An Aside: On Rational Thinking
Eva Durant wrote: > Uncompromising means, not changing opinions even when > presented rational reasons to do so. In the absence of such > what can I do? What if my opinion is actually a good > approximation to reality, Let's take a harder look at rational thought: "Rational thinking ... cannot predict the future. All it can do is to map out the probability space as it appears at the present, and which will be different tomorrow when one of the infinity of possible states will have materialized. Technological and social inventions broaden this probability space all the time; it is now incomparably larger than it was before the Industrial Revolution, for good or for evil. "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. It was man's ability to invent which has made human society what it is. The mental processes of invention are still mysterious. They are rational, but not logical, that is to say not deductive. The first step of the technological or social inventor is to visualize, by an act of imagination, a thing or a state of things which does not yet exist, and which to him appears in some way desirable. He can then start rationally arguing backwards from the invention, and forward from the means at his disposal, until a way is found from one to the other." ( D. Gabor, Inventing the Future, Penguin Books, 1963, p. 161) "... criticisms of rational (decision-making) model: 1.Success in goal attainment means commitment to the goal, and commitment is an emotional -- thus nonrational -- state ... 2.All groups have several goals ... so that over-specialization may threaten survival ... 3 it is very difficult to gain agreement on just what goals or goal are being sought ..." (W. Breed, The Self-Guiding Society, The Free Press, 1971, pp. 95-96) "Several critics of the rational model suggest a second approach to decision-making -- incrementalism. "Two major weaknesses ... First ... reflects the interests of the most powerful groupings in society ... second .. ignores overdue innovations." (ibid., pp. 99-101) "The model (of decision-making) we recommend is called mixed scanning. "An example of mixed scanning: weather satellites hold two cameras. One takes broad-angle pictures covering large segments of the sky ... The other lens photographs much smaller segments but in much greater detail ... dual scanning device ... scans for signs of trouble. The second camera explores these danger points in detail ... "When criticism shows that a policy is ineffective, stop incrementing and turn to more encompassing scanning." (ibid., pp. 103-111) "Intellectual competence will be judged in terms of the ability of the student to synthesize the explosion of information. Most significant thinking will be reflective ... Men will succeed or not in the measure of their ability to order information into unity and to evaluate and judge (Aristotle's order of judgment again, his very principle for distinguishing wisdom from mere science)." (F. D. Wilhelmsen and J. Bret, The War in Man, University of Georgia Press, 1970), p. 35) "Kant's complaint against Cartesianism was based on his insistence that pure rationalist analysis can never add to our knowledge. Analytic thinking can simply penetrate and arrange the already given, the already possessed ... True progress in knowledge -- not specifically in the sense of knowledge possessed by me as an individual, but in the sense of adding to the entire store of knowledge possessed by mankind -- is synthetic." (ibid., pp. 42-43) "Belloc hit it when he wrote: 'It is in the character of unwisdom to analyze and to proceed upon the results of analysis: in the character of wisdom to integrate the whole point.' But we are leaving the Age of Analysis patterned after mechanical models and rigid deduction, all of which involve very hard 'work', whether it be the analysis of a literary text into its component parts or of a chemical compound into its elements. We are entering an Age of Synthesis that will demand a maximum of talent concentrated in men who simply occupy positions in society and who will be paid to synthesize, 'to integrate the whole point'." (ibid., p. 97) "There is in the philosophy of science a doctrine known as reductionism. Its proponents argue that eventually all of the processes of nature will be shown to be physical processes; or, in an alternative statement, that all of the natural sciences will eventually be found subsumed under the principles of physics." (R. Schlegel, Inquiry into Science: Its Domain and Limits, Doubleday, 1972, p. 68) "There is the point to be made that because of the indeterminism that physics has found in nature on the microscopic level, there will be no explanation in science for why one individual quantum event occurs rather than another that may be equally probable. This limitation could be accepted as merely the consequence of an element of chance in nature. But in a more general way, it is associat
Re: An Aside: On Rational Thinking
> Eva Durant wrote: > > > Uncompromising means, not changing opinions even when > > presented rational reasons to do so. In the absence of such > > what can I do? What if my opinion is actually a good > > approximation to reality, > > Let's take a harder look at rational thought: > as it happens, I wasn't as deep as you wanted me to be, by rational reasons I meant those that can be demonstrated to be best describing our experiences/ our reality upto the time of the decision. However, as the FPLC is working away happily, I might as well give you my reflections... > "Rational thinking ... cannot predict the future. All it can do is to > map out the probability space as it appears at the present, and which > will be different tomorrow when one of the infinity of possible states > will have materialized. Technological and social inventions broaden this > probability space all the time; it is now incomparably larger than it > was before the Industrial Revolution, for good or for evil. > Who claimed any prediction of the future? Marxism claims with evidence that capitalism has an inbuilt contradiction, and that a system is possible and maybe more effective in maintaining human society without the capitalist anomaly. Everything else depends on the given particular initial conditions. From these probabilistic predictions may be drawn. People happen to trust the products of "rational thinking", they step into airoplanes and cars without giving much of a thought to probability, not to mention the million other such everyday effects of scientific thinking. > "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. It was > man's ability to invent which has made human society what it is. The > mental processes of invention are still mysterious. They are rational, > but not logical, that is to say not deductive. The first step of the > technological or social inventor is to visualize, by an act of > imagination, a thing or a state of things which does not yet exist, and > which to him appears in some way desirable. He can then start rationally > arguing backwards from the invention, and forward from the means at his > disposal, until a way is found from one to the other." > The ability to invent is secondary to be able to remember and to communicate. Every inventor is "standing on the shoulder of giants" who are unknown and number thousands of the same and several