Three a week: the unknown

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Steve

The factor of the unknown should be accounted for in your thought process. Here are three questions to ponder:

Question 1: Can you be certain that there is information which you do not possess?

Keep in mind, if you don’t know the answer to this question, you just discovered it.

Question 2: If there is information which you know you do not possess, to what degree of certainty can you conclude anything?

This question has deep consequences, especially for the hard sciences. I try to answer it here.

Question 3: Is it possible to accurately categorize any part of the unknown?

In other words, when discussing brain function, can we work with the category of unknown physical “neural processes”? If so, that means we actually can know certain properties of the unknown (which makes them less unknown). This makes “unknown” knowledge more like “non-specified” knowledge with which we can work.

For example, we don’t really know what dark matter is yet, but can we know it is a physical process which should play by some laws of physics, even if those specific laws have not been “specified” (“discovered”) yet? Can we be certain about the unknown having properties, or is it just a best guess?

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Atheist morality, part 2

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Steve

So, let’s say humans can break the laws of physics and have free will. Even if that is the case, I do not believe an atheist can be consistent and believe in any objective morality.

Beware of the is/ought fallacy. It is again necessary to dive into the structure of sentences. Simple: you absolutely can not derive an “ought” statement from an “is” statement. For example, giving money to the poor “is” nice. That is a “descriptive” statement, essentially acting as an adjective. There is no difference in structure between that statement and the statement, “running around is tiring”. They are both merely descriptive. The sky is blue; fat people are jolly, etc.

There is no logical jump from “descriptive” statements to “prescriptive” statements, (sometimes called “normative” statements) that someone ought to act in a certain way, or that some action should be taken.

For example, the same structural logic applies to the following two sentences:
A: Giving to charity is “good”, therefore you should give to charity.
B: Stealing from people is “bad”, therefore you should steal from people.

The premises in both A and B are simply descriptive statements. The conclusions do not follow. The fallacy is quite apparent. I am convinced that this argument is damning enough to reject the secular humanist claim that there is a way in which one ought to act. Saying that certain actions are “nice” does not conclude anything.

But hang on, if humans follow a certain set of principles, we will all live better, safer lives! Or, it benefits the species of homo sapiens to have objective morality, and therefore there is an evolutionary reason why we should act in certain ways!

Nonsense. By definition, if there is no standard outside of humans, there is no objective standard by which to judge humans. You can make a compelling case (as free market economics does) that if people respect eachother’s property rights, they will live in a “better” society. OK, granted… and?

This argument boils down to statements of preference. Yes, I will grant you that property rights are conducive to material wealth. Why in the world do you believe material wealth has any ties to anything objective? Do I want to live in material comfort? Probably. That is my preference. It might not be yours. Should people live in material comfort? That question doesn’t even make sense. I would love if society valued classical music more than they do. My standard of living would rise. Therefore, society should more highly value classical music?

Let’s play out an example. Let’s say I am a serial killer, and I enjoy killing people. The secular humanist comes along and says, “Hey! Don’t kill people! That’s immoral and bad!”

“According to whom?” I respond.

Now, what responses are available? According to me? God? The Universe? Humans?

“Society.” Conversation over. Immediately, again by definition, if you are drawing morality from society, it is inherently subjective. Different societies value different things. If tribe A values child sacrifice, and tribe B does not, by whose standards can either side judge eachother? How can one side be right and another be wrong? How pretentious!

But what about evolutionary explanations for morality? They are in the same vein as the secular humanists. They claim that we should act in ways that benefit the species. I would simply ask, who cares about the species? You? Your group of people? If human life is inherently the same as animal life (yes, we have big brains (large computers) in our skulls. And monkeys have bigger lips. Big deal.), is there an objective morality for ants? Yes, ant serial killers would wreak havoc on the ant community, but who cares? Is there a way bacteria should act? What is the justification for presuming that human life has any objective importance whatsoever? I just can’t help but find it presumptuous that the same people who claim the human species is literally a cosmological accident simultaneously claim that we have some kind of objective worth. What is the justification? What we humans say?

