The educator panic over AI is real, and rational.
I've been there myself. The difference is I moved past denial to a more pragmatic question: since AI regulation seems unlikely (with both camps refusing to engage), how do we actually work with these systems

The "AI will kill critical thinking" crowd has a point, but they're missing context.
Critical reasoning wasn't exactly thriving before AI arrived: just look around. The real question isn't whether AI threatens thinking skills, but whether we can leverage it the same way we leverage other cognitive tools.

We don't hunt our own food or walk everywhere anymore.
We use supermarkets and cars. Most of us Google instead of visiting libraries. Each tool trade-off changed how we think and what skills matter. AI is the next step in this progression, if we're smart about it.

The key is learning to think with AI rather than being replaced by it.
That means understanding both its capabilities and our irreplaceable human advantages.

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AI isn't going anywhere. Time to get strategic:
Instead of mourning lost critical thinking skills, let's build on them through cognitive delegationusing AI as a thinking partner, not a replacement.

This isn't some Silicon Valley fantasy:
Three decades of cognitive research already mapped out how this works:

Cognitive Load Theory:
Our brains can only juggle so much at once. Let AI handle the grunt work while you focus on making meaningful connections.

Distributed Cognition:
Naval crews don't navigate with individual geniusthey spread thinking across people, instruments, and procedures. AI becomes another crew member in your cognitive system.

Zone of Proximal Development
We learn best with expert guidance bridging what we can't quite do alone. AI can serve as that "more knowledgeable other" (though it's still early days).
The table below shows what this looks like in practice:

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Critical reasoning vs Cognitive Delegation

Old School Focus:

Building internal cognitive capabilities and managing cognitive load independently.

Cognitive Delegation Focus:

Orchestrating distributed cognitive systems while maintaining quality control over AI-augmented processes.

We can still go for a jog or go hunt our own deer, but for reaching the stars we, the Apes do what Apes do best: Use tools to build on our cognitive abilities. AI is a tool.

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The Neural Network Upgrade: Enhancing Learning, Creativity, and Resilience

LLM get wronger the more they talk to people Theres something fundamentally broken about both and its capability

Event in Tbingen with two of our researchers: Dr. Helen Fischer will be talking about "Being Right vs. Knowing When You're Not" and Dr. Jrgen Buder about "Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence: What are the Differences". Mo, 19.05.2025

Was ist weise KI Entdecke, warum Metakognition der Schlssel zur nchsten KI-Generation ist!

KI, die sich selbst reflektiert
Mehr Sicherheit und Anpassung
Die Zukunft intelligenter Systeme

Jetzt LIKEN, teilen, LESEN und FOLGEN! Schreib uns in den Kommentaren!

What is it like to be you

In 1974, in a landmark paper, Thomas Nagel . He argues that we can never know. Ive about the phrase what its like or something it is like before, and that skepticism still stands. I think a lot of people nod at it, seeing it as self explanatory, while holding disparate views about what it actually means.

As a functionalist and physicalist, I dont think there are any barriers in principle to us learning about the experience of bats. So in that sense, I think Nagel was wrong. But he was right in a different sense. We can never have the experience of being a bat.

We might imagine hooking up our brain to a bats and doing some kind of mind meld, but the best we could ever hope for would be to have the experience of a combined person and bat. Even if we somehow transformed ourselves into a bat, we would then just be a bat, with no memory of our human desire to have a bats experience. We cant take on a bats experience, with all its unique capabilities and limitations, while remaining us.

But the situation is even more difficult than that. The engineers hooking up our brain to a bats would have to make a lot of implementation decisions. What parts of the bats brain are connected to what parts of ours Is any translation in the signaling necessary What if several approaches are possible to give us the impression of accessing the bats brain Is there any fact of the matter on which would be the right one

Ultimately the connection between our brain and the bats would be a communication mechanism. We could never bypass that mechanism to get to the real experience of the bat, just as we can never bypass the communication we receive from each other when we discuss our mental states.

Getting back to possible meanings of WIL (what its like), Nagel makes an interesting clarification in (emphasis added):

But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organismsomething it is like for the organism.

This seems like a crucial stipulation. It is like something to be a rock. Its like other rocks, particularly of the same type. But its not like anything for the rock. (At least for those of us who arent panpsychists.) This implies an assumption of some degree of metacognition, of introspection, of self reflection. The rock has overall-WIL, but no reflective-WIL.

Are we sure bats have reflective-WIL Maybe it isnt like anything to be a bat for the bat itself.

There is , including rats. The evidence . Do these animals display uncertainty because they understand how limited their knowledge is Or because theyre just uncertain The evidence seems more conclusive in primates, mainly because the tests can be sophisticated enough to more thoroughly isolate metacognitive abilities.

It seems reasonable to conclude that if bats (flying rats) do have metacognition, its much more limited than what exists in primates, much less humans. Still, that would give them reflective-WIL. It seems like their reflective-WIL would be a tiny subset of their overall-WIL, perhaps a very fragmented one.

Strangely enough, in the scenario where we connected our brain to a bats, it might actually allow us to experience more of their overall-WIL than what they themselves are capable of. Yes, it would be subject to the limitations I discussed above. But then a bats access to its overall-WIL would be subject to similar implementation limitations, just with the decisions made by evolution rather than engineers.

These mechanisms would have evolved, not to provide the bat with the most complete picture of its overall-WIL, but with whatever enhances its survival and genetic legacy. Maybe it needs to be able to judge how good its echolocation image is for particular terrain before deciding to fly in that direction. That assessment needs to be accurate enough to make sure it doesnt fly into a wall or other hazards, but not enough to give it an accurate model of its own mental operations.

