice leads to cruelty, suffering, and
war. But you may respond by saying that your beliefs are not prejudice at all. The people you
hate or distrust really are hateful and untrustworthy. They bring the suffering you inflict on them
down on their own heads. They’re asking for it. And war is the only way to teach them the
lesson they deserve.
So let’s focus on you, and what such thoughts and feelings do to you. If thinking about
certain groups of people – not individuals, now, but groups – makes you angry, then whether or
not that anger is well deserved, anger clouds your thinking. If you honestly want to think more
clearly, you need to at least temporarily set aside your anger. So, take a deep breath and, for just
a little while, try not to think about groups of people you strongly dislike, and think instead about
groups of people that others unjustly dislike. What they are doing is called tribal thinking.
When our ancestors lived in tribes, prejudice was necessary for survival. We needed to
believe that the people in our tribe were braver and stronger and better and more beloved by the
gods than the people in the tribe across the river. While we may know some people in our tribe
who don’t live up to our ideals as much as they should, all of the people in the tribe across the
river are cowardly and weak and wicked and hated by the gods. This kind of tribal thinking can
be very satisfying – as long as you live in a small tribe, and never have to rub elbows with people
from another tribe. But now we live in nations, rather than tribes, and we have to find some way
to get along with the people we run in to every day. A lot of people accomplish this by burying
their anger. They smile and nod and say, “Good day,” but all the while they are seething inside.
It eats away at their insides. It gives them ulcers. It clouds their thinking.
Tribal thinking is common. It is caused by fear of strangers and, unless you can entirely
avoid having any contact with strangers, tribal thinking will make you unhappy. It is often used
by politicians to win your votes, and the kind of politician who stirs up tribal hatred to win votes
is usually a crook. They are really saying, “Pay no attention to the fact that I’m making myself
rich while in public office. All your troubles are really the fault of the tribe across the river.”
Even if you go on believing that everyone in a certain group is bad, I hope you can also
see that you are being used by people, who blame the tribe across the river to cover up their own
wrongdoing.
Nobody completely avoids tribal thinking. Everybody roots for the home-town team.
But ask yourself, “Does tribal thinking make me happy or unhappy?”
In Chapter One, you learned to listen to your own thoughts. In Chapter Two, you
practiced breaking into your thoughts. For practice, you chose some unimportant thought, and
learned to interrupt it. In Chapter Three, you learned that when you reject useless thoughts,
better thoughts will follow.
In this chapter, you learned about three kinds of thoughts that make people unhappy:
negative thoughts about yourself, useless fantasies about the past, and negative thoughts about
entire groups of people. These thoughts are very hard to get rid of. You will never get rid of
them entirely. But they can ruin your life if you don’t fight them.
Exercise Four: Practice breaking into thoughts that make you unhappy. This is hard, but
worth the effort. If you have trouble giving up prejudiced thoughts, pick a little prejudice to start
with. Everybody has them. Maybe you are just a little bit prejudiced against, say, people from
Los Angeles. Every time you find yourself thinking, “Those darn people from L.A., they’re… ,”
break into that thought. Pay attention to what better thought follows.
Chapter Five: Good ideas.
Where do good ideas come from? First, and most important, good ideas come from
careful observation of ourselves and the world around us.
Confucius wrote,
“The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue
throughout the Kingdom, first ordered well their own states.
Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their
families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated
their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first
rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first
sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in
their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge.
Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their
knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their
thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their
hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their
persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their
families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their
states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made
tranquil and happy.”

