Correct Thinking: Basic Principles Of Clear Reasoning


regi

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On 9/26/2017 at 8:46 PM, regi said:
Basic Principles Of Clear Reasoning

 

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Your life is yours to live as you choose to live it. Assuming you don't want to live a life of misery and failure, you must choose to live your life in a way that will achieve success and happiness. To do that, however, you have to know how to live that kind of life and how to choose to do what is necessary to achieve that success. The faculty of your, "Mind," you must use to make the right choices necessary to true human success is your ability to think (formally called reason or rationality).

There is another reason why the principles of correct thinking are important today. There is an idea being pushed in schools and universities and other influential sources called, "critical thinking." Most people have been fooled into thinking it refers to, "careful thinking," or, "rigorous thinking," or even, "correct thinking," but it is actually a very bad movement that makes true and correct thinking impossible. There is an older article explaining what is wrong with, "critical thinking." An updated one will be available soon.

What Is Thinking

Thinking is silently talking to yourself. People accused of talking to themselves are often just thinking out loud. Just as children begin reading out loud but eventually learn to read silently to themselves, most adults do most of their thinking silently.

We do many things consciously in addition to thinking, however. We imagine and day-dream and are continuously conscious of our feelings and desires. Only those mental activities that use language and words are thinking.

Some people say they can think without words, but they confuse feelings and impressions with true thinking and of course they cannot tell you what they think without words. If what you are doing is true thinking, you can describe it in words, you can write it down (for further examination, for example), and can, if you choose to, explain it in words to someone else.

What Is Not Thinking?

Other kinds mental activity are not really thinking. Mentally reciting things, memorization, imagination, expressions of beliefs, fears, or nostalgia, may include thinking but are not thinking itself.

All undirected mental experiences are forms of perception, not thinking. We are certainly conscious of our emotions, feelings, desires and sentiments, but they are not thinking.

Thinking Is Intentional

Real thinking is done consciously and on purpose. Whatever goes on in our consciousness that is not done deliberately is not really thinking.

While it does not have to be overly serious, all thinking is done with some objective or purpose. It may be as simple as deciding what to wear or have for breakfast or as important is what career to pursue or whether to marry? Deciding what to think or to think about is itself thinking.

The four aspects of thinking, identifying, questioning, judging, and choosing must be done explicitly and consciously. To think about anything, what it is, what its nature is, and how it relates to everything else must be clearly identified. Beyond those questions, whether one is thinking about buying a new car, or changing a career, one must ask and answer the questions why consider such a choice, what will be the consequences, how can it be done, where it will be done. The answers to the questions should lead to a judgment about which choice or decision is the correct or right one in relation to what one values most, enabling the thinker to make a decision and choose an action.

Must Have Knowledge To Think

As human beings, every choice and every decision we make, literally our whole life, is determined by our thinking and the extent of our thinking (how much we are able to think) is determined by how much or how little we know. We cannot think at all about what we do not know, and we cannot think very much about that of which we know very little.

If one is really interested in thinking correctly one must learn as much as they can about as many things as they. This is the whole reason for the emphasis of the previous article, "Two Moral Principles: Knowledge and Reason," on knowledge.

Know How You Know

Not everything in our heads is knowledge. I pointed out in the article, "Knowledge:"

"In every day speech the words "know" and "knowledge" are used to identify many different things, such as developed skills and abilities (he knows how to drive, she knows how to type, he knows how to used the computer), things one has experienced (I know what cinnamon tastes like) or is acquainted with (I know where the library is) or even for things animals can do (Rex knows his way home).

"Intellectual knowledge, however, pertains only to knowledge acquired and held by means of language."

 

It is intellectual knowledge, knowledge held by means of language, that one must have in order to think.

Know What Knowledge Is

Mark Twain said, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Unfortunately a great deal of what most people think they know is not knowledge at all. It is things they've been taught, or picked up along the way that they believe, but most of it is untrue. Only that which we have learned that is true is knowledge.

Only thinking that is based on (true) knowledge is correct thinking.

Know What Truth Is

In an article about Autonomy called, "Basic Ideas," I illustrated the meaning of truth as follows:

 

"Truth is that which correctly describes reality or any aspect of it.

"Suppose you are very thirsty and find a bottle containing a colorless, odorless liquid. The liquid in this bottle is either water or a deadly poison. If you choose to drink the liquid one of two things will occur, your thirst will be pleasantly quenched or you will suffer excruciating pain and die.

"Reality is what the liquid in the bottle actually is. Truth is whatever correctly describes that liquid. If the liquid is poison, only a statement that says the liquid in the bottle is poison is true. If you believe the liquid is water and drink it, if it is poison you will die. If you take a vote of everyone who has an opinion about what is in the bottle and they all say it is water, if you drink it and it is poison, you will die. If you feel very strongly that the liquid is water and drink it, if it is poison you will die.

"Truth is not determined by belief, consensus, or feelings. It is determined by reality. It is determined by what is so, no matter what anybody believes, feels, thinks, or knows. In this case, the truth is determined by what really is in the bottle and only a statement that correctly describes that is the truth."

 

Sources Of Untrue Beliefs

By beliefs I mean anything one believes is true and includes both what is true and what is not true. (Belief, in this sense, has nothing to do with "faith.")

If we are going to think correctly we must understand how to avoid believing things that are not true by identifying the sources of false ideas. There are six main ones:

Beliefs based on authority alone, such teachers, religious authorities, or political leaders are a frequent source of untrue beliefs. There is nothing wrong with learning from others who are experts in their field, so long is nothing they teach is simply accepted on the basis of their supposed authority. There is hardly a wrong idea in this world that is not widely accepted simply because some authority teaches it.

Beliefs based on consensus or popularity, are likely to be untrue. Nothing is true because of the number of people that believe it. Every wrong idea in history was at one time widely and popularly held to be true.