Granted, my subjective preference (and most people’s) would be for strong societal preference against murder in society, but that’s all it is: a preference. If you cannot appeal to any outside standard of morality, it is by definition subjective.

Posted in God, Morality | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

On human emotions

Posted on April 25, 2011 by Steve

Should we bother with emotions? What purpose could they possibly serve? Wouldn’t we be better off attempting to be 100% rational 100% of the time?

This is a topic which is near and dear to my heart (or dear to my brain, perhaps). I will undoubtedly write about my distaste for most emotions in the future, but I have recently come to potential conclusions at which I would have scoffed mere months ago. That is what I’d like to share.

Think of all the negative emotion which people have experienced for silly reasons. They heard somebody say something, which hurt “their feelings”, and perhaps it turns out they heard wrong. So, they spent their week moping and feeling sorry for themselves for nothing. Waste of time; silly situation.

First of all, why in the world should other people’s opinions about you matter one lick, if it is the case that you are being a genuine person? They found a flaw? Well boohoo, everybody has them. Why in the world would you worry about somebody “finding out” a flaw? If I walk with a limp, people can make fun of me all day for it, but when you really think about their criticism, you find that they are unjustified. If you base your emotional state off of other people, you are bound to be sad, rejected, and incorrect. We know that nearly everyone doesn’t understand why they believe what they believe, so why would their erroneous beliefs, conclusions, or opinions matter one little bit? The only reason they do matter to so many people, is because so many people are equally unsure of why they believe what they believe! For all they know, their neighbors could be correct in saying that human worth is determined by how fluidly one walks.

I could go on forever about how silly people are, and how we shouldn’t care what they think (for good reasons). However, I do believe there can be room to justify human emotion. It is a little bit different than how we normally think of emotion, though.

So, why should anyone care how anyone else “feels” about anything? Here’s my tentative answer: our own novelty. Let me explain.

Human beings are made up of matter. We have bodies, which are made up of organs, cells, bacteria, and so on, all the way down to the atomic level. Pretty cool. All of these things are 3rd person phenomena. In other words, my liver is not a “self”; cells do not refer to themselves as “I”; and atoms do not have personalities. Where in the world do these clumps of molecules somehow get the unified capability to become “I”, when in the context of a human? It is so stinkin’ absurd that I should have a subjective, 1st person experience of “feeling” my thumbs. Who is doing the feeling? What a novel situation that we (clumps of molecules) seem to be in. Here’s where I think relating to other humans on some level of “feeling” might be cool and justified:

You didn’t plan on existing. Neither did I. We just happen to be here. We don’t really know what the heck is going on, or even what the heck human beings really are. Let’s not kid ourselves. We seem to be groups of atoms with an inexplicable first-person experience. How the heck did that happen? We’re all little blind mice who somehow came into “existence”. Wow, what a connection I have to a human being in contrast to other lumps of molecules!

It makes me want to run up to some other human being and be like, “Do you FEEL this!? I do to! I didn’t have anything to do with my own existence, and I don’t know nearly anything about the universe or myself or anything, but wow, brother, we exist!”

The universe could be more easily explained if “we” didn’t exist, if everything remained 3rd person matter. I just can not get over the novelty of being a self.

I must say, from my current standpoint, that is the only way I feel some kind of “relationship” with other humans. It is quite endearing how awkward and pathetic we humans are in our own accidental existence and overwhelming ignorance.

Posted in Culture, Emotion, How to Think Critically | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Cliquing through channels

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Steve

Sometimes the question is asked bluntly: “So, what are you?”
Sometimes it’s a touch more subtle: “What style is that?”
Sometimes the question is innocuous: “What style of music do you listen to?”

I thought it was just a kid thing. “Once I grow up, people won’t act that way anymore.” I was wrong.