Notice that at the center of this quotation is “Such extension of knowledge lay in
the investigation of things.” All true knowledge begins in careful observation of
ourselves and the world around us.
But most of the stuff in our heads comes not from observation, but from what we’ve been
told. A lot of it comes from television or the internet. Our head is full of lies, and we need to
learn to break into the lies in order to see things as they are.
Of course, we cannot begin the investigation of the world anew. For thousands of years,
mankind has been painstakingly gathering knowledge about the world, and it would be
impractical to throw out all this knowledge and start over. There are any number of good books
and periodicals that you can read to expand your knowledge beyond what you have actually seen
and done yourself. The trick is to read good books. There are many more bad books than good,
and many best-sellers are really dumb. Large numbers of people fall for dumb ideas. As P. T.
Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”
One example of a best seller about a really dumb idea is “Worlds in Collision”, by
Immanuel Velikovsky. It seems almost a shame to pick on poor old Velikovsky. Published in
1950 and an instant best seller, “Worlds in Collision” claimed that a comet flew out of Jupiter,
wandered past Earth, and then went into orbit around the sun and became the planet Venus. This
is about as likely as the United States of America floating off the ground, wandering past
Australia, and then settling down on top of Mt. Everest. But millions of people believed what
Velikovsky wrote, and many still believe him today.
How can you tell which books are good books and which books are nonsense? It isn’t
easy! But there are a few standard reference works that are reliable guides. They aren’t perfect,
but they are standard, and they are much more likely to be correct that someone’s unsupported
opinion.
Standard reference books include The Encyclopedia Britannica, the Oxford English
Dictionary, and The World Almanac and Book of Facts. Magazines generally considered more
reliable than most: National Geographic, Consumer Reports, and Science News.
“Do the math,” has become a catch phrase in our society. It means, do the hard, accurate
work necessary to find out the right answer. If you don’t do the math yourself, trust those who
do.
I had a friend who believed he had discovered a sure-fire system to win at gambling in
Las Vegas. I don’t remember the system now, but it had something to do with doubling your bet
every time you lost. I pointed out the mathematical flaw in his system, but did he listen? He did
not. He went to Las Vegas and lost a lot of money.
From a hard headed, practical point of view, science and math give right answers.
Engineers use science and math to build airplanes, and the airplanes fly. Most people respect
science – until something comes along that they want to believe in, like an engine that will run
on water. Then, people find it all too easy to toss science out the window in favor of wishful
thinking.
Ignore science at your peril.
The body of knowledge we call science has been painstakingly constructed over
centuries. Every scientific principle has been tested countless times. It is knowledge that has
proved coherent, consistent, and practical. Sometimes scientists have gone down the wrong
path. To give just one example, at first scientists rejected the idea of continental drift. But by its
very nature, science tends to be self-correcting, mistakes tend to be discovered and set right.
And when one scientist goes wrong, it is almost always another scientist who corrects the error,
not someone writing for the popular press. As the American philosopher John Dewey wrote,
“The first distinguishing characteristic of thinking is facing the facts -- inquiry, minute and
extensive scrutinizing, observation." (Reconstruction in Philosophy New York 1920 p 140)
For a comet to turn into the planet Venus is contrary to all scientific knowledge, and yet
millions of people believed Velikovsky.
If you want to hold on to an absurd belief, you must give up all hope of learning to think
clearly. If you want to learn to think clearly, you must give up absurd beliefs. The choice is
yours.
How do you tell if something you read or see on television is science or pseudoscience?
Most of what appears on television is pseudoscience. Very few people in television care about
accuracy. They care about selling you underarm deodorant. If they think an idea will attract a
large number of viewers, they will make a television program about it. Often, they know
perfectly well that they are lying. It is a sad fact that many people will lie when there is money
to be made. Television is worst, but books and newspapers are sometimes just as bad. As Gina
Kolata, a science writer for the New York Times, put it, “Newspapers are not there to educate …
With most things we use – a car, an iPod, a DVD, most of us don’t really care how it works.”
Such an attitude shows no respect for human curiosity. If you have a strong interest in
science, take a course at a college or university. If you just want to keep up with current events
in science and medicine, read Scientific American. If you do care about how things work, read
David Macaulay’s bestselling book, “The New Way Things Work”. And, if you want to check a
fact, try www.nsf.gov, the web page of the National Science Foundation.
Here are a few guidelines for finding out the truth.
First, don’t cancel your subscription because you read something you don’t like. If you
only want to read things you already know, why read at all? You only learn when you encounter
new ideas, and new ideas will often challenge your old ideas. If your old ideas are correct, they
will stand up to the challenge.
Look it up in The World Almanac. If it sounds to you like a very big deal, but it isn’t in
the World Almanac, then it probably either isn’t such a big deal after all or else is a big lie.
In the case of breaking news, try to tune out the commentary and the spin. Use your eyes
and ears. Watch what happens live and listen to what people actually say, not what
commentators say someone said. Read and listen to interviews. Look at photographs.
Since so much of what you see in the media is a lie, this book has a whole chapter,
Chapter Nine, on the subject of lies. This chapter has been a guide to the truth, to a few reliable
sources of information.
Exercise Five: Write down three things that you know about because you were there, and
you saw what happened with your own eyes. Do not fudge. Many people, given this
assignment, exaggerate. Why do that, when nobody will read it but yourself? Then write down
three thinks that you learned from The World Almanac.

Chapter Six
Reading
Where do good ideas come from?
Have you ever read a story aloud? Maybe you’ve read a bedtime story to a child. You
noticed, I’m sure, that it takes much longer to read out loud than to read silently. Speaking takes
longer than reading.
Have you ever tried to write down what someone was saying, while they were saying it?
Unless you know shorthand, you can’t keep up. Writing takes longer than speaking.
In other words, reading silently is faster than reading aloud, and reading aloud is faster
than writing. In fact, reading silently is the fastest thing you do. You can read with the speed of
thought.
Have you ever read the script of a television program? You can read the entire script of a
one-hour TV show in about ten minutes.
The first person that history records who read silently was Julius Caesar. It is said that
his aides were astonished that he could read without moving his lips. Of course, ancient writing
was not designed for quick reading. Thewordswereallruntogetherwithnospacesinbetween. And
evrybodie purty mutch speled eny whay thiey plezed.
Today, with standardized spacing and spelling, the printed word is easy to read, and
speed comes with practice. No one has ever discovered any faster way to input information into
the human brain than reading.
Reading is the best source of good new ideas. Get in the habit of reading at bedtime
instead of falling asleep in front of the television. A half hour of reading will save you from a
half hour of tossing and turning, worrying about the events of the day. It will take you out of
yourself, away from your cares, and into another time or place.
When writers write, they output their stream-of-consciousness onto a page. (Then they
rewrite and rewrite and rewrite, until what they have written is fit to be read.) When you read,
you add their thoughts to your own stream of consciousness and make new pathways in your
mind.
The mind of a person who does not read is like an empty house. A person who does not
read hears nothing but echoes.
Assignment Six: Choose a book you think you will enjoy and read for at least fifteen
minutes before you go to sleep every night. If you would like suggestions, here are three of my
favorite books: “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashell Hammett, “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane
Austin, and “Double Star” by Robert A. Heinlein.

