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    Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments: How to Expand Your Mental Horizons, Understand Metacognition, Improve Your Curiosity, and Think Like a Philosopher
    Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments: How to Expand Your Mental Horizons, Understand Metacognition, Improve Your Curiosity, and Think Like a Philosopher
    Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments: How to Expand Your Mental Horizons, Understand Metacognition, Improve Your Curiosity, and Think Like a Philosopher
    Ebook106 pages1 hour

    Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments: How to Expand Your Mental Horizons, Understand Metacognition, Improve Your Curiosity, and Think Like a Philosopher

    By Patrick King

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    About this ebook

    Use the mental tools that the world's greatest thinkers used to generate epiphanies, explore the world, and hone their reasoning.



    In traditional education, you're taught to recite and regurgitate. Going a step farther, you might learn some critical thinking skills. But what about applying them in the most audacious, fascinating, and inquisitive ways possible with thought experiments?


    Philosophical and exploratory thinking pushes your boundaries and opens new worlds.



    Learn to Think Using Thought Experiments is about how to analyze, perceive, and interact with information and situations - all in your mind and imagination. It poses a hypothetical and forces you to engage it and answer questions and reason through arguments you've never known. This book will confuse, frustrate, and ultimately improve your thinking prowess like nothing else, on account of being thrown into the mental deep end. Challenge yourself and you will grow.


    Improve critical thinking by applying it in innovative and novel ways.



    Patrick King is an internationally bestselling author and social skills coach. His writing draws of a variety of sources, from scientific research, academic experience, coaching, and real life experience.


    Become more naturally curious, inquisitive, and Sherlock Holmes-like.



    - The curious case of two cats and what they teach us about uncertainty.
    - What choosing between 1 and 5 people says about you.
    - Why this entire world might just be a dream or simulation.
    - What a javelin has to do with infinite.
    - How Zeno's tortoise represents the point where reality and numbers diverge.
    - How Chinese logicians, beetles, fish, and monkeys demonstrate different angles of reality and perception.


    Learn to thrive in uncertain situations and contemplate more thoroughly and deeply.
    Thought experiments are a classic tool that everyone can use, and they enable us to explore more abstract situations and reason through them. Master thought experiments and you can master simply dealing with difficult, uncertain, impossible, or confusing questions and situations.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPublishdrive
    Release dateMar 16, 2020
    ISBN9798625524698
    Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments: How to Expand Your Mental Horizons, Understand Metacognition, Improve Your Curiosity, and Think Like a Philosopher
    Author

    Patrick King

    Patrick King is a social interaction specialist/dating, online dating, image, and communication and social skills coach based in San Francisco, California. His work has been featured on numerous national publications such as Inc.com, and he’s achieved status as a #1 Amazon best-selling dating and relationships author. He writes frequently on dating, love, sex, and relationships. Learn more about Patrick at his website, patrickkingconsulting.com.

    Read more from Patrick King

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      Book preview

      Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments - Patrick King

      Philosopher

      Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments:

      How to Expand Your Mental Horizons, Understand Metacognition, Improve Your Curiosity, and Think Like a Philosopher

      By Patrick King

      Social Interaction and Conversation Coach at www.PatrickKingConsulting.com

      As a FREE show of appreciation to my readers, I’ve got TWO great resources for you:

      >> CLICK HERE For The Flawless Interaction Checklist and Better Conversations Worksheet! <<

      The Checklist describes in-depth the 7 essential components to exceptional interactions and conversations between you and everyone from a stranger to your partner—and The Worksheet puts a few of those components to the test with practice exercises that will instantly upgrade any conversation.

      Learn how to:

      ·       Make people comfortable

      ·       Connect easily in any context

      ·       Develop killer eye contact

      ·       Prepare for any social situation

      ·       Appear as intuitive as a mind reader

      ·       Never run out of things to say

      ·       Practice and drill all of the above

      CLICK HERE to download your FREE copy now!

      Table of Contents

      Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments: How to Expand Your Mental Horizons, Understand Metacognition, Improve Your Curiosity, and Think Like a Philosopher

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1. Thinking About Thinking

      The Problem of the Runaway Trolley

      The Zombie Cat

      Physics First

      Chapter 2. The Nature of Uncertainty

      Shadows Vs. Reality

      Inside the Matrix

      A Loss of Control

      Chapter 3. The Nature of the Infinite

      The Javelin Tells All

      Shakespeare, I Presume?

      What’s Half of Half?