Beliefs based on custom, tradition, or culture are often untrue because truth must be based on reason, not what one is comfortable with or based on what everyone 'just knows' is true. In most cases what everyone knows is true usually isn't true.

Beliefs based on bad but convincing arguments are always wrong. Gullible and credulous people are easily deceived, but even the most discerning are sometime fooled by sophisticated arguments.

Beliefs based on feeling, one's desires, emotions, impressions, whims, and fears, cannot be true except by accident. [See, "Banish Feelings," below.]

So long as any of the ideas you hold are not true, no thinking that involves those false ideas can be correct. [See, "Avoid Wrong Premises," below.] The following sections will help prevent embracing untrue ideas.

Allow No Contradictions (Logic)

Because, "truth is that which correctly describes reality or any aspect of it," any two statements about the same thing that contradict each other cannot both be true. At least one of them has to be untrue and both could be false.

The window cannot be both whole and broken. The glass cannot be both full and empty. No sentence can be both true and false.

Formal rules of logic and reason incorporate this principle, but the basic principle is, if you hold two ideas that contradict each other, one or both of them is untrue. The reason is because reality is what actually is, and only that which describes any part of reality as it actually is can be true. A contradiction would attempt to describe something as being one thing (living, for example) and also as something else (non-living, for example).

[NOTE: The principles of logic and reason which are based on the non-contradictory principle are The Principle of identity: A is A, The Principle of Non-Contradiction: A cannot be non-A, and The Principle of Excluded Middle: A is either B or not B; and from these the principles of formal, or syllogistic logic are derived as well. These are important to advanced levels of "Logic and Reason." Here we are only interested in the basics of good thinking.]

Of course contradictions must be avoided in one's thinking as well is one's beliefs. The moment your thinking leads to a contradiction, you know you have made a mistake. To think correctly one must always be on guard against contradictions, in both those things you believe and in your own conclusions.

Banish Feelings

At the conclusion of my article on "Feelings," I wrote: "Most human mistakes in both thought and action are the result of allowing the emotions and desires to affect one's thinking. Our feelings are our means of experiencing and enjoying life but only reason enables us to think and make correct choices."

The article that quote is from is very important because it describes what feelings and emotions actually are. At the end of my article on the "Mind," I wrote: "Though our feelings are determined by the mind, and we are conscious of them, they are not part of the mind, and are non-cognitive; that is, they provide no information about anything beyond the feelings themselves. Decisions or choices influenced by feelings, which are not fully determined by reason, are irrational, and almost certain to be wrong."

I describe the dangers of allowing feelings and sentiment to influence thinking in my article, "Sentimental Journey," but here it must be emphasized that the feelings are never a valid basis for thinking, and no decision or choice based on feelings can be correct.

The feelings and emotions are very important. "The emotions are our nature's way of converting the abstract elements of conceptual consciousness, our concepts, values, and thoughts, into "physical" experiences. The emotions make our minds, as well as our bodies, sensuous." The emotions provide an actual conscious experience of what we otherwise could only know mentally and abstractly. It is our emotions that make it possible for us to "feel" joy when we achieve good and experience "happiness" when we know we are living our lives successfully.

We should never ignore our emotions, especially unpleasant ones, because unpleasant emotions are an indication of something wrong, and what is wrong in most cases are the wrong beliefs and bad reasoning we base our values and choices on. The emotions can provide us pleasure when things are right, and be unpleasant when things are wrong, but the emotions can never tell what is right or what is wrong. Only reason and careful examination of our beliefs and thinking can tell us those things.

When I say, "banish feelings," I do not mean banish them from our lives. I mean, banish them from our thinking because they can only interfere with correct thinking; but when our thinking is correct so will our feelings be.

Using Words And Language Correctly

Since thinking is identifying things, asking and answering questions, making judgments and choices in the form of silent conversation with ourselves, our thinking can be no better than accuracy of the words and the correctness of the language we use in that process.

If every true statement identifies some fact of reality we must know clearly and specifically what facts of reality our words represent. If I think, "water is transparent," but only have a vague, "I kinda know what transparent means," idea of transparent, my thought cannot be true. Facts of reality are exactly what they are, nothing is "kinda like" anything, and to "kinda know" something is to not know it at all.

If we are to think clearly, every word we use must be precisely and unambiguously defined and understood, and we must know exactly what every word we use identifies.

Correct thinking, except in a rudimentary sense, is also impossible if one does not use their language correctly. One's thinking can be no better than the clearness and precision of their use of language. Grammar and syntax are the rules by which ambiguity and confusion are eliminated from one's language.

Most people understand the necessity of using language correctly when communicating with others if they want to be understood. What is not always understood is that communication is a secondary purpose of language. The primary purpose of language is for gaining and holding knowledge and using that knowledge to think. One must first know something before it can be communicated.

While most people understand they must use language correctly if they are to be understood by others, they do not realize they must use their language correctly when learning and thinking or their knowledge and thinking will be as confused as their communication with others.

Avoid Wrong Premises

All thinking is based on ideas and principles we already know, or we "believe" we know. If what we believe we know is not true, any thinking based on that false knowledge will not be correct.

An idea or principle that is the basis of a particular thought is called a premise. For example a lot of food fads are based on the premise, "you are what you eat." A thought based on that premise might be, "if I eat fat I'll be or become fat," which is not true. Some people do not get fat no matter what they eat. No animal is what it eats. If animals, including human beings, were what they eat, cows would be grass. The premise is false because it is based on a faulty understanding of the relationship between nourishment and health.

All wrong premises are based in incomplete knowledge or beliefs that simply false. The example may seem trivial or even silly but most people have beliefs just baseless which form the premises of all their thinking; such as beliefs in various forms of the supernatural, or beliefs in the superiority or inferiority of races, or beliefs in political or social solutions to individual human problems. Perhaps a most common false belief is in inherent value, that is, that belief that anything is inherently or intrinsically good, bad, or important.