Chapter Seven
Ask the Next Question
Many people are satisfied when they are able to answer a question. One trait of powerful
thinkers is that for them an answer is not the end of thought, but the beginning. They have
developed the habit of mind of always asking the next question. Every answer implies another
question and so we embark on a path of continuous discovery.
J. R. R. Tolkien, in his book “The Hobbit”, wrote, “The road goes ever on and on down
from the door where it began.” So it is with thinking.
Real thinking does not seek final answers. In fact, the idea that we have reached a final
answer is a thought killer. All we can do with a final answer is to wear a groove in our minds
thinking the same thought over and over.
In real thinking, every answer sparks new questions. Is this a good answer? Is there a
better answer? What can I do with this knowledge?
A child begins life with a delight in learning. In the first few years of life, we learn more
than in all the other years put together. When a child begins to learn language, they learn an
average of ten new words a day, day in and day out, from their first birthday until their third
birthday.
A good way to learn is to talk to a child. Listen to the child’s questions, take them
seriously, and try to answer them. It is a humbling experience. The beginning of wisdom is the
realization of how much we do not know.
As a teacher, I always encourage my students to ask any question they can think of. I try
my best to really listen to their questions, and to give the kind of answer that leads to new
questions, rather than the kind of answer that ends discussion and kills thought.
Talking to students who are themselves studying to be teachers, I have learned that
almost every one of them can tell you why they stopped asking questions in class. For some, it
was first grade, for some third grade. But whenever it was, they remember, with emotion still
strong, the teacher who said, “That’s a stupid question.” After that, they stopped asking
questions.
Why would any teacher say that to a child? I can’t imagine. But I can report that it
happens, and happens often. I suppose the teacher is embarrassed at not knowing the answer to
the child’s question, and their embarrassment made them angry, and that they turned their anger
on the child.
But nobody knows everything. Why not admit it? “I don’t know the answer to your
question, but I’ll look it up and get back to you tomorrow.” Isn’t that better than hurting a child
to cover up your own ignorance?
In Chapter One, I encouraged you to set aside time to think. In Chapter Three, I
encouraged you to think new thoughts. In this chapter, I want to encourage you to stay focused
on a single subject for a sustained period of time. Instead of thinking a thought, and being
satisfied with it, I want you to ask the next question.
Many people’s thoughts jump from idea to idea as a butterfly flits from flower to flower.
This is a fine for daydreaming. But critical thinking requires concentration.
Here is an example.
Today, in class, a student asked what I thought of Tesla’s Wardencliff. “Nicola Tesla?” I
asked. “I’ve heard of him, but I’ve never heard of Wardencliff. I’ll have to look it up and get
back to you tomorrow.”
Now, as I write these words, I describe what I am doing and what I am thinking.
I turn to www.google.com first, and type in “Nicola Tesla”. Google, always very
forgiving to those of us who can’t spell, corrects my spelling, and returns more than two million
hits for Nikola Tesla, the first of which identifies him as an inventor, scientist, and engineer.
Now I have an answer to a question I did not know I needed to ask: “How do you spell
Tesla’s first name?”
Following the first link, I discover that Tesla was a Serbian-American. Question: Is he
the most famous scientist Serbia has produced? A picture shows a young man with a penetrating
gaze, a neat mustache, and hair parted down the middle. He looks intelligent. Question: Is
intelligence really a quality you can recognize in a photograph? Question: What is it in the
photograph that shows intelligence? Question: Would I think the person in the photograph
intelligent if I didn’t know beforehand who it was a photograph of?
The article credits Tesla with the invention of radio. I seem to remember Marconi being
credited with that invention. Questions: What was Tesla’s contribution? What was Marconi’s?
Rather than follow that up today (though, “knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted
if I shall ever come back”) I focus on the question my student asked me about Tesla’s
Wardencliff.
Further down the page, I discover a link to “getting to Wardenclyffe”. Not only am I on
the right track, now I know how to spell Wardenclyffe. I follow the link.
I come unexpectedly upon a charming story by Mr. Gerald Harris about searching for
Wardenclyffe, and the many false trails he followed. I make a connection between Mr. Harris’s
search and my own search. I resist the temptation to follow a link that would tell me more about
Mr. Harris, and continue on the track of Wardenclyffe. Questions: What is it? Is it a person,
place, or thing?
It turns out that Mr. Harris never did find Wardenclyffe, or even anyone who knew the
word, or who had ever heard of Tesla, but a link at the bottom of the page leads me on.
Wardenclyffe was the name of Tesla’s laboratory. But that answer produces new
questions. Question: What is it about Wardenclyffe that interests my student? Obviously, just
telling him that Wardenclyffe is the name of Tesla’s laboratory will not be a satisfactory answer
to his question. He probably knows that already. Something about the way he asked the
question suggested that there is some kind of mystery connected with Wardenclyffe. Questions:
Was Tesla a mad scientist? What sort of experiments went on at Wardenclyffe?
I find a picture of Wardenclyffe. It is an old-fashioned, one-story building with a strange
structure that appears to be on the roof. The structure reminds me of the flying saucer in ‘’Close
Encounters of the Third Kind”. Question: Is the structure on the roof or behind the building?
And here I reluctantly set this quest aside. I’ve spent a pleasant hour; I could easily
spend another. But it is time for lunch. I know enough now so that tomorrow I can at least
understand the student’s question.
Assignment Seven: Now it is your turn. Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is
to think of a question, and then to follow it up, not with the goal of finding a final answer, but
rather to practice focusing your thinking on a single topic for an extended period of time and for
practice in asking the next question. If you can’t think of a question, ask a child to suggest a
question for you.

Chapter Eight
Sleep On It
I love to read mystery stories. One of my favorite mystery writers is Ellery Queen. He
writes who-done-its, where the fun for the reader is to try to solve the mystery before Ellery
Queen does. Anthony Boucher, a reviewer for the New York Times, once wrote, “Ellery Queen
is the American detective story.” The Ellery Queen books are all out of print, today. I wonder if
Ellery Queen has gone out of style because thinking has gone out of style.
Last night, before I went to bed, I read a few chapters of the Ellery Queen mystery The
King is Dead, and I woke up this morning with a pretty good idea who-done-it.
Conscious thought, the stream of consciousness, is just the tip of the iceberg. Our brains
are constantly working, even when we are asleep. Scientific studies have shown that students
who get a good night’s sleep before a test make better grades than students who pull an all-
nighter. One important critical thinking skill is to give your unconscious mind a chance to work.
Try to never make an important decision without sleeping on it.
But the unconscious mind needs something to chew on. Without data, the mind races,
like a motor with no traction.
In Chapter Five, I listed some sources for good information. In Chapter Seven, I
discussed how these sources of information should be the beginning of thought, not the end of
thought, and encouraged you to practice sustained thought on one particular subject.
If you want to think deeply about a particular problem, first gather reliable information.
Then ask questions. Reject bad ideas, and good ideas will come. But before you get your best
ideas, you will often need to sleep on the problem.
Beware of thinking too much about the problem when you are falling asleep. That will
just keep you awake. Instead, read a book you enjoy on a subject entirely unrelated to the
problem until you become drowsy, and allow your mind to go over what you just read until you
drift off to sleep. Trust your unconscious mind. It will work on the problem you need to solve
without any effort on your part.
When you wake up the next morning, you will have better ideas than you had the day
before.
Exercise Eight: Follow the advice in the previous paragraphs.

