Thinking is the highest form of human cognitive activity. It allows people to not only reflect things directly perceived by sensory organs, but also reflect the inner connections between things. This is carried out through the analysis, comparison, synthesis, abstraction and generalization of things. It is a cognitive activity that uses reasoning or judgment to indirectly reflect the essence of things. It uses memory and imagination to process abstract things to understand their meaning. process. Today I bring you some articles about thinking, hoping to help students in need!

What is "rational thinking"?

Rational thinking

Rational thinking is a kind of thinking that has a clear thinking direction and sufficient basis for thinking, and can observe, compare, analyze, synthesize, abstract and generalize things or problems. To put it simply, rational thinking is a way of thinking based on evidence and logical reasoning.

Rational thinking is an advanced form of human thinking and is people’s ability to grasp the essence and laws of objective things. Rational thinking ability is the mother of various abilities that distinguish humans from animals.

Examples of rational thinking:

I bought oranges to eat, but they didn’t taste very good and had no sweetness. So I went to find out the reason and found that there were only a few oranges like the ones I bought. But this cannot be used to characterize the quality of oranges.

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Generally speaking, rational thinking includes three forms:

1. Concept: people are Based on the accumulation of a large amount of perceptual knowledge of objective things in practice, we grasp the essential attributes of things, that is, extract the essence, wholeness and internal connections of things, and mark them with certain material outer words. This gives rise to concepts (in the form of Induction and summation are the means);

2. Judgment: Judgment is an expanded concept and a form of thinking that affirms or denies the internal relationship of a certain thing. (Using property judgment as a means);

3. Reasoning: Reasoning is a form of thinking that derives new judgments from known judgments. It can reflect the inevitable trend of the development of things. (Using internal connections to deduce development trends as a means);

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The relationship between rational thinking and perceptual thinking:

Perceptual thinking is what people do in the process of practice. The feelings generated by one's various senses produce many impressions in the mind, and have a preliminary understanding of the surface phenomena of various things. It only reflects the phenomenon and external connections of things, but has not yet reached the essence and internal connections of things.

On the basis of perceptual thinking, through the function of thinking, the rich sensory materials are removed from the rough and the essence is eliminated, the false is retained and the true is removed. From here to there, from the outside to the inside, the transformation and production process will produce a leap. It becomes rational thinking that reflects the essence and internal connections of things through the stages of concept, judgment and reasoning.

Rational thinking is a thinking mode corresponding to perceptual thinking. It is a kind of thinking that eliminates the interference of personal feelings and preferences. It is based on facts and logic and is conducive to improving knowledge, making correct judgments and wise decisions. thinking mode.

Rational thinking and perceptual thinking are different in nature, but they are coherent with each other. The two are connected on the basis of practice. Rational thinking must rely on perceptual thinking, otherwise it will become a source without water and a tree without roots. Perceptual thinking must develop into rational thinking in order to reflect objective things more deeply, more correctly, and more comprehensively.

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Ways to improve rational thinking

Watch more reasoning TV series

Reasoning is brought about by logical thinking, and reasoning ability Improvement can also lead to improvement of logical thinking, so watching TV series such as Conan and Dee Renjie is conducive to the improvement of logical thinking. When watching, don't just wait for the results, but do your own reasoning.

Do more logical games or questions

Doing more logical projects will help improve our logical thinking ability. Don’t be afraid of difficulties when doing it, and try your best. Come up with the answer yourself. If you really can't figure it out, you can read the answer. But after reading the answer, you need to understand the solution in the answer. If you really don't understand, you can ask others for help.

Think more when things happen

Thinking more when things happen is a good behavior habit. Developing this good behavior habit can not only improve a person's logical thinking, but also help improve Adapting well to society and understanding society will also help a person survive better in this society.

Take notes by handwriting

Maintain a good habit of taking notes by handwriting, and insist on spending 10-20 minutes writing notes by hand every day. In the process of taking notes by hand, your mind and emotions will be quickly sorted out and your thoughts will be clear.

How to become a rational person?

This year’s Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Richard Thaler, who studies behavioral economics.

This news excites me. Because behavioral economics has been a field that I have been particularly interested in in recent years.

So, I want to use today’s article to tell you: what is behavioral economics and what exactly does it study?

Although there is already overwhelming information on the Internet, this article still needs to be written.

I hope it can help you slightly improve your understanding of this subject.

To understand behavioral economics, we must first start with the "rational person" hypothesis.

What is the "rational man" hypothesis?

In 1776, the British Adam Smith published his masterpiece "The Wealth of Nations". In the book, he wrote:

The food and drink we need every day do not come from the kindness of butchers, brewers, and bakers, but from their self-interested intentions. We do not say words that arouse their altruism, but words that arouse their self-interest. We do not say things that we need, but say things that are good for them.