On the basis of that premise almost anything can be put over as good or as evil and any thinking based on that false premise leads to wrong conclusion and bad choices.

False Teachers and Logical Fallacies

Every true idea and all true knowledge is discovered. No truth is simply declared or determined by an expert or authority. None of us live long enough, however, to discover even a tiny fraction of what we know ourselves. Most of the things we learn we have to learn from others, all scientists, thinkers, mathematicians, and explorers who discovered the things we have learned and even take for granted.

If our knowledge is not to be limited to the tiny bit we can discover ourselves in our own lifetime we must learn from others. In the world there are endless professional and self-proclaimed teachers, experts, and authorities clamoring to teach us, and most of what they want to teach is untrue. The question for anyone who wants to think correctly is how to determine which teachers to listen to, and which to ignore.

It is not possible to judge what is being taught by judging the teacher. What must be judged is what is being taught.

A teacher's apparent sincerity, air of authority, charismatic charm, credentials, certifications, popularity or broad acceptance do not matter, only the content of their teaching matters. One may only learn from others if one completely understands why what they are taught is true and it does not contradict any certain knowledge they already have.

False teachers are not necessarily deceitful. Many leaders and teachers sincerely believe the things they teach, but are deceived by their own bad thinking and lack of knowledge.

Many false teachers are intentionally deceitful for any number of reasons, which are not important. What is important is being able to discern the methods by which they spread their deceit.

Many false teachers attempt to by-pass reason altogether appealing directly to the irrational feelings and emotions—especially, fears, desires, guilt, sentiment, fantastic aspirations, and unrealistic ideals.

The teachings of these scam artists can be avoided by the thinker who has banished feelings from their thinking as described above.

Both the self-deceived and nefarious false teacher use a number of mind-numbing "logical fallacies," which are arguments that seem plausible when not carefully examined. There are endless varieties of logical fallacies which you can examine here: Logical Fallacies, Formal and Informal.

The Purpose Of Thinking Is Not Debate

Every individual is endowed with the ability to learn and think. The purpose of knowledge and thinking is for the individual to be able to make right choices in conducting one's life.

The purpose of correct thinking is not to win debates or convince others. Others have their own minds and must do their own learning and thinking. To attempt to interfere in another individual's learning or thinking is in fact immoral.

There is nothing wrong with friendly discussion and defending one's own opposing views, and there is nothing wrong with teaching if those being taught choose to be taught. But these are not the purpose of correct thinking.

If others disagree with you, even if you know what their mistakes are, it is just none of your business. Others mistaken views are their problem, not yours. If you are certain you have done everything possible to learn what is true and to think correctly, you do not need anyone else's approval or agreement. If you have learned the truth, then you know it, even if you are the only person in the world that knows it.

Summary

The whole field of knowledge and reason is very broad. This has been an introduction to the most important principles that must be observed to think correctly. The whole field of the nature of knowledge (formally called epistemology) reason, including formal logic, the nature of propositions, and a host specific fields of reasoning is very broad; nevertheless these principle are fundamental to all correct thinking.

Here is a brief summary of the principles of correct thinking:

  • Thinking is using language to ask and answer questions.

     

  • Thinking must be done intentionally and deliberately.

     

  • Knowledge is necessary to correct thinking. What one can think and how much they can think about it is determined by how much they know and how well they know it.

     

  • Knowledge must be true knowledge that correctly describes some aspect of reality.

     

  • Beliefs that are not true and based only on authority, consensus, popularity, tradition, false arguments, or appeals to emotions, must be rejected.

     

  • There are no contradictions in true knowledge or correct thinking. A contradiction means one's knowledge is wrong, thinking is incorrect, or both.

     

  • Feelings and desires must never be allowed to influence one's thinking.

     

  • One's language must be used correctly and one's word's unambiguously defined.

     

  • One's premises must always be based on true knowledge.

     

  • Never accept anything on the basis of authority and only accept what you, using your own thinking, understand to be true and does not contradict what you already know is true.

     

  • Correct thinking has nothing to do with influencing others, only with ensuring you know what is true in order to make right choices and to live happily and successfully

[Originally posted at The Moral Individual Correct Thinking]

 

Thinking is also to visualize.  That is non verbal and there is no asking and answering.  Some times there is incomplete information and true knowledge is not at hand. One must use the most probable statement. Your approach seems to avoid the very common situation of not having  "true knowledge" but  having the best or most probable supposition.  Sometimes one must "go with the gut" because there is nothing better at hand.  Kelkule did not deliberately dream of a snake swallowing its tail.  The dream came as it came and that apparently opened the way for his benzine ring hypothesis.  Einstein's thoughts on gravitation  came in stages and not deliberately.  He reported making several mistakes and back tracking to correct them.  You procedure makes no allowances for  try-and-fail. Sometimes the only way to succeed is to make mistakes which are later corrected.   Example:  Sadi Carnot  succeeded in discovering the second law of thermodynamics based on an erroneous supposition about the nature of heat.  In 1824 heat was believed to be a massless fluid  that occupied the space between the atoms of substances.  It turns out this is wrong, but Carnot came up with the correct conclusion that a reversible heat engine was the most efficient possible heat engine regardless of what fuel or energy storage fluid was used.  Thirty years later Clausius, German physicist,  modified Carnot's hypothesis about heat (heat is the motion of atoms and molecules)  and came up with a modification of Carnot's second law.  Clausius also invented the concept of entropy which he didn't understand fully at the time he invented it.  The concept has been cleared up in the subsequent work of Kelvin, Maxwell and Boltzmann.  So you see that your positive and definite approach is not the only one and in some cases does not produce the right ideas.  Ideas are refined and correct in steps by cut and try.  I am afraid your good advice would not have produced any first rate physics.  Your approach may be good for something but it won't do for physical sciences or mathematics.

