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Kickle
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Critical thinking 2
#28647262 - 02/05/24 06:59 AM (3 months, 11 days ago) |
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I was listening to an AI researcher discuss the current state of computer science and he made an interesting analogy. He described early looks at cells by scientists. And how an entire field sprang up around cell crystalization. How it was the leading theory and how much intellectual thought went into describing how crystalization works, how it proceeds, and why it is the likely mechanism by which cells come to define biology.
Then one day the microscope came along and someone observed mitosis. Boom, in an instant all this critical thought about crystalization was shown to be barking up the wrong tree. And this researchers point in recounting this scenario was that we have witnessed this same thing in the field of computer science. Researchers were spending countless hours critically thinking about things that got completely decimated with the advent of LLMs.
This has led to a simple question: how does one know what is critical to think about? And isn't answering that a pre-requisite to critical thinking? If one does not know what is critical to think about, can one be said to be thinking critically?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Buster_Brown
L'une


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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28647293 - 02/05/24 07:46 AM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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'Critical', as in the arrangement of partial truths to reveal associations, may itself be ...oh, I give up.
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redgreenvines
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28647330 - 02/05/24 08:29 AM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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by getting used to how it feels with awareness and without, then trying to keep awareness more active than daydreaming.
this ensures you are less likely to miss what is important when it comes up in the world or in your mind.
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Rahz
Alive Again



Registered: 11/10/05
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We do the best we can with what we've got. Whether critically examining the current paradigm or stumbling into a new one, is it not curiosity that paves the way? Looking for things not yet seen? We cannot draw our eyes to something we are not aware of, but we can be curious and follow the cookie crumbs when we find them.
I imagine Newton would want to shake Einstein's hand.
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace I am I feel I do I love I speak I see I know āScience advances one funeral at a timeā ~Max Planck
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Kickle
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Rahz] 1
#28647470 - 02/05/24 10:46 AM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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Some thoughts have persevered much longer than others. I wonder at the fact so much of modern thought simply doesn't last. Our scale for assessment is so sped up that if a scientific theory lasts a couple hundred years it's considered a universal constant
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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redgreenvines
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28647476 - 02/05/24 10:52 AM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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funny
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thealienthatategod
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28647507 - 02/05/24 11:27 AM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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via curiosity. curiosity leaves an openness. curiosity does not require linear thinking. prerequisites that hinder imagination are too constraining, bc the way that it all comes together is not predictable at that moment, however, you can be ready to catch the idea when it happens.
even thinking itself can be constraining.
critical curiosity wld blend both logic and intuition, and in this state thoughts are unconstrained as the thoughts themselves can take on superpositions.
this is the imagination without constraints.
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thealienthatategod
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28647566 - 02/05/24 12:09 PM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: Some thoughts have persevered much longer than others. I wonder at the fact so much of modern thought simply doesn't last. Our scale for assessment is so sped up that if a scientific theory lasts a couple hundred years it's considered a universal constant 
in part due to how the tools that are born from critical thinking change the thinking itself.
furthering the peering into of reality, with each subsequent tool.
reflecting the rate of change in humans themselves.
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Kickle
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furthering the peering into of reality, with each subsequent tool.
Oh? What is this reality that is being peered into? And does this mean the looker (I tried peerer, but... ) isn't real? Somehow outside of what is real, looking into the real
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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thealienthatategod
retrovertigo


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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28647615 - 02/05/24 12:56 PM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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what is percieved is (usually) what is believed, and that becomes reality.
ever evolving, this furthers what has become (into) and what once was (outside).
akin to a 5d person living in 3d.
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Freedom
Pigment of your imagination



