On Apr 19, 2005, at 8:05 PM, Dan Minette wrote:
From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
You completely missed the point of what I wrote. I'm not saying
anything at all about people who accept occasional correction (BTW
there are several others on this very list who refuse to admit to being
in error, yet I don't see you hammering them over it). All I'm saying,
and I said it very clearly, is that for the most part most of us
behave, most of the time, as though our opinions are actually Absolute
Truth.
It is probably true that many people do that.
Thank you.
I've been trained to not do
that....and I've noticed that people who are skilled in scholarship tend
not to that.
Hmm. If you had to be taught it, does it surprise you that the skill -- which might well be acquired, not innate -- is not universally to be found?
My own background is probably working against me here. As a writer, consumer and editor of fiction I tend to prefer phrases that engender strong reactions in readers. That kind of incisive, sometimes confrontational language, coupled with presentation of ideas that might go against the grain of thinking in readers, is something I find stimulating.
One of the reasons I like Heinlein's _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, for instance, is that I can see, very clearly, how carefully he constructed his Lunar society to give room for his ideas to function. But as I read that book I was constantly aware of how very impractical, to me at least, his tenets were; that is, in the "real" world, without the constructs he'd erected to support them, I think his ideologies would quickly collapse.
What I mean is that I just don't agree with his politics as presented in that novel, but I thought it was well-done as a polemic anyway, because it was quite internally consistent, even where a lot of his characters' reactions and behaviors (to me) simply couldn't work in application.
I did almost the same thing in _The Beasts of Delphos_, though that was before I'd read his book. The "ideal" society the Delphan Newfreemen erect is something that I'm not sure would actually work without a deep value placed on lifelong education for *every* member of a population, including heavy exposure to alternate points of view, coupled with the isolation that comes of an entire planet inhabited by like-minded individuals and separated from other worlds by distances of lightyears.
That is, _Moon_ and _Delphos_ are similar to the extent that in them societies which are totally insular and made up of like-minded people are proposed, and it's not too surprising that in both fairy tales things magically work out for the best. ;)
The other thing I liked in Heinlein's opus was the pidgin he used in the text, BTW. I thought it was a really interesting voice to use for the story.
But the point is that while you're working from one space of experience and promotion of thought, I'm working from another one, and I think we both have acquired behaviors that in some places just don't intersect, which seems to generate sparks from time to time.
The combination of this is that we are taught to both form opionions, even
though we are not sure, and to develop mechanisms for weighing the
certainty of each opinion so that the best consensus opinion may be
obtained. Someone who always rates his certainty as 10 on a scale of 1-10
will have their 10s automatically downgraded (unless they are Feynmanesq.
:-) )
OK, fine -- but I don't always rate my certainties as 10. Only the things that I really feel pretty sure of. There are definitely times when I'll get hyperbolic, but that's not the same thing as saying I've got Absolute Certainty in an opinion, only that I'm using incendiary language to put forth a point.
To be fair I don't always make the distinction when I comment on something, which surely doesn't help anyone else decide whether I think I'm right or I'm just blowing hot gas. ;)
When I was the scientist in an engineering group, these skills came in
handy. I worked with field people who were not as educated as I was, but
knew a lot that I didn't. I realized that they were sometimes right and I
was wrong...often because they had key data that I didn't. Sometimes, I
did state virtual certainty "if that's the problem, then we have a Nobel
Prize on our hands" But I saved that for when I was willing to stake _a
lot_ on being absolutely right. AFAIK, I never was in a position of being
wrong.
That last sentence is interesting. Do you mean you don't *recall* being wrong, or that you never were wrong, or that you were just cautious in areas you were unsure and retracted ideas regularly? If the last, I'd suggest that a retraction is equivalent to admitting being wrong. If the second, well ... and if the first, well again, but in a different tone of voice.
Or do you mean instead that in any area where you didn't feel qualified, you didn't express an opinion at all?
I'm not sure I've ever seen you do that. The pleasant acknowledgment part, that is.
Look at a recent conversation where Gautam corrected me on the Civil War.
