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What are the neural mechanisms underlying critical thinking?

Peng Liu

I had been thinking about how to improve critical thinking, which seems really critical for doing research. My questions arise:

How can we improve critical thinking particularly?

Maybe the following Ted talk helps “5 tips to improve your critical thinking“

What are the neural mechanisms underlying critical thinking?

Maybe the following podcast episode helps “Some Neuroscience of Critical Thinking Education“

Unfortunately, I am not satisfied!

#neurosciecne #learning #criticalthinking #education

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“How to Speak” from Patrick Winston on MIT OpenCourse

Peng Liu

How to start:

  • Empowerment promise

Ideas:

  • Cycling
  • Build fence
  • Verbal punctuation
  • Question

Time & Space: 11 AM (could be) and Well lit & Cased & Populated

Tools (e.g., Board):

  • Graphic quality
  • Speed properly
  • Target
  • Empathetic mirroring (why is the use of a blackboard so effective)

Slides:

  • Do not read
  • Be in the image
  • Keep images simple
  • Eliminate clutter
  • Get rid of background junk
  • Get rid of the words
  • Get rid of thee logos and title (Simplification)

Otherwise, The audience would say “I wish you had not talked so much and it was distracting. “

Informing:

  • Promise
  • Inspiration
  • How to think

Persuading: Situating and Practice

For job talks, in 5 mins we need to show that you have

  • Vision: which is in part, a problem that somebody cares about and something new in your approach
  • Done something: list the steps need to be done; we need to specify some behavior and enumerate the constrains that make it possible to deal with that behavior; enumerate your contributions

Get famous:

  • Symbol
  • Slogan
  • Surprise
  • Salient idea
  • Story (how you did it; how it works; why it is important)

How to stop:

Recognize the collaborators on the first slide

No “for details …” “The end” “Thank you”

The final slide should be the contribution slide

End the talk without saying thank you

  • It’s been great fun being here;
  • It’s been fascinating to see what you folks are doing here at MIT
  • I’ve been much stimulated and provoked by the questions you’ve been asking; it’s been really great, and I look forward to coming back on many occasions in the future

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The Consciousness and Anxiety

Peng Liu

Is anxiety a part of consciousness? Are mental disorders reflecting the system deficit of our consciousness?

Consciousness allows us to handle various complex cognitions and complicated environments, eventually leading to proper behaviors. Consciousness is a key to survival and intelligence. However, I believe that all systems, including biological systems, are not perfect. If we are too sensitive to external stimuli, either visible or invisible, any system failures could happen simutanounsely. Any consciousness ends with a specific outcome, such as either a biological response or behavior. It seems that function of consciousness needs a result to be the end. The question arises: if given no outcome to the consciousness, what would happen in the brain? Is the origin of the anxiety our consciousness?

What’s consciousness anyway? I believe that consciousness is an intelligent way to organize our complex cognitions and behaviors. I wish we can test this hypothesis and love to discuss more consciousness and intelligence!

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