It would not have helped Einstein who thought in images more than in words and equations.  The images came first by a nonlinear process and the equations and logic came later. Creativity is a messy business.  It cannot be mechanized and it cannot be fully formalized. Your technique would not have helped Michael Faraday who invented the concept of the force field (electrical and magnetic). Faraday did not have ten lines of mathematics to his name but he was a totally visual thinker (non verbal in the extreme).  He was able to visualize fields and lines of force.  He was fortunate to work with James Clerk Maxwell who was able to translate Faraday's images and pictures into partial differential equations.  Thus was born the classical theory of the electromagnetic field which is the basis for all chemical processes that do not involve alterations of the atomic nucleus.  Faraday's vision was revolutionary.  All the other workers in electrical and magnetic phenomena  used the Newtonian approach of pairs of bodies interacting with each other by a force law.  That is not the way  electromagnetic forces work.  Charged particle A  creates a field which interacts with charged particle B. The field tells B what to do, not particle A.  Without Faraday's  visual notion of the field  electromagnetics would have been delayed in its development. 

Your approach might be useful for writing legal briefs but it will not be helpful for science. 

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On 9/28/2017 at 1:22 AM, Wolf DeVoon said:

Magic thinking with guaranteed college admission and employment quotas

The picture used to illustrate the article was chosen because the woman resembles a friend of ours (my wife and me) named Patrice. She, and her husband have two sons and a daughter (Briana) who stole my heart the moment I met her. They have chosen to earn their way in this world, and have. There is no magic, just hard work.

I know the comment was sarcasm, which I understand, but I assure you, if you met Briana your cynical heart would melt.

 

 

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On 9/28/2017 at 9:35 AM, anthony said:

The essay is excellent. It's no easy task to write intellectually without formal "intellectualizing", and here you've covered all the essential ground -with some fresh twists - and closed a gap between philosophy and the thinking of everyman. I also appreciated the linked article on sentimentality/ism. This has been my fave dislike for a long while. (One of its greatest failings, is it is mostly inauthentic and cheap -- so, devaluing and displacing most genuine emotional responses to real values or wrongs and evils). We have all been deluged in sentimentalism for a long while, under all its pseudonyms, and no wonder facts and truth have been retreating. Really good, Regi. 

Thank you so much for that comment, Anthony. I'm so glad you understood both the intent and reason for the article. There is a great emphasis on, "feelings," today, because anything can be put over on that basis, and most people are deceived by it. It is obvious you haven't been.

["Regi," is a years old pseudonym I used as writer (Reginald Firehammer), but my real name is Randall (Randy) Saunders.]

Thanks again, Randy

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23 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Thinking is also to visualize.  That is non verbal and there is no asking and answering.  Some times there is incomplete information and true knowledge is not at hand. One must use the most probable statement. Your approach seems to avoid the very common situation of not having  "true knowledge" but  having the best or most probable supposition.  Sometimes one must "go with the gut" because there is nothing better at hand.  Kelkule did not deliberately dream of a snake swallowing its tail.  The dream came as it came and that apparently opened the way for his benzine ring hypothesis.  Einstein's thoughts on gravitation  came in stages and not deliberately.  He reported making several mistakes and back tracking to correct them.  You procedure makes no allowances for  try-and-fail. Sometimes the only way to succeed is to make mistakes which are later corrected.   Example:  Sadi Carnot  succeeded in discovering the second law of thermodynamics based on an erroneous supposition about the nature of heat.  In 1824 heat was believed to be a massless fluid  that occupied the space between the atoms of substances.  It turns out this is wrong, but Carnot came up with the correct conclusion that a reversible heat engine was the most efficient possible heat engine regardless of what fuel or energy storage fluid was used.  Thirty years later Clausius, German physicist,  modified Carnot's hypothesis about heat (heat is the motion of atoms and molecules)  and came up with a modification of Carnot's second law.  Clausius also invented the concept of entropy which he didn't understand fully at the time he invented it.  The concept has been cleared up in the subsequent work of Kelvin, Maxwell and Boltzmann.  So you see that your positive and definite approach is not the only one and in some cases does not produce the right ideas.  Ideas are refined and correct in steps by cut and try.  I am afraid your good advice would not have produced any first rate physics.  Your approach may be good for something but it won't do for physical sciences or mathematics.

It would not have helped Einstein who thought in images more than in words and equations.  The images came first by a nonlinear process and the equations and logic came later. Creativity is a messy business.  It cannot be mechanized and it cannot be fully formalized. Your technique would not have helped Michael Faraday who invented the concept of the force field (electrical and magnetic). Faraday did not have ten lines of mathematics to his name but he was a totally visual thinker (non verbal in the extreme).  He was able to visualize fields and lines of force.  He was fortunate to work with James Clerk Maxwell who was able to translate Faraday's images and pictures into partial differential equations.  Thus was born the classical theory of the electromagnetic field which is the basis for all chemical processes that do not involve alterations of the atomic nucleus.  Faraday's vision was revolutionary.  All the other workers in electrical and magnetic phenomena  used the Newtonian approach of pairs of bodies interacting with each other by a force law.  That is not the way  electromagnetic forces work.  Charged particle A  creates a field which interacts with charged particle B. The field tells B what to do, not particle A.  Without Faraday's  visual notion of the field  electromagnetics would have been delayed in its development. 

Your approach might be useful for writing legal briefs but it will not be helpful for science. 

Most excellent, Bob, first rate.

--Brant

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On 9/29/2017 at 4:33 AM, BaalChatzaf said:

Thinking is also to visualize.  That is non verbal and there is no asking and answering.  Some times there is incomplete information and true   So you see that your positive and definite approach is not the only one and in some cases does not produce the right ideas.  Ideas are refined and correct in steps by cut and try.  I am afraid your good advice would not have produced any first rate physics.  Your approach may be good for something but it won't do for physical sciences or mathematics.

