Critical Thinking
Rationality, reasonable doubt, and all that
This post mostly consists of literature and website recommendations. I haven’t read all of that in full so you can probably find there something I personally wouldn’t suggest.
The motivation for this post is plain. What we’re about to do may turn out to be highly controversial. Lots of existing mental techniques don’t have any effects while some of them can lead you into a delusional state. To cap those possible mishaps, I’d love us all to stay reasonable and skeptical of what we’re doing.
Websites
LessWrong — one of the most well-known rationalist communities worldwide. Many essays there are put together to form sequences. The most popular sequences written by Eliezer Yudkowsky comprise a book, more on it below.
In the Cells of the Eggplant — a work in progress by David Chapman who elaborates on meta-rationality which is a skill in using systematic reasoning with a heavy focus on contexts and purposes.
This thread on critical rationalism — not a website but I bet this is the best concise explanation of the topic. Critical rationalism is a theory of how knowledge works and how information flows.
Julia Galef's channel — here’s where many insights assume a more tangible shape and get intuitively explained.
Books
Critical Thinking by Tom Chatfield — this one is not particularly deep but it covers a wide range of topics and provides a tremendous number of lists, recipes, and methods of judicious reasoning. I would recommend it to everybody who hasn’t read anything on the topic before and to those who want some refresher reading.
Rationality: From AI to Zombies by Eliezer Yudkowsky — I won’t lie to you, I haven’t yet finished this book (or rather, a compendium of essays). Nonetheless, I think I can recommend it as an essential work on rationality.
Thinking: Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman — despite certain doubts cast on it by the replication crisis, most of the ideas here are worth attention. The major deal with this book is that it has dethroned the image of a human being as a rational agent for the general public, and it’s done that by pointing out specific flaws in our minds.
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch — this book is not about rationality, not directly at least, otherwise I would have listed it first. Not adding it to this list though would be an act of self-deception for me, so here we go. I believe that, being read by people all over the world, it can have a tremendous positive impact on humanity.
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