Well done Matt. I believe that one of the biggest challenges (and most effective capitalist tools within its propaganda machine) is that our society has not been taught or encouraged to apply critical thinking skills. I was fortunate enough to have been introduced to this concept more broadly in my freshman year during my Intro. to Logic course at university, but I am only now, many years later after taking the Red Pill, realizing how important this skill is within the crazy world we live in today.
I feel for the younger generations that are never introduced to the idea of how to see through "hidden agendas" within the information and media we are constantly bombarded with every day. I hope that I can find the means to help our society find and refine our critical thinking skills, and your essay is an excellent argument to do so.
I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.
It is because we have let almost anyone become a source of authority such as poets artists tree huggers virtue signalers and others who would not know a subject they are addressing if it fell on them. They use so called critical thinking with wild agendas and use information from so called approved sources that has been politically subjugated even at the scientific level.
This statement alone showcases the importance of doubt and uncertainty in scientific inquiry and this, evidently, holds true not just for scientists but for everyone. As human beings, our very purpose of existence, I believe, is to try and understand the world around us and inside us. In order to do that, one must pose a question and a question requires doubt.
[ The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. ]
In the same address, Feynman adds about our struggle with the unknown and the requirement of skepticism in order to discover something:
[ …the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar. ]
He further adds:
[ It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed, and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations. ]
Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) := is a principle stating that the quality of output from any system is directly determined by the quality of its input.
You make a very cogent point about how we can persuade ourselves that things should be a certain way in the midst of a tide of information that points to the contrary. This self-delusion is even stronger in times of trouble such as we are experiencing as we try to cling on to what we know and feels safe.
I would put in a plea, though, not to downgrade emotion as a decisional factor as this is information too. It is not that emotions are false or irrational it is more that we haven't, by and large, learned how to interpret them. Also, emotion is allied to but separate from intuition or gut feelings and being able to understand whether an event or set of circumstances are triggering you because they are an attack on your coping mechanisms or an attack on a fundamental value you hold is a crucial distinction in decision-making.
Gut feeling is not always an accurate response but neither can we wholly remove emotion from critical thinking. Reason, from which critical thinking arises, is a very important faculty that calls on all parts of us to arrive at answers - or at least a direction - that we hope will benefit us.
So, to prevent us becoming procedural automatons we need to intertwine our intuitive and human selves around these important rational rungs of the decisional ladder and allow each to influence the road we choose.
Perhaps the first question to direct those critical thinking skills towards is “what are the issues that are important to me and to those I care about”. That might be urgent stuff like, how can I pay the bills and not become homeless. Do those who are lucky to be financially and emotionally secure enough to direct their attention to less immediate things have an obligation to focus on environmental and social issues? I believe they do.
Yet so many people in rich countries direct there attention to things that bring comfort, distraction, wealth and status. Or when they do focus on the environmental they give it just enough attention to find a “solution”, such as so-called green growth, that allows them to carry on without making any real change.
What can shock people out of their complacency? Fires, floods, droughts, pandemics, etc have proven insufficient. War and violent revolution are do the trick, but they come with enormous costs, and, when over, people just want to get back to normal.
Widespread collapse might be such a shock but by then it will probably be too late to mitigate the decline.
Do you think there is some sort of shock that could have even a small chance of waking people up? I think there is. Or do you think enough people will suddenly start using critical thinking and take action? I don’t.
Well done Matt. I believe that one of the biggest challenges (and most effective capitalist tools within its propaganda machine) is that our society has not been taught or encouraged to apply critical thinking skills. I was fortunate enough to have been introduced to this concept more broadly in my freshman year during my Intro. to Logic course at university, but I am only now, many years later after taking the Red Pill, realizing how important this skill is within the crazy world we live in today.
I feel for the younger generations that are never introduced to the idea of how to see through "hidden agendas" within the information and media we are constantly bombarded with every day. I hope that I can find the means to help our society find and refine our critical thinking skills, and your essay is an excellent argument to do so.
Kudos. Keep the great work coming!
Critical thinking without the correct facts will not work either.
I think we live in an unscientific age in which almost all the buffeting of communications and television words, books, and so on-are unscientific. As a result, there is a considerable amount of intellectual tyranny in the name of science.
—Richard P. Feynman (my advisor and friend)
It is because we have let almost anyone become a source of authority such as poets artists tree huggers virtue signalers and others who would not know a subject they are addressing if it fell on them. They use so called critical thinking with wild agendas and use information from so called approved sources that has been politically subjugated even at the scientific level.
This statement alone showcases the importance of doubt and uncertainty in scientific inquiry and this, evidently, holds true not just for scientists but for everyone. As human beings, our very purpose of existence, I believe, is to try and understand the world around us and inside us. In order to do that, one must pose a question and a question requires doubt.
[ The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn’t know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is still in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize our ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty — some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain. ]
In the same address, Feynman adds about our struggle with the unknown and the requirement of skepticism in order to discover something:
[ …the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar. ]
He further adds:
[ It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed, and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations. ]
Agreed and its all about the media and its confusion between religion and science...... belief versus facts and all the unknowns in between.
Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) := is a principle stating that the quality of output from any system is directly determined by the quality of its input.
The sin is not to question so called facts.
You make a very cogent point about how we can persuade ourselves that things should be a certain way in the midst of a tide of information that points to the contrary. This self-delusion is even stronger in times of trouble such as we are experiencing as we try to cling on to what we know and feels safe.
I would put in a plea, though, not to downgrade emotion as a decisional factor as this is information too. It is not that emotions are false or irrational it is more that we haven't, by and large, learned how to interpret them. Also, emotion is allied to but separate from intuition or gut feelings and being able to understand whether an event or set of circumstances are triggering you because they are an attack on your coping mechanisms or an attack on a fundamental value you hold is a crucial distinction in decision-making.
Gut feeling is not always an accurate response but neither can we wholly remove emotion from critical thinking. Reason, from which critical thinking arises, is a very important faculty that calls on all parts of us to arrive at answers - or at least a direction - that we hope will benefit us.
So, to prevent us becoming procedural automatons we need to intertwine our intuitive and human selves around these important rational rungs of the decisional ladder and allow each to influence the road we choose.
A very good article.
Perhaps the first question to direct those critical thinking skills towards is “what are the issues that are important to me and to those I care about”. That might be urgent stuff like, how can I pay the bills and not become homeless. Do those who are lucky to be financially and emotionally secure enough to direct their attention to less immediate things have an obligation to focus on environmental and social issues? I believe they do.
Yet so many people in rich countries direct there attention to things that bring comfort, distraction, wealth and status. Or when they do focus on the environmental they give it just enough attention to find a “solution”, such as so-called green growth, that allows them to carry on without making any real change.
What can shock people out of their complacency? Fires, floods, droughts, pandemics, etc have proven insufficient. War and violent revolution are do the trick, but they come with enormous costs, and, when over, people just want to get back to normal.
Widespread collapse might be such a shock but by then it will probably be too late to mitigate the decline.
Do you think there is some sort of shock that could have even a small chance of waking people up? I think there is. Or do you think enough people will suddenly start using critical thinking and take action? I don’t.