Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

ttf_BGuttman
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_BGuttman »

ttf_Baron von Bone
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Quote from: BGuttman on Dec 28, 2015, 05:46PMYou'll never convince any of us with agendas to read and/or apply any of that.
Heh ... I'm not sure that's true, at least not for the most part.
 
Even most of those with "agendas" will find those videos both agreeable and at least somewhat interesting and informative, even if not in application in certain areas (i.e. even if the principles have to be compartmentalized and safely denied entrance into the realms of their sacred cows). Some in the OTF with "agendas" however, are happily for all in the OTF not apparently reading my topics or my posts--or at least most of my posts--so of course they won't view those videos, and they certainly won't apply the concepts. The former is for the best and the latter just ain't happnin' anyhow.
ttf_ronkny
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_ronkny »

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Dec 28, 2015, 06:06PM
Heh ... I'm not sure that's true, at least not for the most part.
 
Even most of those with "agendas" will find those videos both agreeable and at least somewhat interesting and informative, even if not in application in certain areas (i.e. even if the principles have to be compartmentalized and safely denied entrance into the realms of their sacred cows). Some in the OTF with "agendas" however, are happily for all in the OTF not apparently reading my topics or my posts--or at least most of my posts--so of course they won't view those videos, and they certainly won't apply the concepts. The former is for the best and the latter just ain't happnin' anyhow.
Bruce is right.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Quote from: ronkny on Dec 28, 2015, 07:03PMQuote from: Baron von Bone on Dec 28, 2015, 06:06PMQuote from: BGuttman on Dec 28, 2015, 05:46PMQuote from: Baron von Bone on Dec 28, 2015, 05:02PMQualia Soup: Open-Mindedness (a long time favorite of mine)
Qualia Soup: Critical Thinking
Geoff Pynn (Northern Illinois University) - Fundamentals: Introduction to Critical Thinking
You'll never convince any of us with agendas to read and/or apply any of that.Heh ... I'm not sure that's true, at least not for the most part.
 
Even most of those with "agendas" will find those videos both agreeable and at least somewhat interesting and informative, even if not in application in certain areas (i.e. even if the principles have to be compartmentalized and safely denied entrance into the realms of their sacred cows). Some in the OTF with "agendas" however, are happily for all in the OTF not apparently reading my topics or my posts--or at least most of my posts--so of course they won't view those videos, and they certainly won't apply the concepts. The former is for the best and the latter just ain't happnin' anyhow.Bruce is right.
I agree depending upon how he means "those with agendas". That's a big part of what I explained in my post (note particularly the second half/the last two sentences). "Those with agendas" is actually everyone though, or at least everyone in the OTF, if you don't add unstated qualifiers (that's part of what my response was about--you probably should have read it before replying to it). Ironically though, if you do watch and understand the videos what he posted is basically saying I can't get those who Bruce is speaking of to reason effectively and/or genuinely consider ideas they aren't already favorable toward. I agree with that, but that's certainly not true of all of "those with agendas" as he actually stated (i.e. according to what he actually wrote without any unstated qualifiers added). I suspect as you apparently do that he probably specifically meant my fans though, the rest of whom I kind of hope stick to their current patterns as mentioned in that same response, so they're obviously not really a concern--certainly not my target audience.
ttf_MoominDave
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_MoominDave »

I find this profound.

What is emerging is the worst kind of echo chamber, one where those inside are increasingly convinced that everyone shares their world view, that their ranks are growing when they aren’t.

This is not a “political correctness” issue. It’s a fundamental rejection of the possibility to consider that the people who don’t feel the same way you do might be right. It’s a preference to see the Other Side as a cardboard cut out, and not the complicated individual human beings that they actually are.

Sharing links that mock a caricature of the Other Side isn’t signaling that we’re somehow more informed. It signals that we’d rather be smug ******** than consider alternative views. It signals that we’d much rather show our friends that we’re like them, than try to understand those who are not.

We should all enter every issue with the very real possibility that we might be wrong this time.