It would not have helped Einstein who thought in images more than in words and equations.  The images came first by a nonlinear process and the equations and logic came later. Creativity is a messy business.  It cannot be mechanized and it cannot be fully formalized. 

Your approach might be useful for writing legal briefs but it will not be helpful for science. 

4

Well of course we see, visualize and retain visual imagery. That is at our perceptual stage, and as you know from art debates, images concretize abstractions in the viewer's mind. Nothing you recount here can't be put down to conceptual thinking - induction, differentiation and integration. His observations and his reasoning provides the scientist's hypothesis to then be exhaustively tested by experiments.

E.g. It needed a highly conceptual mind to make the connection between perceiving the commonplace, an object 'falling' (the mythical apple) on Earth, and observing bodies in the universe which appear to exert a pull on each other -- and to come up with: These "pulls" are one and the same force! And it exists throughout the universe! During and after validation, the explanation needs to be defined and expressed - in word-concepts.

Or, how scientists conceived of the relationship between perceived light and invisible electro-magnetic radiation and concluded that the one is a subset of the other with the same properties.

Etc.

Seeming "creative thinking" is so efficacious  -- because man's conceptual thinking is so incredible. And all that takes place in the indivisible consciousness which some are keen on dividing, for no apparent reason.

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5 hours ago, anthony said:

 

Or, how scientists conceived of the relationship between perceived light and invisible electromagnetic radiation and concluded that the one is a subset of the other with the same properties.

Visible and invisible are subjective notions.  The only pertinent properties for electromagnetic radiation are amplitude and frequency.  Frequencies are associated with our "visible" colors empirically by association. Later on Debroigle  associated frequency and wavelength with particles such as the electron.   Please see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_wave

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On the idea that thinking requires language.  Does language mean only words?

I prefer to say thinking above subhuman animal level requires a 'form of expression of thought'. This includes language (words) as a subset but also includes forms of expression of thought that most of us don't think of as languages.

For example algebraic notation is a special purpose form of expression of thought for doing algebra and it is not usually called a language. It is mega-powerful. Try doing complex algebra without algebraic notation.

Graphs and diagrams sometimes can express ideas clearly that would be difficult to express in words.

Programming languages sometimes express ideas clearly that would be not so clearly expressed in English.

Venn diagrams can be used to solve some math problems easily that might be difficult without Venn diagrams.

Programmers in the past used flow charts and structure charts and syntax diagrams and whatever the h... else.

All these and more examples that could be added are 'forms of expression of thought' which is a superset of language if by language is meant only words.

I don't know if this throws a monkey wrench into Objectivist epistemology or not.

 

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You are free to use words in any way you choose. If you choose to use the word "thinking," to include, "visualization," that's your prerogativ

For everyone else, thinking, imagination, inspiration, and insight identify different things. For everyone else, there is no conflict between thinking and other conscious experiences. However, all those other things are useless without thinking. No inspiration, or vision, or insight, in itself, leads to anything without the ability to think about it and understand the connections those non-cognitive events have to reality.

The purpose of thinking, after all, is not social, or collective, or for the sake of "mankind," but for the sake of individuals making their own choices and living their own lives. The purpose of thinking is not to make scientific discoveries for the benefit of, "humanity," but for an individual to be able to make right choices and live successfully no matter what their profession is.

Instead Of Thinking

 

"Thinking is also to visualize. That is non verbal and there is no asking and answering."

Visualization is visualization. Identifying what one has visualized and how it relates to whatever question or issue is at hand requires thinking. Visualization alone explains nothing and means nothing. Do you have any idea how much evil has been foisted on the world by people with, "visions?"

 

"Some times there is incomplete information and true knowledge is not at hand. One must use the most probable statement. Your approach seems to avoid the very common situation of not having 'true knowledge' but having the best or most probable supposition."

Forming hypotheses and suppositions is thinking, not just in science but in almost all thinking, but the forming and more importantly, the testing of hypotheses is not possible without thinking, especially the asking and answering of questions. "Will this work, what if we do such'n'such, could these all be similar, etc." It is only by using, "my approach," that suppositions can be formed and new knowledge discovered.

 

"Kelkule did not deliberately dream of a snake swallowing its tail. The dream came as it came and that apparently opened the way for his benzene ring hypothesis."

"Apparently," to you, but it is obvious to me it was his rational application of a ring concept suggested by his dream as a possible explanation for the properties of benzene (not benzene, which is a petroleum distillate like naphtha) is how the hypothesis was formed. A dream, an image, a "gut feeling," or vision is just a conscious experience with neither meaning or cognitive content until it is identified and related to something by thinking.

 

"He [Einstein] reported making several mistakes and back tracking to correct them. You procedure makes no allowances for try-and-fail. Sometimes the only way to succeed is to make mistakes which are later corrected."

"My procedure," is, in fact, the only way a process of trial and error is possible. It is just as I described earlier, a matter of a suggested answer (hypothesis) for a solution to a problem or question and comparing the results with what is already known to be true (or experimentally discovered to be true) that one can proceed to judge the results as correct or incorrect. One can have an idea and wait forever for some miraculous "vision," "insight," or, "gut feeling," to verify it, or they can use reason to proceed to a correct answer.

 

"Clausius also invented the concept of entropy which he didn't understand fully at the time he invented it."

Perhaps you don't really mean this, but true concepts are not "invented." They are not just made up, though tons of wrong concepts are. True concepts are discovered and the facts they identify are what they are whether anyone ever discovers them or not. The principle entropy was always true before it was discovered and described (which entailed a huge amount of rigorous thinking, by the way).

 

"Your approach may be good for something but it won't do for physical sciences or mathematics."

