This is a very short book (only 60 odd pages) about a very big subject – Thinking. It is based on the belief that we can all learn to Think far more effectively by sticking to a few simple rules. Why those rules work is a complicated business, but we leave the ‘Whys’ out here (indicating where you can read about them elsewhere). We hope everyone over 13 could read this little book and become a whole lot smarter after doing so.
But how could that be true? Because 2,500 years ago the ‘experts’ on thinking imagined that they had found new ways of doing so that would lead to Certainty. But it turned out that they were hopelessly wrong. Unfortunately they confused everyone about the matter, especially the highly educated, so all we have to do now is abandon their wild goose chase for Certainty, and revert to the tried and tested ways of Common Sense. What we will be looking for instead are convincing betting odds on our ideas and our decisions being right.
The key to understanding was Darwin’s realisation (in 1859) that we humans too are animals, and therefore that Thinking must be a survival mechanism that has evolved over a million generations of struggle out in the wild. As such it must be highly effective otherwise humans would have become extinct. The thinking method advocated here is the way I believe that all smart animals, unconfused by education, use. You simply can’t beat it!
Who am I to claim any expertise in the matter of thinking? I have been an astronomer and Space scientists all my working life (50 years), using what I believed to be ‘The Scientific Method’. But then events led me to question exactly what that Scientific Method was. A dozen years of fascinating research eventually brought me to realise that it was all about Common Sense Thinking (CST for short), and to the actual mechanisms by which CST must work. This book is a brief account of what I found out, written in the hope that it will revolutionise other peoples’ thinking as much as it has definitely revolutionised mine. And if you won’t take my word here is what Albert Einstein had to say:
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant, and has forgotten the gift.”
Let’s unearth that sacred gift of Nature and share it amongst ourselves once again. Let’s re-learn how to think.
‘COMMON SENSE THINKING’ is actually a very condensed and simplified version of my big book ‘THINKING FOR OURSELVES’ described elsewhere on this site under the ‘My Books’ category
TABLE OF CONTENTS BY CHAPTER
1 THINKING LIKE EINSTEIN
2 THINKING LIKE A GAMBLER
3 THE CASE OF THE MISSING WIFE
4 MURDER IN THE LIBRARY & PAW
5 KEEPING IT SIMPLE; GET OUT THAT RAZOR
6 NUMBERS; PAWN THEM.
7 WHEN TO DECIDE AND ACT: 64
8 WHAT ABOUT YOUR PRIOR?
9 DOES IT WORK?
10 THE LIMITATIONS OF COMMON SENSE
11 ENEMIES: EDUCATION VERSUS COMMON SENSE
12 BUT IS IT RIGHT?
13 A SERIOUS HEALTH WARNING FOR THINKERS.
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK
EXTRA STUFF ( OPTIONAL)
The worked examples with hints are at a url in my ‘Post:
“ABOUT MY BOOK TFO&&&” and if you click on that it will download.
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