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Author | Topic: What Does Critical Thinking Mean To You? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NoNukes Inactive Member
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Ultimately, from my view, faith at its core level means accepting something with limited to no evidence. Or perhaps, accepting something despite contrary evidence. Delusion is also accepting things despite evidence to the contrary. How do you draw a line between Faith and delusion? I think critical thinking simply means examining the reason for your beliefs as well as examining your perceptions. Since our perceptions are colored by our experiences and prior adopted beliefs, challenging the evidence is simply not enough.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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Critical thinking is what leads to acceptance of valid things. Because the definition is useless. To use the definition, we have to decide what is valid. and we have to acknowledge that at times we must act without complete information. Finally, critical thinking alone is not sufficient to lead to acceptance of only valid things. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Finally, critical thinking alone is not sufficient to lead to acceptance of only valid things. There is still the garbage in/garbage out problem. And also the problem with factors that are purely or almost purely subjective.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Indeed GIGO is a common problem (hence it even has an acronym), even in scientific inquiry, however I don't see how this can "lead to acceptance of only valid things" without employing critical thinking to separate the good from the garbage. I suggest that it interfered with critical thinking. Despite your best efforts, you do not have the ability to reject all of the garbage and all of the diamonds.
It seems to me, that once we have exhausted the realms of things that can be tested we are basically left with opinion, and no matter how well informed that opinion is, it is still subjective; an educated guess is a subjective opinion. And a subjective opinion may be the best you can do and that result might still be wrong. So it interferes, sometimes fatally with critical thinking reaching only valid results.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
The process of critical thinking would not dismiss the stories if there was no evidence. Really? Critical thinking means that you have no ability to reject anything not proven wrong? Because if that is the case, then I submit that nobody uses critical thinking. I don't have any personal knowledge of scientific testing to verify that poltergeists don't hide TV remotes or that toys don't talk when no humans are around. Not saying that the evidence is not there, but I don't know of it. But there is no point at which I am going consider the possibility that a spook stole the remote or decide that it's time to bug the kid's playroom.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
I meant "no evidence" in the sense of before anything is even attempted to be proven right or wrong. What evidence can you cite demonstrating that there are no invisible poltergeists? I am not familiar with the evidence.
If you've never heard of a poltergeist or spook before... and have never had your remote gone missing before... and all of a sudden your remote is missing, and someone says a poltergeist took it... then simply dismissing the poltergeist story would not be It would be time for some tests Really? What about my experience from the 562 other times that I found the remote in the seat cushions or behind the couch? Shouldn't I look there first? What about the fact that I was always able to find the remote in some mundane place before someone told me the poltergeist story? I reject the idea that I would attribute something to magic after hearing an anecdote, when every other time, Fnet =ma, where the source of all F's was perfectly ordinary, perfectly accounted for the location of the missing remote. You should too. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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Your comments seem to imply that I'm pushing for accepting an idea without any evidence for it. I'm not. And I'm saying you are wrong. My experience before ever hearing about poltergeist is enough to dismiss them when I do hear about them and some things they are supposedly responsible for. And that's true even if the story is about the cause of lightening or cases of cholera even if I don't happen to know the real causes for either of those. That's also the case for leprechauns, and pink elephants, and it does not matter if the missing object is a remote or an electric sweater knitter. If the claim is that some mystical entity used magical means to hide the object from me, I won't just not accept the claim. I will dismiss them. My claim is that the dismissal is the critical thinking thing to do.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
Such evidence is, obviously, not "no evidence." And therefore is not what I'm talking about. But it is not evidence about spooks or any entity that I've never heard of. If I see that the remote is not on the mantle piece, and before I can start looking, you swear to me that a poltergoose picked up the remote, I'm going to tell you to get off of the couch so I can look for the remote. Even if I don't find it there, I'm not going to pay any attention to your goose story. I'd be more likely to suspect you of dishonesty or pulling my leg, and I might even suspect that you moved the remote. What you seem to be arguing in the posts to which I am responding to is how I ought to react if I was a toddler. Under what other set of facts ought I to consider that the poltergeist story is possible correct, regardless if I've ever heard of them. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
If you reject something without evidence against it you are not using critical thinking. So when people reject God only because there is no evidence for God, rather than because there is evidence against God, then that is not critical thinking? I don't buy that at all. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
By driving to the bridge you also show a lack of belief that the bridge is not there. In other words you have not formed an opinion until you have evidence for the bridge being there or not being there. Because you don't know This is not how anyone actually thinks. If this thinking were actually the case, people would make preparations for what they would do if the bridge were out (such as leaving home hours early, bringing some food along, etc.). In fact, you do have an opinion about whether the bridge is there, and your opinion has a loose probability attached to it. If your understanding is that the probability of the bridge being gone is very low, then you'll act accordingly even if the penalty for being wrong is fairly high. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
There are two things to address with this. Frist, I think RAZD is talking about a hypothetical situation in which the only information is a piece of paper with some squiggles. By a piece of paper with some squiggles, I understand you to refer to a map. A map is some evidence.
All the things you mention are evidence that weigh on our assessment of the probability of the bridge being there. I did not describe any evidence. What I discussed is what you use you make of evidence. Generally speaking we don't decide to rely on a bridge without assigning some probability to the bridge being there. If we thought there was a significant probability of the bridge being out, we'd make some allowances for that.
Ultimately, though, we do not know for sure whether the bridge is there or not until we cross it, but we can have an opinion on the matter that leans one way or the other based on other evidence. I wish I'd said that. Oh wait...
Which brings up the second point: our discussion regards knowing things to a degree of scientific (or similar) certainty, and this is a criterion which very few people require their knowledge to meet before acting Saying "to a degree of scientific certainty" covers everything from maybe to near certainty. Perhaps you used one too many modifiers here?Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member |
In the first stage I not only lack belief in the bridge being there (or not being there), but I lack certainty about the condition of the bridge's existence, so I just don't know if the bridge is there or not. Certainty is not required before forming an opinion. Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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NoNukes Inactive Member
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Agreed, nothing prevents people from having whatever opinion they like... ... but is that critical thinking or wishful thinking? Life requires that we act without complete information. When we are short of certainty, one logical approach is to access the probabilities and consequences for being right or wrong and to act even in the face of uncertainty. If critical thinking is in opposition to that thought process then critical thinking is useless. We form an opinion that man is an evolved primate and we teach such things to children without being 100 per cent certain. We plan to drive to work crossing that bridge tomorrow and we are not 100 per cent sure our car is going to start.Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846) I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass
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