How to cultivate the habit of deep thinking?
Yanxuan recommends Zhihu official account Yanxuan column title: “Farewell to Inefficient Effort: Progressive and Effective Learning Method” Speaker: @ Liu yuanyuan UIBE-PKU “Super Speaker” season national champion, graduated from Beijing University of Law, CEO of yuanchuanghua.
Deep thinking has two directions: the first direction is called push-up thinking, and the second direction is called push-down thinking.
If you are wrong, the harder you work, the easier it is to go in the opposite direction.
That’s right! Congratulations! You are closer to the “truth.” When you encounter problems, you will be able to think clearly, save time for detours in advance, and quickly find the right solution.
I believe that many people have the feeling that today, with the development of interconnection and computers, we have fewer and fewer opportunities to think deeply.
Our lives may have been filled with computer games and micro-blog messages, and the ability to think deeply is deteriorating. Some time
ago, I read a very scary chapter called “How your deep thinking ability is destroyed step by step”.
The chapter mentioned that in 1995, the United States held a conference, which brought together more than 500 political and economic elites from around the world, as well as elites like Thatcher and Bush. What
these elites are discussing is “how to deal with globalization.” They all feel that if globalization continues, it will create a serious gap between the rich and the poor, and the wealth of the world will eventually be concentrated in 20%.
But the 80% has become marginal. If they are very dissatisfied and want to fight, what should they do with the 20%?
One of them came up with a method called “put a pacifier on the 80%.”. What are
these pacifiers?
Such as venting industries, more development of gambling, love, and games, so that 80% of the more involved in these venting industries, to vent the excess essence.
There is also a pacifier called the development of the full sex industry, such as watching some star’s lace, family short, so that 80% of the indulgence in these pleasures and comforts, indulgence in these full sex industries, from the loss of progress, but also the loss of deep thinking.
In this way, they will gradually be satisfied with the entertainment information created for them, and will gradually lose the privilege of enthusiastic membership, which has unlocked the salt selection column worth ¥ 99.00. They will not fight or think any more. They will expect the media to think for them, and the media to make judgments for them, and so on.
This strategy is the famous pacifier strategy.
The chapter says: Does the strategy look successful now?
It’s quite successful, because many of them can’t think deeply. Before sharing
the specific method, I would like to share the process with my family, that is, how do our thinking and opinions come into being?
Why do some of them seem to have ideas, opinions and thinking?
Generally speaking, we need to go through four steps to form our opinions. The first step is that when we don’t know anything, when we lack knowledge, information and ability, we have intuition first.
For example, I have an intuition that this is right. I have an intuition that what you said is reasonable, but he doesn’t know why.
So the first step in the formation of our opinions is intuition, which can easily lead to something called bias.
Some have such a bias, if a divorce, the child’s character must be defective, or if in a poorer family, the child will be humble.
These are partial, intuition will produce partial, partial is the intuition to replace, summarize the facts, will bring such a partial result, so after intuition, it is partial.
Your partiality will be challenged one day. If you always think that a child whose family is not sound will be humble and unhappy after he comes out.
Finally, one day, you saw another saying. In the course of your study, you saw a Neo-Confucianist who said, “Children whose families are not sound will be happier later.”.
At this point, you have to debate in your mind, because your mind already has different opinions, and you have to choose which one to believe, and then you begin to have a judgment.
Later, you will see a variety of different points of view in your mind, and gradually you will become afraid to speak, afraid to make a conclusion, and you will become the kind of person who seems not so decisive.
In fact, this is a good thing. It proves that your vision is being opened. You will go from a state of daring to speak and dare to say anything to a state of not daring to speak and being cautious. When you open the
App, you finally accumulate a lot of experience. After reading a lot of opinions, you form a more agreed point of view. At this time, you finally become daring to speak. Relatively speaking,
this point of view will be more balanced and stable, because it has gone through the whole process of thinking, from intuition to bias, to debate, to the final point of view, which will not change for a period of time.
