Hello everyone and welcome to Improve your thinking. I’m your host Kevin Browne and today I want to talk a little about problem solving.
Problem-solving is one of those skills that are in high demand. Many employers rate it as one of the most important traits they look for in prospective employees. It is also usually listed as an important learning outcome in many of the classes you take in college including math classes and psychology classes. But, it is often not taught at all or very well. One reason why this is the case is because of confusion relating to what kinds of problems are being solved. It is often assumed that by practicing any kind of problem for which you don't have an answer you will learn the skills appropriate to solve any problem. But, this is simply not true. Since there are different types of problems learning how to solve one type won't necessarily help you build the skills you need to solve the other type. So, let's begin by distinguishing two types of problems: puzzles and mysteries. In his book Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It, Ian Leslie defines these two types of problems very well: puzzles and mysteries. "Puzzles have definite answers. Puzzles are orderly; they have a beginning and an end. Once the missing information is found, it's not a puzzle anymore." Most of the problems you encounter in your college math courses are in reality puzzles. They have definite answers and are orderly. Also, the information you need to solve them is right there in the question! And, if you need extra help you can just turn back to the chapter in the text which discusses how to solve these particular types of problems. Many "logic puzzle" questions are (obviously) also just puzzles. While they seem more complex in reality they are the same as your math problems. They have definite answers and are orderly. Here are a couple of examples: You have eight billiard balls. One of them is "defective," meaning that it weighs more than the others. How do you tell, using a balance, which ball is defective in two weighings? You have five jars of pills. All the pills in one jar only are "contaminated." The only way to tell which pills are contaminated is by weight. A regular pill weighs 10 grams; a contaminated pill is 9 grams. You are given a scale and allowed to make just one measurement with it. How do you tell which jar is contaminated? Another important characteristic of puzzles is that you can quite often Google the answer for them! Go ahead try and figure these two out and if you have trouble just Google the answer. Now, here's the question. Are these kinds of problems "real?" In other words, are these the kinds of problems you're likely to run into in your everyday life? Are they the kinds of problems you will run into at work? I doubt it. Another question then: Is learning how to solve these kinds of problems a good preparation for learning to face real-world problems? Again, I doubt it. So, the second type of problem Leslie defines is mysteries. "Mysteries are murkier; less neat. They pose questions that can't be answered definitively because the answers often depend on a highly complex and interrelated set of factors, both known and unknown." In other words, the exact kind of problems you're likely to run into in real life and at work. So, how do you solve a mystery? Well, if you've understood the distinction between puzzles and mysteries you can probably guess what I'm about to say. There's no easy method that works for all mysteries. Their very ambiguity and lack of clarity ensure that this is so. But, there are things you can do to improve your ability to solve these kinds of problems. Here are a few steps to take. 1. Practice solving mysteries. Like any other skill the more you practice solving these kinds of problems the better you will become at solving them. And, it should be easy to find such problems as they crop up in everyday life all of the time. Here are some possible examples: [A] How can I achieve a better balance between all my responsibilities including work, school, and family? [B] How can I save more money for retirement or other future expenses than I'm currently saving? [C] How can I find a career that will allow me to earn enough money to support myself and my family and also allow me to grow and build my skills and talents? I know what you're thinking. Sure, these are real-world problems and I've even faced some of them but how can I build the skills I need to solve these problems before taking these problems on? It does no good to practice these very difficult problems. So, to prepare for solving these kinds of problems here are some other potentially helpful steps. 2. Learn as much as you can about as many topics as you can. Solving mysteries often involves drawing on knowledge from a variety of sources. It is quite likely that many of the things you're now learning (even those you think are irrelevant) may turn out to be helpful at some point in solving a problem. So, take advantage of the opportunity to learn about psychology, biology, history, mathematics, and all the other subjects you're learning now. That time will pay off. 3. Make connections. A lot of problems are solved by finding interesting, creative connections between seemingly unrelated topics. A good example here is Steve Jobs' application of his knowledge of calligraphy to the Apple operating system. Another is the psychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz's development of a treatment for OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) by combining Buddhism and Austrian economics. In both these cases, seemingly unrelated ideas were connected to provide new insights. 4. Read books about mysteries, problem-solving, and even mystery novels. Sherlock Holmes is a great place to start. Reading Conan Doyle's stories of the great detective reveals some basic principles of problem-solving which can apply to everyday life. Daniel Smith's book How to Think Like Sherlock is another good resource. 