Chapter Nine
Lying and Other Bad Habits
I used to be a terrible liar, but I’ve gotten a lot better at it.
I’m joking, of course. But the funniest jokes are those with an element of truth.
Everybody lies, yet everybody hates being lied to.
The sad fact is that our heads are full of lies. For example, most people watch television,
and every time you watch television you are lied to, over and over again. Most of the lies on
television are really one lie, endlessly repeated. Commercial television exists to get you to
believe this lie: “You must buy our product in order to be happy.”
According to a study published in the February 2002 issue of Scientific American, people
who watch a lot of television become anxious and nervous. They worry that they are not
spending enough time shopping.
A major part of critical thinking is to flag the lies in your head as lies, and avoid as much
as possible allowing those lies to shape your thoughts. In Chapter Two, you practiced breaking
into your own thinking. In Chapter Four, you practiced catching yourself thinking negative
thoughts, and breaking into those. Now, with practice, you should begin to catch yourself when
you think thoughts that you know are not true. Break into those thoughts. No matter how hard
you try, the lies will still be there, but you can work to minimize their influence.
Many lies are very seductive. If I buy a new car, then people will like me. Many people
spend a lot of their time daydreaming about lies like that. But ask yourself, do you like your
next-door neighbor better when he buys a new car? No? Well, people won’t like you any better
because you buy a new car. That’s a lie you learned from television.
Ideas based on lies are bad for you. Remember GIGO? “Garbage In, Garbage Out”.
In addition to lies you hear in the media, there are lies your own mind invents. You hear
yourself saying, “The dog ate my homework.” You don’t have a dog and you didn’t do your
homework. The most insidious lies are the lies you tell yourself.
The worst thing about inventing a lie is that you start to believe it.
I remember as a child waking up on a beautiful day and deciding that I really did not
want to go to school. I told my mother I was sick, and when she put a thermometer in my mouth
and then left the bedroom, I held the thermometer to the light bulb for a few seconds. “You are
running a fever,” Mom said, and so I got to stay home from school. I spent the morning in bed,
feeling miserable, and around lunchtime I actually threw up. I had, you see, forgotten that I
wasn’t really sick. I believed my own lie. And my because I believed my own lie, I really felt
sick
As an adult, I discovered the best way to avoid lying. If you do not want to answer a
personal question, don’t. Just ignore the question. If the person who asked it is boorish enough
to persist, tell them, “Mind your own business.”
The abbreviation MYOB stands for “Mind Your Own Business”, and it is a good slogan
to remember to avoid the kind of lie that diminishes your own opinion of yourself. If you don’t
want to be quite that blunt, say, “I’ll forgive you for asking such a personal question if you
forgive me for not answering.” But best of all is just to ignore a question that you don’t want to
answer. Most people won’t push. Never volunteer a lie. People will respect you if you do not
talk too much and if, in so far as it is possible, you tell the truth.
Exaggeration is a kind of lie. “You never do your homework!” If you tell a child that,
you discourage them from trying. People exaggerate in order to attract attention. It’s like
shouting. And yet, clear thinking is judicious thinking. People will respect you if you are
moderate in what you say, stick to the facts, and do not exaggerate in an attempt to emphasize,
persuade, or attract attention. You are much more likely to bring someone over to your point of
view if you state facts as you understand them, calmly, giving your sources, acknowledging
other points of view, and if you listen respectfully.
It is easy to exaggerate in our thoughts, and many people find satisfaction in that kind of
thinking. “My next-door neighbor is the worst person in the world. He always borrows things
and never returns them. He is the most boring person alive.” It is possible to entertain yourself
for long stretches at a time thinking bad thoughts about your neighbor. But this is not clear
thinking. It wears grooves in your head that are very hard to get out. Better to break into
exaggerated thoughts, and wait for more level-headed thoughts to come.
In politics the lies fly thick and fast. As a popular joke has it, “How do you tell when a
politician is lying? His lips move.”
And yet, we demand that our politicians lie to us. Who would vote for a politician who
told the truth? The truth is that politicians are human beings. They don’t have all the answers.
They make mistakes. They don’t always love mom and apple pie. Sometimes they try to do
what is right, sometimes they do what they feel like doing, sometimes they do what other people
tell them to do. All of those statements are the truth – but would you vote for someone who
admitted as much?
The best way to avoid spin is to look at a person’s record of achievement. Judge people
by what they do. To a lesser extent, listen to what a person says, always keeping in mind that
public figures have their speeches written for them. And don’t pay any attention at all to what a
person’s enemies say about him. Remember what Mark Twain said about the donkey.
There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be
destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless.
Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is
the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule
has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called
an ass, we are left in doubt.
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson
Here are five good ways to separate lies from truth.
1) Was you there, Charlie?
When someone makes a claim, or you hear a claim, about an event that took place in
private, a very reasonable question is, “How do you know?” In fact, “How do you know?” is
always a good question. But it is particularly apt when someone claims knowledge of events that
took place behind closed doors. Bloggers, for example, often claim to be privy to the private
conversations of famous people. Was you there, Charlie?

