I am curious about 3 things in this post.

1). "and examine your beliefs for internal and external inconsistency"
What are the internal and extenal properties of a belief?

2). "and never respect a belief"
Without respecting beliefs in the ordinary sense, we could not function. I believe that my dorm room door will open when I push on it after unlocking it. So I push on it.
Secondly, with respect to the unordinary sense of the word belief, sometimes it is necessary to respect a belief. On issues that we have no knowledge of ourselves, we often turn to "experts" It is simply more efficient. When garnering support for a view on staredit.net itself, don't we often cite respected news broadcasts and webpages? If someone believes in God, despite the lack of evidence, I am in no position as a mortal human with finite knowledge of the universe to refute that, if I have not extensively researched, observed, ect, it myself, according to the "never respect a belief" principle.

3). "nor grant authority on the basis of tradition"
It's one thing to say that some traditions are bad. It's another to say that all traditions have no solid-ness to them. I don't think it wise for say, a soldier to not grant a general authority.

Also, that definition leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Here is a more tasteful one:

Critical Thinking: the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, Preview Edition (v 0.9.7)
Copyright © 2003-2008 Dictionary.com, LLC

Thoughts?

(Note: I did not intend for the example involving God above to be used as a starting grounds for another topic about theism vs atheism, it was merely mentioned as a common belief.)

Even if you weren't properly educated, you'd know that this belief relating to a topic would have many internal and external constants. As such internal is your wants, your idealogy, your entire logic map inside your head. It would be better if you actually knew what those word meant instead of just asking for it. Does it not get through your head just by evaluating something? Then what is external? External should be external influence, external knowledge, other's beliefs- and the topic at hand.

Humans are not logical. Humans don't think mathematically. Humans are potentially from start, irrational. Thats because they don't think like that. They think based on their motives, their wants, their beliefs, and based on societal influence, environment, and all those other factors are based in our thoughts. But we aren't logical. Hes telling you to drop all that- and base yourself logically and on topic. Its not simply more efficient. Without dropping those, It renders a serious discussion impossible.

You cannot base everything on tradition. But it is true that tradition is quite in you- and it can get out anytime even if you didnt mean to. But if you're obviously purposefully relying on simply tradition to validate your argument, then that argument is solid unacceptable.

I like the current one way better.

It's not a common belief.

It's a sad reminder of the irrationality of humankind when the definition of the word "critical thinking" causes some manner of controversy.

Logic tells us that inductive truths tend to work for practical purposes, but it also tells us that we cannot accept inductive knowledge as absolute truth. The reason we need to stop respecting beliefs is so that when these beliefs are disproven, we are capable of accepting that. We haev a massive base of proof that the universe is blillions of years old, yet there are still people who believe otherwise, on the basis of that a holy scripture told them so. Reason must supercede belief in all cases, and there is no way to get around that without simply being wrong. Here's a fun fact, if you tell someone that you actually know whether or not god exists or doesn't exist, you're lying. I can actually prove that using a simple syllogism, but guess what? People make those claims all of the time. They're wrong, even in an absolute sense, but their belief (Atheist or Theist) clouds their logic. To respect belief is to believe that you have knowledge you do not posess.

Tradition holds little weight, when much of tradition is based on the beliefs of those before us. Authority is not being discussed insomuch as real life terms, but as terms of the right to be believed. Arguing that something is wrong because it suggests change is equally as unfounded as arguing that change is always positive. Likewise, arguing that something is correct just because a certain figure of authority said so is incorrect. It's called an appeal to authority, and it is only acceptable when you provide a quote or a general argument in full. Namely, I can say that since descartes wrote "I think, therefore I am," I believe that the mind and the body are on different levels of existence, that's fine, it's an argument. I cannot, however, argue that since Einstein accused religion of being the culmination of human failures, God doesn't exist. The latter is a leap in logic, the former uses a quote from a person of reputable philosophical origions to provide a point and suggest a school of thought.

In addition to this, since the term common belief was used, it's also a major fallacy to believe that a majority of people is right on the basis that they are a majority. It may be the founding principle of democracy, but philosophically it's dead wrong, so don't even mention commonality unless you're talking about human nature.

