What benefits can rational thinking bring?

Thinking is the highest form of human cognitive activities, which enables people to reflect not only the things directly perceived by the senses, but also the internal relations between things. This is through the analysis, comparison, synthesis, abstraction and generalization of things. It is a cognitive activity that indirectly reflects the essence of things through reasoning or judgment. It is a process of dealing with abstract things through memory and imagination, so as to understand their meaning. Today, I bring you some articles about thinking, hoping to help students in need!

What is "rational thinking"?

rational consideration

Rational thinking is a kind of thinking with clear thinking direction and sufficient thinking foundation, which can observe, compare, analyze, synthesize, abstract and summarize things or problems. Simply put, rational thinking is a way of thinking based on evidence and logical reasoning.

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

Examples of rational thinking:

I bought oranges and they didn't taste good, so I went to find the reason and found that only a few oranges were the same as those I bought, but I couldn't judge the quality of oranges in this way.

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Generally speaking, rational thinking includes three forms:

1. Concept: On the basis of accumulating a lot of perceptual knowledge of objective things in practice, people grasp the essential attributes of things, that is, extract the essence, totality and internal relations of things and mark them with certain material shell words, thus producing concepts (by means of induction and summary);

2. Judgment: Judgment is an expanded concept, and it is a form of thinking that affirms and denies the internal connection of things. (judging by nature);

3. Inference: Inference is a form of thinking that deduces new judgments from known judgments. It can reflect the inevitable trend of things. (inferring the development trend through internal connections);

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The relationship between rational thinking and perceptual thinking;

Perceptual thinking is that people produce many impressions in their minds through their senses in the process of practice, and have a preliminary understanding of the superficial phenomena of various things. It only reflects the phenomenon and external connection of things, and has not yet reached the essence and internal connection of things.

On the basis of perceptual thinking, through the role of thinking, the rich sensory materials are removed from the rough and refined, and the false and the true are removed. From here to there, the transformation of the production process from the outside to the inside will produce a leap and become a rational thinking that reflects the essence and internal relations of things by stages such as concept, judgment and reasoning.

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

Rational thinking and perceptual thinking are different in nature, but they are interrelated, and they are linked together on the basis of practice. Rational thinking must rely on perceptual thinking, otherwise it will become passive water and a tree without roots. And perceptual thinking must develop into rational thinking, so as to reflect objective things more deeply, correctly and comprehensively.

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Ways to improve rational thinking

Watch more reasoning TV dramas

Reasoning is brought by logical thinking, and the improvement of reasoning ability can also bring about the improvement of logical thinking, so watching some TV dramas like Conan and Di Renjie is conducive to the improvement of logical thinking. Don't just wait for the result when reading, but use your own heart to reason.

Do more logic games or problems.

Doing more logical projects will help improve our logical thinking ability. Don't be afraid of difficulties when you do it. Try to come up with the answer yourself. If you can't figure it out, you can look at the answer. But after reading the answer, you should understand the solution in the answer. If you really don't understand them, you can ask others.

Think more about something.

Thinking more is a good behavior habit. Cultivating this good behavior habit can not only improve one's logical thinking, help one to better adapt to and understand the society, but also help one to better survive in this society.

Handwritten notes

Keep the good habit of taking notes by hand, and keep taking notes by hand 10-20 minutes every day. In the process of taking notes by hand, the mind and emotions will be sorted out quickly.

How to be a rational person?

This year's Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to richard taylor who studied behavioral economics.

This news makes me very excited. Because behavioral economics is an area that I am particularly interested in in in recent years.

So, I want to use today's article to tell you: what is behavioral economics and what it studies.

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

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

To understand behavioral economics, we must start with the hypothesis of "rational man".

What is the "rational person" hypothesis?

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

The food and drink we need every day comes not from the kindness of butchers, brewers and bakers, but from their selfish plans. We don't say arouse their altruism, only arouse their egoism. We don't talk about our own needs, but only about being good to them.

