Reference: Essays on Substance
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking means that you can see both similarities and differences and do not just think in identities. The bug in human mind is the identity thinking.
The ultimate identity thinking would by when one assigns God to be the cause of everything and thinks no further.
When one starts to move away from identity thinking, he first thinks in black and white and does not recognize any shade of gray. To him, everything that Newton said is right; and everything that Einstein said is wrong. Christianity is good; all other religions are bad. God is good; Man is evil. This kind of thinking is very close to identity thinking.
A more flexible thinking starts to recognize some shades of gray. He starts to think in terms of categories, but such categories are few and strictly defined. They are limited in their scope. Here we have an abundance of fixed ideas, and an unwillingness to look beyond those fixed ideas. They cannot think creatively. They cannot accept a new idea because their ability to evaluate is quite primitive.
The above is the “identity thinking” end of the scale of logic. At the other end is thinking that recognizes differences and similarities appropriately. This is the thinking of scientists. They think in terms of infinite categories. These categories can subdivide and their numbers can grow indefinitely. They balance the information belonging to these infinite categories using the first Law of Thought.
FIRST LAW OF THOUGHT: All thought related to a subject must be continuous, consistent and harmonious.
At this end of the logic scale resides Critical Thinking.
Understanding of subjects, such as, physics and Nuclear Physics cannot occur without critical thinking.
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