2) Avoid mind reading.
Have you ever been told, “I know he is only doing that because … .” As every husband
knows, as every wife knows, as every close friend knows, the motives of people, even the people
we know best, are often inscrutable. It is hard enough to understand ourselves. Considering how
often we are wrong about the motives of people we know, it is safe to dismiss anyone who
claims certain knowledge of the motives of strangers.
3) Secrets.
People love to hear about conspiracies. The novelist Larry Niven gave a very good
description of what paranoid thinking feels like. It feels as if suddenly your thinking is clearer
than it ever was before. Before the onset of paranoia, the world was a complex and confusing
place. But now you realize that it is all one big conspiracy, and everything is so clear that you
wonder how you could have failed to see it before.
The trouble with conspiracy theories is that people are lousy at keeping secrets.
Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” Any conspiracy
theory that requires more than a very small number of people to keep a secret for more than a
very short time can be dismissed out of hand.
I’ll give you an example. The CIA is supposed to be expert at keeping secrets. That’s
their job. In the early 1970’s, the CIA worked secretly to undermine the elected president of
Chile, Salvador Allende. This was a top-secret CIA operation.
At the time, I was at the University of New Orleans. I had no inside information. I had
no high-level contacts. And yet, within days of the death of Allende, the campus was filled with
stories of the CIA involvement in Chile. Many of the stories were wildly inaccurate, but the CIA
certainly was unable to keep its involvement secret.
Are you asked to believe that more than three people can keep a secret? Fuggedaboutit!
4) Power.
A similar situation arises when someone blames all the troubles of the world on one
person or one group of people. One reason that prejudice is so popular is that everybody looks
for somebody to blame. It is an easy way to explain complicated events.
The truth is that the world is a large and scary place, and the most powerful person in the
world, the most powerful group of people in the world, have very limited power.
Have you ever heard the story of King Canute? Canute the Great was king of England in
the Eleventh Century. According to legend, a flattering courtier told him that he was so great
even the sea itself would obey his commands. To demonstrate how foolish this was, Canute
went down to the sea and commanded the incoming tide to turn back. Needless to say, the tide
paid no attention to the command of the king.
No power on earth can command the tide, or have more than a small effect on the great
tide of history.
5) Prejudice.
I have already discussed prejudice in Chapter Four, but it is so common, so hard to avoid,
so tempting, and so harmful that it is worth mentioning again. From reading the news, I suspect
that more than half of the avoidable human suffering in the world is caused by prejudice of one
kind or another. Prejudice is the belief that everyone in a group is alike. We all know from
experience that people are individuals, and that people in any group differ greatly from one
another, and yet every single one of us is prejudiced to a greater or lesser degree. Prejudice is a
kind of mental laziness that gets in the way of the real and important skill of judging character.
In the news today is a story about someone who murdered a Nun because he was angry at the
Pope. All Catholics are alike. That’s prejudice.
Prejudice harks back to that prehistoric time when we all lived in the jungle, and it was
our tribe against every other tribe. We had to be prejudiced in favor of our tribe, and prejudiced
against the tribe on the other side of the river, because we lived in a state of constant warfare.
Our survival depended on hate.
But, over time, people learned to come together, and live in larger groups. If you look at
the root of the word “civilized”, “civilized” just means “citified”, from the Greek “civis” or
“city”. Living in a city means living with people who are from the tribe on the other side of the
river. It means overcoming prejudice.
Prejudice makes it impossible to think clearly.
We can’t eliminate prejudice, but we can control it. If we could not, we would still be
living in the jungle.
Practice telling the truth. Practice breaking into your thoughts when you catch yourself
thinking something you know is not true.
Exercise Nine: Identify one each of the following kinds of lies: 1) A lie you heard on
television. 2) A lie you told. 3) A lie in the form of exaggeration. 4) A lie that depends of
knowing what went on behind closed doors. 5) A lie that depends on knowing what another
person is thinking. 6) A lie that depends on a large number of people keeping a secret. 7) A lie
that depends on a person or group of people having an unrealistic amount of power. 8) A lie
based on the idea that everyone in a large group of people is alike.

Chapter Ten
Angry Thoughts
According to Frank Herbert’s novel, “Dune”, “Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little
death.”
Knowledge is the enemy of fear. Even if you are in a dangerous situation, you are less
afraid if you know what is happening. Even if you are safe, you will be afraid if you uncertain
about what is happening.
When I was a small child, I made friends with an old woman sitting on her front porch in
a rocking chair. She said with a sigh, “I had a heap o’ troubles in my life, a heap o’ troubles.
Most of them never happened.”
In the last chapter, I mentioned an article in Scientific American on the effects of
watching television. One of the things that the scientists discovered is that people who watch a
lot of television are afraid much of the time.
Wouldn’t you be, subjected to vivid images of all the disasters in the world? We see so
much suffering and death. We imagine these things happening to us and to the people we love.
We forget that there are more than six billion people in the world. (I looked that up in The
World Almanac.) The chances that these disasters will happen to us, personally, are slim to
nonexistent.
(If it sounds like I’m down on television, I’m not. I love television. I am down on too
much television, particularly for children.)
I mention fear because fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and hate clouds our
thinking.
In fact, any emotion that agitates us, love and hate alike, causes us to think less clearly.
What does that old song say? “When your heart’s on fire, you must realize, smoke gets in your
eyes.”
Everyone values emotion. Emotion is what gives life meaning. But you should value
clear thinking, too. Many people value emotion more than they value clear thinking. Neal
Diamond, in a popular song, wrote, “I put my heart above my head.”
People who think that you need to choose between emotion and reason are wrong.
Everyone feels emotions. You will get angry from time to time, whether you want to or not.
You will fall in love. Just recognize that when you are in the grip of strong emotion, you cannot
think clearly. Before you act on your emotion, get a good night’s sleep.
You want what you want. That’s your heart.
But to get what you want, use your head.
Don’t put your heart above your head. Learn to use your head to achieve your heart’s
desire.
When we think clearly, we are usually happy and calm. In fact, a good test of whether or
not you are thinking clearly is whether or not you feel good. If you do not feel good, it is
probably time to put thinking aside. Get some exercise. Get a good night’s sleep. One of my
favorite Far Side cartoons is the one where the student says, “Please, Professor, may I leave the
class? My head is full.”
I don’t meet many people who think too much, but I do meet people who don’t know
when to set thinking aside, and relax a little.

