The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli (1966 – ) explores cognitive biases and errors in human judgment and decision-making. It presents a collection of short chapters, each on a cognitive bias or fallacy, and provides insights into why these biases occur and how to recognize and counteract them.

To think more clearly, consider the following suggestions by the author:

1. Be aware of cognitive biases: Familiarize yourself with common cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias, anchoring, sunk cost fallacy, and availability heuristic. Being aware of these biases can help you recognize when they might be influencing your thinking.
2. Question your assumptions: When making decisions or judgments, examine the underlying assumptions you hold. Be willing to question them and consider alternative perspectives.
3. Seek disconfirming evidence: Actively look for evidence that contradicts your beliefs or opinions. This can help you avoid confirmation bias and ensure a more balanced view of the situation.
4. Consider the base rate: When evaluating probabilities, consider the base rate (the underlying probability of an event occurring) rather than relying solely on anecdotal evidence or personal experiences.
5. Beware of overconfidence: Recognize that we often overestimate our abilities and the accuracy of our beliefs. Be open to revising your beliefs and opinions when presented with new information.
6. Avoid emotional decision-making: Try to separate your emotions from the situation when making decisions. Emotional decisions can lead to irrational choices and worsen cognitive biases.
7. Practice critical thinking: Develop your critical thinking skills by questioning information, considering multiple perspectives and explanations, and evaluating the quality of evidence and arguments.
8. Slow down your thinking: Take the time to reflect on your thoughts and decisions, rather than jumping to conclusions or acting impulsively.
9. Learn from your mistakes: When you make an error in judgment or decision-making, acknowledge it, analyze what went wrong, and use the experience to improve your future thinking.
10. Foster an open-minded attitude: Cultivate an open-minded and curious approach to learning, embracing new ideas and perspectives, and being willing to change your mind when presented with compelling evidence.

Evolution is the simple answer to how these biases landed in our brain. One theory is that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were in constant danger from predators and rapidly changing environments. Those who ran away at a suspicious sound were not eaten, while those who sat down to calculate the possibilities died. We also inherited a fear of standing out, as this meant being kicked out of our comfort zone within the hunter-gatherer groups where teamwork and conformity meant survival. We also inherited a fear of the dark.

We also inherited rational thought, which made possible art, science, technology, government — culture, which occupied more and more of our time as we increased our control of nature.

What we call cognitive biases, therefore, do not serve us too well in many modern situations. Imagine a hunter-gatherer with his finger on the nuclear button. We have developed science and art and forms of government, forms of expression and vocabularies that span cultural contexts that require us now to think more about the consequences of our actions, whether we are doing that alone or in groups. That kind of thinking — alternatives, consequences, multiple actors and circumstances — may be described as slow, in contrast to the hunter-gatherer mode which is fast.

Daniel Kahneman (1934 -) in Thinking Fast and Slow presents a more thorough and entertaining description of these two systems that function like built-in programs in the brain. The Fast part is easy, it doesn’t take much effort. It is good for escaping from a sudden threat of a head-on collision. Or when someone pulls out a knife with murder in mind. Or when you’re just enjoying the sunshine, or watching a B-movie, where the point precisely is to relax from a day of heavy decision making. The Slow part is that decision making. It takes careful effort.

Because it’s easy, Fast is where we’re likely to be at any given time. When we need Slow, Kahneman suggests: BREATHE. Like four counts in, eight counts out. Or count down — 100, 93, 86, 79… . You may be familiar with the 5-second Rule made popular by Mel Robbins (1968- ): when you want to do something, like go up to an attractive person, count down 5-4-3-2-1, then GO do it. Counting deactivates Fast; counting down leaves you no more choice after 1.

These put Slow on the driver’s seat. He will tire more easily, so keep some funny cat videos in your files. Then it’s back to Slow and to serious work.

But Slow doesn’t have to be serious; it can in fact be enjoyable. An enjoyable activity is mainly so because it is easy. Wit, humor, original insight are, in addition, fun. Entertainment can be Slow AND enjoyable. Any guides on how to do that?