A dare for the next time you’re in discussion with someone you disagree with: Don’t try to “win.” Don’t try to “convince” anyone of your viewpoint. Don’t score points by mocking them to your peers. Instead try to “lose.” Hear them out. Ask them to convince you and mean it. No one is going to tell your environmentalist friends that you merely asked follow up questions after your brother made his pro-fracking case.

Because refusing to truly understand those who disagree with you is intellectual laziness and worse, is usually worse than what you’re accusing the Other Side of doing.

Near 100% of the bad atmosphere that gets generated on contentious topics on TTF comes down to interactions where one person gets focussed on 'winning', then the other takes the hump and starts responding in kind, but a bit worse.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Quote from: MoominDave on Jan 10, 2016, 11:06AMI find this profound.Excellent!
 
I'd go a step further than Blanda on a couple of key points.
 
I'd say that you don't need to only consider that you might be wrong this time, you need to reserve forming conclusions until you've run all avenues of doubt and potential error you can identify though a critical process of consideration according to proven, established standards. It's all about the process, not taking the right conclusion and finding validation for it.
 
I'd also point out that while using information to cheerlead like-minded types is one thing, and it's a whole different thing when you're so convinced or just uncritical that you think such a source isn't just making a point that resonates with your ideological peers but that it's actually objectively convincing and that those who disagree should see it that way too (sometimes a particularly poorly considered view is actually pretty obviously in conflict with the facts and/or reason, but that's not what Blanda's talking about).
 
Those are relatively quite trivial quips though. It's an excellent essay!
 
I'm going to unpack it paragraph by paragraph and probably post a good bit if not all of it.
 
Actually, how about you make this its own PP topic, Dave ... eh? That way we can get all kinds of that sort of thing going on.
ttf_MoominDave
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_MoominDave »

Go for it if you want to post it in a topic on its own - I have no copyright on it... I thought it was well categorised in this topic, so I'll leave that to you if you want to.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Nah ... I agree with you. My reasoning is more about the relative cleanliness of this topic and what happens when I post something like this. But you're right, that's all basically what the article's about, and it should go in here.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Excellent bit here!
 
It's like a lot of what goes on in PP ... only it's a brutish version without any apparent attempt at or indication of the false profundity part.
ttf_MoominDave
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_MoominDave »

The common factor between the purveyor of pseudo-profundities and the purveyor of argument-detailing trollisms is that both are making believe (sometimes even to themselves) to those around them that both of them are playing the same game, when in fact they are not.

The interlocutor, attempting to understand, is presented with items designed to simultaneously stop them playing the understanding game and to stop them noticing that they are ceasing to play it.

Scenario 1: The pseudo-profundist
People: Talk about stuff.
PP: Some empty stuff that is phrased very grandly that takes genuine intellectual effort to process enough to see the emptiness within.
People: That sounded wise. Hard work to see exactly how, but PP is probably trustworthy.

Scenario 2: The TTF Practice Break thread derailer
People: Talk about a topic.
TTFPBTD option 1: "<Insert political caricature that doesn't apply to anyone specific here; "liberals" is a popular one often seen in TTF PB> think in some way". Imply that there are some present that actually do match this vague and almost always inaccurate overgeneralisation.
TTFPBTD option 2: Ask a pseudo-profound question.
TTFPBTD option 3: Argue against a point not made in a way that implies that some person is foolish for believing in the point that they didn't in fact make.
TTFPBTD option 4: Employ some other known logical fallacy to similar effect.
People: Grumble, shout back, in general be distracted from the conversation that was previously being had.

Both are making believe that they are honestly discussing stuff with the same objective as others - to increase mutual understanding. But both are in fact seeking to increase their social cachet at the expense of those that are actually engaging in what they are making believe that they are doing.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Nice breakdown!
 
May have to be unpacked though. Then again there's probably no point in that.
 
This is mostly what I'm getting at when I bring up context (of course you know this already, obviously), but that may only cover one form.
 