Exercise Ten: Think about something that makes you angry. Then find some activity that
allows you to forget about that anger. See how much better you feel?
Chapter Eleven
Fallacies
You may ask, how do I tell when my thinking is going astray? How do I know which
thoughts to follow, which to break into, which to sleep on?
In Chapter Four, I gave three examples of mental garbage. In Chapter Nine, I gave five
ways to spot a lie. In this chapter, I tell you seven common patterns of bad thinking.
Many keen observers of human nature have noticed patterns of bad thinking, bad habits
that all of us fall prey to from time to time. A defective way of thinking is called a fallacy.
Some of these fallacies have been given Latin names, which I’ll mention in passing, though of
course giving something a Latin name doesn’t make it any better or any worse.
Here are seven of the most common fallacies.
1) The most famous fallacy goes by the Latin name of ad hominem. It attempts to shift
your attention from an idea to a person. It is the way most politicians and most advertisers try to
persuade people. It appeals to emotion and prejudice and ignores reason.
How often have you found yourself buying a particular brand name because a famous and
attractive movie star appears in a commercial for that brand? Probably more often than you
would like to admit. You know, when you think about it, that the movie star is being paid to
promote that product. They may not even use the product in real life, and even if they do they
don’t know any more about the product than you do. But the association of the product with a
famous face acts on your subconscious mind and causes your hand to reach out for that brand
and not the brand next to it. You would do better to check the ingredients or the price.
The negative version of this fallacy is often used in politics. Suppose, by way of an
example, that in the upcoming local election there is a referendum for a school construction
bond. Logical arguments for or against the bond issue might involve the need for a new school
or questions about whether the community can afford the new school. In most cases, however,
the people in favor of the bond issue will try to associate their position with someone who is
attractive and appealing, a fresh, young teacher or a happy child. And the people who oppose the
bond issue will try to associate the bond with people who are unattractive or easy to dislike,
spendthrift politicians or teachers who wear thick glasses. Often, such ad hominem attacks
include unspoken racism. In a community where Whites are a majority, an advertisement
attacking the school bond might show a Black teacher, with a voice-over saying, “Do we really
need this kind of school in our community?” Nobody connected with the negative ad ever
mentioned the issue of race, but the implication works on the mind of the viewer, either
consciously or subconsciously.
You can try to control for ad hominem influences, but it is best to watch as few
commercials as possible. Turn off the sound and wash a few dishes.
2) Another fallacy with a famous Latin name is post hoc, ergo propter hoc. It is the
mode of argument that suggests that because one thing followed another, one must have been
caused by the other.
For example, many people, when they experience good luck, look back for something
that happened to them and credit that with causing the good luck. I won the horse race because I
stroked my lucky rabbit’s foot just before I placed my bet. This person chooses not to think
about all the times he stroked his lucky rabbit’s foot and lost.
Cause and effect must be reliable and repeatable. Drunk driving causes accidents. This
conclusion does not follow because of one case in which a driver drank six beers and then had a
wreck. Rather, the conclusion follows from a large amount of data, and from an understanding
of the effect drinking has on our reflexes.
Clear thinking requires a stronger link than coincidence to draw a conclusion of cause
and effect.
3) Attacks on the person making an argument are common, and are called name-calling.
In politics, name-calling is often the order of the day. It is a sad fact that people are more apt to
vote against a candidate they hate than they are to vote for a candidate they like. Thus, in every
election, we are subjected to a torrent of name-calling. Smith is a weakling. Jones is an idiot.
These attack ads have been devastatingly effective, to the point where most people don’t
trust any politicians. If you believe the attack ads, they are all a pack of crooks. This is bad for
the nation. Knowing the bad reputation politicians have, good people avoid politics because they
do not want their names dragged through the mud. People do not vote, because they do not care
which crook picks their pocket. But a nation needs good leaders.
Avoid listening to attack ads as much as possible. Instead, look for interviews with the
candidates, and try to judge their character based on their record, not on what the other party says
about them.
4) One of the worst forms of irrational argument is the straw man. This consists of
putting words into another person’s mouth.
For example, the question of whether or not the town needs a new fire station is raised.
There are two sides to the question. Jane thinks the old fire station is just fine. It has done the
job for years, and is in good repair. John says that the equipment is outdated, that the building
has termites, and that a new fire station will save money in the long run. Both of these points of
view are reasonable, and the facts can be checked.
But in the heat of a town meeting, John is afraid to trust in facts and reason, and so he
loudly proclaims, “Jane wants your house to burn down.” Of course, Jane wants no such thing.
The idea of Jane wanting your house to burn down is a straw man, put up by John in an attempt
to discredit Jane.
This is another good reason to ignore what an advertiser says about his product and what
a politician says about his opponent. For objective information about a product, consult
Consumer Reports. For objective information about a politician, look at their record. Political
contests are not reasoned debate. Both sides will do whatever it takes to win and, sad to say,
mud-slinging often wins elections. When attack ads are effective, bad people get elected to
public office. Why on earth would you believe anything a politician says about his opponent? It
is not his opponent the politician is describing, it’s a straw man.
5) Black and white thinking is an all-too-common fallacy. Another name for it is the all
or nothing fallacy.
Let’s return to the example of a town that may need a new fire station. The parties in a
debate tend to become polarized. Jane really hates the idea of the town spending all that money,
and so she refuses to even look at any of the defects in the old fire station. She reaches the point
where any change in the fire station feels like an attack on her personally. John, on the other
hand, pictures houses burning and children dying, all because of the lack of a new fire station.
He refuses to look at any of the good qualities of the old station, or even to consider the costs
involved. He reaches the point where any objection to a new station feels like a personal attack.
All of us fall into habits that involve black and white thinking from time to time, and this
kind of thinking is particularly hard to become aware of and to break into.
Clear thinking requires that a person face reality and not become so personally involved.
You know you are deep into black and white thinking when you become angry every time you
hear an argument on the other side of the issue. It is time to take a deep breath, step back, count
to ten, and try to look at the good and bad points on both sides. There are almost always good
points on both sides of any argument. Your black and white thinking leads you to believe that
half of the people in your community are totally in the right and half totally in the wrong. How
likely is that?
Often, the best answer is a compromise. It may be that the old building is sound, but that
some new equipment is needed. Listen to what the firemen say. Get some reliable estimates of
the costs involved. See if there isn’t a compromise that is acceptable to both sides.
Try to avoid black and white thinking. And also try to avoid public debates that are
framed in terms of black and white thinking. Television, in particular, loves to feature two
people shouting at each other. Change the channel.

