bjack on 20/3/2015 at 16:21
Thanks for the additional replies. Yes my posts are rambling. I am a circular as apposed to a linear thinker. This is not to say I use circular logic. I start at a topic, fly off on tangents, then come back to the original point. I have not met many people that talk or think this way, but when I do, our conversations become nearly impossible to understand by the linear people. I drive my wife batty sometimes be straying off the point, only to go back without warning. Or I will start at the end and work backward. Is it autism, is it ADHD, it is too much weed in the 70s? Don't know, but I have always done it. Hence the rambling.
The thread is supposed to be open, not just a treatise on societal thought control via language control, although I will probably sum up with some rant about that. Part of free thinking is about not allowing one self to be exceptionally ridged. It is more applicable in the areas such as art, music, and social studies. For example, free thinking is not so great when practiced by a surgeon. "Gee, what would happen if I just cut this nerve instead of removing his appendix?" Yes there is a difference between playing a solo differently and a cook deciding to use spoiled meat.
Maybe a better way to say it is one should at least try be open to the varied possible connections and outcomes of a situation. While it is definitely impossible to always know absolutely all that is occurring and will occur, it is not a good idea to throw out what does not fit when you do find it. The exceptions, no matter how small can be the back breakers. For the longest time, I have made my money fixing problems, finding solutions, finding the needle in the haystack that no one can see. Clients have asked me, "How ever did you find that?" or "We would have never thought to look there." Yep, open thinking.
There is an old saying. "You are are in the middle of Texas and you hear a stampede coming your way, think cattle, not zebras." Sometimes it really is a herd of zebras. Stating that it could be zebras will get you a ticket to the "ignore" bin. But what if you are frequently right? And no, I do not think that because I am good in one area, I am some sort of expert in another. I am not an ultracrepidarian. I just hope others try to see that there are different angles too.
And no, I do not want everyone to think like me. The mechanics of it would be nice, but the outcomes do not need to be the same. If everyone thought like me, it would be an extremely boring and tedious world. I do not want to be surrounded by "yes men". Why do you think I am posting here?
Challenge of the status quo is what makes progress (sometimes digression unfortunately). Stifle language and free thinking takes a hit. Orwell spells it out very clearly. Reduce language to extremely rigidly defined set of approved words so unorthodox thoughts are impossible. I see this in PC, no matter which side uses it. But it is not just the attempted stifling of expression (and thought) the PC seeks that gets under my skin. It is the hypocrisy of application. I recognize it has always been this way to some extent, but social instant media makes it so much more insidious. One has a hard time being a free thinker with the hive buzzing all around you telling you that you are a hater for not following the herd.
faetal on 20/3/2015 at 16:28
Now we're talking. The arts are far more interesting to discuss freethinking than e.g. science.
bjack on 20/3/2015 at 19:09
And I have muddied the waters with my use of the specific term freethinking. As an actual movement, it is far more rigidly defined than my loose interpretation. Better to use open mindedness, but that has its pitfalls. Too open minded and your brain will fall out.
It is not dogma to state facts such as pure water freezes at 0 C and boils at 100 C at sea level. It is not dogma to say simple math such as 100-50=50 or 100+50=150 is true. It would be dogmatic however to insist that 100 C water + equal volume 50 C water = 50 or 150. It is actually near 75 C, but to anyone that has not observed this, it seems strange at first glance. Telling someone that 100-50=75 makes you look like a fool. You have to prove it with a demonstration. You then have to show why it is inappropriate to use that equation to predict the temperature effects when mixing water.
I am not trying to imply anything with that, other than results may be very different than your experience would predict. Weird things like increasing sentences for crime may increase crime. Raising the minimum wage exacerbates poverty. Lowering taxes can increase revenues. You can lose weight be eating more. Sometimes things that seem illogical up front are actually true. 2+2 can =5 It is great to admit that it can, but not right to say it is always true.
As for art, music in particular, I was in a band in the late '70s and played a chord progression that my highly schooled band mates said was wrong. "You can't play an E minor after a G" or some nonsense like that. I was forced to change the tune. We never played it live. Months later I heard similar progressions on the radio. The other band members still said the progression was wrong and crap. The style became the norm for much of the late '70s and early '80s. Think Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf or the Cars' Just What I Needed. It is why they call it music theory and not music fact. Much more squishy than something like Chemistry.
Tony_Tarantula on 21/3/2015 at 05:29
Quote Posted by faetal
If you're using loaded words like brainwashing to describe something which is widely accepted, then you're already veering away from free thought. If you're talking of thinking things which are only not generally accepted, there needs to be a different word.
How about "fringe kooks"? It seems to be a common way to describe any ideas that are theatening to the status quo. I'd also point out that relatively little of the technology we use today came from established inventors or researchers. Quite a few of the ones who did come up with radical new ideas were ridiculed as idiots and kooks by their peers. Hell....the guy who first proposed the existence of atoms was torn apart so badly that he ended up hanging himself.
Also, it's dishonest to pretend that there's no historical precedent for what you're talking about. I seem to recall you describing religious beliefs that were "widely accepted" back in the day as the church brainwashing the general population....just to give one example. There was also an enormous amount of "settled science" publicized in Nazi Germany to the effect that Aryans actually were genetically superior to the rest of the human race. You could even describe the extremely popular concept of American Exceptionalism as brainwashing.
Either way you only need a passing familiarity with history to know that the ideas which dominate the public sphere are bought and paid for bullshit as often as not. How else do you explain the widespread acceptance of "greed is good"?