      Chapter 4. The Nature of Existence and Identity

      Plank by Plank

      The Man from the Swamp

      Beam Me Up, Scotty

      Chapter 5. The Nature of Perception

      Do You Speak Chinese?

      What’s a Beetle?

      A Tale of Fish

      Summary Guide

      Chapter 1. Thinking About Thinking

      There was a time when mankind knew so much less about the world. We take so much of what’s around us as a given, forgetting where it came from. Look around you and you’ll see that almost everything was, at some point, discovered or created by some enterprising or curious human being. The devices you use daily, the symbols making up the language you’re reading right now, the mechanics of the electricity powering your home, all the medical marvels that went into keeping you alive and well in this moment… (Ignore the fact that someone once had to look at a cow and decide I will try to drink whatever comes out of these pink things.)

      Each of these accomplishments had to be fought for and won, one tiny step at a time. Much of what our modern world is made of comes directly from the diligent effort of people working to understand the universe—and create their own inventions. All this scientific and technological progress was made not simply by sheer force of will or strength, but by using the scientific method, and seeing the world in a way that prioritizes rational argument founded on sound empirical or logical data. In other words, the experiment is a mental tool so immense, so valuable, and so central to the survival of our species that it’s hard to imagine where we’d be without it. It takes us from point A to point B, and it lets us know that we are directly affecting the world we inhabit.

      Instead of cowering in the face of the unknown, the experiment allows you to systematically and logically ask questions of the world around you, and make sense of the answers. It’s a tool to gradually pull back ignorance and reveal useful facts and information, unearth new possibilities, or show us where we’ve made an error.

      Of course, in this classical view, you may be thinking of the quintessential experiment: a scientist in a lab poking around with test tubes or wires, or a clinical trial for a new medication. The truth is, we conduct experiments all the time, formally and informally, consciously and unconsciously. Any time we deliberately manipulate conditions around us and carefully note the outcome, we are doing an experiment. Granted, not every experiment is going to be rigorous or perfectly sound! Nevertheless, experimentation is a method of patterning and understanding our encounters with the world. The concept behind this book is that some of the best experiments can be done with nothing more than your mind.

      Eons ago, humans had to learn things the hard way: if you wanted to know if a berry was poisonous or not, you ate it and hoped for the best. But, if you survived, everyone could learn from your actions without having to incur any risk themselves. Gradually, people could build on what they already knew so that less and less had to be done concretely, out there in the world. This is somewhat less efficient, and such experiments cannot always be seen.

      Thought experiments are conducted in a similar spirit. If we explore new ideas, arguments and scenarios mentally rather than literally, we’re freed from so many limitations. What would be impossible or impractical to do physically is possible with nothing more than careful thought.

      Thought experiments are not subject to any moral or natural laws, can be done relatively quickly and have (for the most part!) no real-world consequences. Their strength is that they give us the opportunity to fully flesh out certain hypothetical possibilities without committing to them practically. They allow us to discover aspects of ourselves we might not have otherwise, and think of the ramifications of certain possible acts long before we are technologically capable of them. There are countless innovators who, if asked where their inspiration came from, will point to speculative sci-fi from centuries prior, or whimsical what if questions that spurred their curiosity.

      The thought experiments we’ll be exploring in this book have all served a particular purpose in their historical context. However, in learning about them, we teach ourselves to reach outside our own habitual thoughts and beliefs. What philosophy in general, and thought experiments in particular, can teach us is twofold: firstly, that we are inhabiting a way of thinking at all, and secondly, that our way of thinking can be changed.

      As you read on, the hope is that you’ll develop your own critical thinking skills, mental agility and self-awareness. You’ll get comfortable thinking about thinking—perhaps the most valuable and transferable skill there is! By learning to carefully consider the virtues and drawbacks of the very process of thinking itself, you give yourself the opportunity to spot bias, question assumptions, more deeply understand your beliefs and—if you’re lucky—open the door to a completely new idea.

      Thought experiments are like a grand arena where you can take your brain out to play, to explore and to learn about itself, to grow larger and more robust. The ability to see not just what is but also what could be is fundamental to any endeavor that requires creativity or problem-solving acumen. It also helps you shift perspectives if necessary and consider something we seldom do: that we might be wrong! Manipulating thoughts, information, multiple variables, and coming up with an answer (for which there is no true right or wrong—a learned ability in itself) is something that can be applied to every walk of life.

      Throughout history, thought experiments have allowed great thinkers and philosophers to see beyond their immediate grasp, to ask far-ranging questions and push the limits of human knowledge. Using thought experiments in your own life, however, will

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