 --
 
Still want to get back to the Blanda essay--just been way too damn busy lately.
ttf_MoominDave
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_MoominDave »

Just listening through an old brass band recording of a rather turgid piece, it occurs to me that pseudo-profundity is a concept strongly applicable to the writing of music too. Very much music gets written that prefers to try to convince us of its worth via these techniques than by actually containing music worth listening to.
ttf_timothy42b
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_timothy42b »

Quote from: MoominDave on Jan 13, 2016, 01:43PM it occurs to me that pseudo-profundity is a concept strongly applicable to the writing of music too. Very much music gets written that prefers to try to convince us of its worth via these techniques than by actually containing music worth listening to.

I'd put mixed meter for no apparent reason at the top of that list.
ttf_MoominDave
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Post by ttf_MoominDave »

Of all the self-pleasing approaches found in the body of Western music composition, that wouldn't even make my top 20...
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

A good example of why we're better off as a society if we promote and enable critical thinking--the humility required to take honesty seriously.
 
It's a dramatic example for sure, not a representative one, but it makes the point all the more clearly because of that.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Interesting. Does anyone see any problems with this research, as reported?
 
Dissonant tones sound fine to people not raised on Western music
ttf_MoominDave
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Post by ttf_MoominDave »

Well, firstly the headline is an overgeneralisation of the report content...

It shouldn't be a surprise to learn that a preference to stand in a particular region of the more-or-less continuous line running from consonance to dissonance in harmony is not an absolute. After all, Western music has bobbled around all over that line over the centuries, from the rigid parallel fifths of organum to those items of the last century where one gets the distinct impression that the actual pitches and their interrelations are not very important at all.

Finding people previously unexposed to the idea of harmony and trying it out on them is an interesting idea, though one that potentially raises ethical questions of cultural contact. Leaving that aside, I recall being accidentally made to feel quite dim by my father at quite a young age - 3 or 4 - when he attempted to use the household piano to introduce me to the idea of harmony. He played two two-note chords, asking me which pair of notes was more similar - firstly an octave C-C, then a semitone C-C#. My response - the dissonant second pair - they were much closer in pitch (of course at that age I didn't have the proper words). He tried to sell me on the idea that the consonant first pair had a quality that made them complementary, but I didn't hear it at all, and insisted that the dissonant pair was better matched. He gave up the demonstration in a certain amount of puzzlement (I daresay he'd wanted to move onto 5ths, 3rds, then triads, etc), and I was left with the discomfiting feeling that I'd failed to grasp something that everyone should be expected to intuit, something obvious - which is the reason the event is still in my memory; a successful demonstration might well not have made such an impression.

Asking people with no prior harmonic context to rate intervals for "pleasantness" strikes me as treading the same ground as that child demonstration - with no prior experience of hearing combined tones, the asking of such a subjective question doesn't quite ask the question that the researcher thought it would. I don't know what would be a better question - perhaps "Do the two sounds being played interact?". But then one can clearly hear dissonant tones interacting more than consonant tones. Or "Do the two sounds being played go together?". But then the subject is still being invited to supply their own context - "Sure, the dissonant pair are closer in pitch". Some basic familiarity with ideas of harmony has to be established before the question can even be meaningfully asked - and then the slanting effect of that Western musical education will spoil the results.

The conclusion I'd draw from it is that, while consonance and dissonance are clearly real phenomena, it doesn't seem that all humans have an inbuilt mechanism for detecting them - it's a learned skill, at least for some. The next question I suppose would be: "Do some humans have this skill inbuilt while others don't?".
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

A while back someone posted a graphic diagram rating the accuracy and perceived credibility of most popular news sources. It was a series of colored squares that measured actual accuracy against perceived accuracy along with favored sources. Does anyone recall where that was posted and/or when? It was particularly interesting information, and it made for an equally interesting if brief discussion. I think BOB posted the initial link to the research, but I'm not sure.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Probably the most consequential measure of honesty and integrity and intellectual courage is how we deal with this information.
 
Awareness is pretty damn important, but I'd argue that we human brain users have to invest in the process rather than in any given conclusions in order to do our best at correcting this serious problem with our OS.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Preface to Intro to Taking Honesty Seriously 101
 
I'm a bit skeptical of Torres' claims, but while his quoted comments can be seen as I'm bein' oppressed!, the affirmation strategy so popular with those who earn rebuke and turn it into ideological affirmation in the form of perceived persecution (I'm bein' oppressed because my well reputed targets are threatened by the truth which I speak, because I'm a smarter/real skeptic than everyone else ... ) it can also be seen as presented in the article.
 