It only gained in strength through the teenage years. Nothing changed in college, but that’s still dealing with young people. Nowadays, after graduating, and interacting with enough middle-aged and gray-haired people both at a university and outside of it, I have concluded it will never be different:

The majority of people have chosen their identity. They have picked it off a shelf like a pre-packaged PB&J. The allure of being able to choose a ready-made personality is too powerful, not having to think about how to react as an individual in any given circumstance.

After a certain degree of advertising, perhaps on the television or in interaction with other personalities, I am convinced some people actually think to themselves, “I want to be like that.” And I don’t mean that in a good way. “I want to have that persona. I want to have that look. I want to have that type of friends.”

Indeed, we operate in this world all the time. It is extremely obvious with teenagers, who will “look” and “act” one way on any given week and abandon ship the next. It’s like they are playing a game of cards, and they are looking at their hands filled with all the little cliques of which they can be a part. The “prep” will get played one week, but look out, he’s still holding a “gangster”.

Sounds juvenile, right? It is. But look around. Our culture is populated with millions of “gangsters”, some of whom are probably old enough to be my dad. Look at all the “preppy” Southern Belles sitting in middle-management, worshiping little green pieces of paper until they retire because they’ve been told (and have refused to question) that material comfort is the standard by which people ought to judge themselves. Their lives revolve around securing a paycheck large enough to stuff themselves with empty entertainment until they are mentally immobile. Maybe people are drawn to the television in particular because they think deep down there could be something important on some channel. “Perhaps just beyond channel 157, I can find purpose in my life. I’ll search for it between episodes of Jersey Shore.”

Look at the rednecks of all ages who will defend their culture at the point (or at least threat) of a gun. Yessir, they know that life revolves around guns, beef, and boobs, material wealth be damned. Little do they know they might be boobs themselves.

Why is it the case that so many people have the same cultural biases as their parents and families? They choose their personality off the plate handed to them. Perhaps there is a problem with this system.

Realize, all of these cultures look from their standpoint to the outside world and think they have an accurate worldview. They cannot all be correct. While it is certainly the case there is not one “good life” which everybody should live, it is absolutely the case that everyone does themselves a disservice by accepting little categories of personalities to choose from.

You can not find out who you are until you reject the cliques that are pushed on you from cradle until grave. Granted, if your actual personality does not fall within the accepted spectrum, be prepared to be judged. But who cares about judgement from people whose entire existence is based off of somebody else’s personality?

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The secret to finding truth, part 2

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Steve

Part two on how to find truth (go here for part 1):

You must build your worldview from scratch. Wouldn’t it be great if at the very base of all your beliefs, at the core of your thought process, there was an impenetrable foundation of certainty? It is possible to construct such a worldview. So, let’s start with statements of which we can be certain their accuracy. Then, we can find out what properties a true statement has.

Statement #1: No unmarried man is married.

Sure, it seems obvious. But what is our justification for believing in such a statement? The answer: logical reasoning.  Get ready for methodic thinking. Bear with me.

Now, within this statement, there are definitions which we are giving to certain words. The very definition of “unmarried” means the opposite of being married. Is there a way for this statement to be false, given our definitions? Is there any possible way that an unmarried man can be married? No.

But let’s try to find a statement which would challenge this. What would convince us that an unmarried man could be married? Simple, if it were the case that the following statement could be true: A man exists who is unmarried and married.

Pardon the anticlimax. This is important. Is there any possible way whatsoever that the above statement could be true, even by the wildest of speculations or situations? What about on Mars? Can we be absolutely certain that even on Mars, no unmarried man is married? Yes. We do not need to go out and empirically verify this is true on Mars. It is absolutely true in all possible situations, given the definitions of our terms.

Wow! Truth! Just like that! One might say, “well, that truth is completely useless to me. How does one base a worldview off of the definitions of bachelors?” Good point, but we can now know the possibility for certainty does exist. That is step 1. Perhaps there are other more relevant truths to discover using logical reasoning.

Statement #2: You exist.