But this point of view is also open, because you have experienced the process of my debate, so you do not exclude that you will change your point of view in the future, and then you will become an intentional and seemingly open person.
The above is the process of opinion formation that I shared with the economist: the first step, intuition, when we don’t know anything, when we don’t understand anything, intuition will lead to bias; then bias will be challenged, and I will argue; finally, we will form an opinion that seems very intentional, but very peaceful.
The next thing I want to share with you is the two directions of deep thinking: the first direction is called push-up thinking, and the second direction is called push-down thinking.
First, what is push-up thinking?
Before talking about this concept, I would like to share a case with my family.
One study found that in the United States, the crime rate is 23%, which means that there are 123 crimes for every 100 crimes.
When you see this sentence, under normal circumstances, what do you think?
You will be affected by this sentence, and you will want to say, “Yes, it’s like this. Their quality is low, their education level is low, they are particularly violent, they like to rob, and they also like to mess with children.”.
In short, you will be affected by this sentence.
The reason I just said is that you have no other point of view, so what is formed in the brain now is the bias brought about by intuition.
Let’s study why the crime rate in the United States?
At this time, we need to change the way of thinking, the way of pushing up. When
we see this sentence, we do not follow it to draw a conclusion. Instead, we push down the sentence “why”, which is tantamount to going up.
Why is that?
Because in the United States, the annual crime rate is younger, more impulsive, more young, and the end result is that there are more criminals.
That is to say, the crime rate is not because he is and, but because of the young crime rate.
We just want to say, “It seems that I have been wronged.”.
At this time, there are actually different points of view colliding in your mind, which have already challenged your bias. You will feel, “It seems that what I just thought was wrong. If I think like this, it is not because of their low quality and their crime rate.”. Open the
App and think about why you are so much younger?
You found that maybe three years ago, there was a big baby boom. I don’t know why, but they loved babies very much during that time.
When you push up step by step, you will find the reasons layer by layer, you will eventually find the source of the problem, understand the problem more deeply, and then you finally form a deep thinking.
So, when we see such cases and news in the future, we can’t be carried by information. Some of such news and information have strong guidance and incitement. The reason why we say that is that we hope you think so.
For example, every time we see the news of a rape case in India, we will want to say that India is in chaos, which causes a sense of panic. This is what the person who wrote the news wants to see.
So we can’t always be led by information to think down, to think up, you have to think about why the rape rate in India is so high?
Then think up, find the source of the problem, and complete the process of deep thinking.
On the contrary, if you are guided by information, your thinking will become more and more superficial, and you will believe everything you see.
The above is the content of push-up thinking.
Push-up thinking is called the cause chain method. The cause chain method requires people to ask why, ask why no more, find out the root cause of the matter, and then draw a conclusion.
The first is called tracing the source and reliability of evidence.
You told me a story today, saying that in the United States, the crime rate is 23%. You said that this is the conclusion of a survey by a psychologist.
At this time, I want to push back, I want to push you to put forward this data, is it true and reliable, so it is easy to form a deeper thinking.
So push up, not just a path, find the reason chain.
Another way is that we look at the source and reliability of the evidence you give. Is the source good or bad, or not? Is
this data reliable or unreliable?
The third path is called tracing the historical process.
Sometimes when we see this idea, it is particularly easy to believe it. Before we believe it, we might as well ask, has it always been like this? Was it any different
in the past?
If we see today that the probability of rape in India is very high, we can ask, has it always been like this in the past?
If there is a difference in history, because of what?
It is also easy for you to find out the root cause and form deep thinking. Since you can look up when you open the
App, there is another direction, that is, to make a flat pair.
For example, don’t tell you today that it is particularly difficult to see a doctor in China. I used to have such a view. Recently, I may have a new view and find that it is even more difficult for foreign countries to see a doctor in China.