You totally misinterpreted what AntiSleep said. He said: 'Be willing to admit and correct errors, and never respect a belief, nor grant authority on the basis of tradition or conviction.' In your 2nd point, you just took out the phrase 'never respect a belief' and made an argument against it. You totally ignored the rest of his original sentance that said not to respect a belief just because it is based on tradition.

I think it would be nice to replace the word 'belief' with 'idea'. It is more general.

In your 3rd point, you again misinterpret what he said, only on a more general scale. You made it seem as if he said that all traditions are illogical. He said you must question everything. You may grant a belief/idea authority (whether it is based on tradition or not) if and only if it is logical, brings prosperity, is effective, etc...

This is sort of what I was looking for, in terms of relevance to the topic I proposed. I need to think about your answer more, I'll get back to you. (going out soon, no time to really think)

I would like this justified. "Humans are irrational" is a very broad absolute.
Additionally, I did not know the person who posted the original quote I used in this topic, so I really have no idea what he's "telling" me except for what is in the quote. With that said, I apologize for any confusion about that, but if possible I would prefer you restrict your commentary to the actual quote and refrain from using any metadata about the person who made the quote.

I agree in certain cases. The reason I brought it up, was because the quote in question excludes tradition entirely from authority. Perhaps it was meant to be interpreted in this manner for cases in which tradition is useful: The reasons for which the tradition is useful is the basis for the authority allocated, and not simply the title. However, I think it almost synonymous with granting authority on the basis of a useful tradition, it's simply adding an extra step in the process from situation to authority.

Any particular reason?

I hope you find wiki answers credible. If not, make note of it and I will find a secondary source.
2.1 Billion Christians (give or take): http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Christians_are_there_worldwide
I call that common.


I find it to the contrary. What can be better than thinking about thinking?

Why?
I agree reason must supercede belief in certain cases.

So after thousands of years of debate in human history on the subject, you are the definitive answer? This requires additional reasoning, citation, justification, ect,
However, I would ask you to refrain for the purposes of not turning this topic into another god/no god topic. If you really feel the need to prove yourself to me about this, PM me.

Isn't the right to be believed something that has to do with real life? I'm not talking about metaphysics here.

Good stuffs.

Why not?

I copied the quote in my first post, I obviously didn't ignore it. I mentioned this above, but I didn't know the guy so my interpretation is based on what he said, and he happened to use the word "never." Secondly, he didn't use the words "just because." You are talking about a separate action, granting respect blindly without any analysis whatsoever into the nature of tradition. That is not what he said. Additionally, he separated his clauses by a comma and a conjunction, indicating two separate thoughts. "never respect a belief" is separate from "nor grant authority on the basis of tradition or conviction" It's like saying "don't do this and don't do that," two separate things. I made the argument against a single thought, which if reworded would stand alone as the sentence "Never respect a belief."

Replacing 'belief' with 'idea' would completely change the meaning of the quote.

Terribly sorry. "all traditions have no solid-ness to them" does have a bit of an ambiguous character. What he said was "nor grant authority on the basis of tradition," which is a statement about how things should be meaning traditions should not be given authority.

No he didn't, at least not in the quote I lifted.
However, if he did say that then he and I would obviously agree on that point, since I'm questioning him.

Mentioning commonality is the fallacy of assuming the majority is always correct, which it quite often isn't. (See: USA, all of)

In terms of authority, I simply meant that what you interpreted to be authority to make decisions was really the definition of critical thinking stating that using the fallacy of appeal to authority is not appropriate.

And PMed the syllogism.

I hope you agree that every human has a brain. And every human's brain learns, adapts, and bases its directives by its experiences. Those experiences are interpreted, not logically, but embedded. So a human will not think logically, but based on their own experiences. Thats why humans cant be logical. And not being logical isnt being irrational. Being irrational changes from perspectives. So in the logical perspective, yes humans are all irrational.

Ah, I see our discrepancy. I intended to use the word "common" in the sense of "frequently" I should have been more clear. And what are you, Canadian? Maybe "USA, most of" would have been more appropriate

Certainly. As far as I know.