5. Solve simpler mysteries first. Rather than taking on the more complex type of real-world problems mentioned earlier, begin with simpler, but still real, problems. Never mind solving your work-life balance problem right off. Start with solving this problem: How can I keep from losing my phone every time I get ready to go somewhere? 6. Adopt a problem-solving mindset. Be observant of your surroundings and attuned to what you can do to improve how you live, work, or do simple things. Thomas Edison exemplifies this mindset very well. He often presented his lab assistants with the following challenge. He would hand them some ordinary item (like an iron or a fountain pen) and say "There's a better way. Find it." Adopt that mentality in your life. Whatever you're doing ask whether there is a better way: easier, more efficient, more effective. 7. Learn about design thinking. Lastly, you may want to learn about design thinking. I've made a few resources available that provide a brief introduction to the basic ideas of design. The important feature is to solve problems with the end-user in mind. When you're trying to solve a problem be sure you understand for whom you are solving it and what their needs are. That will allow you to focus on the best solutions given what they're facing. Another important feature of design thinking is prototyping and iteration. Don’t wait to do something until you have the perfect solution, try out ideas and use the results as useful feedback for further refinement of your solution. Recognize that you may have to go through several iterations before arriving at the ultimate effective solution. The process of problem solving in everyday life is similar to running experiments. Try something that might work and if it doesn’t, modify it and try again. Like in scientific experiments, you will make mistakes, but these mistakes are part of the process of learning and refining your solutions. Often people get stuck on the idea that a problem cannot be solved and so there’s no point in trying. But, in most cases, there is something you can do to make headway. even if you can’t completely solve the problem, you can probably make things better in some way. Taking small steps can be very effective and almost always more effective than doing nothing. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast what I hope you do is subscribe and visit me online at kevinjbrowne.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode.
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Hello everyone and welcome to Improve your thinking. I’m your host Kevin Browne and today I want to talk a little about how to evaluate your beliefs, opinions, and theories using something called the search formula. This formula comes from a book titled How to Think About Weird Things. It is a great guide to assessing any claim and possible explanations for it. SEARCH is an acronym that stands for:
State the claim. Examine the Evidence for the claim. Consider Alternative hypotheses. Rate, according to the Criteria of adequacy, each Hypothesis. As we’ll see there are several parts of this process that are especially difficult. Among these, the most difficult for people seem to be considering alternative hypotheses. Another way of putting this is to consider the evidence against the claim you are evaluating. The reason this is so difficult is due to something called confirmation bias: the tendency we all have to look only for evidence that confirms our own beliefs. But, to really evaluate any claim, you need to look at all the evidence, not just the evidence in favor of the claim. So, by all means, look at all the evidence for the claim you are investigating. But, then do what may seem counterintuitive, even counterproductive: look at the evidence against your claim. Be sure to look at it with an eye toward fair evaluation. Don’t simply look at it to dismiss it. Above all, don’t look at a biased form of this evidence. You know what I mean. Don’t go to a source that is arguing for the position you agree with and simply take what they say about the evidence against the claim. Look to the best possible sources of evidence against your claim. That way you know you are really evaluating your claim not simply endorsing what you already agree with. To ensure you are really doing this rate each hypothesis you are considering according to 5 criteria of adequacy. These criteria are: Testability, fruitfulness, scope, and whether an explanation is simple and conservative. Let’s look at each of them. First, a theory should be testable. If you cannot even figure out how to go about determining if your theory explains the evidence, you don't have a good theory. To be testable means your hypothesis "predicts something more than what is predicted by the background theory alone." In short, we need this criterion because if there's no way to tell whether a theory is true or false it's really no good to us. Second, a theory should be fruitful. What this means is that a good theory should make novel predictions. It should not only account for the evidence at hand but be able to address evidence that comes in later and even predict such new evidence. Einstein's theory of relativity is a good example of a fruitful theory because it made the novel prediction that light would be visible from a star behind the sun. After all, the light would be bent by the gravitational field around the sun to be visible on earth. And, concerning criterion number one, this was a testable claim. Once tested, it was verified. Third, a theory should have a wide scope. That is, a good theory explains a wide field of evidence. One of the differences between theories and hypotheses is their scope. Hypotheses address specific questions whereas