Well, perhaps we are only slightly moving up the scale of practical truths. As I briefly alluded to earlier, you can be certain that you exist. Why? What would convince us that we might not exist. Is there room for doubt?

What sentence might convince us that we might not exist? The following statement would do so if it were true : I might not exist (which can only be said to yourself).

If that statement is true, we have reason to doubt our own existence. So, is there any possible way for that to be true? No. Who is asking the questions? When one says “I” anything, that is an absolute affirmation of “I”.

In other words, if “I” did not exist, “I” could not say that “I don’t exist”. You must exist if you have the capacity to say “I”.

This being said, it becomes much more difficult to prove anything beyond this, even that “you” are a human, or that anyone else exists except you. In fact, you might actually be a butterfly dreaming that you are a human (as a Chinese philosopher once pondered). How can you know for certain? Even if this were true, however, “you” would still exist, albeit as an winged insect.

The fact of your existence is an absolute truth that actually tells you a little something about something! It is not just playing with definitions. That should be incredibly exciting! Absolute truth!

So, those two statements might not have been completely groundbreaking (though they were for me). The takeaway should be this: you can know truth by using logical reasoning. One principle tenant of logic is the following: statements with contradictions can not be true. This can not be overemphasized. Really, it can’t. So, I am going to say it again, with italics, underlined, and emboldened. Statements with internal contradictions can not be true.

This truth is the most practical of them all. It should be the foundation of an accurate worldview. It can be justified to such a degree that it can not be false. What better cornerstone for a worldview than a statement which applies to all other statements ever to be created and can not be false?

Here is an example of why this is so relevant. Let’s say someone is claiming that it is good for the poorest in our society to see an increase in their standard of living. Because of this, that person concludes the minimum wage is beneficial for the poor’s standard of living.

What would be necessary in order to reject this conclusion? If it could be shown that these propositions actually contradict one another, then we know such belief must be false.

Indeed, for fairly simple reasons, the minimum wage actually hurts the poor (which I will expand upon in the future). In fact, of any group, it harms their standard of living the most.

So, on the one hand there is a belief that the poor’s economic situation is important, and on the other hand there is defense for the minimum wage which hurts the poor’s economic situation. This demands a change in belief in order to avoid contradiction. Either change the feelings about the plight of the poor, or change the beliefs about the minimum wage.

This specific example has consequences not only in the world of ideas. People’s lives are very tangibly impacted by such things as the minimum wage. Economics in general is a field where contradictions are everywhere and with enormous consequences. Fuzzy thinking, especially from those in authority, affects every aspect of peoples’ lives in one way or another.

Take a more extreme example, let’s say one believes in the following proposition by Murray Rothbard:

“No one may threaten or commit violence (‘aggress’) against another man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor.”

Can one belief in this principle and simultaneously justify something like taxation? Taxation, after all, is (within its definition) a threat of imprisonment by force to those who do not pay a determined amount of money to the state. If you don’t pay up, you go to jail, even if you are in no way an ‘aggressor’.

Well then, perhaps we can not believe in such a lofty principle! One of our premises must change. Perhaps only sometimes we believe in this principle, not always. This way, one can believe taxation is justified and still believe that the ‘non-aggression’ principle should be followed most of the time. If that first proposition doesn’t change (if you absolutely defend the non-aggression principle’), something as prevalent around the world as taxation is not justified. What a conclusion that would be!

Either way, you can see the enormous consequences of such reasoning. What could be more practical to everyday lives in society than applying this thought process to something like the government, which affects everyone? Indeed, in a country like the USA, it affects the whole world if we can conclude certain things about the state.

I can say with certainty that logic is the first rock on which to base your worldview if your goal is to find truth and avoid contradiction.

Posted in How to Think Critically, Objective truth | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

The secret to finding truth, part 1

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Steve

It’s time to share the foundation for accurate critical thinking skills. Before I do, allow me to present some questions which will hopefully make you uncomfortable. This will illustrate why one needs a solid understanding of how not to think and what not to base your beliefs on.  Take, for example, the following question:

Do you believe the sun will rise tomorrow?

