"Thinking Foundation" - Structured Thinking
Comprehensively improve your thinking ability
"Thinking Foundation" - Structured Thinking
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To construct, first deconstruct
My structured thinking The starting point of the road can be traced back to when I was in college. I remember reading a sentence in a book by Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) for the first time:
My Works There is only one theme, and that is how society forces those with sensitive minds who do not want to follow the rules to destruction.
The whole person was deeply shocked.
Jacques Derrida is a representative figure of postmodern deconstruction. In layman's terms, the core of postmodern deconstruction is to challenge unquestionable traditional concepts, dismantle and reassemble the inherent logic and structural system, and break all formal rules.
Before Einstein published the special and general theories of relativity, human society had always believed that Newton's laws of physics were applicable to all objects on the earth and to the entire universe. Human beings prefer a comprehensive and unified explanation for any phenomenon or thing to prove the correctness of this explanation. At the same time, society also requires the public to have uniform dress, uniform behavior, and uniform beliefs. After the thoughts of certain masters rose to the level of "ism", they became unquestionable and absolute truth.
Later, Einstein discovered the method of exploring the physics of the universe, which broke the absolute authority of Newtonian physics and ushered in an era of rapid development in mathematics and other scientific fields. People began to reflect on the existence of absolute authority and absolute truth. Therefore, Nietzsche proposed that "God is dead", which kicked off the postmodern deconstruction trend of thought.
Although this trend of thought has not had much influence in the political, economic, and military fields of mankind, it has mainly affected the artistic field, such as Frank Gehry, the master of postmodern architectural design. , Zaha Hadid, John Cage, the founder of deconstructive music, and deconstructive film works such as Stephen Chow's "Westward Journey" and so on. However, this trend of thought made me deeply aware of the shortcomings and deficiencies in the knowledge I had learned during the past twelve years of compulsory education, especially in the humanities and social sciences. It gave me the idea of ??going to a foreign country for further study, and it also laid the foundation for It gave me the spiritual foundation for rebuilding my own knowledge system.
Looking back from today’s perspective, the deconstruction trend of that year now has a new name called “decentralization”.
As the Internet brought by the information technology revolution has completely changed people's communication, consumption, travel and even learning methods, technology companies with Internet technology as the core are subverting and redoing all industries. In order to meet the individual needs of consumers and promote innovation, Internet companies have changed their organizational structures from the original "pyramid" to a flat "honeycomb", allowing front-line teams closer to the market to take on the responsibility of serving customers and innovating. important task. This is the penetration of "decentralization" in the field of business organizations.
In fact, not only the public’s consumption needs have become personalized, but people’s aesthetics, behavioral patterns and even ideologies are accelerating differentiation at an unprecedented speed, and new technologies represented by “blockchain” are The underlying dynamics behind these personalizations.
Although "decentralization", like the postmodern structuralism of the year, will be opposed and resisted by the vested interests of the "center", especially when a pyramid structure is used for political, economic and military governance. In the country, this will make the road to "decentralization" show a "spiral" upward trend, but the scientific spirit, critical thinking and humanistic care behind "decentralization" will help mankind break free from the shackles and continue to progress. Basic literacy, this will not change.
We say that learning a subject has three levels, and subject knowledge is only the surface form of subject thinking. If you only learn the knowledge of this subject, then this subject is a skill or technology to you. But most subjects are actually a process and method. For example, the scientific research process is "question-->hypothesis-->verification". By mastering this research process, we master empirical and quantitative methods and learn to use data to speak.
Looking at it more deeply, when we study a subject, we must ultimately learn the spirit and attitude of the subject. For example, the spirit and attitude of science include rational thinking (the spirit of pursuing the truth) and the attitude of seeking truth from facts (not making lies), while the humanities include more understanding of the relationship between man and nature, man and society, and where mankind will eventually go. ultimate thoughts.
So before building our own knowledge system, we must first clarify which of the knowledge we have learned in the past is superficial knowledge, which is process and method, and which constitutes our spirit and attitude.
As the saying goes, "If you don't destroy something, you can't establish it." Deconstruct first before you can construct.
The core method of construction
The essence of structured thinking is to think and solve problems systematically and comprehensively.
Ordinary people’s structured thinking is divided into two realms:
The typical output of the first level is to be able to structurally dismantle a problem and accurately find a solution. . The second level is the ability to self-model a certain issue --> explanation --> scenario-based application.
The difference between the second realm and the first realm is whether there is a set of "structure" of one's own. The ultimate goal of structured thinking is to form one's own "structure", so I formed this into my own The process of "structuring" is simply called "construction".
The cultivation process of the two realms can be summarized as: learning --> refining --> application --> re-learning --> re-refining --> re-application.
Since learning and refining play a relatively central role in construction, most people often fail to take these two steps, so they cannot reach the stage of summarizing their own structure, so this article first introduces learning. And the core method of refining.
1. Learning: System first, then fragments.
In the 1930s, more and more students were interested in economics in American institutions of higher learning. However, the economics departments at that time did not have unified textbooks, and undergraduates all studied Adam Smith. "The Wealth of Nations", Keynes's "General Theory of Employment, Information and Money", Marx's "Das Kapital" and so on.
Paul A. Samuelson (1915-2009), who was born into a family of economists, spent three years when he was 30 years old (in order to support his family). The point-like economic theories were integrated and reconstructed into an "Economics" textbook. This textbook divides economic theory into seven parts: basic concepts, microeconomics, factor markets, applied microeconomics, macroeconomics, global economy, and economic policy.