theories attempt to provide a broad explanatory device. Theories that can explain a wide array of things are preferred, other things being equal, to more narrow theories. Fourth, a theory should be simple. This term should not be confused with simplistic. Many scientific theories are complex in terms of our ability to understand them but simple in the sense that they postulate fewer underlying entities or assumptions. A good example is the difference between Copernicus and Ptolemy. Ptolemy's geocentric theory could explain the orbits of the planets but it was quite complex whereas Copernicus' theory explained the same observable phenomena with less complexity. So, other things being equal, that theory was the better theory. Think of it this way. Suppose I come up with a theory to explain how the lights in my housework but it involves little gremlins running inside the light bulbs. Someone else can explain the same phenomenon but without postulating gremlins. So, their theory is simpler than mine. It should also be pointed out that my gremlin theory may fail on other criteria as well such as being testable. Finally, a theory should be conservative. Not in the political sense of the word. Rather, it should fit in with other things we know. If we have an explanation for something that we think is fairly certain and accurate then a new theory should fit in with that prior explanation. If it doesn't fit that may indicate our prior knowledge is flawed. We have to be open to that possibility but the burden of proof is on the new theory. An interesting examination of how this process works is offered by Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. you may be inclined to lodge the following criticism at this point: But, that’s "just a theory." The criticism here is supposed to be that any given theory is not an established fact. But, this misunderstands the relationship between fact and theory. No theory is a fact because facts and theories are two different things entirely. The facts are what we observe about the world around us. But, these facts need an explanation. This is what a theory is designed to do. It is a well-formulated attempt to explain the facts we observe. So, we observe the motion of the planets and the fact that an apple falls to the ground when we drop it. The theory of relativity attempts to explain these things. We observe different species and varieties of animals in the natural world and the theory of evolution attempts to explain how these varieties arose. We observe the motion of subatomic particles and the theory of quantum mechanics attempts to explain these observations. In each case, we begin with observations and construct an explanation to account for them. In each case, it makes little sense to criticize the theory by saying it's not a fact. Of course not! Theories are not facts and do not attempt to be. Theories can be correct or incorrect and the criteria outlined above are the best way to determine this. But, you must also understand what a theory is attempting to do. Another important consideration concerning evaluating theories is the notion of proof. People often misunderstand the concept of proof by thinking that proving something demonstrates conclusively that something must be true. While this may be the case for deductive arguments, it cannot be that way for inductive arguments which are based on probability. Since most philosophical (and scientific) arguments are inductive, it is impossible to conclusively prove the conclusion of these arguments true. That is, we will not be able to preclude evidence that may arise in the future to count against our conclusion. This being the case proofs in philosophy tended to attempt to find the most probable conclusion that fits the available evidence. As the scientist, Arthur Stanley Eddington put it "We cannot pretend to offer proofs. the proof is an idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself: In physics, we are generally content to sacrifice before the lesser shrine of plausibility." Proof is a seriously misunderstood word. This probably accounts for its rare usage in the natural sciences. In one important sense no one can "prove" the theory of evolution, or the big bang theory, or relativity, or string theory, or whatever theory you want to talk about. But, that does not mean that there is insufficient evidence to warrant thinking these are good theories. To use Eddington's words, we can say these theories are plausible. In some cases, very plausible. Another factor that often leads to misunderstandings about theories and proofs is that, in science, theories are the best explanations we have so far for the phenomena in question. But, as the philosopher of science, Karl Popper pointed out, "the demand for scientific objectivity makes it inevitable that every scientific statement must remain tentative forever.” It is always possible that new evidence arises that shows that our current theories are false. We have to remain open to that possibility. We should remain open to that possibility for our beliefs as well. They may be true given what we know right now, but what we know can change and if so, our beliefs should also change. As the economist, John Maynard Keynes is reputed to have said: When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do? If you’ve enjoyed this podcast what I hope you do is subscribe and visit me online at kevinjbrowne.com. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode. Hello everyone and welcome to Improve your thinking. I’m your host Kevin Browne and today I want to talk a little about logic and how you can use it. Logic is usually defined as the science of evaluating arguments. Logic gives us a set of tools for determining whether arguments are well-reasoned and if the premises provide support for the conclusion. Logic can also help us identity flaws in our reasoning.
