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Why Think Critically

Welcome to the second lesson on Critical Thinking 101. This would be a live class where the instructor will help you understand the two systems of mind. Please make sure that you don’t miss this one.

If you’re curious about how this class is going to pan out, please do read on.

An Exercise to start off (10 minutes)

Let’s start this lesson off with a series of questions. They are courtesy of Daniel Kahnemann and his seminal book Thinking Fast and Slow. Please try to answer the questions with the first answer that pops into your mind. In other words, think and answer fast!

Activity -1​

Try to understand this image

Activity - 2​

13x23=?

Try to answer the problem

Then, here are some facts for you to consider.

On activity 1 - you were able to easily identify that the woman is expressing anger. Your mind understood that with ease or with less effort. You probably took 3-4 seconds to understand that.

On activity 2 - seeing the problem you understood it’s a multiplication problem that you're handling. After that, you brought your attention to the problem. You would have made guesses on the answer and would have taken a piece of paper to solve that out. If you have recognised, your efforts towards solving this problem are high compared to activity-1.

So, what happened?​

We humans basically have two systems of thinking. They are - fast thinking and slow thinking. Fast thinking operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. The minute you saw the lady’s image, you were able to understand that she is angry and is about to rage at someone, which involved less effort. Slow thinking on the other hand is effortful, deliberate, and orderly. It consumes your mental energy in order to carry out the task. Activity - 2 is an example of slow thinking. You first would have tried to retrieve your memory on multiplication, carry out the computation and the burden of holding much material in memory. These are the two ways that your brain thinks. Let’s understand why this happens. Why did you find ease with one and strain with the other?

Two systems

Daniel Kahneman names these two types of thinking as system-1 and system-2. Let’s do another series of activity to understand them better

Try to look the below sets of statements

Activity-1​

  1. Complete the phrase - “Bread and …..”
  2. Answer to 2+2=?
  3. Drive a car on an empty road
  4. Read words on a large billboard

Activity-2​

  1. Fill out a application form
  2. Look for a man with white hair in a crowd
  3. Comparing two computers on their specs
  4. Look for the word ‘Autumn’ in a paragraph

Then, here are some facts for you to consider.

Activity-1 : Carrying out the tasks of activity-1 was easier. You know it is “Bread and Jam” the very minute you see that blank. You know it is an easy task to drive a car on an empty road. These are the functions of system-1. System-1 is automatic by nature and consumes less mental energy.

Activity-2 : Carrying out the tasks of activity-2 was a strain. Filling out an application form will require your full attention. It’s not automatic nor is it easy. All these are effortful mental activities. They demand attention, effort and cognitive(mental) energy.

So, what happened?​

The time you face a known problem, system-1 takes over the job which is automatic in nature. For the question “Bread and jam”, you already know the answer and you were not bothered about the question. So, system-1 solved the problem. When you encounter a tough or unknown question, when your environment changes your system-2 is called out to action by your system-1. So, by nature, any problem is first handled by system-1 and when it senses an unknown condition, it calls out system-2 to answer the question. System-2 eventually consumes energy to solve the problem it faces.

So, why is this happening?​

Humans are born prepared to perceive the world around us, recognise, orient attention, avoid losses. And some mental activities become fast and automatic through prolonged practice. This is the logic behind system-1. If you are a chess master, making the next move will be easy for you. If you are a human, understanding the situation is easy for you. System-2 on the other hand, takes over tasks if it cannot be addressed by system-1 in general. The highly diverse operations of system-2 have one feature in common, they require attention and are disrupted when attention is drawn away. Let’s understand system-2 further by looking into the example.

System-2 - A better understanding​

Activity​

This is an experiment to help you understand what your system-2 is capable of. Please watch the video attachment and come back for an interesting idea that will be shared

Instruction: Please count the number of times the ball is exchanged between the white coloured team

Silverback Illusion: Video

Then, here are some facts for you to consider.

  1. Not many of you would have noticed but a gorilla moved in between in the video.
  2. The gorilla comes into the circle and walks across it.
  3. This is because you were consciously focusing on the white team, ignoring the others

So, what happened?​

This is an example of how system-2 and attention plays around. You were given a new task which is not familiar to you. So, system-1 allows system-2 to take over the task of counting the number of passes made by white team. System-2 - with attention was busy on counting the number of passes that I ignored all other things that happened around. This is something that happens in our day-to-day life. For example, at the time of overtaking a truck while driving, you focus on that action and will miss out what your neighbour was trying to tell you while performing it. This is a typical example of what system-2 is capable of. It brings down your entire body into the action that you feel by your body and not by your mind.

Let’s do another activity to understand system-2 better

Activity​

Your first task is to go down both the columns, calling out whether each word is printed in lowercase or in uppercase. When you are done with the first task, go down both columns again, saying whether each word is printed to the left or to the right of centre by saying “LEFT” or “RIGHT”

Then, here are some facts for you to consider.

  1. Calling out upper and lower was easy with the 1st set, while it happens to be slightly difficult for the 2nd set.
  2. Calling out left and right is easy with the 2nd set, while it happens to be slightly difficult for the 1st set.

So, what happened?​

These tasks engage system-2, because saying ‘Upper/Lower’ or ‘Left/Right’ is not what you routinely do. So, system-2 will be called out for action. Once this was done, along with the feature of paying attention, system-2 also exhibited a ‘Control’ feature. It tries to align your thinking in a way to pronounce ‘left’ even though the word it is written as ‘right’.

Interaction between the two systems​

The interaction between the two systems are recurrent. System-1 and system-2 are both active whenever you are awake. System-1 runs automatically and system-2 is normally in a comfortable low-effort mode, in which only a fraction of its capacity is engaged.

Activity​

Look at this image and answer the poll

Which among the lines is bigger? You probably think line-2 is bigger than line-1 right?

This activity will be facilitated by the instructor in the classroom

Then, here are some facts for you to consider.

  1. This is an example of cognitive illusion. This is the famous Muller-Iyer illusion
  2. If the instructor tells you both the lines are equal, all of you would not accept it. But until, he takes a ruler and measures the length of both the lines.
  3. If you could measure and check please check. Both the lines will have the same length. Now you will agree with the instructor.

So, what happened?​

You developed an impression in your mind that the lines don’t look equal and which later turned out to be your belief. Which all were carried out by your system-1 and system-2 also accepted it because it doesn’t look odd. But when the instructor showed the measurement, your system-2 instructed your system-1 to alter your beliefs. This also happened in the previous experiment in which your system-2 tried to control your actions. Even though it's written left, you understood it is on the right side and pronounced it as right. This is how both the systems interact. You will be able to overcome biases, illusion and heuristics that your system-1(being automatic) is prone to, you will have to use our system-2. System-2 is basically lazy and it remains silent most of the time. But through leveraging system-2’s action you can make it through.

You will understand the ways to leverage system-2 in the next lesson. See you there.

Summary

  1. There are two systems in your mind
  1. System-1, which is automatic and does most of your work
  2. System-2, which is lazy and remains silent

  1. If the system-1 identifies there is a change in its regular operating environment, it calls out system-2 into action

  2. System-2 functions with attention. It consumes energy and thus remain silent in most times

  3. System-2 can also control our thinking. This can instruct system-1 to act in one specific way (conventional).

  4. Illusions, biases, and heuristics can be over come by using system-2