This is a path of thinking, that is, when you see the chapter about how difficult it is to see a doctor in China, don’t be guided by him to draw a conclusion. You should either push it up at this time. Is it so difficult to see a doctor in Chinese history?
If the past is easy, why?
You can also push around, only in China to see a doctor like this?
Why is it not difficult for other countries, or it is even more difficult for other countries to see a doctor in China?
At this time, it is easy to form deep thinking.
Above, there are three ways to push up: the first way is to trace back to the chain of reasons, why and then why; the second way is to trace back to the source and reliability of evidence to see whether the evidence provided is accurate or inaccurate; The third way is to trace back to the historical process. Is it like this in the past? We can also look at what happened to other objects.
There is also a way of thinking, which is called pushdown thinking.
What is called pushdown thinking? It’s not what we just said. When you see a message, you are guided and incited by that message to draw a conclusion directly.
In this case, it becomes the kind of thinking that we say can be lower.
For example, recently there are a lot of people calling for limiting the remuneration of stars participating in the real show, saying too much, these participate in a festival, get good tens of millions, equal to 10 scientists.
When you see such a figure, it is very frightening, and you are incited to come to the conclusion that stars should not be allowed to take so much, and that the remuneration of stars should be limited to no more than 5 million.
At this point, let’s think in a push-down way. Let’s think, if we really limit star pay, what will happen?
Stars can only get 5 million, but he is a very flow, many people watch this festival, he is able to bring ratings. After
reading it, they all went to buy things from the merchants, so many people were willing to vote for the festival.
There are so many complainants to vote. Which one should I choose for this festival? He
must choose the one who gives him the most money.
That is to say, this festival group took a lot of money, but did not give these stars, is it cheaper for this festival group?
We thought, “We can’t do this. We should restrict the plaintiff again. We should stipulate that the plaintiff can only invest so much money at most. In this way, the section group can’t make so much money.”.
Who will supervise this process?
Who’s going to help pick the suitor? Will there be any problems in the
process of supervision?
Will there be some people who give money and gifts? There will be some other questions when you open the
App. When you think about it like this, the problem will be complicated and deepened. It is not a process of drawing conclusions and giving bias by intuition.
Then you think: “This is not the case, no restrictions on the star’s income, we should go to collect his taxes, he can take 60 million, but this 60 million, 50 million to the state.”.
If you want to collect heavy taxes from him, what will happen? Have you ever thought about it?
Is it possible that there will be some tax avoidance laws?
Is it possible for stars to sign some yin-yang contracts?
I don’t know which method is better, and I don’t want to discuss what is the right answer with my family. I just want to tell my family that when you go into pushdown thinking, your thinking has begun to deepen. The essence of pushdown thinking is called hypothesis.
You can assume that this is the case, and then deduce what will happen next and what are the problems?
Just now I offered two points to the economists: one, the economists can assume what would happen if the pay of the stars were limited, and the other, what would happen if they were heavily taxed.
In this process, it is possible to produce the answer you want.
If you find that it is better to collect taxes from enterprises than from stars, and it is better to collect taxes from festival groups and so on.
Taxes will also have a series of problems. Do you want to check and see what problems will arise if you always collect heavy taxes like this?
In short, thinking will begin to change from a point to a line, from a line to a shape, from a shape to a ball, and your thinking will become more and more solid and deep.
The above are the two directions of deep thinking shared with the family.
Deep thinking is always important, because when you have a point of view about the world, you have a connection with the world.
This is a great quote I heard recently: Your shortcut to the world is to have perspective.
But I ask, does the family have opinions and opinions? Are
these views and opinions profound and rational enough?
Not necessarily.
The family can see whether it belongs to the 80% or the 20%?
80% of them have lost the ability to think deeply and indulge in entertainment information. Three characteristics of low
thinking ability: First, I especially like listening to stories and reading stories.
App opens the media writing, that is, the public name they usually read, and they like to make up stories most.