But, some of the lessons logic can teach us are a little counter-intuitive. So, let me begin by address five of these counter-intuitive lessons that logic teaches us. 1. An argument with true statements can be invalid. An argument is said to be valid if the premises provide necessary support for the conclusion. An argument can do this with either true or false statements depending on how they are formulated. However, just because the premises of an argument are true does not mean the argument is valid. While the argument may sound persuasive, it could be the case that the premises do not provide support for the conclusion. A good example of this is the following argument which contains all true statements but is, nevertheless, invalid: All banks are financial institutions. Chase is a financial institution. Therefore, Chase is a bank. 2. Statements can sound very different, yet mean exactly the same thing. One of the insights you can learn from categorical logic is that statements which sound entirely different are, in fact, equivalent in meaning. One of the purposes of studying categorical logic is to learn precisely this insight. Another purpose is to give you the power to simplify complex statements such as this one: Some employees who are not currently on the payroll are not ineligible for workers' benefits. Categorical logic can show that this rather unclear statement is really the same as this much simpler statement: Some of those eligible for workers' benefits are not currently on the payroll. 3. There is a mathematical-like rigor to ordinary language. Certain words in ordinary language such as "and," "or," "if...then," and "if and only if" function somewhat like the mathematical operators for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. What this means is that you can determine whether statements are true or false without knowing everything about the statement's content. For example, in the statement "Nixon resigned the presidency and Clinton wrote the Gettysburg Address" you can determine that this statement is false if all you know is that Clinton did not write the Gettysburg Address. Partial information can lead you to detect when statements are false (or true). 4. It is possible to evaluate an argument's merits without entirely understanding its content. This possibility exists in logic due to the previous point and the fact that we can build upon it a set of rules which allow anyone to deduce an argument's validity without reference to its content. Just as in math where you can add numbers without worrying about what the numbers reference (2+3=5 and you don't need to know what you're adding 2 of and 3 of to deduce that) you can also infer an argument's validity without worrying about the argument's reference. While this is one of the most difficult points to master in the study of logic it turns out to be a very powerful tool for the evaluation of everyday arguments. 5. Fallacies of thinking are extremely common in ordinary discourse. With all the power of logical reasoning, it is still quite common for people to be persuaded by faulty arguments. What's worse is that many of these fallacies are easy to recognize with only a little training in the very basic principles of logic. Certainly one of the reasons why fallacies of thinking are so common is because they are so effective. These fallacies in reasoning are effective in part because our brains are wired up to be persuaded in ways that are not always rational and because without some basic knowledge of logic it is easy to overlook these fallacies. In logic there are specific rules for determining whether statements like that one, called a conjunction, are true or false. And, the rules are mathematical in that you can plug in a formula and determine whether the statement is true or false based on the rule which is called a truth function. The same will hold true of disjunctions which are either or statements and conditional statements which have the form If A then B. Each has a specific math like rule for determining whether the statement is true or false. In essence it gives you a sort of x-ray vision so that you can see through the clutter of an argument to its underlying form. Once you can see the form of an argument it becomes much easier to determine whether the premises are really supporting the conclusion or not. This is where knowing a little psychology comes in very handy. Logic tends to operate on the assumption that the best arguments are ones that are based on sound principles of reason and not psychological tactics. But, the best arguments from a logical standpoint are not always the most persuasive and the most persuasive arguments are not always based on sound logical principles. This raises an interesting question. Is it possible to construct an argument that is based on sound logical principles and also be psychologically persuasive? In fact it is. I’ll be discussing some interesting insights about influence in a later episode but it is entirely possible to use both sound logical principles and psychology in a way that is genuine and not manipulative. This is a point that is often overlooked in logic textbooks where any reference to psychology usually involves its potential to be used as a tool for manipulating people into agreeing with your argument. Logic does not endorse manipulation. But, you can be persuasive without being manipulative. What I’ve come to appreciate in my own study of psychology as it relates to thinking and persuasion is that it might not be possible to be persuasive if you only appeal to sound logical principles. You might get verbal agreement with the points you’re making but you probably won’t get action. Getting people to act on your argument requires that you appeal not only to their head but also their heart. If you enjoyed this episode I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast and visit me online at kevinkbrowne.com/ Thank you for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode. Hello everyone. Welcome to Improve Your Thinking. I’m your host Kevin Browne and today I want to talk a little about insight. It’s something we all think we have into our own thoughts and feelings. But, as Tasha Eurich argues in her book titled Insight this is not necessarily the case.
