The leap of faith into absolutes

oh god, yes.

although i think "truth" can be the problem and symbols can help. it's a question of going too far. i'm sure popper realizes this, but the point is worth making.

if you have no confidence in your beliefs at all, what's the point of having any? just do whatever. no problem. if you have too much confidence, you'll make a monster of yourself. at best, a jerk.

symbols are priceless because they're a language all their own, more to the point, they're a language that you can find weaving throughout history and across every boundary, while on the surface everything changes into something incompatible. symbols are key to a common dialogue.

but if you make the symbols in to idols, and forget they're part of a vast tapestry of understanding, well you've thrown out context and the free world along with it. popper just became my hero. haven't even read it yet, but it sounds beautiful. conceptual idolatry paints thought into corners, then people fight bloody wars to get back out of them. leave room for thinking, room for debate, room to be wrong- everyone will be happier.

We live in two different worlds.

I recently had occasion to hang out in the waiting area of St Joseph Hospital in Asheville for a few hours. I was free to walk many of the corridors and rest in many of the waiting areas along with everyone else. It was early morning but it was obvious that the hospital functioned fully 24/7.

A person can walk the corridors of any big city hospital and observe the effectiveness of human rationality in action. One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

We live in two very different worlds; a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion. We are increasingly able to solve problems in one domain and increasingly endangered by our inability to solve problems in the other.

Normal science is successful primarily because it is a domain of knowledge controlled by paradigms. The paradigm defines the standards, principles and methods of the discipline. It is not apparent to the laity but science moves forward in small incremental steps. Science seldom seeks and almost never produces major novelties.

Science solves puzzles. The logic of the paradigm insulates the professional group from problems that are unsolvable by that paradigm. One reason that science progresses so rapidly and with such assurance is because the logic of that paradigm allows the practitioners to work on problems that only their lack of ingenuity will keep them from solving.

Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes ?'what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?' Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as "good" and "right".

There is a striking difference between the logic of technical problems and that of dialectical problems. The principles, methods and standards for dealing with technical problems and problems of "real life" are as different as night and day. Real life problems cannot be solved only using deductive and inductive reasoning.

Dialectical reasoning methods require the ability to slip quickly between contradictory lines of reasoning. One needs skill to develop a synthesis of one point of view with another. Where technical matters are generally confined to only one well understood frame of reference real life problems become multi-dimensional totalities.

When we think dialectically we are guided by principles not by procedures. Real life problems span multiple categories and academic disciplines. We need point-counter-point argumentation; we need emancipatory reasoning to resolve dialectical problems. We need critical thinking skills and attitudes to resolve real life problems.

Cobert,

This is prescriptive claptrap. The real difficulty is "what constitutes a problem" and whether the sociological forces involved could ever yield to psychological modes of discourse. The crude analogy is to think that biological processes can yield to explanations at the level of physics.

j/k
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biocomputers ?

Your shield of negativity prevents you from learning.

tinygiraffe,

How is that article relevant ? I think you have may have my argument the wrong way round. Obviously, biological systems can trivially mimic aspects of electrical circuits, but NOT vice versa. The practical consequence is that "neuroscientists" examining the brain do not "know" whether they are looking at "logic gates" or "finite state machines" or "quantum interactions at the level of microtubules" (etc) as correlates of "behaviour".

coberst,

Have you any idea what I'm talking about ? And are you aware that prescriptive statements seriously detract from level of discourse to which you aspire ? You are hooked on this phrase "critical thinking" as though it were some panacea or holy grail for the salvation of mankind. Can't you see its just one world-view amongst others ? Religionists would argue that the world's problems would all be solved if we all followed "holy writ" !

fresco wrote-



I understood that they are only examining the state of their own brains.

my bad fresco, i was hoping you'd see the (admittedly very small) "j/k" in the title line, if you happened to not guess the url post was tongue in cheek...

i think the other ones were probably serious, however.

tinygiraffe

Point taken . My reply was also aimed at coberst who tends to believe that "neuroscience" has the same "empirical" status as the natural sciences.

nah i'm very skeptical about that. well... very openminded about the subject in general i mean. we're just beginning to learn which things skinner was wrong about, right?

Right !

Skinner has to be viewed with respect to the logical positivist zeitgeist which attempted to avoid discussing "mental events" because they were not publically observable. Essentially it was a failed attempt to make psychology "scientific".

Our friend coberst has come to these areas "late in life". He seems to think that certain writers in "the social sciences" are authoritative sources of "new knowledge" for him, but he has not considered the central epistemological issue of the "nature of knowledge" itself. For example what consitutes "knowledge" for a retired "Westerner" secure in the essentials (and luxuries) of his lifestyle could be very different to that of an African living under a despotic regime and not knowing where the next meal is coming from. And suppose his "Critical Thinking" points to the "solution" that he (coberst) has to relinquish a good part of his twenty six fold per capita consumption of the earth's resources relative to that African.....is he going to do it ? :wink:

well, don't be too hard on him. from my perspective we're all still learning, he is even if (i meant "if") he's still clinging temporarily to a bit of a static or black and white view.

i admire his enthusiasm and i don't presume to know more about the subject than he does, i have the advantage of reading some brief report about what happened when one of skinner's experiments backfired a bit i think skinner painted a rather bleak future of consciousness, and he was probably too proud of it- but i don't know tons about the man.

Framing the issue: Petraeous?-Betray us

George Lakoff, linguist, cognitive scientist, author of "Philosophy in the Flesh" was the mind behind the ad. He has framed the issue that will focus upon dishonesty and untruth for the next 16 months. One cannot say Petraeous without thinking ?'betray us'.

The dialogue of the pot and the kettle.

Joe,


Bravo, one of the most insightful comments I've ever seen on A2K.

Nice aim, you really shot down all the pretence, and no word over three syllables.

TheCorrectResponse

From your posts you seem to have the scientific edge over Joe (the lawyer) who loves his role as one of the old duffers in the box on the Muppet show. I therefore look forward to your views on the "reductionism" being discussed here.

Yes I do have a background in science so I am sure you would not appreciate my views on these topics. I think Joe said it best.

....what a shame there's no "chicken emoticon". :wink:

Yes, your obvoius intellectual superiority scares me to death. To bad there isn't a YAWN! emoticon. I am sure I would be just another one of those people who don't understand the quantum theory...at least not your understanding of it anyway. Like I said I think Joe's comment needs no support.