He's far better educated than me in that field, so I immediately started
asking questions that showed that I knew
[got the rest]
But that isn't exactly the same as what you wrote before, which was 'Saying "I don't see the justification for something" allows someone to give the justification and then for me to pleasantly acknowledge it.'
Hell, forget it -- it was kind of a cheap shot anyway. :\
As it happens I've seen some very absolutist statements coming from Gautam, regular use of adjectives such as "absurd" and "nonsense", etc., and yet I don't see you calling him out on his language like you've chosen to target me.
Perhaps you respect his education; I'm wondering if you're not a little in awe of it. Respecting it too much, I mean. Alma maters and fellowships and such are not absolute measures of the validity of a person's point of view, after all, and they don't give carte blanche to belittle others in any context. Yet that seems to be his approach to those who question his judgment on anything, which makes me wonder why you haven't pointed it out.
I should add here that I respect Gautam's scholarship. The top-notch university placement speaks well already; I'm sure that the competition for the fellowship was intense and it's surely a mark of distinction that he was awarded it. I think that's fantastic, I really do. All I'm trying to say is that such honors and academic achievement, while impressive, don't necessarily mean his opinions on a subject are more valid than mine; his background is not the same as my own, we've had very different life experiences, and we're bound to have dissimilar views on a range of topics, which means that in matters of life experience and outlook, there's the possibility that my views are every bit as sound as his when looked at from a different angle.
Ah you were told what field Gautam was in the last time you said this. The Soros fellowship was the origional "Big News for a List Member".
I try to avoid absolutes like that unless I know the person doesn't have
those type of credentials. I don't like my credability reduced by doing
something like lecturing Weinburg on QM.
And, as I said, I don't keep a bio of every correspondent I encounter on a mail list. It would have to be a very big bio. And as I suggested above, no degree or fellowship award guarantees -- to me anyway -- that I should accept *any* declaration from *anyone* as being incontrovertible, particularly where *opinion* is what is on the table for discussion.
To the extent that someone has a deep education in history, I'd have to concede any point that dealt with historical facts. Conclusions, however, based upon those facts are nowhere near as concrete.
(But I won't accept argument from authority any more than I would expect you to accept the same, so credentials alone won't necessarily mean much to me anyway.)
Well, let me digress on arguing from authority. The origional problem with
arguing from authority was clear in places like sci.physics where crackpots
would quote Einstein out of context to support some wacko idea. It is not
saying that the consensus opinion of people who study a field is not
relevant to a situation. All opinions are not created equal. For example,
the statement that "human emmissions are now and will cause significant
changes in the earth's temperature" is not a fact. It is a consensus
opinion. It is not a proven theory. There are still too many unknowns.
Yet, I weigh this consensus opinion much heavier than arguements that it is
nonsense. One thing that I think lay people
[splice]
don't realize is that science doesn't work quite as it is pictured in
textbooks or in popular science accounts. It is not simply turn the crank
deductive reasoning. When things are uncertain, the right intuition can
save a lot of time. It's true, once things are put together, the paper
that comes out looks tight and deductive. But, the process requires having
good opinions...and being very willing to modify opinions as needed.
Knowing the golden mean between vacillation with each bit of data and going
miles down a dark alley by sticking to one's guns is part of what is taught
during that apprenticeship period.
I understand that; however, the argument from authority I was referring to is more on the order of "I know more than you on subject A, which means I can comment with impunity on subject B, even though it's only partially related."
I don't think I've tried to take on Gautam in regards to history's facts, though I do know I've sparred with him on how those facts can be interpreted.
If that, to you, is behaving as though I think he "is making unreasonable arguements that are impossible to support", then I suppose the same rule would apply to comments such as "That's just the empty cant of ideologically and morally bereft leftist extremists" or "Morality is not the product of an opinion poll. Something is either the right thing to do or it is not" -- which are both at least as over the top as my use of the word "unjustifiable", yet which somehow didn't raise a single ping on your scopes.
I don't really have much basis to object to someone pointing out when I'm being bombastic, because I know I can be. But when the discussion begins to feel more like a nitpicking of a single phrase, and that mote-extraction overlooks the broadside beams coming from other sources, I begin to feel more than a little embattled. If you're going to criticize your correspondents for using language of certainty, fine -- but do it evenly, please.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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