Critical Thinking

What exactly is critical thinking? Is it when you think critically, and thus cast out certain ideas or thoughts because they don’t fit some certain criterion? I don’t think the term describes well what I mean when I use it. I instead like the use of the phrase “logic reasoning” to describe the cognitive thought process that seems to be missing from many people’s brains these days.

“Logic reasoning” is when you conclude the factual nature of an idea or concept by putting it through a sort of “connect the dots” logical assessment. Does something make sense? Does it follow logic? Does it fit already established objective facts? Of course, the process of “logic reasoning” does not necessarily fail with non-objective, non-material phenomena. I won’t go into that here because it would take up the entire article (for example, can logic reasoning be used to decide if God exists? Yes, it can).

Most of us shrews believe that sheep have lost their ability to think critically (or in some cases, to think at all). I am not going to argue with that assumption, but rather add that logic reasoning is also missing. And I will tell you why I think that is the case.

Let’s take an easy recent example to illustrate my point. Masks. If you knew nothing about science (knowledge is a big part of why logic reasoning works) you would not be able to apply logic reasoning to determine if masks keep the wicked virus from reaching your respiratory system. But because we were taught in 8^th-grade science that virus particles are very tiny compared to bacteria (assuming you believe viruses even exist as a pathogen) we can use logic reasoning to determine if mandated masking was a bunch of cockamamy nonsense or a viable protective move.

We can apply logic reasoning to social distancing, business closures, and a whole whack of other stupid mandates that the government laid unto us during the Covid fiasco. The biggest being, of course, a vaccine that was described as “safe and effective” when logic reasoning told us that statement was impossible to make.

Sure, there are always details and facts that we are not aware of. There are also statistical outliers. For example, maybe one out of 100,000 mask wearers avoids someone sneezing in their face thus increasing the viral load entering their nose, thus increasing the possibility of infection. But if we factored in such ridiculous irrelevant statistical data in our everyday decisions, we would never leave the house and just live in our plastic bubble.

I think shrews have not lost their God-given ability to logic reason. That is why we are shrews. The sheep seem to have lost this ability, that is why they are sheep.

Here is a theory as to why logic reasoning has been lost in most people.

Back in the day, things were not as complicated as they are today. A caveman pretty much knew all he needed to know to make sound and useful survival decisions based on logic reasoning. Anything beyond his comprehension or understanding, he dropped into the God bucket, or into the superstitious bucket. Since there wasn’t a lot of cause-and-effect consistency with most superstitious conclusions, this way of dealing with things generally worked just fine. If there was cause and effect consistency (such as taking a magic herb to cure an ailment that actually had scientific validity in its efficacy—and worked every time) it didn’t really matter what the caveman attributed that consistent behaviour to, he still could count on that logic.

The world the caveman lived in was a simple and natural place. If you fell into the river, you could drown, if another caveman hit you with a club hard enough, you might die. If a wild boar gouged you in the forest, it would hurt a lot. If you couldn’t find any edible roots, you would starve. There weren’t any computers, no MRI machines, no vaccines containing unknown substances and confusing mechanisms to understand, no cellphones, no TikTok, and no Instagram. Simple.

As things became more complicated, and spirituality and superstition became less viable (after the enlightenment, if it wasn’t linked to science, it was essentially discarded as a reason something did something) man (all humans) started to rely on a sort of symbiotic relationship with authority or “experts.” The authority would be relied on to provide the logic reasoning behind how and why these complicated things worked, therefore people didn’t have to figure it out for themselves.

It took a while before people started to stop thinking entirely. But eventually, they did. They trusted the “other brain” that was “out there” to make decisions for them. This worked fairly well when science was science. I am sure many would argue this point, but let’s leave it at that. Doctors could cure ailments with their potions and magical gesticulations (of course, even before materialist science was king, this was going on with witch doctors). Once technology caught up with man’s need to deal with more detail, this symbiotic relationship became even more profound and even a thoughtful consideration about any sort of decision became nonexistent.

Now, I am only talking about medicine here, but this argument applies to nearly everything else in life where we have to make informed decisions. Here is one other example. The Ukraine/Russian war. That conflict is far too complicated for the average person to bother with. Although very simple logic reasoning would work here (as well as with the Palestine/Israeli conflict), but it is not applied at all. There is an authority that has been given the task to think for us, and most people will rely on that authority’s “logic reasoning” (which is faulty because there is an agenda behind it) to make the decision where to stand on the issue.

Here comes the crappy part. The “authority” we have developed a symbiotic relationship with is a parasite and is intentionally trying to kill us. This is the part people refuse to look at. If we did hand over our logic reasoning process to someone more well-equipped to make logical decisions, and who was not a liar, a thief, and a murderer, then we might come out ok. Once things got a bit more complicated than caveman life, humans have in many cases done just this (chosen someone else to think for them)—but they trusted their symbiotic relationship, and I think at one time it was not as parasitic as it is now.