Without my approach, no science and no mathematics would be possible. Both only succeed by the rigorous application of the principles of correct thinking or reason. (Here's a conundrum for you: science and mathematics are totally different fields. While both science and mathematics must use the principle of correct thinking, science can and does use the methods of mathematics, but mathematics cannot use the methods of science. Why?) Don't try to think of the answer, just wait for that magic bolt of knowledge from the sky to provide the answer. [Or read a little further, and I'll provide the answer.]

Magic Thinking

That is the whole problem with your, "method," or, "approach," or, "procedure." It is sheer mysticism or a belief in magic. Every mystic and religious quack claims exactly what you propose, that their wisdom or knowledge is provided by some supernatural unidentifiable source in form of visions, or dreams, or sudden insights from they know not where."

Your whole view is what I call the, "beef-and-been burrito," theory of knowledge, the belief that some vision or inspiration or, "gut feeling," is a source of truth. It is like the man telling his friend about his date with the girl he recently took to a Mexican restaurant. "I knew I was in love with her that night. My gut feeling told me she was the one." "Are you going to marry her, then?" his friend asked. "Oh no," he said. "I don't even like her. What I thought was love turned out to be the beef-and-been burrito."

Your view is not only mistaken it is very dangerous. Many people make terrible and costly decisions based on their "gut feeling," "impressions," or "instinct," that turn into disasters. Almost always, just a little careful thinking would have prevented them from rushing into something they'll always regret.

Science And Mathematics

 

"Charged particle A creates a field which interacts with charged particle B. The field tells B what to do, not particle A."

First of all, without A there would be no field for B to interact with. The field is an attribute of A and only exists as any other attribute of A exists, because they are what A is. Secondly a field doesn't tell anything what to do, it just is and has the nature it has. The behavior of B in the presence of A's electro-magnetic field is determined by the nature of B. If B had a different nature, if B were a neutron, or proton, or an entire atom its behavior would be totally different, because its nature would be different, but the field would be exactly the same one.

Nevertheless, I'll assume you understand the scientific nature of these things. Just so you'll know what I mean by science, this is how I describe it in my article, "Science:"

"By science I mean what is generally meant by, natural science, which includes physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and medicine, and only includes those aspects of those sciences which are rigorously and definitely established without possible controversy. I identify these as true science."

...and:

"The method of science is the means used to establish scientific principles, sometimes called laws, which correctly identify aspects of the physical world, its entities, their properties, relationships, and behavior (events)."

The significance is that the sciences study that which exists metaphysically, that is, physically exists independently of anyone's awareness or knowledge of them. ("Independently" does not mean separate from, but whether or not, anyone is aware of them.) Mathematics, like language, is a method and does not exist except in the minds of human beings. What a mathematician studies does not exist metaphysically.

Mathematics is a kind of language, and like all language, its purpose is to identify and describe things; though language in general is used to identify and describe anything that exists, mathematics is limited to describing things that can be counted or measured. In the physical realm, nothing is mathematical, anymore than it is Greek or Chinese. The scientist can use mathematics to describe the attributes, nature, and behavior of many physical things, just as they can use other language to do so, but the mathematician will never discover anything about mathematics by studying physical nature. [The mathematician can learn to use math in the description of some aspects of the physical, such as the relationship of geometric shapes and the relationship of the angles and segments that describe them, e.g. trigonometry, but the shapes themselves have those attributes no matter what language is used to describe them. The physical entities are metaphysical, the descriptions and measurements are epistemological. There are no wild tangents in nature.]

I suspect you will not like this explanation, just as you do not like the fact that reality does not reveal itself magically or in visions. One does not have to like the facts of reality, but defying them is very costly.

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37 minutes ago, jts said:

For example algebraic notation is a special purpose form of expression of thought for doing algebra and it is not usually called a language.

The same can be said of all math symbols. They are a kind of language, or more exactly, a symbolic short-hand that represents concepts described by language. Try describing any math symbol without using language. You cannot use a math symbol until you understand what it means, that is, how it is defined using langauge.

There are all sorts of tools that can be used to illustrate or discover things, from microscopes to telescopes, from drawings to cad cam, from slide rules to super computers. Without language to describe what the illustrations illustrate or the instruments' output means, they are all useless.

Randy

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Anthony is absolutely correct. "...scientists conceived of the relationship between perceived light and invisible electro-magnetic radiation and concluded that the one is a subset of the other with the same properties."

Your statement:

7 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Visible and invisible are subjective notions.

is utter nonsense. What is directly perceived, seen, heard, felt, tasted, and smelled, is the basis of all science. Seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling are, "subjective," in the sense that every individual's consciousness is their own, but what is perceived is objective reality.

The nature of light, by which human vision is possible, has required enormous scientific research to understand. For anyone interested in the nature of the visible spectrum,

spectrum.jpg

and how and why we can see it, please see this page from "HTML For Everyone."

Randy

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17 minutes ago, regi said:

Anthony is absolutely correct. "...scientists conceived of the relationship between perceived light and invisible electro-magnetic radiation and concluded that the one is a subset of the other with the same properties."

Your statement:

is utter nonsense. What is directly perceived, seen, heard, felt, tasted, and smelled, is the basis of all science. Seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling are, "subjective," in the sense that every individual's consciousness is their own, but what is perceived is objective reality.

The nature of light, by which human vision is possible, has required enormous scientific research to understand. For anyone interested in the nature of the visible spectrum,

spectrum.jpg

and how and why we can see it, please see this page from "HTML For Everyone."