Anyway. His point of view can be summarized as: based on his own needs, doing behaviors that are beneficial to him will objectively contribute to the formation of the whole 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 behavior of "buying bread" is beneficial to us and the baker. Both sides can benefit from this transaction.

This is the basic logic of the whole market economy.

What was the thinking of economics before Adam Smith? This is mercantilism. At that time, the research focus was on how the country controlled foreign trade, how to colonize and plunder, and how to achieve surplus through tariffs, thus improving the accumulation of national wealth (that is, gold and silver). In short, this is a zero-sum game.

Why is it a zero-sum game? There are gains and losses in trade between countries. One country has a surplus (that is, exports exceed imports), and another country must have a deficit. A rich country will inevitably bring poverty to other countries. Generally speaking, the welfare status of the whole society has not changed.

However, with the rise of the British industrial revolution in 1760, the demand for free trade and division of labor became urgent. At this time, the traditional mercantilism is not applicable. The whole society needs a new theory to guide them how to operate and act.

So Adam Smith appeared.

Adam Smith believes 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, the market efficiency can be optimized. Everyone's situation can be improved.

What is the principle behind this?

He called it the "economic man" hypothesis.

He believes that people are pursuing interests and will take the road of "maximizing interests". If I need bread more than money, I will buy bread with money; If the baker needs money more, he will sell it with bread.

This hypothesis, after being perfected by a series of masters such as the old-timers, John Mill and Pareto, was carried forward and became the "rational man hypothesis". It has also become the basis of classical economics.

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

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

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

3. People will choose the option with the highest utility value to act.

Where is the "rationality" embodied in this? 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 never think that 50 yuan is better than 100 yuan.

Until the middle of the 20th century, this theory seemed to be correct.

What happened in the 20th century? Psychology is booming.

In particular, the prosperity of cognitive psychology reveals people's cognitive process.

People are beginning to find that our thinking process is actually traceable. Our judgments and decisions on things are not as accurate as we thought.

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

At this time, it is necessary to mention a heavyweight:

Daniel Kahneman is a good friend and teacher of Richard Taylor, winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Economics.

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

It can be said that although behavioral economics began to have a lot of research as early as the first half of the 20th century, it was not until Kahneman's paper was born that this discipline was completely established.

So, what did Daniel Kahneman do?

1979 published a paper with tversky and put forward the "prospect theory".

This theory summarizes the application of psychology in the 20th century, and greatly corrects the traditional assumption of "completely rational man".

It holds that people will be influenced by many psychological factors when analyzing expected utility and making decisions. These psychological factors will lead us to make many "seemingly irrational" decisions.

This is contrary to the traditional assumption.

Give a simple example:

A person is doing a job he doesn't like. He looks forward to getting off work every day, and has been looking forward to the weekend since Monday. His salary is not high, which is just so-so, but he just refuses to resign. Why?

The traditional explanation is to use utility function to calculate expectations. For example, his current salary is 6000 yuan. If he changes jobs, there is a 50% chance that his salary will increase 1000, and there is a 50% chance that his salary will decrease by 2000 yuan. Then, the total expected return is 50% x 1000-50% x 2000, and the result is -500, which is negative. He doesn't want to.

However, the prospect theory holds that in this case, even if the probability of salary increase is changed to 80%, the probability of salary decrease is changed to 20%, and the total income is changed from -500 to positive 400, he will not be willing to quit.

Why? Because the proportion of "salary reduction" in his mind is far more important than "salary increase".

This is the most important achievement of prospect theory: loss aversion. People will be much more sensitive to loss than to gain.

In short, it's the same 100 yuan. Losing 100 yuan is completely different from finding 100 yuan. The pain caused by the former will be stronger and more lasting.

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

So, why do people have loss aversion?

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, this is because losing one thing (such as injury, food, territory) has a more serious impact on us than getting one thing during thousands of years of evolution. As a result, our brains are shaped 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, backward ...) to attract your attention (including me, covering your face).

The principle behind this is actually aversion to loss.

Based on the prospect theory and loss aversion, Kahneman, Seiler and a large number of behavioral economists put forward many interesting theories.

