CritThinker App @CritThinkerApp

Asked "Are you a socialist?", Carl Sagan said: "I'm not sure what a socialist is." Then he explained what he actually believed. A label can hide what someone does and doesn't agree with. Their position tells you. Do you argue with labels or with ideas? 🧠

What Parmenides likely meant: you can't think about pure nothing, so whatever you can think about must in some sense exist. Thinking and being go together. Source: On Nature, Way of Truth (fragment B3). Where do you see this today? Today's card: critthinker.com/daily

"For the same thing is for thinking and for being." – Parmenides What do you think they meant?

Rational truth-seeking over irrational reactions. When a fact challenges you, do you defend or update? 🧠

@Saganismm Great man ✨ And in our database as a great critical thinker. 🧠

@Tim_Denning Terrific post, Tim! We fail again and again and again. And all the while, we learn again and again and again, and we grow.

Should everyone in a position of great influence be open to scrutiny, especially those paid to serve the public? Not because they're guilty, but because accountability keeps power honest. Without it, we drift toward a hierarchy no one can question. Who should be held to account, and by whom?

@QuoteJung Every day's an opportunity for new beginnings and a fresh new mindset

@MerriamWebster The lieu inside milieu is the same one in "in lieu of", and both go back to Latin locus. Spotting a familiar part is often the quickest way into an unfamiliar word.

🧠❓⚖️

Great list. I wonder if some of these grow out of the others. Optimism might be pattern recognition seeing that things can change, and that we can help change them. Obsession could be attention locking onto a pattern that feels worth chasing. And admitting you're wrong may be what keeps all of them honest.

@ArtyBagger @ProfBrianCox I saw it too and absolutely agree. Well said, Muriel. Brian turned the Hydro into a quantum spectacular!

@Rainmaker1973 There is an undeniable, sublime connection in nature, as though we’re all in this together. But it remains a survival game, so don’t lose those rational instincts and go swimming with crocs 👀🧠

@Unexplained2020 While there are can be no conclusive evidence otherwise, it is a lovely feeling to consider we are more than the some of our parts and our small time in this place.

The question may be what true intelligence is, and what makes it super. If true intelligence runs through life—guiding us to adapt and thrive in hostile conditions so that we evolve to survive—then perhaps intelligence is the capacity to find the best outcomes for survival. That, in turn, means creating sustainable systems that reflect the very existence that brought us here. And that is what makes us super. Maybe we should rethink our place, and our actions, at history’s table, to ensure we continue to deserve it.

Confirmation bias: our habit of noticing and favouring evidence that fits what we already believe. Decide a new neighbour is grumpy, and you'll remember the day they didn't wave, not the five days they did. Spotted this one lately? critthinker.com

Tuesday thinking trap: how I think I argue vs how I actually argue. Ad hominem attacks the person, and a strawman attacks an argument nobody made. Everyone's a grandmaster until the group chat. Spot both at critthinker.com

@HKane Incredible achievement! Every step led to this monumental moment. Along the way, countless decisions shaped your direction, when the likelier path was an ordinary one, not for lack of potential, but because of fear and influence.

The media are often guilty of sensationalising its wording, because dramatising the subject hooks and influences the viewer. "Scientists" doesn't mean all scientists, yet without "some" or "which", it reads like a universal consensus. Precise wording protects the public's trust in science. A critical thinking mindset opens the door to free will, rather than letting our influences decide for us. 🧠⚖️

@historyinmemes Stanley Donen explained it: light rain from the front and it vanishes on film, so it has to be backlit. Myth versus mechanism, and the mechanism is the better story. critthinker.com