A new book has just been published by The Truth University. Entitled “Light Bulb Moments and the Power of Critical Thinking” it documents more than 20 short essays from diverse individuals who explain how they made sense of the Covid era through their unique critical thinking skills and experiences. It provides some fascinating illustrations of the evolution of people’s lived experiences of the Covid era and the reasons why questioning the political narrative and the censorship is so crucial for democracy and humanity more broadly.
The book that could change our world
This important new book comes at a crucial point in human history when unreason seeks to dethrone what is best about human civilisation. Our weapon against the forces of destruction is Critical Thinking, a concept celebrated by Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes and Carl Jung to name but a few. For Socrates, ‘A life without investigation is not worth living’ and for Descartes, ‘Every part of thinking, should be questioned, doubted, and tested’. Jung summed up its importance in his view that ‘The ability to ask questions is the greatest resource in learning the truth’. Without Critical Thinking, there can be no truth.
Light Bulb Moments are also the product of Critical Thinking and human civilisation would be the poorer without them. So what factors can help and hinder Critical Thinking, a concept whose importance is recognised by institutions the world-over, including the BBC? There is plentiful research on factors impeding the exercise of Critical Thinking, conformist pressures, propaganda and the absence of modern-day teaching of relevant skills, but extraordinary though it may seem, there is nothing on those factors that can encourage it.
Vital findings:
This book presents the Critical Thinking of twenty four cutting-edge modern-day thinkers who reflect on the questions that acted as stepping-stones in their lives. These thinkers cover a vast range of topics from the Financial system, Law and Order, Health, History and Geo-Politics through to Philosophy, Education, Religion and Spirituality. Their contributions reflect lives led in different parts of the world, whether Britain, Sweden, Poland, the US or Canada and their accounts can be personal and informative at the same time. The thinkers include Sir Julian Rose, Justin Walker, Mark Devlin, Mark Hamer, Eve Gilmore, Matthew Ehret, David Adelman, Chad Manian, Ursula Edgington, the authors and others.
Through a comparison with factors mentioned by seventy four self-confessed questing people, the authors identify the attributes and triggers that propelled these thinkers along their journeys. What is more, these very features underpin the heroic thinking and actions of the heroes of Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty Four and Fahrenheit 451.
Light Bulb Moments and the Power of Critical Thinking is a call to arms to enhance society’s Critical Thinking skills and with that embrace a future rooted not only in evidence-based thinking but also in truth.
Copies of the book can be purchased from Amazon, price £15.99 (https://tinyurl.com/4jatv43r) or direct from Truth University Press alongside with bags, mugs, notebooks and pens celebrating Critical Thinking (infotruthuniversity@protonmail.co.uk).
Signed copies can be obtained from the authors at the ‘Questioning History’ conference near Battle, Sussex, UK on 16-18 December. (Contact the Truth University for details).