6) Story thinking replaces rational thought with a story. Most people support their
thinking with stories.
In the example of the fire station, the story that keeps running through Jane’s mind is a
childhood memory of climbing in the big oak tree outside the old fire station. If a new fire
station is built, that old oak tree may be cut down. She tells herself that she is looking at the
facts, but it is really the story of the child playing in the branches of a tree that influences her
opinion. John, on the other hand, has a vivid imagination, and keeps telling himself a story in
which his own house is on fire. In his story, a shiny new fire truck rushes to the rescue, and he
and his family are saved. He tells himself that he is looking at the facts, but it is really the story
of his family saved from fire that influences his opinion.
Story thinking is very common, because it is more fun than facing facts. But it does not
help you to make a rational decision. Story thinking can be used to support any side of any
question. Facts are more reliable.
7) Finally, sarcasm is worth a mention. Like story thinking, sarcasm can be used to
support any side of any question. “Oh, you really believe that two and two is four? Sure it is.
You go right on believing that.” When a person resorts to sarcasm, you know their argument is
weak.
Exercise Eleven: In the newspapers or on television, find examples of ad hominem, post
hoc, ergo proper hoc, name calling, straw man, black and white thinking, story telling, and
sarcasm. Write them down in your notebook.

Chapter Twelve
Advanced Thinking
There is a mathematics of logical thinking, first written down by the Greek philosopher
Aristotle. The good news is that you don’t need mathematics to think clearly. In fact,
mathematical logic just allows us to do in symbols, or on a computer, what our brains do
naturally.
However, if you want to become really good at thinking, you should know a few of the
basic facts of mathematical logic.
The following sentences say the same thing in many different ways.
Kittens purr.
All kittens purr.
If it is a kitten, then it purrs.
If it does not purr, it is not a kitten.
It is a kitten only if it purrs.
No kitten fails to purr.
It purrs, if it is a kitten.
Either it purrs or it is not a kitten.
Either it is not a kitten or it purrs.
The mental gymnastics needed to change from one form to another is one mark of a good
public speaker. It allows a speaker to vary the rhythm of her remarks, to shift emphasis from one
part of a sentence to another, and to avoid accidentally saying the opposite of what she means.
Here are three examples of the laws of mathematical logic. I give these examples using
words rather than mathematical symbols. The mathematical symbols are fun and are not that
hard to learn, but words are more widely understood – even though explanations using words
tend to be – well – wordy.
1) One of the most important laws of logic is the law of the contrapositive. To help you
understand the law of the contrapositive, I need to introduce a few new words.
An “if…then…” statement is called an implication. One example of an implication is “If
it is a kitten, then it purrs.”
The part of the implication modified by the word “if” is called the hypothesis. In this
example, the hypothesis is “It is a kitten.” We are not claiming that the animal is a kitten. We
are just entertaining the hypothesis that it may be a kitten. That is why we introduce the
hypothesis with the word “if”.
The part of the implication modified by the word “then” is called the conclusion. In this
example, the conclusion is, “It purrs.” We are not claiming that the animal does purr. We are
only claiming that if it is a kitten, then it purrs.
The word “then” is often omitted, since the word “if” is enough to let us know that we are
dealing with an implication. Thus, we can say “If it is a kitten, it purrs,” omitting the word
“then”. (Whether we use the word “then” or not, a comma is required between the hypothesis
and the conclusion.)

The law of the contrapositive says that if you move the word “if” from the hypothesis to
the conclusion, you must negate both the hypothesis and the conclusion. For example, “If it is a
kitten, then it purrs,” says the same thing as its contrapositive, “It is not a kitten, if it does not
purr.”
We make an error, if we move the modifier “if” from the hypothesis to the conclusion
without negating both, or if we negate one part but not the other part.
2) The word “or” has two meanings. If we say, “You must eat your spinach or your
green beans,” we clearly intend that the child may eat both. This is the inclusive or. It means
one or the other or both
On the other hand, if we say, “You can have the prize behind door number one or the
prize behind door number two,” you can’t have both. This is the exclusive or. It means one or
the other but not both.
Usually, it is clear from context which meaning of “or” is intended, but if it is not clear,
you need to make it clear.
One law of mathematical logic, which uses the inclusive “or”, meaning one or the other
or both, is this: “One thing implies another” means the same thing as “The first thing is false or
the second thing is true.” For example, “If it is a kitten, then it purrs,” means the same thing as
“This is not a kitten or it purrs.”
3) Another example of a mathematical law of logic is the law of the negation of
quantifiers. There are three quantifiers, “all”, “some”, and “none”. The word “some”, like the
word “or”, has two meanings. Clear thinking requires that we recognize this, and be careful to
make clear which meaning we intend. If we say, “Some of you will pass this course,” clearly we
mean that some or all will pass. On the other hand, if we say, “I will pay some of what I owe
you,” clearly we mean some, not all.
If we use “some” to mean “some or all”, then the law of the negation of quantifiers says
that if we move the word “not” across the quantifier “all”, it changes to “some”. And if we move
the word “not” across the quantifier “some”, it changes to “all”. For example, “Not all birds
fly,” means the same thing as “Some birds do not fly.” And “It is not true that some snakes have
legs,” means the same thing as “All snakes do not have legs.”
Very few people know about these laws of logic.
Exercise Twelve: How many different ways can you say, “If it is a dog, then it barks.”
Chapter Thirteen
Changing Your Mind
Changing the way you think is hard, and this is a good thing. If there were not a certain
consistency to the way we think, we would be fickle, shifting our ideas with every passing
breeze.
This stubborn persistence of patterns of thought has a down side. It makes it very hard
for us to stop self-destructive thoughts, to adapt to change, and to learn new things.
In Chapter One, we saw one way in which our thoughts are hard to change. They tend to
run in the same groove. We tend to think the same things over and over. In Chapter Two, we
practiced breaking out of this rut.
There is another habit of mind that makes it very hard to think clearly. It is called
confirmation bias. Because our minds need to resist change, to keep from changing too easily
and too often, we tend to seize upon any idea that tells us that it is ok for us to go on thinking in
the same old way. We have a strong tendency to reject any information or argument that might
cause us to think differently. This makes it hard for us to hear new ideas.
Everyone does it. Just the other day, I caught my eyes wandering away from a paragraph
in a newspaper I was reading, because it was telling me something I did not want to hear. I
forced myself to go back and read the paragraph carefully, and then stop and think and consider
whether this information was reliable and whether I needed to rethink my opinion. I find it much
easier to read something I agree with than to read something I disagree with. The trouble is, if I
only read what I already believe, I can’t learn anything new.