In any case, regardless of these potentials regarding the Torres bit, the principles presented are solid (as are the links--especially this one, also this one, and for very fundamental background material--Intro to the Preface to the Intro to Human Brain Ownership--also this one).
ttf_timothy42b
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Post by ttf_timothy42b »

I have to share this link that somebody sent me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CzCDR0nv5g

I've promised I will watch the whole thing but it isn't easy. 

I think it is a good illustration of why we need more critical thinking, and why we won't get it. 
ttf_B0B
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Post by ttf_B0B »

Quote from: timothy42b on Nov 26, 2017, 06:36PMI think it is a good illustration of why we need more critical thinking, and why we won't get it. 
We need more of what we won't get.

Sounds... well, like a lack of critical thinking.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Quote from: B0B on Nov 27, 2017, 02:08PMWe need more of what we won't get.
 
Sounds... well, like a lack of critical thinking.
Actually your response assumes we must inherently get what we need.
 
That's the obvious fallacy. It's called an argumentum ad consequentiam (i.e. appeal to the consequences--an argument based upon the thinking required to consider the very notion that we could need something we won't get a lack of critical thinking could also fall under also affirming the consequent and/or wishful thinking). I suspect there's more going on behind your fallacious thinking in this case though, given how traumatic this topic has been for you in the past (which also seems closely related to the same issue with equitable application of critical thinking to many religious ideologies).
 
In any case there's nothing wrong with Tim's comment.
 
For example:
 - What we needed in Northern CA during the fire storm to prevent such extreme losses
   last month was a lot more manpower and a lot more water and firefighting equipment
   than we actually got.
 - What we need to deal effectively with North Korea right now is a level-headed, well
   informed and experienced statesman in the White House, yet we clearly don't have it.
 
There's no guarantee in the real world that we'll get/have access to something just because we need it--happens all the time.
 
You could reasonably argue that it doesn't make sense to pine for something you won't get just because it would solve a problem, particularly a serious one, but that's not what you argued, and if you had it wouldn't speak to what Tim posted.
ttf_timothy42b
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Post by ttf_timothy42b »

Quote from: B0B on Nov 27, 2017, 02:08PMWe need more of what we won't get.

Sounds... well, like a lack of critical thinking.

If you know any good way to teach critical thinking, please share it.  This seems to be a very difficult undertaking, possibly impossible. 

I suspect there are two problems illustrated in the audience response to this speaker.

One would be an absence of critical thinking as either a skill or a habit.

The other would be a lack of some basic science knowledge, a starting point for evaluating what he says.


ttf_Baron von Bone
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Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

This has been posted in here before, but it's been a while, and it most definitely bears repetition.
 
In fact the concept can't be overstated, because it's about the basic nature of the psychology of belief--how beliefs work in the human mind. If we deal with the information reality throws at us blindly then we're more prone to fall into the traps our cognitive machinery is more subject to--we're not keeping an eye out for them. If we understand some of those traps we can keep them on our radar and maybe even find ways to manage better if we run into them. Many do prefer blindness though--it's more comfortable. You can respond in more comforting ways when you fall into a trap. But if you can teach yourself to honor sound thinking and epistemic processes (those that offer us the most accuracy rather than the most comfort) then you can shift what makes you comfortable to a significant extent--from blindly reacting to information about beliefs we've basically been issued by our socialization to understanding what our reactions really mean and how much merit those reactions have as a barometer of whta's actually real and true. Intellectual cowardice is completely natural, whereas intellectual courage only comes with practice and effort (and/or training).
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Thought this might prompt some interesting commentary/criticism ...
 
Researchers claim to have devised a new “wisdom test” that, yes, can measure how much wisdom you have.
ttf_Baron von Bone
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Critical Thinking: Taking Honesty Seriously

Post by ttf_Baron von Bone »

Thought this might prompt some interesting commentary/criticism ...
 
Researchers claim to have devised a new “wisdom test” that, yes, can measure how much wisdom you have.
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