In short. His point of view can be summarized as follows: Based on our own needs, we make behaviors that are beneficial to ourselves, which objectively contributes to the formation of the entire market and social order.

The baker makes bread because he needs to exchange bread for money; we buy bread because we need money to buy bread.

Therefore, the act of "buying bread" is beneficial to both us and the baker. Both parties can benefit from this transaction.

This is the basic logic of the entire market economy.

Before Adam Smith, what was the thinking of economics? It was mercantilism. Research at that time focused on how the country controlled foreign trade, how to colonize and plunder, and how to achieve a surplus through tariffs, thereby increasing the country's wealth (that is, gold and silver) accumulation. In short, we are playing a zero-sum game.

Why is it a zero-sum game? In trade between countries, there are gains and losses. If one country achieves a surplus (that is, exports more than it imports), the other country must have a deficit. When one country becomes rich, other countries will inevitably become poor. Generally speaking, the welfare status of the entire society has not changed.

But with the rise of the Industrial Revolution in Britain in 1760, the need for free trade and division of labor became urgent. At this time, traditional mercantilism does not apply. The entire society needs a new theory to guide how they operate and act.

So, Adam Smith appeared.

Adam Smith believed that the government does not need to intervene in the market. As long as all participants in the market act according to their own needs, market efficiency can be optimal. Everyone's situation can improve.

What is the principle behind this?

He calls it the "economic man" hypothesis.

He believes that people pursue interests and will act along the path of "maximizing interests".

If I need bread more than money, I will use money to buy bread; if the baker needs money more, he will use bread to sell money.

This hypothesis was developed in later generations and became the "rational man hypothesis" after improvements by a series of masters such as Senior, John Mill and Pareto. It has also become the foundation of classical economics.

In short, we can understand the "rational person" hypothesis in this way.

1. People have sufficient information and stable preferences for a series of choices they face.

2. Based on these two, people can assign a "utility" value to each option to describe the benefits this option brings to him;

3. People The option with the highest utility value will be chosen for action.

Where is the "rationality" reflected in this? It is reflected in the second point.

In other words, the traditional assumption is that if a person is rational, then his "subjective utility" must be correct, stable, and objective - he will definitely not feel that 50 yuan is more valuable than 100 yuan is good.

This theory seemed correct until the mid-20th century.

What happened in the 20th century? Psychology flourished.

In particular, the rise of cognitive psychology has revealed human cognitive processes.

People are beginning to discover that our thinking processes are actually traceable. Our judgments and decisions about things are not as accurate as we think.

In short, the traditional rational man assumption is like Newton's first law. The development of cognitive psychology is like people discovering the existence of friction.

At this time, we have to mention a heavyweight:

This year’s Nobel Prize winner in economics Richard Thaler’s friend and teacher, Daniel Card Niemann.

If there is an Adam Smith-type figure in behavioral economics, it is undoubtedly Daniel Kahneman.

It can be said that although there have been many studies on behavioral economics as early as the first half of the 20th century, it was not until Kahneman's paper was published that this discipline was completely established.

So, what did Daniel Kahneman do?

In 1979, together with Tversky, he published a paper proposing "prospect theory" .

This theory summarizes the application of psychology in the 20th century and makes great revisions to the traditional assumption of "completely rational people".

It believes that when people analyze expected utility and make decisions, they will be affected by many psychological factors. These psychological factors will cause us to make many decisions that "seem irrational".

This is contrary to traditional assumptions.

Let’s give a simple example:

A person is doing a job that he doesn’t like. He looks forward to getting off work every day, and looks forward to the weekend from Monday to Monday. The salary is not high. He is just ordinary, but he just refuses to change jobs, why?

The traditional explanation is to use utility functions to calculate expectations. For example: His current salary is 6,000. If he changes jobs, there is a 50% chance that the salary will increase by 1,000, and a 50% chance that the salary will decrease by 2,000. Then, the total expected return is 50 x 1000 - 50 x 2000, and the result is -500, which is a negative number, so He is unwilling to change jobs.

But prospect theory believes that in this case, even if the probability of wage increase becomes 80, the probability of wage decrease becomes 20, and the total income changes from -500 to positive 400, he will still Not willing to change jobs.

Why? Because "wage reduction" is far more important in his mind than "wage increase".

This is the most important result of prospect theory: loss aversion. People are much more sensitive to losses than to gains.

In short, it is the same 100 yuan. If you lose 100 yuan and pick up 100 yuan, the mood is completely different. The pain caused by the former will be more intense and longer-lasting.

As can be seen from the figure below, for the same amount (X value), the subjective value (Y value) corresponding to losses and gains is completely different.

So, why do people have loss aversion?