Because they know that the less they like to use their brains, the more they like to read stories, the easier they are to be fooled, so they try their best to attract such fans and make up stories on the official account every day.
Reading and listening to stories is a habit raised in childhood. What
we love most is to listen to stories and read stories, but we can’t just read stories and listen to stories, we can’t be filled with stories.
That is to say, when we see something that requires us to think about, it is very important to calm down and think about it.
Not to see a little difficult content, turn over, to see some stories, to fill the emptiness of every day. Can
you still read that kind of deep chapter now?
Or are you immersed in other stories every day?
If you immerse yourself in other people’s stories, it’s likely that 80% of thinking has been destroyed.
The first feature is emotional.
This part of emotion instead of thinking, the first thing to move is emotion, not the brain.
Emotionally, he can say anything, and this part is the easiest to be fooled. When writing,
many people will deliberately incite the reader’s emotions. The emotional ones are the easiest to be incited. As long as the chapter has points that can incite him, such as ethnic feelings, patriotic feelings and so on, he will be deceived. The third characteristic of low
thinking ability is that it is easy to be emotional, and it is not clear between emotion and logic.
Such as this sentence: “Mother must be good for us, so what mother said is right, so listen to mother.”.
This sentence is a serious confusion between emotion and logic. “Mother is good for me and loves me, and I am particularly moved.” This is emotion.
But “because my mother loves me, what she says is right, what she does is not wrong, and I have to listen.” This is logic.
We can’t confuse emotion with logic. Sometimes when two people argue, I get very anxious. One of them says, “I don’t want to say this to you. I say this for your own good.”. There is no logical relationship between
“you are good for me” and “I want to listen to you.” One is about emotion, the other is logic, not a matter. What
you say to me may be wrong, and what you do may hurt me, although you are good for me and have feelings for me.
Further down, the fourth feature is that I especially like to talk about experience.
Experienced, “I used to..” I The part that I like to talk most is also a manifestation of low thinking ability. For example, when you open the
App, you post a micro-blog saying, “All mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law in the world are very difficult to get along with.” One of the following refutes what you say is wrong, saying that getting along with mothers-in-law is particularly good. Today I see that XX XX may have done something not very good, and tomorrow I will conclude: “All XX XX are not good.”.
This is called the individual case to replace the whole, to take a part for the whole, and to proceed from experience, so it is easy to become what I just said.
Don’t say anything, he says I’m not, which is a typical manifestation of low thinking ability.
Further down, the fifth feature is that they like to use assumptions as results.
Some of the words go like this: “China’s economy has begun to decline, so we should not do it now, we should go up and start a business.”. What I said
just now is nonsense, but have you seen it? In life, we often hear such a theory.
Just to give you a hypothetical premise, China has declined, so what should we do. Do you want to listen to what
he said after it is reasonable?
You have to first look at whether his assumptions are correct or not. Many of them regard the assumptions as the result: “China is already like this, so what should we do?”?
Many people like to take the hypothesis as the result and start to deduce other things from the hypothesis, which has not been proved.
So the third manifestation of low thinking ability is to take the hypothesis as the result, and then go down to the sixth characteristic of low thinking ability, the phenomenon instead of the cause.
Give a family to cite an example, one is done very badly, crop is not good, sale is bad also, what is the reason?
You find a reason, because the staff lacks energy and is not active.
The solution is to encourage the staff every day, let them shout every day, beat the chicken for them, and give them awards. After
all these measures, you find that you haven’t changed, even though you seem to be very passionate.
Why is that?
Because what you found is not a cause, it’s just a phenomenon.
Maybe the reason why this is not done well is that the product quality is not good, the sales volume is not good, and the enthusiasm is not good.
Therefore, enthusiasm is not the root cause, it is only a phenomenon, and the root cause is different.
Many times, it is easy for us to take the phenomenon as the cause to solve, which leads to our wrong thinking. It is easy to see. Attention is not lost ~
