Managing mass mind: heads I win tails you lose?

[coberst]

Managing mass mind: heads I win tails you lose?

 

I say it is 5 feet and you say it is 5 feet 1 inch; do we argue or do we bring in a standard of measurement?

 

I say it is a matter of self-interest and you say it is a matter of fairness; do we argue or do we bring in a standard of measurement?

 

Objectivity is our shared subjectivity. The determination of the degree of objectivity and subjectivity rests on the matter of standards.

 

Standard is defined by Webster as “substantially uniform and well established by usage”.

 

Therein lay the crux of the distinction. How is established usage determined?

 

We have available standards of measurement and weight but few standards for matters that do not fit those parameters. We have no ready standards for the human sciences; probably this is so because there is no quick money-in-it. We have never learned to think critically about tomorrow.

 

How do business and ideology manage the will of citizens who lack Critical Thinking skills, i.e. how do business and ideology manage standards? I suspect that the truly successful institutions do so by manipulation. The Matador with cape skills is more successful than one with rational skills. I suspect that often a mere patina of reason is sufficient to keep the citizen’s eye focused upon the cape.

 

A popular adage goes something like this “I cannot argue down a conviction that has not been argued up.” It is impossible for me to use reason to convince someone who is without confidence in reason that they should have confidence in reason.

 

An adult without confidence in reason must start the effort to study reason before they can gain a confidence in reason. Perhaps that is impossible also. Perhaps it is the case that an adult without a confidence in reason will never have confidence in reason.

 

I would argue that intellectual sophistication developed by means of self-actualizing self-learning can help us broaden the quantity and quality of standards available to us.

[HydrogenBond]

If we start with two opposite positions, heads and tails, there is something set up in the mind/brain, similar to a potential between two magnets separated a distance D. The higher the distance between sides the greater the potential. When the two finally agree, it is like the magnetics touching and the potential lowers.

 

What is common about polarized views, are the circular arguments that help perpetuate the separation. This magnetic analogy is similar to an electric motor, where one has essentially two separated magnetic fields, that use the separation, to rotate the core and generate work. The work in this case is based on emotions. A good polarized argument can get people all worked up emotionally, with the most polarized arguments the most effective for generating emotional work(up). It can get some people violent if the emotional motor spins out of control.

 

If you argue in a polarized way, whether you believe the other side or not, you are still exposed to their circular arguments. If we chose not to learn, the data is repressed since it did register in memory at least subliminally. What is conscious is the core of what we wish to believe. But unconsciously, we have the magnetic windings that set the potential for the emotional work. External opposition adds more current to the motor, but it is not usually needed, with many people forcing the argument. A mono-pole will not generate any work.

 

The value of this motor is not the polarization, but within the flux between the two potentials. This is where creative ideas appears. One generates new argument working within the flux. Like magnetic fields, as new ideas are added there are changes in the magnetic fields (analogy) with eddies forming in the gap to hep dampen the change in the magnetic fields. One hears an argument which throws you back slightly. This stimulates an eddie that helps generate a counterargument to reset the polarization.

 

The main appeal of head-tail polarization is the emotional work generated by the motor. People like the buzz. The buzz, in turn, causes arguments that alter the magnetic field in others, which produces eddies for more ideas.

 

Reason also uses a polarization, but between cause and effect. With two magnetics the direction of movement can go either way, as both sides try to pull the other in their direction. Cause and effect is a polarization that only goes in one direction. Cause is the beginning, effect is the end. It is not a coin, unless one can throw it heads-tails time after time. It is not under the laws of chaos, like emotional motors, where the eddies depend on the random magnetic field perturbations.

 

If reason is not a coin, what is it? It has to move in one direction since the potential goes from cause to effect? One explanation is gravity, which always moves to the center of gravity. In the case of the motor, all the data is contained on both sides of the motor, with the center of gravity in the flux in the middle.

[lemit]

Are you talking about porn? It has always been hard to define. At times, "Community Standards" have been used as a measurement, but the best historical definition has been the Empiricist conclusion of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, "I know it when I see it," thus suggesting that the subjective can after all be established as an objective measure.

 

That is what you're talking about, isn't it?

 

--lemit