Developing Deductive Reasoning: Strategies to Strengthen Your Mind

[EngTechno]

How can we improve our Deductive Reasoning Power systematically? Do you have any strategies for it?

 

[Bartholomew]

Every morning I stand on my head for six hours. This increases blood flow to the brain.

 

[loseyourname]

Practice will do you well. Math and logic courses obviously will help the most. I don't think standing on your head is going to do much other than give you a headache and piss off whoever you're living with. I'm sure you can find a supplement somewhere on the web that will claim it can help you without FDA verification of the claim. Go ahead and take a chance.

 

[jammieg]

Also apply it to practical purposes, if it's practice is rewarding it is less likely to be forgotten like the things we remember most.

 

[selfAdjoint]

How can we improve our Deductive Reasoning Power systematically? Do you have any strategies for it?

Read, and truly internalize, Polya's "How to Solve it." Read Lewis Carrol's examples of sorites (extended syllogisms) and try to do his problems (you will find this material in volumes of his collected works).

This will get you off the ground. Then continually try to do logic puzzles in the puzzle magazines. Work at being able to hold the typical 5X5X5 grid of possible outcomes in your head. (That's only 125 "things" to hold; your personal acquaintances problably comrprise tens of thousands of memories, immediately random-accessible when you happen to run into an acquaintance). The younger you are when you start this, the better it will serve you.