In fact, only a few people are born with the natural disposition for self-awareness. Interestingly, these people are not able to offer many insights into how they can maintain this ability so researchers have tended to focus on discovering the elements of self-awareness by looking at people who became self-aware by overcoming their lack of self-awareness. Most people tend to think that as they grow older they gain more self-awareness. As with many of our intuitions about our own thinking, this too turns out to be false. As Dr. Eurich puts it, “In the absence of a committed effort to build self-awareness, the average person makes only meager gains as they grow older.” There are two factors involved in self-awareness: internal and external. To be truly self-aware we not only need a deep understanding of our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors but also how people see us, which can often be quite different than how we see ourselves or how we think others see us. There are several impediments to becoming self-aware. Our brains tend to work by making thinking easier and allowing us to use a variety of shortcuts to streamline our thinking. While this often works well when dealing with complex situations or situations which repeat and are predictable, it often creates impediments to becoming self-aware. Three major impediments to self-awareness include knowledge blindness, emotion blindness, and behavior blindness. Knowledge blindness is very similar to the idea of the knowledge illusion I discussed in a previous episode. As Dr. Eurich puts it, “the opinions we have about our abilities in specific situations are based less on how we perform and more on the general beliefs we have about ourselves and our underlying abilities. In short, we think we know more than we do and that belief colors our perception of how well we will do at a given task. What’s worse, the more expertise we think we have, the more harmful knowledge blindness can be. You may be familiar with this idea which is related to the Dunning-Kruger effect which states that the least component people tend to be the most confident in their abilities. At heart, this is a problem of lack of self-awareness. In this case, the self-awareness to recognize what we don’t know. It’s no better when we turn our attention to emotions. In fact, we are often just as poor about evaluating our own emotions as we are our knowledge. Dr. Eurich calls this second impediment to self awareness emotion blindness. The third impediment to self-awareness is behavior blindness which refers to our inability to see our own behavior clearly and objectively. To combat these impediments Dr. Eurich offers three suggestions. First, We need to identify our assumptions that we make about ourselves and the world around us. Second, keep learning especially in areas where we think we already know a lot. Third, we should seek feedback on our abilities and behaviors. Objective input from others can provide a correction to our biased and inaccurate self-assessment. As I read these points in her book I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own motto which I shared with you in my opening episode: To think like a philosopher you need to: Ask more questions. Demand better answers. And learn more than you think you need to know. Most people seek explanations for their problems in externals: other people, situations, environment, etc. Self-awareness requires considering the possibility that part of the problem is the person. Another common roadblock to self-awareness is what Dr. Eurich calls the “cult of self.” This relentless focus on self-esteem leads to less self-awareness as well as less satisfaction overall. To combat this she advises that you cultivate humility, a self-acceptance that entails “understanding our objective reality and choosing to like ourselves anyway,” and better monitoring of one’s inner dialogue. There are ways to increase self-awareness but they are often obscured by several myths regarding introspection and self-awareness. “The assumption that introspection begets self-awareness is a myth. The problem with introspection, it turns out, isn’t that it’s categorically ineffective, but that many people are doing it completely wrong. introspection to access our unconscious is ineffective since our unconscious “is less like a padlocked door and more like a hermetically sealed vault.” A better approach focuses less on the process of introspection and more on the outcome of insight focusing on what we can learn and how to move forward. Much of introspection involves asking why and trying to find the causes for our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This does not often lead to accurate results and can instead lead to endless rumination. A better approach is to ask “What?” instead of “Why?” She provides an example of this in the book. “Let’s say you’re in a terrible mood after work one day. We already know that asking Why do I feel this way? should come with a warning label. It’s likely to elicit such unhelpful answers as “because I hate Mondays!” or “because I’m just a negative person.” What if you instead asked What am I feeling right now? Perhaps you’d realize that you’re overwhelmed at work, exhausted, and hungry. Rather than blindly reacting to these feelings you take a step back, decide to fix yourself dinner, call a friend for some advice about how to manage your work stress, and commit to an early bedtime.” Asking "What"instead of "Why" forces us to name our emotions which research shows is effective. Other benefits to this approach include the fact that Why questions draw us to our limitations; What questions help us see our potential. Why questions stir up negative emotions; what questions keep us curious. Why questions trap us in our past; what questions help us create a better future. So, we aren’t as self-aware as we think we are but there are steps we can take to improve our own insight. Some of these tools to increase self-awareness include mindfulness, reflecting on your life as a biography, and focusing on solutions which she elaborates on in the book. An interesting philosophical example of introspection at work can be seen in the work of 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes. His Meditations on First Philosophy illustrates how we arrived at his philosophical insights through reflecting on his own mental processes. It’s interesting to read his work in light of Dr. Eurich’s findings on insight. One thing seems clear from both Descartes’ work and Dr. Eurich’s book. You can’t really gain insight into how the world works if you rely only on your own thoughts and feelings. You need something more objective to appeal to. As the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein put it in his book Philosophical Investigations, “an inner process stands in need of outward criteria.” To understand what’s going on inside your own head, you’ve got to get outside your own head sometimes. If you’ve enjoyed this episode I hope you’ll subscribe to the podcast and visit me online at kevinjbrowne.com. Thank you for listening and I’ll see you on the next episode. |
kevin j. brownePhilosopher | Educator Archives
July 2022
improve your thinking: The course |