I present two: Jean Guitton’s New Art of Thinking, and Edward de Bono’s Thinking Hats. Systematic practice of their methods make thinking easier. I will describe them from both Fast and Slow thinking perspectives.

Jean Guitton (1901 -1999) in Nouvel Art de Penser, made a schema consisting of three “arts” of thinking. These are: Finding the Essence, Classification, and Contradiction. The arts represent different ways of looking at a problem, an opportunity, a book, a movie — and the arts put a system in thinking and make the process reproducible.

Finding the Essence. Fast has to grasp whether an attack is a mugging or a murder attempt, Slow has time to gather evidence for a court case. How do you summarize in one sentence the book you just read? In one sentence, what is this painting saying? Find the essence of a problem, the question at heart, not at the periphery, the cause, not the symptom. Data gathering itself is neither part of Slow or Fast; more on that later. Finding the essence (and the other two arts) is what we do to data.

Classification. Fast has to exclude scratch injuries and focus on bleeding injuries, Slow has the time to weigh what internal damages may require repair and how. What are top three issues in this debate? To what school of art does this painter belong to? In how many acts can we summarize this book? Which parts of this essay represent opinion and which represent speculation? Dobelli advices that we read every good book at least twice. I think that by doing that we are able to apply the arts in a concentrated way. The first reading is to get the essence, the second to classify.

Contradiction. Fast has to decide whether his first impression that someone approaching him in a conference is hostile, or whether it might mean something else; Slow has the time to identify what that something else might be. How might I be wrong? How might this author be wrong (or if you disagree, how might he be right)? In what circumstances does the model apply and not apply? In what way is this movie (that I love) bad? Contradiction is productive not destructive: if you attack yourself and defend well, then your belief becomes stronger. It is a high level kind of thinking that is best done when one has already read a work or watched a movie at least once.

Edward de Bono (1933-2021) in Six Thinking Hats invites the thinker to name his thinking style at the moment, imagining himself wearing hats of different colors.

White hat. Data gathering mode. The thinker is a sponge, emotionally neutral. Fast needs only to see; Slow would may notice temperature and smells as well on the road. I remember one advice: a good journalist notes down what’s important; a great journalist notes down everything.

Yellow hat. The thinker is logical. Fast intuits or infers from one or two data before acting, Slow with with statistical samples, perhaps engage in debate with colleagues before concluding.

Green hat. The thinker thinks out of the box, but it’s hard to say how quickly that happens. Slow has discovered the secrets of nature at a bath or sitting under an apple tree. Deadlines and danger seem to help. Fast, pressured for a solution to come up with a name for an NGO, thinks about deities, uses that as short for some name made up to fit the deity’s. Slow studies, reads, gets mission and vision, interviews, gathers votes, then comes up with a name while taking a shower. Necessity is the mother of invention, and imminent death the trigger of eternal haikus.

Red hat. Emotions to a thinker are signals to the real thing, and good thinkers never think of them as the real thing. Red is anger, hatred, sadness, excitement. Fast will lift a car of a dying child without thinking of anything else. Slow will compose his thoughts and inspire his soldiers, promising them that tonight they dine in Hades.

Black hat. Pessimists balance, and are balanced. They work best not in isolation. Fast day trader suffers the immediate backlash from being pessimistic on a risky stock. Slow, also suffers but is more likely to develop depression and anxiety as exposure to the pessimism virus turns from acute to chronic.

Blue hat. The Blue hat is a coordinator, an integrator. Preferably this is the province of Slow, who has to listen patiently, take notes, and read between the lines. Blue also invites the others, “Let’s all wear yellow hats now,” whatever. Fast is the general who must decide with his team whether it is now time to call the charge. Slow is the general who works on a game board with his team.

That’s 4 books: Dobelli, Kahneman, Guitton, and De Bono, to be read at least once, with a mix of thinking styles.

(Q.C. 230510)