Just like in the case of the brain link, bats have no way to bypass the mechanisms that provide their limited reflective-WIL. The parts of their brain that process reflective-WIL would be all they know of their overall-WIL. At least unless we imagine that bats have some special non-physical acquaintance with their overall-WIL. But on what grounds should we assume that

We could try taking the brain interface discussed above and looping it back to the bat. Maybe we could use it to expand their self reflection, by reflecting the brain interface signal back to them. Of course, their brain wouldnt have evolved to handle the extra information, so it likely wouldnt be effective unless we gave them additional enhancements. But now were talking about upgrading the bats intelligence, uplifting them to use David Brins term.

What about us Our introspective abilities are much more developed than anything a bat might have. Its much more comprehensive and recursive, in the sense that we not only can think about our thinking, but think about the thinking about our thinking. And if you understood the previous sentence, then you can think about your thinking of your thinking of.well, hopefully you get the picture.

Still, if our ability to reflect is also composed of mechanisms, then were subject to the same implementation decisions evolution had to make as our introspection evolved, some of which were likely inherited from our rat-like ancestors. In other words, we have good reason to view it as something that evolved to be effective rather than necessarily accurate, mechanisms we are no more able to bypass than the bat can for theirs.

Put another way, our reflective-WIL is also a small subset of our overall-WIL. Aside from what third person observation can tell us, all we know about overall-WIL is what gets revealed in reflective-WIL.

Of course, many people assume that now were definitely talking about something non-physical, something that allows us to have more direct access to our overall-WIL, that our reflective-WIL accurately reflects at least some portion of our overall-WIL. But again, on what basis would we make that assumption Because reflective-WIL seems like the whole show How would we expect it to be different if it werent the whole show

Put yet another way, the limitation Nagel identifies in our ability to access a bats experience seems similar to the limitation we have accessing our own. Any difference seems like just a matter of degree.

What do you think Are there reasons to think our access to our own states is more reliable than Im seeing here Aside from third party observation, how can we test that reliability

La mditation 3/6 SCRIPT #2

Not professional I wonder if there has been new trends in languages that has proven sound according to you, and that would go in another direction than i+1's learning easy = obvious inference + 1 complexity detailany advice by expert in is welcome

How Metacognition Reveals the Unconscious Mind: Observing the Architecture of Thought

La mditation 2/6 SCRIPT #2

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Unlocking Mental Wellness: Fun Strategies for a Happier You!

Embracing Joy: The Bright Side of Positive Psychology

Re. Not anthropomorphizing LLMs

I'm a sucker for this. Thankyou for writing about it. I'll apologise to an inanimate object if I walk into it.

I find useful practical tips for myself in following this to be:
1. Use the verb "I prompted" rather than I told or I asked.
2. State that the program "output" rather than it replied.
3. I don't discuss "confabulation" because it's an anthropomorphization (the reality is that the computer program is doing exactly what it is instructed to do by the user), but if I was compelled to anthropomorphize, I would use "confabulation" rather than hallucination.

I would be curious to know if you or any other readers had any more tips!

The following cartoon is from:

Navigating Complex Thinking: Egocentrism Explained Research and Essay

The article explores egocentrism as a fundamental barrier to Critical and Creative Thinking. It discusses how this natural egocentrism tendency affects rational thought and belief systems, often leading to justifications for personal ideologies. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of acknowledging egocentrism's influence on human behavior and social interactions.

La mditation 1/6 SCRIPT #2

Language models trained to (a) generate longer solution steps and (b) expand their "inner monologue" to include reflective "self-corrections" performed 6-11% better on medical benchmarks.

Such seemed to employ a hypothetico-deductive method.

LHomme est-il vraiment si exceptionnel Rflexions sur la conscienceanimale

Dans notre L'Homme est-il vraiment si exceptionnel La science rvle que la conscience et la mtacognition existent chez de nombreux animaux. Des rats aux dauphins, en passant par les singes, les preuves s'accumulent. Notre "exceptionnalit" s'effrite, nous invitant repenser notre relation avec le rgne animal. Vers un continuum de

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How do think about checking

This study recorded their thoughts as they checked!

The default strategy was pattern matching, with more reflective thinking in atypical situations.

Becoming More Ignorant
Believing you know what you do not know makes you more ignorant.

Livestream going on now from the Royal Society about the brain and metacognition ...

It is interesting that you can use MEG to study metacognition in the brain in realtime ...

a peut tre un passage qui vous a frapp, qui vous a permis de reconsidrer votre mode de pense, que vous aimeriez conseiller autour de vous.

Hte de lire vos suggestions !

Physical activity, diet, and sleep quality appear to have different effects on metacognition--the ability to monitor and control one's cognitive performance--in a study of 500 adults aged 17 to 35.

I prompted Gemini & Copilot to collab. They wrote a sci-fi story, but duplicated text word-for-word! Interesting showed , noticing & adjusting the overlap, while just focused on completing the task Interesting! Have you noticed Gemini's metacognitive abilities

Practice what you teach. Because teachings don't function as symbols or metaphorsthey are incarnations of what they advocate.

Kastrup computing
Cognitive consciousness
Complex dialog

Contradictions 3
It is a contradiction to think that you know yourself without knowing that you are thinking.

Cerveau et strotypes de sexe STREAM #19

Cerveau et strotypes de sexe  Mta De Choc

Metacognition and Self-Regulation in the Classroom. A Report with Inspirations from Latin America PDF, 105 pp

Three Kinds of Knowledge 2
Knowledge of nonself, the conventional knowledge, gives power. Knowledge of self gives a new life. Knowledge of both gives wisdom.

True Intelligence 6
Thinking with awareness of thinking is a sign of true intelligence.

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Prompt: As an expert in , and large language models, design a handbook and syllabus for teaching and# infotention. Think deeply.

chat GPT:

and

Designing a Course That Develops Students