Randy

Does visible means a humans see it?  Does invisible means a human can't see it?   But is infrared really "invisible"?  cats can see it fine.  Ultra-violet is human invisible, but bees can see it fine.  The terms visible and invisible are not fully specified until one says  visible or invisible to whom or what.  To a blind man sunlight is invisible.   So the terms visible and invisible unqualified and unspecified are meaningless.  I know several blind people who can't see a damned thing in the 400 nm  to 750 nm  wavelength.   Also the physics of ER  do not in any depend on to whom or what a particular frequency is "visible".  Maxwell's equations work for all wavelengths (or frequencies).   Maxwell's equations have no parameters the equate to human visibility.  It is happenstance that we humans see in the 400nm to 750nm wavelength range and that fact makes no difference to the theory. 

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5 hours ago, regi said:

You are free to use words in any way you choose. If you choose to use the word "thinking," to include, "visualization," that's your prerogativ

For everyone else, thinking, imagination, inspiration, and insight identify different things. For everyone else, there is no conflict between thinking and other conscious experiences. However, all those other things are useless without thinking. No inspiration, or vision, or insight, in itself, leads to anything without the ability to think about it and understand the connections those non-cognitive events have to reality.

The purpose of thinking, after all, is not social, or collective, or for the sake of "mankind," but for the sake of individuals making their own choices and living their own lives. The purpose of thinking is not to make scientific discoveries for the benefit of, "humanity," but for an individual to be able to make right choices and live successfully no matter what their profession is.

Instead Of Thinking

 

"Thinking is also to visualize. That is non verbal and there is no asking and answering."

Visualization is visualization. Identifying what one has visualized and how it relates to whatever question or issue is at hand requires thinking. Visualization alone explains nothing and means nothing. Do you have any idea how much evil has been foisted on the world by people with, "visions?"

 

"Some times there is incomplete information and true knowledge is not at hand. One must use the most probable statement. Your approach seems to avoid the very common situation of not having 'true knowledge' but having the best or most probable supposition."

Forming hypotheses and suppositions is thinking, not just in science but in almost all thinking, but the forming and more importantly, the testing of hypotheses is not possible without thinking, especially the asking and answering of questions. "Will this work, what if we do such'n'such, could these all be similar, etc." It is only by using, "my approach," that suppositions can be formed and new knowledge discovered.

 

"Kelkule did not deliberately dream of a snake swallowing its tail. The dream came as it came and that apparently opened the way for his benzene ring hypothesis."

"Apparently," to you, but it is obvious to me it was his rational application of a ring concept suggested by his dream as a possible explanation for the properties of benzene (not benzene, which is a petroleum distillate like naphtha) is how the hypothesis was formed. A dream, an image, a "gut feeling," or vision is just a conscious experience with neither meaning or cognitive content until it is identified and related to something by thinking.

 

"He [Einstein] reported making several mistakes and back tracking to correct them. You procedure makes no allowances for try-and-fail. Sometimes the only way to succeed is to make mistakes which are later corrected."

"My procedure," is, in fact, the only way a process of trial and error is possible. It is just as I described earlier, a matter of a suggested answer (hypothesis) for a solution to a problem or question and comparing the results with what is already known to be true (or experimentally discovered to be true) that one can proceed to judge the results as correct or incorrect. One can have an idea and wait forever for some miraculous "vision," "insight," or, "gut feeling," to verify it, or they can use reason to proceed to a correct answer.

 

"Clausius also invented the concept of entropy which he didn't understand fully at the time he invented it."

Perhaps you don't really mean this, but true concepts are not "invented." They are not just made up, though tons of wrong concepts are. True concepts are discovered and the facts they identify are what they are whether anyone ever discovers them or not. The principle entropy was always true before it was discovered and described (which entailed a huge amount of rigorous thinking, by the way).

 

"Your approach may be good for something but it won't do for physical sciences or mathematics."

Without my approach, no science and no mathematics would be possible. Both only succeed by the rigorous application of the principles of correct thinking or reason. (Here's a conundrum for you: science and mathematics are totally different fields. While both science and mathematics must use the principle of correct thinking, science can and does use the methods of mathematics, but mathematics cannot use the methods of science. Why?) Don't try to think of the answer, just wait for that magic bolt of knowledge from the sky to provide the answer. [Or read a little further, and I'll provide the answer.]

Magic Thinking

That is the whole problem with your, "method," or, "approach," or, "procedure." It is sheer mysticism or a belief in magic. Every mystic and religious quack claims exactly what you propose, that their wisdom or knowledge is provided by some supernatural unidentifiable source in form of visions, or dreams, or sudden insights from they know not where."

Your whole view is what I call the, "beef-and-been burrito," theory of knowledge, the belief that some vision or inspiration or, "gut feeling," is a source of truth. It is like the man telling his friend about his date with the girl he recently took to a Mexican restaurant. "I knew I was in love with her that night. My gut feeling told me she was the one." "Are you going to marry her, then?" his friend asked. "Oh no," he said. "I don't even like her. What I thought was love turned out to be the beef-and-been burrito."

Your view is not only mistaken it is very dangerous. Many people make terrible and costly decisions based on their "gut feeling," "impressions," or "instinct," that turn into disasters. Almost always, just a little careful thinking would have prevented them from rushing into something they'll always regret.

Science And Mathematics

 

"Charged particle A creates a field which interacts with charged particle B. The field tells B what to do, not particle A."

First of all, without A there would be no field for B to interact with. The field is an attribute of A and only exists as any other attribute of A exists, because they are what A is. Secondly a field doesn't tell anything what to do, it just is and has the nature it has. The behavior of B in the presence of A's electro-magnetic field is determined by the nature of B. If B had a different nature, if B were a neutron, or proton, or an entire atom its behavior would be totally different, because its nature would be different, but the field would be exactly the same one.

Nevertheless, I'll assume you understand the scientific nature of these things. Just so you'll know what I mean by science, this is how I describe it in my article, "Science:"

"By science I mean what is generally meant by, natural science, which includes physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, and medicine, and only includes those aspects of those sciences which are rigorously and definitely established without possible controversy. I identify these as true science."