Well that’s an easy one! Of course it will!

OK, if we believe that the sun will rise tomorrow, we must have justification. Shouldn’t be too difficult, right? After all, most rational people seem to believe strongly that the sun will rise again tomorrow. Let’s find out why. This exercise is to show just how many questions need to be answered in order to justify such a basic belief (that means be ready for tangential questions).

So, question 1: Why do you believe such a claim?

The first response that comes to mind is a common-sense argument, “Well, it’s happened every day in the past, so it will happen in the future.”

To play devil’s advocate, is the claim that past events predict future results? Isn’t that the gambler’s fallacy? How does one know that the universe does not have a specific date in the future on which the laws of physics cease? Really. Just because humans have claimed to see it rise for a few thousand years means it must rise again tomorrow?

Why do you believe that this has been happening for thousands of years in the first place? You may have had a tiny handful of years experiencing such a phenomenon, but you have the confidence to extrapolate that data back how many years? Thousands? Millions? If not that many years, perhaps you can at least believe your parents’ account of this experience?

So, you believe this is true because somebody told you so? Perhaps the history books that you read claim that we have records that suggest generations before us had experienced the same thing.

Hang on, history books? Why do you believe those things are accurate? You were told so? Were you there discovering the manuscripts in the ground that suggest the sun rose 2000 years ago? Even if you were, how the heck could you know for sure how old they were? Some scientific dated method? Were you in the laboratory testing this science, or do you just rely on the word of the scientists whom you’ll never know?

Could these historians have ulterior motives to make such claims? How do you know? Have you talked to any of them? You just wholly believe in the integrity of people you don’t know and never will? Sadly, there is quite a “history” of textbooks being grossly inaccurate in every subject imaginable.

Fine, forget history! One might say, “Ah, but we can rely on science! We’re in the 21st century! The earth must continue spinning!”

The first response to such claims should again be, “Why do you believe that?”

Well, everybody knows that empirical evidence is what is needed to satisfy intellectuals! But have you ever seen the earth from the outside? Have you really seen it spinning? Do you really know that the Sun is millions of miles away? Have you personally measured the distance? Do you really know that the Sun isn’t a big light bulb in the sky? Nonsense! You simply hear and believe. Somebody claims something, and you believe it! And you have the audacity to think that you know the sun will rise tomorrow! You don’t even know what the sun is! Will tomorrow even come?!

Keep in mind that at any point along this questioning process, a single question left unanswered spoils the conclusion. For example, if it were the case that your parents lied to you when they claimed the sun rose every morning in their lifetime, or if the historians had ulterior motives, or if the scientists made one little mistake in their manuscript dating methods (and so on…), then you absolutely can not know the sun will rise tomorrow.

We like to kid ourselves into thinking that we can know things if we believe in “science” like a smart person. How many times has science been wrong? Why is that the case? It is because science is just a bunch of truth claims made by people with white coats. You are no more of an intellectual for blindly trusting a scientist’s claims than for blindly trusting a tribal witch doctor. It’s the same thought process. Step 1: listen. Step 2: believe.

Perhaps one might come back and say, “But hang on, I scrutinize the claims of the scientist as best I can. I don’t just blindly believe him.” Perhaps this is a better way to know objective truth?

What standard of scrutiny do you use to determine whether something is true or not? Your own little set of criteria? (One criteria might be, “As long as it doesn’t break these rules of physics…”)

So, you claim to know objective truth because a certain claim fulfills your subjective criteria for determining what “objective truth” is? Isn’t that the definition of subjective?

Can we really know objective truth?

You might believe. How can you know?

If you seek certainty, do not base your fundamental beliefs off of empirical evidence, or any other common standard of objectivity. Most of that comes down to simply believing what people with badges tell you.

-The secret-

If you want to be justified in your beliefs, base all of your reasoning off of logic. Yes, that is the secret to certainty. Logic. Indeed, every sentence one utters or thinks is completely, hopelessly dependent on it. I will explain why in the next post.