previous generations. When a given number of data is accumulated, and there is a given number of well fed people with access to this data and a bit of spare time from chasing the dynosaur, tilling the land or manning the checkout counter, there is a good chance that the "invention" will follow. Quantity turning into quality... I can't think of any of these "backward" inventions - can you? the rest seem to be semantic/relativistic mix, making strawmen arguments from wierd definition of rational thought - I'll get back to them later, you seem to be ahead in the "time management pardigm". Eva > ( D. Gabor, Inventing the Future, Penguin Books, 1963, p. 161) > > "... criticisms of rational (decision-making) model: > > 1.Success in goal attainment means commitment to the goal, and > commitment is an emotional -- thus nonrational -- state ... > 2.All groups have several goals ... so that over-specialization may > threaten survival ... > 3 it is very difficult to gain agreement on just what goals or > goal are being sought ..." > > (W. Breed, The Self-Guiding Society, The Free Press, 1971, pp. 95-96) > > "Several critics of the rational model suggest a second approach to > decision-making -- incrementalism. > > "Two major weaknesses ... First ... reflects the interests of the most > powerful groupings in society ... second .. ignores overdue > innovations." > > (ibid., pp. 99-101) > > "The model (of decision-making) we recommend is called mixed scanning. > > "An example of mixed scanning: weather satellites hold two cameras. One > takes broad-angle pictures covering large segments of the sky ... The > other lens photographs much smaller segments but in much greater detail > ... dual scanning device ... scans for signs of trouble. The second > camera explores these danger points in detail ... > > "When criticism shows that a policy is ineffective, stop incrementing > and turn to more encompassing scanning." > > (ibid., pp. 103-111) > > "Intellectual competence will be judged in terms of the ability of the > student to synthesize the explosion of information. Most significant > thinking will be reflective ... Men will succeed or not in the measure > of their ability to order information into unity and to evaluate and > judge (Aristotle's order of judgment again, his very principle for > distinguishing wisdom > from mere science)." > > (F. D. Wilhelmsen and J. Bret, The War in Man, University of Georgia > Press, 1970), p. 35) > > "Kant's complaint against Cartesianism was based on his insistence that > pu
Re: An Aside: On Rational Thinking
Hi Bob: Great answer and a good read. I have two comments to make. New information, whether through inductive reason, dreams, or pure creativity can obsolete known truths - a point your references have made. Going back to some of the previous discussions re the "soul" that have been posted. This body of knowledge whether from the insights of shamanism, pychotropic drug use experiences, general religous experiences, or the study of ancient religions such as Hindism, Buddism or North American Native cultures - has fallen off the horizon of modern thinking. This does not mean that the truths, experiences, techniques are invalid, it just indicates that they don't fit the current paradigm of the moment. And this could change in a moment - no matter what the rationalist, scientific, academic authorities posit today. The future is truly unknowable Second, and I will repost your quote to juxataposition it with my observation. Much of what we assume we know, is based on imcomplete information. You posted: > (ibid., p. 74) > > "... we might consider the sentiments in early and mid-nineteenth > century America that eventually led to the abolition of slavery in the > United States. Many people of course participated in leading popular > thought and action, but we can cite a novel, Harriet Beecher Stowe's > Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the impact of a political leader, Abraham > Lincoln, as being among the major influences. The arguments for > abolition arose from many facets of human experience and with varied > kinds of religious and philosophical support. And in spite of > counter-arguments and social inertia, a conviction that involved a > change in assumptions about human lives did eventually carry the day. > New social-industrial factors may well have been, as some have argued, a > factor in the challenge. The humanist, in any event, can be responsive > to the total situation of his times." Thomas: The above quote explains what most of us believe to be true about the abolishment of slavery. Nowhere in this account is the antecendents of the abolishment of slavery given it's economic background as a strategy between the two dominant powers of the early 1800"s, France under Napolean and England. The following quote gives the requisite information. Patriots and Profiteers by R.T. Naylor Page 12 For over 150 years, the two powers hd contended for control of the world sugar market. France won. By the turn of the nineteenth century, sugar from its West Indian colonies cost 25 percent of that from the older British plantations. The Napoleonic Wars gave the British a chance to strike back. First they attempted to capture St. Dominique (now Haiti), the source or destination of 75 percent of France's colonial trade. Unsuccessful, they turned to indirect means. In 1807 Britain declared the abolition of the slave trade. When the British captured the African slave trade posts and commited the navy to stopping "illegal" traffic, they succceeded in cutting off the supply to the French islands, which required several thousand new slaves per year. It was perhaps the world's first economic blockade rationalized by "human rights" rhetoric. And it worked. Thomas: As we muddle along with our rationalist explanations of many things, often using selective statistics, historical interpretations, learned insights of human behavior from the current academic theories as the rationale for our current decisions, we refuse to acknowledge how incomplete our background of insight really is. It is as if - we are playing cards in which the next card to be dealt is truly unknown and unpredictable and yet, we assume from the cards in our hands and the ones which have been played that we "know" or can explain what the next card will be. Of course, going around in this circle of destroying rational thought seems to leave us with no way to make decisions about the future - I mean - after all, if we can't trust the lessons of the past to provide predictability then we are truly in a mess. The antidote may come from less reliance on what we know - which we often don't really know - to decisions based on principles and values of what we hold to be our highest aspirations. This creates a discontinuity with all the past truths and allows us to creatively strike out with new answers to current problems. Respectfully, Thomas Lunde -- >From: Bob McDaniel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: FutureWork <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: An Aside: On Rational Thinking >Date: Wed, Jun 30, 1999, 3:54 AM > > Eva Durant wrote: > >> Uncompromising means, not changing opinions even when >> presented rational reasons to do so. In the absence of such >> what can I do? What if my opinion is actually a good >> approximation to reality, > >
