Studying mathematics is the best way to be a better thinker

I think what you study is less important here than what you do. You could read (and understand!) a textbook on graph theory and come away with no ability to 'do graph theory' and certainly no extra mental machinery for thinking in general.

What's important isn't studying but practising. To become good at mathematics you need to take on interesting and difficult problems and solve them yourself, and eventually you need to learn how to hunt for interesting questions yourself.

This kind of problem hunting / problem solving will make you a better thinker but it doesn't require you to be doing mathematics - there are hard problems to be discovered in every field.

/r/samharris Thread