Posted in How to Think Critically, Objective truth | Tagged , , , , , , | 26 Comments

Aggressiveness = Winning

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Steve

Let me use small words for you: you. are. stupid. You don’t make any sense. People don’t like you. You don’t have any friends. You are wasting my time. You have the intellectual capacity of a three-year old. Did I mention that you are ugly? And arrogant. And naive. And you’re a know-it-all, though you don’t seem to know anything. You moron.

Feel that uncomfortable gut feeling? Notice it. Identify it. Don’t forget it (you dim-witted nincompoop).

-Non-sequitur-

Poker is a great game. If you are observant, you can learn a lot about human behavior, while winning money at the same time. For example, when an inexperienced player makes big gestures and confidently shoves his chips into the pot with a loud push, he’s compensating. He is intentionally sending signals to try and intimidate the opposition.

Conversely, when a beginner looks nervous or unsure about his hand, and puts his chips in like a little mouse without any eye contact, look out. He’s got a whopper.

Outside of poker, we see this compensation-behavior everywhere. No comment about the loud guys swerving hummers through all lanes of traffic.

This is essential to realize when having rational discourse with anyone. When the insults or attacks start coming out, you know you are getting somewhere. People will try their best to cut you down before getting close to admitting they are wrong. Indeed, when you can recognize it, this phenomenon can be quite funny.  Take for example Congressman Pete Stark. Enjoy his reaction to simple questioning, and consciously recognize his attacks.
Why such anger? Because somewhere in his brain, he knows there is a contradiction in his worldview. After all, he’s an elected official! How could he admit to himself that he hasn’t thought through these relevant issues? He can’t admit that. So he attacks. Everything from the interviewer’s educational background to his character. Just for asking questions!

Put yourself in the questioner’s shoes. If you aren’t prepared, those attacks would make most people shut up and regret asking anything. That gut feeling would take hold of the questioner, and there would be that discomforting feeling of embarrassment/discouragement/shame and everything else that makes people red in the face. Most people will either give in and back down, burst out (with counter attacks), or just shut up to make that feeling go away. Don’t.

If truth matters, then don’t back down. If people can’t justify their claims, that is not your fault. Exposing contradictions is invaluable for discovering truth.

Instead, know with certainty beforehand that, if you are going to seek truth, you are going to get attacked. But that’s a good thing! Aggressiveness means you’re getting somewhere! You can know why you’re being attacked beforehand, and jump up and down inside for knowing that you are one step closer in knowing what not to believe. It’s like you’re looking at a treasure map, and you’ve just discovered a big red X on the ground in front of you. The only thing that is standing between you and digging it up is some insecure parrot calling you names. Who cares about that?

After all, if any claim is actually true, there is absolutely no justification whatsoever to defend it with aggression. Truth is truth; it wins. And really, who cares what names you get called if you know truth!

The only people that won’t respect you for discovering truth in a genuine way are parrots. Parrots who you can know with 100% certainty do not have justification for their claims, either about truth or about you.

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Is the world grey?

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Steve

We can never be certain about anything. I know this. For a fact.

One popular claim is that the deepest questions about life can not be answered. Questions like “Why are we here?”, “Do we have a purpose?”, “Can we know our purpose?”, or “Does God exist?” are deemed to be permanently inconclusive and grey with no answers in sight.

Let’s not rush to conclusions. The answers to those questions are fundamental to all worldviews, whether we like it or not.  How can people be so sure that answers do not exist? Just because they have not heard a convincing case yet? Has every single argument been presented and scrutinized? If not, could there be any more important focus of our intellectual efforts?

For example, if it is the case that a God exists, that has implications on absolutely everything. It is wise to devote significant effort to figuring out whether or not this is true.

“A God exists whom we can know.”