Half the battle in becoming a clear and effective thinker is to force yourself to be open to
new ideas. Some new ideas will seem good to you, other new ideas you will reject. The
important thing is, first to understand the new idea; second to take time to consider the new idea;
and third to understand yourself well enough to know why you want to accept or reject the new
idea.
All of us know old people who have nothing good to say about the modern world or the
younger generation. You don’t want to end up like that!
For all the faults of the modern world, today we live longer, we have greater freedom,
and we have greater wealth than ever before. We have access to more and better information and
to more and better entertainment, and we have more opportunities to make what we want of our
lives. What a shame it would be to waste those opportunities because our thoughts are in a rut.
Exercise Thirteen: Find a new idea, write it down, and then write down reasons for
accepting it and also reasons for rejecting it.

Chapter Fourteen
Conclusion
Here is a short summary of what you have learned.
People who think clearly set aside time to think.
People who think clearly pay attention to their own thoughts.
People who think clearly recognize self-destructive thoughts, and interrupt such thoughts.
People who think clearly recognize when they think things contrary to fact.
People who think clearly avoid making decisions when they are angry.
People who think clearly sleep on an important decision.
People who think clearly seek out reliable information.
People who think clearly avoid lies and, as much as possible, avoid lying.
People who think clearly recognize the difference between valid reasoning and fallacy.
People who think clearly are aware of confirmation bias, and try to allow for it.
People who think clearly keep their minds open to new ideas.
We recognize and admire a person who thinks clearly. They speak calmly, stick to the
point, do not exaggerate or indulge in sarcasm, and when they have nothing to say, they listen.
We recognize when we are thinking clearly because we feel calm and comfortable with
our own thoughts. We feel good about ourselves and about other people.
Perhaps most important of all, people who think clearly understand themselves, and know
what they want.

Changing the way we think requires a lifetime of effort. Tell the truth as often as you
can, especially to yourself. Be honest with yourself about your own strengths and weaknesses.
Remember things you have done that you are proud of and avoid dwelling on things you regret.
Learn from your mistakes. Do your best to understand the ideas that helped form your character.
Will thinking clearly help you get what you want out of life? That depends on what you
want. Thinking clearly will help you to focus on your goals. Thinking clearly will also help you
accept the fact that nobody gets everything they want.
Will thinking clearly help you be rich or happy? Yes, but not necessarily both.
Do you want to be a millionaire? That’s easy. Get the best education you can. Get the
job that pays the most money and offers the best medical plan. Find a mate who will support you
in your effort to make money. Invest your savings wisely, never gamble, avoid addictions, and
don’t spend a penny unless you absolutely have to. In about twenty years, you’ll have your
million.
On the other hand, if you want to be happy, find a mate you enjoy talking to, who enjoys
talking to you. Find a job you enjoy doing and are good at. Get the best health insurance you
can afford. Avoid addictions. Floss.
But suppose you want something that is really hard to get. Will clear thinking help you
get it? Yes, it will help. But some things require more than just clear thinking.
Suppose, for example, that you want to be fabulously wealthy and world famous. For
that you need three things. First, you need to spend all of your time working as hard as you can
toward your goal. Second, you need one of the following: talent, spectacular looks, rich and
famous parents, or genius. Third, you need luck. That is a hard truth. Most of the people who
spend all of their time working as hard as they can, and who have all the talent, looks, family,
and genius anyone could ask for, do not become fabulously wealthy and world famous. In other
words, if what you really want is to become fabulously wealthy and world famous, you need to
give it your all, knowing you will probably fail. If you don’t try, you will certainly fail.
Most people settle for being happy.
Exercise Fourteen: Think!

Howto Think

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Howto Think

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

How to Think, Norwood, 1

Thinking is what we do best.

stronger and faster than any animal.

can’t hear yourself think.

by the notion that ‘learn how to think’ means something.”

be a place where people learn. Lifelong learning keeps you young.

your ideas more persuasively.

September 1997, p. 932.

Chapter One: Hear Yourself Think

Chapter Two: Mind Control

Chapter Three: New Thoughts for Old

Chapter Four: Garbage In, Garbage Out

Chapter Five: Good ideas

Chapter Six: Reading

Chapter Seven: Ask the Next Question

Chapter Eight: Sleep On It

Chapter Nine: Lying, and Other Bad Habits

Chapter Ten: Angry Thoughts

Chapter Eleven: Fallacies

Chapter Twelve: Advanced Thinking

Chapter Thirteen: Changing Your Mind

Chapter Fourteen: Conclusion

Hear Yourself Think

we have today an ancient city preserved from the ravages of time.

in and turn them in new directions.

need to evaluate those ideas in the clear light of day.

concentrate on ideas that do not make you angry.

head, to the stream of consciousness.

Here are some suggestions of things to think about.

What thoughts led you to make the decisions you made?

room you have lived in.

have visited and people you have met.

own thoughts. This chapter is about taking control of those thoughts.

frightening situation to imagine.

them from advertising.

We start with something simple.

all over again!

can at least cut it short.

New Thoughts for Old

thought. It can be a silly thought. The goal here is originality.

you have given this exercise a try without a hint.

Keep trying. Don’t give up.

Angry as a squeaky rocking chair.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”

world will not give right answers if it is given wrong data.

and a sexist joke at that.

recognize certain kinds of ideas as garbage, and stop thinking them.

unpleasant. Some people make themselves very unhappy in this way.

NO!” If you do this on a regular basis, better thoughts will come.

making me unhappy? “I am stupid,” is a useless thought. “I am stupid, so I’ll go back to college

unhappy and accomplishes nothing. Break into this thought.

accomplishes nothing. Break into this thought.

better thoughts will come.

“How different things would be if… ,” break into this thought.

different. There are few thoughts more useless than these.

people are not all alike.

even realizing it.

Scotland or Ireland, your judgment is unreliable.

lesson they deserve.

But ask yourself, “Does tribal thinking make me happy or unhappy?”

better thoughts will follow.

Chapter Five: Good ideas.