Nature of Logic and Perception
...lieve he is correct in his depiction of critical thinking. Paul’s suggestion is that we not only follow a thought to its completion, but that we rethink that thought again and again from all different angles in an attempt to gain an almost outside perspective on the thought. From this perspective, critical thinking becomes like problem solving in that the desired outcome is an answer or solution to a question. One could say that logic and critical thinking also have the potential to go hand in hand. When factoring in perception, however, sometimes what may seem logical may in fact not even be real. Logic and critical thinking have the tendency to lead people to believe that facts may exist on any one subject. Facts, however, are not required for either train of thought. In fact, many times what we believe to be genuine facts are merely our own perception of what is occurring. What I perceive to be true in new situations is largely based upon my preexisting beliefs. During the organizational process of filtering and storing meaningful sensory input my mind is gathering and interpreting the information simultaneous to cross-referencing it to my established truths in an attempt to perceive new circumstances. To complicate the process, I am an emotional person and my emotions often sway my perception in one direction or another. According to Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, emotions serve important functions in every day life and do not cause irrational thought, as many believe. While this may be true at least some of the time, the greatest false perceptions that I’ve made in my life were due in part to emotional bias in favor of the (poor) decisions that I’ve made. For example, the emotional thrill of lusting after a certain young women allowed me to perceive that the situation that I was in could lead to one where I might be forever happy living in close confines with that person. Now that time has passed and I have thought critically about my motivators and the logistics of them I realize that strong emotions blocked me at the time from perceiving nearly every aspect of that reality. Furthermore, I have realized that I often perceive what I want to perceive though the facts surrounding certain situations logically suggest that I am wrong. These biases are almost always s...