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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28647695 - 02/05/24 02:24 PM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said:
This has led to a simple question: how does one know what is critical to think about? And isn't answering that a pre-requisite to critical thinking? If one does not know what is critical to think about, can one be said to be thinking critically?
I think knowing what is critical depends on critical thinking.
A key to critical thinking is being able to stop and question your assumptions. The mind makes associations and thought elaborates on the associations to create a story it can understand
I think its important to both learn to watch this and interrupt it as well as know the limitations of thought and knowing at different levels as well.
If we start with an assumption of what's critical or important we may be off the mark from the start. ideologies do this all the time
Edited by Freedom (02/05/24 02:25 PM)
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Kickle
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Freedom]
#28648510 - 02/06/24 06:30 AM (3 months, 10 days ago) |
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I think its important to both learn to watch this and interrupt it as well as know the limitations of thought
So what do you see as the limitations of thought?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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Freedom
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28648678 - 02/06/24 08:39 AM (3 months, 9 days ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: I think its important to both learn to watch this and interrupt it as well as know the limitations of thought
So what do you see as the limitations of thought?
One important one is it almost always has less information than is needed to confirm itself. Its almost always a guess. There are often many different possible explanations for a situation.
A good example of this is with people. We have no access to what is happening inside other people.
Another limitation of thought is it tends to create stories of linear cause and effect when there are many causes for each effect. Its sort of like a partial differential equation that looks at something from a single variable when there are many other variables at play.
It also tends to lack detail. Its like a caricature or cartoon vs a detailed photograph.
It also can be heavily biased by our particular association network and also our hopes, fears, likes and dislikes.
There can also be a sort of pride that can make thoughts seem true when we think we are consciously creating the thoughts. Who would intentionally create thoughts that were incorrect or off the mark?
Confirmation bias is another big one.
There are probably other big limitations I don't know about or can't remember at the moment
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Buster_Brown
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Freedom]
#28648729 - 02/06/24 09:06 AM (3 months, 9 days ago) |
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" Who would intentionally create thoughts that were incorrect or off the mark?
A counterfeit thought is as real currency to the unwary.
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Kickle
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Freedom]
#28648731 - 02/06/24 09:08 AM (3 months, 9 days ago) |
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So taking those things into account, do you suspect the scientists of old could have avoided theorizing crystalization as the mechanism by which cells form?
-------------------- Why shouldn't the truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. -- Mark Twain
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redgreenvines
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28648802 - 02/06/24 10:36 AM (3 months, 9 days ago) |
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probably the limitation of any particular thought is the limited perspective in which it naturally occurs. i.e. in a person with limited personal history and limited personal views even if educated with limited education.
then if quoting someone else's thought, all the above plus the fact that the meaning arrives in the reader/audience somewhat differently than it was sent by the original writer/speaker.
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Blue Cthulhu
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle]
#28648806 - 02/06/24 10:37 AM (3 months, 9 days ago) |
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Sometimes scientific āmistakesā lead to discoveries in other areas (the classic example being penicillin and antibiotics). If the scientists studying crystallization of cells were passionate about their work, maybe it paid off in ways not obviously apparent, such as leading to the development of the technology they were using to investigate that theory.
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"Things are true that I forget, but no one taught that to me yet." A disembodied-re-embodied consciousness be-ing (With all the accoutrements.)
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Kickle
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Maybe, but not likely. Mostly what has happened in the modern era is a bunch of laid off researchers and a scramble at universities to form strategic partnerships with Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, etc.
The same AI researcher made a subtle but true recruitment point. If you wanted to get back on board in the olden days, you needed to gain access to a microscope. If you want to get back in the game now, you better find research access to a LLM.
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Freedom
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Re: Critical thinking [Re: Kickle] 1
#28648948 - 02/06/24 12:29 PM (3 months, 9 days ago) |
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Quote:
Kickle said: So taking those things into account, do you suspect the scientists of old could have avoided theorizing crystalization as the mechanism by which cells form?
They could avoid believing it, if that was possible for them.
its important in the process to come up with ideas to test. believing the ideas seems unnecessary to me but I think i've shared enough about that for a while
scientists get dogmatic too. I was working on a research project that was showing something that went against some standard ideas. I was told to keep quiet about it because it could threaten our funding, which was approved by a committee who had some members who had papers published based on those standard ideas, and our research was potentially threatening to them. We had to wait until we had shown in a bunch of different ways what we were trying to show before publishing.
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Freedom
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Quote:
Buster_Brown said: " Who would intentionally create thoughts that were incorrect or off the mark?
A counterfeit thought is as real currency to the unwary.
those poor sphere-earthers
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