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, this is because, in the process of millions of years of evolution, losing something ( For example, getting injured, losing food, losing territory) has a more serious impact on us than getting something. As a result, our brains are wired to be more sensitive to loss.

If you are sensitive enough, you will find that the titles of many articles will use negative words (lost, unemployed, missed, behind...) to attract your attention (including me, face covering) .

The principle behind this is actually loss aversion.

Based on prospect theory and loss aversion, Kahneman, Thaler and a large number of behavioral economists have proposed many interesting theories.

For example, the following two experiments.

The first experiment: Economists divided the participants into two groups: AB. They gave each person in Group A a cup and told them: The cup is completely yours and you can choose to take it home or sell it later.

At the same time, they gave Group B a sum of money and told them: You can take the money away, or you can use the money to buy Group A's cups.

What is the result? In group A, the median price of those who are willing to sell the cup is $5.79; while in group B, the median price of those who are willing to buy the cup is $2.25.

In other words, the two groups of people gave completely different results for the valuation of the same cup.

People who own mugs think their mugs are worth more.

The second experiment was similar:

Participants were divided into three groups. The first group was given a coffee cup to each person; the second group was given a piece of chocolate to each person; and the third group was given nothing.

Then, the economist told them respectively: People in the first group can choose to exchange the cup for chocolate, or they can take away the cup; people in the second group can choose to exchange chocolate for the cup, or they can Don’t change. People in the third group were asked to choose between a cup or chocolate and tell the experimenter which one they wanted more.

Let’s talk about the third group first. The person who chooses the cup is 56, and the person who chooses chocolate is 44. Although there is a slight difference, it can be generally considered that for these students, cups are almost as valuable as chocolates, and there is no significant difference in preference.

But the results of the first group and the second group were quite different:

In the first group, 89 people chose "no exchange", and only 11 people were willing to exchange.

In the second group, 90% of people chose "no exchange" and only 10% were willing to exchange.

What does this mean?

People’s assessment of the value of items they “already own” will greatly increase.

In short: everyone thinks that the things they own are worth more.

This is called the "endowment effect."

The "endowment effect" seems very simple, it is nothing more than the development of "loss aversion".

But if you think about it further, it’s actually quite interesting.

Let’s take a look together.

First of all, the most basic condition for the endowment effect is loss aversion, that is, the sensitivity to losses is higher than gains. This needs no introduction.

But a problem arises here:

Loss and gain are both relative. How do we define "loss" and "gain" in real life?

Taking Experiment 1 as an example, the cups the participants received were essentially foreign and were given by the experimenter. .

So, why is there a gap?

This is because Group A gets the cup first and then chooses whether to sell it - their reference point is set to "I have a cup, do you want to Lose it", that is, a loss.

The reference point of Group B is set to "I don't have a cup, are you willing to get it?", which is a kind of gain.

Therefore, the endowment effect comes into play.

From this, what conclusions can we draw?

Our attitude towards a thing will be affected by the "initial state". The initial state is different, our reference points are different, and our evaluation of things will be completely different.

Starting from this inference, another interesting principle was born.

Please look at the following situation:

There is a serious disease that is threatening the lives of 600 residents. Now for the two groups, they have the following choices:

What Group A heard was: There are two measures now. Measure 1 can ensure the rescue of 200 people, Measure 2 has a 1/3 chance of saving 600 people, and a 2/3 chance of not saving anyone. What would you choose?

The version heard by Team B It goes like this:

There are two measures. Measure 1 will result in 400 deaths, Measure 2 has a 2/3 risk that all will die, and a 1/3 chance that no one will die. What will you choose?

We can see at a glance that Team A The choices faced by Group B are exactly the same. Measure 1 always rescues 200 people and 400 people die; Measure 2 has a 1/3 chance of all surviving and a 2/3 chance of all dying.

Then, the result we can expect is that the proportion of the two groups taking measures 1 and 2 should be roughly similar.

If 80 people in group A choose measure 1, then logically speaking, about 80 people in group B should also choose measure 1.

But what is the result? In group A, a large proportion of people chose measure 1; correspondingly, in group B, a large proportion of people chose measure 2.

What is the reason here? It is because the "initial state" is different.

For Group A, both measures are "gain" frames. In this case, people will tend to be conservative, that is, choose strategies that can make them safe.

But for Group B, both measures are framed as "losses". At this time, people's "loss aversion" is reflected - they would rather take greater risks than watch losses occur in vain.

In other words, when we receive a "loss" frame, our subconscious reaction is to tend to take risks. Even if the consequences of the risk may be more serious, we are not willing to lose money in vain.

This is the famous "frame effect".

The same event, expressed in different ways and conveyed to the other party in different "frames", may have completely different effects.