...and:

"The method of science is the means used to establish scientific principles, sometimes called laws, which correctly identify aspects of the physical world, its entities, their properties, relationships, and behavior (events)."

The significance is that the sciences study that which exists metaphysically, that is, physically exists independently of anyone's awareness or knowledge of them. ("Independently" does not mean separate from, but whether or not, anyone is aware of them.) Mathematics, like language, is a method and does not exist except in the minds of human beings. What a mathematician studies does not exist metaphysically.

Mathematics is a kind of language, and like all language, its purpose is to identify and describe things; though language in general is used to identify and describe anything that exists, mathematics is limited to describing things that can be counted or measured. In the physical realm, nothing is mathematical, anymore than it is Greek or Chinese. The scientist can use mathematics to describe the attributes, nature, and behavior of many physical things, just as they can use other language to do so, but the mathematician will never discover anything about mathematics by studying physical nature. [The mathematician can learn to use math in the description of some aspects of the physical, such as the relationship of geometric shapes and the relationship of the angles and segments that describe them, e.g. trigonometry, but the shapes themselves have those attributes no matter what language is used to describe them. The physical entities are metaphysical, the descriptions and measurements are epistemological. There are no wild tangents in nature.]

I suspect you will not like this explanation, just as you do not like the fact that reality does not reveal itself magically or in visions. One does not have to like the facts of reality, but defying them is very costly.

Sir, you have not the foggiest ideas how scientists think or mathematicians think. Mathematical proof requires linear logical rigor,  but many mathematicians create and discover by leaps and going around in circles.  I know this first hand for myself, and I know many mathematicians quite well and have discussed the discovery/creative process with them. Physicists often think in pictures and they get their best new ideas  in a very non-linear fashion.  I am talking about discovery and creation.  Justification and validation is where rigorous linear thinking plays its role. I fear that if everyone follow your recommendations we would have precious little new physics and mathematics.   I have no idea how your approach would apply to visual artists, sculptors and composers   If I understand you, you claim visualization is not thinking.  Well if that is so then Einstein did not think up his theories.  Never the less  your GPS  exists because Einstein didn't really think.

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30 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

but many mathematicians create and discover by leaps and going around in circles.  I know this first hand for myself

That's obvious!

Thanks for the demonstration.

Randy

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10 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

There is no such right thing as "correct thinking." It implies "Big Brother".

But there is a "big brother," "he," (metaphorically) is called reality, because reality is the ultimate arbiter of truth. Any thinking that leads to conclusions that are wrong about any aspect of reality is incorrect.

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12 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Sir, you have not the foggiest ideas how scientists think or mathematicians think. 

1

So if one doesn't know how they think, it follows "how" they think is above human understanding? It's like you haven't heard. Conceptual thinking is multi-level and -directional. Some scientists may call it what they want, "creative" , intuitional, or non-linear, all it means is they understand their mental process no better than you. Whatever you may call it, all thinking is reason and all reason is conceptualism applied to reality. Men -and scientists - don't have access to any powers beyond that. From their conclusions, any thinker can deduce the conceptual process they followed -- without needing to know every detail - as with Newton who arrived brilliantly at his identification of gravity - Essentially: "This" is "that". One universal force. (Perception, induction, differentiation - and integration - and deduction - therefore, by the conceptual method). I've seen you prefer to keep the myth of scientists' mysterious powers alive - i.e., one is "mind reading" if one dares to make inferences while not being a privileged insider. 

It is not enough that skeptics claim that men can't know - what also follows is, we cannot know the fundamental process by which some "authority" claims to "know". In fact, a process every living individual shares. Science + mysticism = scientism. ;)

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21 minutes ago, anthony said:

So if one doesn't know how they think, it follows "how" they think is above human understanding? It's like you haven't heard. Conceptual thinking is multi-level and -directional. Some scientists may call it what they want, "creative" , intuitional, or non-linear, all it means is they understand their mental process no better than you. Whatever you may call it, all thinking is reason and all reason is conceptualism applied to reality. Men -and scientists - don't have access to any powers beyond that. From their conclusions, any thinker can deduce the conceptual process they followed -- without needing to know every detail - as with Newton who arrived brilliantly at his identification of gravity - Essentially: "This" is "that". One universal force. (Perception, induction, differentiation - and integration - and deduction - therefore, by the conceptual method). I've seen you prefer to keep the myth of scientists' mysterious powers alive - i.e., one is "mind reading" if one dares to make inferences while not being a privileged insider. 

It is not enough that skeptics claim that men can't know - what also follows is, we cannot know the fundamental process by which some "authority" claims to "know". In fact, a process every living individual shares. Science + mysticism = scientism. ;)

Absolutely, Anthony. All these substitutes for objective thinking are always forms of "magic" thinking, rightly called mysticism.

Randy

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5 hours ago, regi said:

Absolutely, Anthony. All these substitutes for objective thinking are always forms of "magic" thinking, rightly called mysticism.

Randy

Thanks Randy. Yes, and aren't there plenty of substitutes to go round! Anything presented as supposedly inaccessible to man's mind makes for (neo-)"mysticism".

(This is more noticeable in how many people believe art is created, with semi-supernatural powers above the understanding of reason and normal men, and how fascinating that supporters of science can tend the same way. As I see this, in one go, that approach diminishes both the scientists and artists and their fine works - while attempting to elevate them). 

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12 hours ago, regi said:

Absolutely, Anthony. All these substitutes for objective thinking are always forms of "magic" thinking, rightly called mysticism.

Randy

You're an extremely intelligent man but you don't know what you are talked about. This is sophisticated ideological thinking. It throttles you.

--Brant

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13 hours ago, regi said:

But there is a "big brother," "he," (metaphorically) is called reality, because reality is the ultimate arbiter of truth. Any thinking that leads to conclusions that are wrong about any aspect of reality is incorrect.

Wrong can lead to right.

--Brant

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