His textbook is still the best-selling economics textbook in the world, with more than 4 million copies sold worldwide in more than 40 languages. Although two other outstanding economists later, Joseph Eugene Stiglitz and N. Gregory Mankiw, also wrote two relatively popular economics textbooks, the book’s None of the structures escape Samuelson's framework.
Samuelson was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, but the transfer of economics from Europe to the United States did not begin with Samuelson. One of the biggest advantages of American scholars is that they like to establish disciplinary structures (constructs), which makes it easier for them to think about this subject from a more systematic and comprehensive dimension, and to find the inherent shortcomings and pain points of this subject and improve it.
This kind of constructive thinking was later summarized in the "Pyramid Principle" by McKinsey (the originator of the consulting company founded in the United States), and was recognized by the world as "structured thinking" and became a kind of A mindset for thinking and solving problems.
So when we study a subject, read a book, or look at a person, we should start from the overall structure rather than a certain part. Form an overall framework in your mind first, and then fill in the content. Here are two key points:
The structure must be learned from the masters and learned systematically; the content can be learned in a reduced-dimensionality and fragmented manner. What's the meaning?
True classic works are not easy to find, but understanding the master's "ideological structure" is better than learning from ordinary people for 10 years. So I will spend more time looking for classics instead of reading ordinary works or communicating with ordinary people.
Understanding the master's "ideological structure" means that when reading the master's works, do not overly pursue the content of each chapter, but think about the relationship between chapters and why they are arranged in this way. Is it possible to arrange it like that? It may only take 2 or 3 months to understand the content of a classic work, but it may take 2 or 3 years to understand the structure of a classic work. The moment you truly appreciate the subtlety of the structure set up by the master is likely to be the moment when your level of thinking changes.
As for content, paid knowledge is now popular. In order to make more people willing to watch or listen, a large number of paid knowledge programs have chosen a presentation method that is greater than content. Knowledge is divided into small pieces of "bread" ", coated with "jam" or "butter" for "feeding". This type of knowledge acquisition method is suitable for species that have already grown "fangs", that is, people who already have an overall framework for this piece of knowledge. Otherwise, your "teeth" will become "young" in the process of repeatedly chewing "bread". Teeth", thus losing the ability to "prey".
So, it is okay to learn the content in a fragmented way, but you still need to choose the input channel carefully.
2. Refining: Know the similarities instead of looking for differences.
Please read and memorize the following nouns within 30 seconds:
Truck, elephant, tiger, apple, pineapple, taxi, bus, cantaloupe, monkey.
Maybe most people close their eyes after 30 seconds and remember only a mess.
But if you sort them out in a structured way:
Transportation: trucks, taxis, buses
Fruits: apples, pineapples, cantaloupe
Animals: elephants, tigers, monkeys
This way it looks much more organized and easier to remember.
The human brain likes structured information. Using logic to categorize and organize information can make it easier to remember. This is the first step in refining the structure.
Continuously discover the similarities in disciplines, works, and other people's behaviors, and categorize these similarities. When such "categories" accumulate to a critical point, you can form your own structure.
For examples in this part, you can refer to "A Brief History of Humanity: From Animals to God" by Yuval Noah Harari.
In the first chapter of this book, the author clearly points out the nature and development of physics, chemistry, biology, and history:
Physics: the study of the basics of the universe feature.
Chemistry: the study of atoms and molecules.
Biology: the study of the stories of organisms.
History: the study of the development of human culture.
He divided human history into three stages:
Cognitive Revolution (about 70,000 years ago)
Agricultural Revolution (about 12,000 years ago)< /p>
Scientific Revolution (about 500 years ago)
And pointed out that the fundamental reason for promoting human development is that humans created an order built by imagination and invented writing, which complemented the Deficiencies in genes.
"Imaginary order" is an accident of historical development, but in order to maintain the "imaginary order", humans package it as inevitable, and then a vicious circle reinforces these orders.
He believes that the general direction of history is global integration. The core of current global culture is the culture of the Asian and African world. But although global culture is single, it is not homogeneous.
During the 1000 BC, three orders emerged that had the potential to achieve the concept of global unity:
The first was an economic and monetary order, and the second was a political order. imperial order, and the third is religious global religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.
Then he discussed in detail the evolution of currency, empires, and religion and their impact on human history.
"A Brief History of Humanity" is an unprecedented work, a true God's perspective. Because it writes about the entire history of mankind from Homo sapiens to modern times, it writes about mankind as a whole. At the same time, there are many views in the book that sound shocking, but after careful consideration, I feel that they are very reasonable.
When reading this book, I felt like I was reading an encyclopedia. What shocked me was not only his shocking views, but also his degree of integration of physics, chemistry, biology, history and other disciplines, as well as his powerful ability to construct his own.
I think this is the highest state of structured thinking.
Most people can learn many ways to refine their own structures by reading Harari's work over and over again.
To summarize
Structured thinking is the ability to think and solve problems systematically and comprehensively. It comes from our unremitting exploration of science, critical spirit and humanistic care for authoritative opinions.
In order to master the essence of structured thinking and learn to construct our own knowledge system and thinking routines, we must systematically learn how to think and construct from the masters, and at the same time constantly find the similarities in knowledge. Classify and organize into our own small categories. When these small categories accumulate to a critical point, they can form our own structure. After scenario-based application and modification, our structured thinking ability will definitely be significantly improved.