This section is unspecific and requires more explaination for me to get exactly what you mean. Unless you mean this in the broadest sense, which is merely that we learn from our experiences, gaining knowledge, becoming familiar with unfamiliar concepts or objects, ect.

I certainly agree that the experiences are embedded within the memory for later use. However, I think it quite clear that most people can rationalize their experiences.

I am not quite sure how you connected experiences to not thinking logically. Because I have experiences, I can not think logically? I have never had an experience of an experience (except perhaps drinking, but that's a chemical alteration of the mind's processes and not what I think you have in mind) that altered my ability to produce logical thought.
I must say, in this instance I think it obvious that you are dead wrong. We were not born (as in the human race) knowing integral calculus, knowing keplar's equations, with the pyramid at giza prebuilt, rather somebody put 2 and 2 (figuratively of course) together and built something, invented something, ect. You might retort: Well, we just experienced keplar's equations and they became embedded within us. To which I would reply, we might be able to observe the motions of the planets, but it would be a logical step, and not an observation, that puts the speed, mass, angle and rest of the concepts into the form we know today.

Now, I would agree that it's not impossible for a person to act irrationally, especially in a situation where the mind is not given enough time to process it's options, like in a bar fight where someone gets killed or something like that. But on the whole, I can't help but observe instances of logic everywhere.

Also, "not being logical" is synonymous with being irrational. Unless you know of some very specific difference between the two words which currently eludes me, in which case I would like to know

Edit: Thanks for PMing me rather than posting by the way

The way I read it: 'Be willing to admit and correct errors, and never respect a belief or grant authority to it on the basis of tradition or conviction.' If those are two separate prts like you say, then each one of them must make perfect sense without the other (according to my gramamr knowledge). So '(nor) grant authority on the basis of tradition or conviction' can be considered an independent sentance?

Really? How? To me, a belief is a subcategory of an idea. Both beliefs and ideas can be respected by some on the basis of tradition, can be effective/ineffective, logical/illogical, etc.

Refer to my the first part of this post.

That is the general idea; his philosophy, if you will (or atleast the part he shows on public).

Again, going back to the interpretation of that quote... it would not fit his views to say 'don't grant authority to anything based on tradition' - he is far too logical to make such a statement, IMO. I am quite sure that he implied that you must not give authority to anything illogical. Therefore if something based on tradition is logical, it should be given authority and respect.

On second thought... All this discussion is a load of bullshit. It doesen't really have any value - it can go on until AntiSleep says what he thinks about it. I will leave my post as it is, but don't expect a response.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 17 2009, 3:26 pm by JaFF.

Don't go unspecific to me. You've just created a 'Critical Thinking' topic. Which must lead down to what thinks. Which is a brain. We're talking in the psychological sense. I was hoping you'd understand that.

As with the topic above, that is a 'expectation', not the 'truth'. Otherwise companies wouldn't put more research into advertisement if people could actually rationalize their experiences. Theres tons of books written about this. One would trust a friend over a Automobile Survey in buying a car. Now why is that? Why is that? What is more reliable? A friend over a survey which has been conducted to more than a thousand people? Wheres the rationality there? Don't get at me and say I don't. You may not. For this one instance, but theres a ton of other things you are not rationalizing yourself.

Um. You are quite load of bullshit. How can you interpret what I say into something totally different? Someone like you needs to learn how to uh think before you even try to argue. If I posted work done by thousand other psychologists that prove humans are illogical, would you believe then? Probably not. Theres a ton of other psychological books out there proving that humans itself are innately illogical.

The original sentence can be broken down from
to
"Be willing to admit and correct errors. Never respect a belief. Never grant authority on the basis of tradition or conviction."
In the second section, parallel structure was utilized in the following form: "Never do this, nor do that" The above breakdown into 3 separate sentences reflects the grammar used in the original sentence, but broken into separate sentences.

Sorry, but I'm not quite sure what this is referring to. Can you explain?

I requested that metadata referring to the character of the original poster be excluded, since I have no knowledge of him myself. In any case, if it would not fit his views he should have worded it better. We're all human though, so perhaps that is what he meant.

I haven't gone "unspecific" on you, I merely offered an example of a meaning of the term you used. Now the original question I had about the section was about
The meaning I offered was the simple one. I asked you to clarify it, because I was not completely sure what you meant by "bases its directives by its experiences" in terms of the context of the post.