For example, the following two experiments.

The first experiment: economists divided the participants into AB group. They gave a cup to everyone in Group A and told them that the cup belongs to you completely, 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 with you or use it to buy the cups of Group A. ..

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

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

People who own cups think their cups are more valuable.

The second experiment is similar:

Divide the participants into three groups. In the first group, everyone gave a coffee cup; In the second group, everyone gave a piece of chocolate; The third group gave nothing.

Then, economists told them separately: people in the first group can choose to exchange cups for chocolate or take them away; People in the second group can choose to exchange chocolate for cups or not. In the third group, people had to choose between cups and chocolates and tell the experimenters which one they liked better.

Let's start with the third group. 56% people choose cups and 44% people choose chocolate. Although there is a little gap, it can be generally believed that for these students, cups are almost as valuable as chocolate, and there is no significant difference in preference.

But the results of the first group and the second group are completely different:

In the first group, 89% people choose not to exchange, and only 1 1% people are willing to exchange.

In the second group, 90% people choose not to exchange, and only 10% people are willing to exchange.

What does this mean?

People's evaluation of what they "already have" will greatly increase.

In short: everyone will think that what they have is more valuable.

This is the so-called endowment effect.

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

But it's actually interesting to think further.

Let's take a look.

First of all, the most basic condition of endowment effect is loss aversion, that is, the sensitivity to loss is higher than the income, which needs no elaboration.

But here's the question:

Gains and losses are relative. How do we define "loss" and "gain" in real life?

Take Experiment 1 as an example. The cups obtained by the participants are essentially foreign and donated by the experimenters. So why is there a gap?

This is because Group A first gets the cup and then chooses whether to sell it-their reference point is set to "I have a cup, would you like to lose it", which is a loss.

The reference point of group B is set to "I don't have a cup, would you like to get it", which is a kind of gain.

Therefore, the endowment effect comes into play.

What conclusions can we draw from it?

Our attitude towards a thing will be influenced by the "initial state". The initial state is different, our reference point is different, and the 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 threatening the life safety of 600 residents. Now, for these two groups of people, they have the following choices:

Team a heard that there are two measures now. Measures 1 can ensure that 200 people are saved. 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 that Group B heard was this:

There are two ways. Measure 1 will kill 400 people, measure 2 has a 2/3 risk of all death, and there is a 1/3 chance that no one will die. What would you choose?

We can see at a glance that Group A and Group B are facing exactly the same choice. Measures 1 All 200 people were rescued and 400 people died; Measure 2 is 1/3 survival probability and 2/3 death probability.

Then, what we can expect is that the ratio of measures taken by the two groups 1 and 2 should be roughly equal.

If 80% of the people in group A choose measure 1, then it stands to reason that about 80% of the people in group B should choose measure 1.

But what happened? In group A, a large proportion of people chose measure1; Accordingly, in group B, most people chose measure 2.

What is the reason for this? Because the "initial state" is different.

For group A, both measures are the framework of "acquisition". In this case, people tend to be conservative, that is, choose a strategy that can keep the bag.

But for Group B, these two measures are the framework of "loss". At this time, people's "loss aversion" is manifested-they would rather take greater risks than watch the losses happen in vain.

In other words, when we receive a "loss" framework, our subconscious reaction is to take risks. Even if the result of the adventure may be more serious, we don't want to lose it in vain.

This is the famous "framing effect".

The same event, expressed in different ways and conveyed to each other in different "frames", may bring completely different effects.

The benefits of rational thinking

There is no doubt that Islam has given reason a great role in human thinking and behavior mechanism. What is enough to illustrate this fact is that, in Charillat's terminology, if you lose your mind, you have no obligation and no responsibility.

It is worth noting that some people exaggerate the role of reason so much that reason is allowed to judge Charirat's laws; At the same time, another part of people went to the other extreme and almost abandoned the value of reason.

Some people think that Ansari ignored the role of reason after taking the final position in philosophy. So it is necessary for us to know Ansari's attitude towards this issue.