The benefits of rational thinking

There is no doubt that Islam gives rationality a huge role in human thinking and behavior mechanisms. What suffices to illustrate this fact is that, in Shari'a terms, when one loses one's reason, there is no accountability and there is no responsibility.

It is worth noting that some people over-exaggerate the role of reason and even let reason judge the laws of Sharia; at the same time, other people go to the other extreme and almost abandon the value of reason. .

Some people believe that al-Ghazali has ignored the role of reason in taking his final stance on philosophy. Therefore, it is necessary for us to understand Ansari’s attitude towards this issue.

As Dr. Gerdawi said: The key to this issue is to establish the concept that from the perspective of Islam, reason does not conflict with Sharia; advocating free reason means advocating faith.

Faith and reason are inseparable. Al-Ghazali pointed out: “Reason cannot be separated from the classics; classics cannot be separated from the rationality.

Those who advocate pure tradition and are completely divorced from reason are ignorant; those who are only satisfied with reason and ignore the light of scripture and hadith are self-deceivers. You must not be one of these two people; you should be both With these two sources. Because rational knowledge is like food and Shari’ah knowledge is like medicine. "

Accordingly, Ansari emphasized that there is no conflict between rational knowledge and Shari'a knowledge. He said: "Some people think that rational knowledge and Shari'a knowledge are in direct conflict and the two are incompatible. This speculation is due to blindness of vision - we ask God to protect us from this phenomenon.

"People who hold this view may feel that one part of Shari'a knowledge conflicts with another part, and they are unable to reconcile it, so they think this is a contradiction in religion, feel confused, and easily betray the religion. In fact, it is incompetence that leads to the idea that religion is contradictory. How absurd!”

Reason is a gift given to mankind by Allah, allowing mankind to observe and think about Allah’s creation. And know Allah. However, reason is not without limitations, nor is it suitable for understanding everything; there are some things that reason must accept unconditionally as indisputable facts. These facts were narrated from the prophets. Therefore, Al-Ghazali believes that reason should confirm two facts: confirm the existence of Allah; confirm the holy character of the Prophet. If the way to confirm the former fact is knowable, that is, by observing and thinking about Allah's creation, then how can the latter fact be confirmed?

Ghazali brings us to this issue through real-life examples. On the other side, he believed, "Man is made of body and mind; mind refers to the reality of the soul, which is the position of recognizing Allah, rather than the flesh and blood body that both dead people and animals have. The health of the body determines it Happiness, physical illness causes pain and even destruction. The soul also has its own health and soundness. Only those who come with a sound mind can be saved; at the same time, the soul also has its own health and soundness. There is disease, which determines the permanent and hereafter destruction of the soul, as Allah says: 'There is disease in their hearts...' (2:10)

"Ignorance of Allah is. Deadly poison, following selfish desires and disobeying Allah is an evil disease. Knowing Allah is the antidote; suppressing selfish desires and obeying Allah is the effective medicine. Some medicines are needed to cure heart disease, just as some medicines are needed to heal the body. The medicines of the body contribute to healing through a certain property in them, which the wise man cannot understand with reason, but can only follow the doctors, the prophets who received these medicines; the prophets can discover the properties of those medicines by the Holy Scriptures . Similarly, I am convinced that the scope and quantity of the work (ibadah) are determined by the prophets, and reason cannot understand the exact form of its effectiveness. Therefore, we should imitate the prophets in it-those who rely on the light of the saints instead of reason Function: A person who understands the nature of the assignment. ”

Then, Al-Ghazali concluded: “In short, the prophets are doctors who treat the diseases of the heart, and the utility and function of reason is: let us realize the above facts, and believe in and recognize the holy scriptures; recognize We ourselves are incapable of understanding what the saints know; take us by the hand and hand us over to the saints, just as we hand over a blind man to a guide, or a patient who is at a loss to a compassionate doctor. The function of reason stops here and cannot interfere with other contents except to understand the doctor's instructions. ”

In this way, Imam al-Ghazali clarified the issue of identifying holy objects, pointed out the second task of reason, and illustrated the scope of this task with three things: 1. Recognizing the holy objects 2. Reason cannot understand things that can only be understood through holy scriptures; 3. Obey the prophet and follow the prophet.

Ghazali discusses it in a concise, clear and convincing style. This was the result of his hard work during his seclusion. He told us: “Then I persisted in seclusion and meditation for nearly 10 years. During this period, I had countless experiences: sometimes it was intuition, sometimes it was knowledge of evidence, sometimes it was acceptance of faith, so I was convinced:..."

Ansari used the following words Conclude this paragraph: "These things I came to know during my seclusion, as sure as if I had witnessed them.

”

Ghazali determined the direction of reason’s acceptance of knowledge, thereby liberating reason and freeing it from all kinds of superstition, fantasy and blind obedience.