Eldar Sarajlic

A philosophy professor & dad, teaching kids and adults critical thinking. See more at 🇺🇸

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

https://t.co/pwUfZeXFGk

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

"Question everything" is terrible advice (I know it's weird to hear it from a philosopher, but hear me out).

It turns kids into reflexive doubters who can't tell good authority from bad.

Real thinking means knowing what deserves trust and building reasons for it.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

@justinskycak It all starts with pattern recognition, and you can’t do that without a knowledge base.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

The question is not about matrix calculations but about the level at which they’re done:

When you do them by hand, you are aware of doing a matrix calculation; you have intent, purpose, and agency.

The computer does them without any of that because someone else initiated it to do them.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

Public education should be dismantled.

Free market for schools and colleges would generate much better outcomes, both for kids and parents.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

Schools pretend every kid can become a strong thinker if they just try harder.

That's a lie that protects the system.

The harsh truth is that some minds are simply better at building world models than others and no amount of worksheets changes the ceiling.

The trick is pushing a mind to its limits.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

Critical thinking is not some vague thing synonymous with being smart.

It’s a set of precisely defined skills.

It can also be measured.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

What do you guys think about teaching kids debating skills in school?

My guess is that it just helps producing expert bullshitters (and future politicians) because it teaches kids how to be successful in thinking within given frames, and never questioning the frames themselves.

Maybe I'm wrong, dunno.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

I think statistical education could save America.

Hear me out.

Ideological binary thinking we see everywhere is primarily the fault of education because it rewards correct answers over calibrated uncertainty, so kids learn to collapse distributions into true/false long before they learn things like base rate, averages, or variance.

Improving statistical education could have immense impact on the culture in the country.

Folks, teach your kids statistics as early as you can.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

Philosophy in humanities departments often survives by becoming unfalsifiable.

When a framework can't be tested against data in its original domain, it migrates to fields where subjective interpretation protects it.

That's why we have seemingly smart people who fail at even the most basic reasoning.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

I think that the biggest epistemic error in education debates is level confusion.

My feed is full of people citing individual student stories to attack or defend system-level policy.

But, anecdotes and aggregates require different reasoning rules.

Why do so many people fail to see this?

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

Thanks! That’s a great perspective. I sometimes read Plato for a therapeutic effect; reasonable discussion has a calming effect on me.

Btw, if you want something more contemporary but equally good, check this one out: gives great systematic treatment of how to think about issues such as justice.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

12 X accounts have more combined followers than the rest of humanity. 12 countries have more population than the rest of humanity. 12 cities have more population than the rest of the cities in the world.

This is called a power law distribution and it occurs naturally whenever any compound good (like money, population, followers) are free to concentrate.

Anything else is denial of freedom. Imagine if you were forced to redistribute your X followers because you have them more than I do?

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

We can’t think of anything at all if we don’t already have an analogy in our minds to attach it to.

Analogy is the engine of human thought, as Douglas Hofstadter rightly observed.

Which means that learning pattern recognition is the most basic, and most important thinking skill you can master.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

@pmarca I think that’s one of the best (unintended) consequences of AI: it will force us to rethink so many things we took for granted.

Not just obvious concepts like “consciousness”, but plenty more.

If we don’t give in to AI doomerism, it can even improve human thinking skills.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

Perhaps this is the best explanation for why the struggles to define consciousness (and thus understand if we’ve achieved AGI) will never come to an end.

[fabian @fabianstelzer]

Julian Jaynes‘ “The Origin of Consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind” is one of the densest, most fun and most intellectually engaging reads on the topic ever written

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

This is a good observation, and it’s interesting to ponder whether thinking in public is what thinking actually *should* be.

I used to think that one needs to be alone to think some things through, but I’m not so sure now.

I wrote something about it a while ago:

https://t.co/13LQAwjrin

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

Do you find it odd that most alt-history shows (like Handmaid’s Tale and its spinoff) imagine Christian totalitarian dystopia, while none an Islamic one?

I find it weird because we have plenty of Islamic societies today resembling such tales, and no Christian ones.

Is this “suicidal empathy” (as @GadSaad would put it), or fear from Islamic violence (Charlie Hebdo style)?

Or is it a combination of both, which is the worst possible option?

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

@numericalguy @Dale_Chu @matt_barnum @Chalkbeat There’s a debate about it; I think it can, and it being transferable is the whole point.

[Eldar Sarajlic @think___y]

@LorenzoElijah Yup, that’s exactly why merely pondering, without doing things, is a waste of time.