As Dr. Gerdavi said, the key to this problem is to establish such an idea: from the Islamic point of view, rationality does not conflict with Zarirat; Propaganda of freedom and rationality is propaganda of faith.

Faith and reason are inseparable. Ansari pointed out: "Reason cannot be separated from classics; Classics are inseparable from reason. People who advocate pure conformity and complete separation from rationality 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 have both sources. Because rational knowledge is like food, and charitable knowledge is like medicine. "

On this basis, Ansari emphasized that rational knowledge does not conflict with Charillat's knowledge. He said: "Some people think that rational knowledge is in direct conflict with Zarirat's knowledge, and the two are incompatible. This speculation stems from the blindness of insight-we ask the Lord to protect us from this phenomenon.

"People who hold this view may feel that one part of Charirat's knowledge conflicts with another and cannot be reconciled, so they think that this is a religious contradiction, and they are quite confused, so it is easy to betray religion. In fact, incompetence has led to the idea of religious contradictions. What a waste. Don! "

Rationality is endowed by God to mankind, which enables mankind to know God through observing and thinking about God's creation. However, reason is not infinite, and it is not suitable for understanding everything; There are some things that reason must accept unconditionally as an indisputable fact. These facts were handed down by the prophet. Therefore, Ansari believes that reason should confirm two facts: confirming the existence of Allah; Confirm the holy products of the prophet. If the method of confirming the former fact is known, that is, observing the creation of Allah, how can we confirm the latter fact?

Ansari takes us to the other side of this problem through real examples. He believes that "man is made up of body and mind; The heart refers to the truth of the soul, knowing the location of Allah, not the flesh and blood of the dead and livestock. The health of the body determines its happiness, and the illness of the body leads to its pain and destruction. The mind also has its own health and soundness, and only those who come with a sound mind can be saved (26: 84); At the same time, the mind also has a disease, which determines the eternal destruction of the mind and future generations. As Allah said, "They are sick in their hearts, ..." (2: 10)

"Ignorance of Allah is a deadly poison, and following selfish desires and disobeying Allah is a malignant disease. Cognitive Allah is a detoxifier; It is a good medicine to restrain selfish desires and obey Allah. To cure heart disease, you need some medicine, just as the body needs some medicine to cure it. The drugs of the body have an effect on rehabilitation through one of its characteristics, and the wise can't understand it with reason, so they can only follow the doctor-the prophet who accepts these drugs; Prophets can discover the characteristics of those drugs through sacred products. Similarly, I firmly believe that the scope and quantity of Ibadai are defined by prophets, and reason cannot understand the exact form of its effectiveness, so it should follow the example of prophets-those who understand the characteristics of homework with the help of sacred objects rather than rational functions. "

Then, Ansari concluded: "In a word, the prophet is a doctor who treats heart disease. The utility and function of reason are: let us realize the above facts and believe and recognize the sacred products; Admit that you can't understand what the holy product knows; Holding our hands and handing us over to the holy things is like handing the blind to the guide and the helpless patient to the compassionate doctor. The role of reason stops here. Unless you understand what the doctor told you, you can't get your hands on anything else. "

In this way, Imam Ansari clarified the problem of confirming sacred objects, pointed out the second task of rationality, and explained the scope of this task with three things: first, he recognized the necessity of sacred objects and believed them; Second, reason is incompetent and can only understand what can be understood through sacred products; Third, obey the prophet and follow the prophet.

Ansari discussed this problem in a concise and convincing style, which was the result of his efforts during his seclusion. He told us: "Then, I persisted in meditation in seclusion for nearly 10 years. During this period, I have experienced countless times: sometimes it is intuition, sometimes it is evidence knowledge, and sometimes it is the acceptance of faith, so I am convinced: ... "

Ansari ended this passage with the following words: "These things are the knowledge I acquired during my seclusion, and I am sure it is like a testimony."

Ansari determined the orientation of rational acceptance of knowledge, thus liberating it from all kinds of superstitions, fantasies and blind obedience.