That's probably true (although I fall into the camp of AI that thinks there is "the intelligence algorithm" is taking things too simply), but my point was that human cognition has various pattern recognition, abstraction, generalisation, extrapolative facilities which power creative scientific an engineering work. You can write something like Microsoft Bob/Clippy that attempts to augment my mind by making very simple suggestions (that most people think are more annoying than useful). But there's virtually no stuff that has actually been created that actually works so far that improves my "deep thought" abilities (eg, suggesting patterns in experimental results). If there were, a positive feedback loop enabling the creation of ever more complex technologies like Kurzweil suggests is plausible. But so far I don't just see it.

Try 57+ ;-)

Why I could tell you about PDP8s, paper tape punch, jammin in assembler, card decks, etc.

Color monitors interwhat - hahahahahaha.

Pete

Just much better at playing possum.

I'll agree with both of you. People are fundamentally the same but electronic media has probably emphasized very different parts of our minds and brains than has happened before. The constant changes in images on TV and in the movies and on computer screens is constantly triggering reflexes in our brains that never got so much exercise before. In addition many of us are bathed in low level RF fields. I'm not saying this is bad, just pointing out that we are changing ourselves with our technology.

Human thinking, in my view, has not changed in its most fundamental ways as far as I can tell.

It's changed over time, but more as a result of modern society requiring different ways of thinking to succeed than as a result of computers.

In particular, people now are much better at abstract thought than people 50 or 100 years ago. This has led to the Flynn Effect, which is that scores on IQ tests go up substantially with every generation; it's not that people are smarter, it's just that they're more used to thinking in the way that IQ tests test.

But I agree with you that nothing significant has changed. Complaining about computers making kids stupid is just the same old "kids these days! why, when I was a boy..." rant wearing modern clothing.

Many people still think there is such a thing as "truth"

That's because, in most cases, there is. The problem is that most people don't realize that they don't know it.

To take a simple example, I've seen vehement arguments on gun control, with both sides arguing that their position reduces crime and the other position increases it. One of these sides is factually correct, but it's quite clear from reading the arguments that nobody involved knows which side that is; they just know which side they like, and have confused that with it being true.

For any question about the state of the physical world, there is generally a true answer. The problem is that people too often confuse physical questions ("will gun law X lower crime in area Y in period Z?") with moral questions ("is gun control good?"), and it's a lot less clear there's any kind of objective truth about the latter.

Witness the emotion that arises on blogs such as this one when people start to defend their thinking as "true."

Exactly - too many people are defending their thinking, and not their argument.

They've confused a moral question ("is current society good?") with a physical question ("is it possible to transition away from oil?"), and so they're having exactly the same kind of muddled, nonsensical arguments that you always find when that happens. It's basically plugging your ears and shouting "I believe!" over and over, and it's about as useful and as persuasive as that sounds.

If one wants to actually figure out what's going on with the world, one should:

1. Gather evidence.
2. Analyze evidence.
3. Form a tentative hypothesis from that evidence.
4. Go back to #1.

Note that one's beliefs don't actually enter into the picture anywhere. That's not accidental; when it comes to the physical state of the world, your (or my) beliefs are irrelevant as compared to the evidence.

If you're curious, you can add an additional step in between #3 and #4:

• Compare that hypothesis to your beliefs; if they differ, adjust your beliefs, not the hypothesis.

That's purely an internal updating step, though; it shouldn't actually change what evidence you have or what hypotheses you come to.

Doing this will give you an argument to a conclusion that is based on evidence, rather than opinion. What's key about that (aside from the fact that it's a lot more likely to give you access to the physical truth of the matter) is that it's enormously more persuasive than an opinion-based argument, as you don't need to convince the person to accept your moral judgements. A proper evidence-based argument should require no effort on your part to convince people - anyone with an open mind can see for themselves how the conclusions follow from the data.

(This, incidentally, is why the scientific method was so important. It's not so much about doing science as communicating science.)

I teach biological/ecological/environmental science (and an occasional critical thinking class) at the undergraduate college level.

I do not share your rosy evaluation. Critical thinking skills are sorely lacking, to a mind-boggling degree.

"Brain damaged" is a loaded and not so useful term. I don't know what to ascribe the slackness of the students I see. I'm not placing blame. Likely it is a package of environmental and cultural impacts.

But it is scary to behold, and really hard to deny.

I agree, and as a college teacher of 25 years would add that I've seen geographic skills *improve* over this period. I have taught about once every one of these years some version of a regional geography/human ecology course. While the assignment has morphed a bit, on the first day of the course I've asked students to draw a map of the world, freehand, showing continents and locating about 4-6 places of current interest (Kuwait during Gulf War I, Bosnia during the Kosovo event, etc.). While the maps are still not very good, overall there has been steady, marked improvement.

I do still favor, though, a constitutional amendment prohibiting the US from attacking a country unless at least half of the citizenry can locate it on a map.