Not that I'm suggesting a conspiracy. There's any number of peer reviewed publications about the topic that describe how ideas the elite view favorably naturally filter down through the different layers of society. In practice it's because those aspiring to lead the instutions that influence public policy(churches, media, etc) tend to identify more strongly with societal elite than majority class workers. Under the European feudal system it was traditional for a noble family's third son to enter the clergy. In a modern setting media leaders usually are alumnae of the same academic institutions as the elite and consequently tend to absorb their attitudes and believe systems.
So not a conspiracy, just the way the human race is.
faetal on 21/3/2015 at 10:28
To follow your example through, are you saying that, like the discovery of the atom and inventions (pretty sure mobile phone tech is based on science btw - the inventors didn't just make a good guess) you expect the idea that vaccines cause autism or that anthropogenic climate change isn't real are fringe ideas held by a burgeoning cadre of plucky underdog geniuses who require only the passage of time to be proved right?
This is why making high level swipes at ideas in general aren't too useful. If you want a point to land - give it some detail. You could mention some of the inventions you're talking above for starters. I'm not sure how much movement we have on just deciding if your general idea is a good one or not without some substance to push about.
Tony_Tarantula on 21/3/2015 at 15:56
No, you're (as usual) attempting to obfuscate what I'm saying.
The point is that ideas should be judged on their merit rather than instinctively appealing to "consensus".
Hell, vaccines wouldn't even exist if we'd relied on "settled science" and "90% + consensus" to guide our thinking. We'd still be using leeches.
bjack on 21/3/2015 at 16:15
You may be familiar with James Burke and his show Connections and his History of Science series. He shows that technology leads science in many cases. Practical tinkering creates new products, but the underlying reason for them working is not understood until studied. This is not as true today of course. But much of today's research is conducted for practical purposes only. Just look what happens to "impractical" research when budgets get tight. Thankfully the relatively socialist Europe built CERN. The relative free market US killed our collider. That was an exceptionally sad day for me.
It is a very cold person who uses only logic and has no feelings. Even Spock would show joy ("Jim!") But to go the other way and base your life on emotional responses only is terrible too. Anti-vaccine people are making emotional choices. You can show proof that their position is illogical and they will just come back with, "I have a right to protect my kids!"
I got most of my vaccinations in the 1960s. I know that I should probably get some boosters. I don't more out of laziness than anything. I do see this makes me a possible well of disease and a threat to all. Thinking that way seems very harsh though and does not encourage me to get them. Maybe the pro-vaccine people need to back off a bit with the name calling. I am not saying anyone here is doing that. I am saying I see it in posts on the net. "Your snot nosed unvaccinated kid will KILL my kid. HOW DARE YOU!" Both sides need to calm down.
But really when it comes down to it, the comments I see are just the vocal minority. You get the shrill fools on one side and the blow hard idiots on the other. It is fun to see both of the extremes gang up on the few moderates that chime in. It is fun until I realize that is how politics works in the USA now. Heaven help us all. :eek:
faetal on 21/3/2015 at 16:42
Consensus formed as the result of years of research isn't the same as mainstream opinion being based on tradition or bias. You're obfuscating your own points by being vague. Unless you genuinely believe that adding more information to something to increase the consensus is somehow a prelude to it imploding.
demagogue on 22/3/2015 at 07:13
My definition of free thought would be procedural, not substantive. So it's not 'what' people believe, but the reasons why, namely, based on some universal objective reason grounded in the world and not any kind of dogma grounded in loyalty to X, whatever X is.
Actually, I think it's even a negative definition. It's hard to say when any belief is perfectly free, but you can definitely say when a belief is 'not' free but based on an unreflected dogma. Then the goal is to at least knock out dogma when you find it.
Incidentally, and this point goes in with the rise of the dillatantes thread, I think that even when people hold true or respectable beliefs, but for the wrong reasons, like because they want to feel in solidarity with some group or fear exclusion or whatever, it's bad news in the end. Even if they get one thing right, relying on bad theory is going to make them get something wrong one way or another in the end.
Tony_Tarantula on 22/3/2015 at 07:17
Quote Posted by faetal
Consensus formed as the result of years of research isn't the same as mainstream opinion being based on tradition or bias. You're obfuscating your own points by being vague. Unless you genuinely believe that adding more information to something to increase the consensus is somehow a prelude to it imploding.
No, I'm not being vague. I'm stating that an appeal to consensus is a fallacy and pointing out some examples in which the "consensus" held back scientific advancement, which is significant because a lot of your previous arguments are based on an appeal to consensus. On second thought almost every position you've made is made primarily by dismissing the opponents of that position as " a few fringe kooks" and defended your positions by saying that they have "90%+ consensus", or that it's "settled science", or so on.
That's nice and it increases the probability of you being right but, but it's still nothing more nothing more than Argumentum Ad Populum fallacy. For it to be anything more you still have to explain why the 90% are correct.
Notably it also works in reverse(take not BlackJack). Just saying that "some" scientists disagree isn't enough. Tell us what the specific objections were so that the merits of that argument can be subjectively evaluated. A good example would be to point out that results were falsified in X study, which calls a policy or piece of information in the public sphere into question because it was based on findings from study X.
Better described here:
(
http://www.johntreed.com/debate.html)
Quote:
I heard one opponent scientist observe dryly when hit with the “consensus” argument, “In science, we do not take a poll to ascertain the truth.” 2 + 2 = 4 no matter how many people say it is 5. In Latin, this logic fallacy is called Argumentum ad numerum or Argumentum ad populum.