First, you have not refuted the validity of my argument at all. For example, you have in no way shown that the pyramids at giza are not the product of any rationalization on the part of mankind. Secondly, I am not sure what it is you are telling me "You may not" do. Thirdly, not everyone would trust their friend over an automobile survey when buying a car, and if they did, perhaps their friend owned the model or make of vehicle of interest in the situation, or is a mechanic, works at the dealership, ect. "What is more reliable?"
Well, it really depends on the case.

First, this is an ad hominem attack.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Secondly, you have no basis for assuming what I would or would not believe.

Thirdly, you are referencing materials without producing substantitive evidence towards the concept you are trying to establish.

Fourth, back at you buddy.



Additionally, I've figured out why it is I didn't like the definition of critical thinking stickified in this forum and as the topic of this topic.
Not only does it provide a definition of the term, but it prescribes a way of acting in your life without any justification, citation, reasoning, or examples to support it. Not only that, but the quote is presented in such a manner that the prescription for living and the actual definition presented become fluid and mix in such a manner that it seems as if the definition implies the prescription.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 18 2009, 9:54 am by Vrael.

No Iam completely right in saying you've turned an Egg into a Bread. And I did not attack you. I attacked how you turned Egg into Bread. First off you went from Illogical to Irrational. Which is two different things. Logical is in sense, is a consistent thinking pattern. Rationality is in sense, what is perceived to be correct although it contains the meaning logical it is not logical. Theres a big difference in the two. It means you've just turned egg into bread. Why do I even argue someone who confuses vocabularies- and thinks just out of ... uh nothing!

I've bolded two attacks on Vrael in the post he cited ad hominem. Furthermore, you attack him in the post where you say you didn't attack him.



Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 18 2009, 11:55 pm by Mini Moose 2707.

I think this all boils down to one thing.

The topic of critical thinking is too controversial to allow for a discussion in which we use critical thinking. The irony is physically painful.

How is he being illogical by asking valid questions that make good points?

Who are you to say one is illogical? According to you, logic and things pertaining to it, are perceptive.. Would that not mean that you are perceiving him to be illogical, because he doesn't have the same opinion/view point as you? And would that not deem you 'illogic' because its irrational/illogical for you to 'attack the man' because of simple questions to gain simple knowledge?

I'm just simply asking, don't start attacking me because of some valid questions.

You have not provided any references to your claim that humans are irrational, unless the irrationality of your post was meant to be the reference itself. In this case, I find your evidence inconclusive due to the singularity of the case, and insufficient to prove mankind is illogical.
Logic: (Dictionary.com)
1. the science that investigates the principles governing correct or reliable inference.
2. a particular method of reasoning or argumentation.
3. the system or principles of reasoning applicable to any branch of knowledge or study.
4. reason or sound judgment, as in utterances or actions.
5. convincing forcefulness; inexorable truth or persuasiveness.

Rationality: (Dictionary.com)
1. the state or quality of being rational.
2. the possession of reason.
3. agreeableness to reason; reasonableness.
4. the exercise of reason.
5. a reasonable view, practice, etc


Do you really wish to contest my usage of the root words rational and logic? Perhaps you could find some small quality from the definitions presented here that technically differentiates the two, but in doing so I believe you would merely confuse the arguments so far, bewilder me for your pettiness, and make yourself look foolish. If however, the definition is extremely relevant to your case, I encourage you to present further arugment. I don't see how it would be relevant though. On another note, if I went back and replaced all my "irrational" uses with "illogical" your argument would be pointless, but mine would remain unscathed.



Funny. But nothing is too controversial for the use of critical thinking

I suppose now would be an appropriate time to introduce my reason(s) for starting this topic, while there's still interest in it. I don't think the definition stickified at the top of this forum is worthy of the stickified-ness, for the reasons in the first post, and because

Maybe it'll just stay stickified because we have nothing better (though personally I think the definition from dictionary.com is fine, and the stickified rules cover some of it too, or we could write a better one). Even if it stays stickified, my alterior motive is still a success:
Gaining minerals to donate to the 2009 RPG Contest pot!