That statement is simply true or false, with enormous implications either way. There is no third option, no room in between. We may not know if it is true immediately, but it would be premature to conclude that we can never know. In other words, the world is not grey even though people disagree over the truthfulness of certain claims. Our uncertainty does not change the fact that every statement has a binary constraint: true or false.

To illustrate this, here is one example of a black-and-white-objective-truth that you can know with certainty: You exist.

Don’t immediately believe that statement. Challenge it. Ask yourself, “Do I really know I exist?” Then, check your pronouns. You’ll find that there is no way for you to deny your existence without internal contradictions.

Keep in mind, even if you say, “I don’t know if I exist”, that does not change the binary reality that you either exist or you don’t.

And if you still say to yourself, “I don’t know I exist”, ask yourself a simple question: “Who said that?”

You might even respond: “Who wants to know?”

Posted in Objective truth | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Priceless inaccuracy

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Steve

If finding truth is the goal, there could be few things more valuable than being wrong. Unfortunately, being wrong is also the hardest thing in the world for a lot of people.

Think about it. By knowing what not to believe, you are one step closer to knowing what to believe. You could even say that you found truth, by knowing that a certain belief is incorrect. That is exciting. It is absolutely the case that the earth is not flat. Wow! You can find truth by finding falsehood! This process of elimination is invaluable and rock-solid. You can be sure that your non-beliefs are accurate.

The problem arises when people try to justify their beliefs without having a justification for them. They assert conclusions and can not back them up. Then, to make things worse, they live their lives based on those unjustified conclusions, which makes it infinitely harder to come to grips with inaccurate beliefs. The longer this goes on, the more hopeless the situation becomes for discovering truth.

For example, let’s say someone has lived their whole life believing that DDT (the insecticide)  was harmful to the environment, and hence was harmful in the long run to humans. They devoted their life to the cause of banning DDT, and they were successful. Later down the road, some studies come out showing that the banning of DDT has caused literally millions of human deaths due to malaria brought by mosquitoes, and the “science” showing the harmful effects of DDT on the environment was shoddy.

A life’s work devoted to a cause which ended up directly killing millions of humans. How does that individual react to this information? Passionate denial, most likely. Could you imagine the difficulty of coming to grips with such information? Could you imagine the consequences of admitting to yourself that you were wrong in such a case? A whole life wasted!

In this situation, your brain must do everything possible to keep your worldview together. The mind has an enormous incentive to rationalize denying one piece of truth in order to keep from breaking down. At this point, with such enormous consequences, it is not only a pride matter, but a sanity matter.

This leads to the next building blocks for accurate thought:

Step 2: Don’t defend what you have not thoroughly justified. (at this point, that includes pretty much everything)

Step 3: Find truth by knowing first what not to believe.

That being said, there are an staggering amount of beliefs that claim truth. How can we trust our faculties to be sharp enough to discern true from false?

There is an extremely powerful tool to do this, which I will share in detail later.

Posted in How to Think Critically | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Why why?

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Steve

If you don’t believe the same things I do, you will burn in hell for eternity. Or, you are a heartless racist. Or, you are incompetent.

Sound familiar? This is the argumentation method of most people. Here is a conclusion. If you don’t agree with me, I will attack, scare, demean, and/or disregard you.

It seems odd that so many arguments end up failing to change either side’s beliefs. Wouldn’t it be great if discussions actually led to shared conclusions?

Most people will only tell you what they believe versus why they believe. The result of this is most people not knowing why they believe what they believe.

Think of your worldview as a tree. Every conclusion radiates from the trunk (your thought process). From fundamental beliefs, we build more sophisticated and specific conclusions. We should be cautious believing anything which is based on a faulty or unknown process.

One simple tactic for self-discovery of your thought process is simply to ask, “why do I believe what I believe”. This is equally powerful when asked to somebody else. Arguments can move from specific conclusions to deeper, more important philosophical discussions extremely quickly this way.

If you find a question mark in either your thought process or somebody else’s, it is always correct to take a position of temporary agnosticism versus clinging to an unjustified conclusion.

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