Where reasoning and calculation fail

[paigetheoracle]

Predictions from known/ rhythmic events, can't deal with internally motivational change or changed external circumstances (the unknown).

 

It further doesn't know how to deal with the unpredicable (genius or insanity - thinking and action outside the box).

 

It reacts to its beliefs as though they were facts, instead of theories (guesses/extrapolations), that appear true at the time because they are stable.

 

Actions (experiments) are based on beliefs and beliefs can be wrong as only by experiencing the present and the future, can you truly know what things are now or will be in the future: Disbelief stops action and allows exploration (experience) of reality, instead of calculated defence of what it was and you still hope is true about it (The only constant in the universe is change).

 

This reasoned argument, based on observation of events could be wrong or self-evident to you. Please attack the reasoning or ask for further clarification if things aren't totally clear.

 

Few examples to give you an idea of the phenomena I'm on about:

 

You work out that as somebody's house down the row sold after 6 months, as did others in the neighbourhood, yours will too. It doesn't.

 

The doctor tells you that you have six months to live but you fight this and go into remission from your cancer and live another two years or a new drug appears on the market that increases survival rate.:confused:

 

You bet on a horse that has won nearly every race it has entered in the last 3 months - it falls at the final hurdle.

[coberst]

Most decisions we have to make are judgment calls. A judgment call is made when we must make a decision when there is no “true” or “false” answers. When we make a judgment call our decision is bad, good, or better.

 

Many factors are involved: there are the available facts, assumptions, skills, knowledge, and especially personal experience and attitude. I think that the two most important elements in the mix are personal experience and attitude.

 

When we study math we learn how to use various algorithms to facilitate our skill in dealing with quantities. If we never studied math we could deal with quantity on a primary level but our quantifying ability would be minimal. Likewise with making judgments; if we study the art and science of good judgment we can make better decisions and if we never study the art and science of judgment our decision ability will remain minimal.

 

I am convinced that a fundamental problem we have in this country (USA) is that our citizens have never learned the art and science of good judgment. Before the recent introduction of CT into our schools and colleges our young people have been taught primarily what to think and not how to think. All of us graduated with insufficient comprehension of the knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary for the formulation of good judgment. The result of this inability to make good judgment is evident and is dangerous.

 

I am primarily interested in the judgment that adults exercise in regard to public issues. Of course, any improvement in judgment generally will affect both personal and community matters.

 

To put the matter into a nut shell:

1. Normal men and women can significantly improve their ability to make judgments.

2. CT is the domain of knowledge that delineates the knowledge, skills, and intellectual character demanded for good judgment.

3. CT has been introduced into our schools and colleges slowly in the last two or three decades.

4. Few of today’s adults were ever taught CT.

5. I suspect that at least another two generations will pass before our society reaps significant rewards resulting from teaching CT to our children.

6. Can our democracy survive that long?

7. I think that every effort must be made to convince today’s adults that they need to study and learn CT on their own. I am not suggesting that adults find a teacher but I am suggesting that adults become self-actualizing learners.

8. I am convinced that learning the art and science of Critical Thinking is an important step toward becoming a better citizen in today’s democratic society.

 

Perhaps you are not familiar with CT. I first encountered the concept about five years ago. The following are a few Internet sites that will familiarize you with the matter.

 

http://www.freeinquiry.com/critical-notes.html

 

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:mkodBBrpMg0J:www.criticalthinking.org/TGS_files/SAM-CT_competencies_2005.pdf+critical+thinking+multi-logical&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=11

 

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/inquiry/fall95/weinste.html

 

http://www.criticalthinking.org/resources/articles/glossary.shtml

 

http://www.doit.gmu.edu/inventio/past/display_past.asp?pID=spring03&sID=eslava

[paigetheoracle]

Most decisions we have to make are judgment calls. A judgment call is made when we must make a decision when there is no “true” or “false” answers. When we make a judgment call our decision is bad, good, or better.

 

Many factors are involved: there are the available facts, assumptions, skills, knowledge, and especially personal experience and attitude. I think that the two most important elements in the mix are personal experience and attitude.

 

When we study math we learn how to use various algorithms to facilitate our skill in dealing with quantities. If we never studied math we could deal with quantity on a primary level but our quantifying ability would be minimal. Likewise with making judgments; if we study the art and science of good judgment we can make better decisions and if we never study the art and science of judgment our decision ability will remain minimal.

 

I am convinced that a fundamental problem we have in this country (USA) is that our citizens have never learned the art and science of good judgment. Before the recent introduction of CT into our schools and colleges our young people have been taught primarily what to think and not how to think. All of us graduated with insufficient comprehension of the knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary for the formulation of good judgment. The result of this inability to make good judgment is evident and is dangerous.

 

I am primarily interested in the judgment that adults exercise in regard to public issues. Of course, any improvement in judgment generally will affect both personal and community matters.

 

To put the matter into a nut shell:

1. Normal men and women can significantly improve their ability to make judgments.

2. CT is the domain of knowledge that delineates the knowledge, skills, and intellectual character demanded for good judgment.

3. CT has been introduced into our schools and colleges slowly in the last two or three decades.

4. Few of today’s adults were ever taught CT.

5. I suspect that at least another two generations will pass before our society reaps significant rewards resulting from teaching CT to our children.

6. Can our democracy survive that long?

7. I think that every effort must be made to convince today’s adults that they need to study and learn CT on their own. I am not suggesting that adults find a teacher but I am suggesting that adults become self-actualizing learners.

8. I am convinced that learning the art and science of Critical Thinking is an important step toward becoming a better citizen in today’s democratic society.

 

Perhaps you are not familiar with CT. I first encountered the concept about five years ago. The following are a few Internet sites that will familiarize you with the matter.

 

http://www.freeinquiry.com/critical-notes.html

 

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:mkodBBrpMg0J:www.criticalthinking.org/TGS_files/SAM-CT_competencies_2005.pdf+critical+thinking+multi-logical&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=11

 

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/inquiry/fall95/weinste.html

 

http://www.criticalthinking.org/resources/articles/glossary.shtml

 

http://www.doit.gmu.edu/inventio/past/display_past.asp?pID=spring03&sID=eslava

 

Thanks for all that! Being a UK citizen, living in Britain, no I hadn't heard of CT. Here we are taught more to think but you might like to see my thread on Genius in the Social Forum for more on thought and my thinking on it (see also article reference that inspired it, from New Scientist).

[Kriminal99]

This is an inherent problem with the way we think. It is also a problem that just about invalidates the concept of statistics.

 

Generality Problem of Induction

In philosohy it's called the generality problem of induction. Let's say you want to know whether or not that horse you mentioned will win and you want to evaluate past experience to determine the likelihood that he does win.

 

Well, the perfect information would be when we are able to see the future. In terms of induction you really shouldn't consider his behavior in past races because there was something different about those races than this one. They took place at a different time, maybe a different place, and the entire state of the universe was not exactly the same for example there was different wind currents in the antartic ocean at the time.

 

Only if you deem some factors as irrelevant can you say that the current race is alike past races enough to serve as an indication of what will happen. Like if you say the time doesn't matter or the wind currents in the antartic ocean don't matter. Of course if these other factors do effect the outcome then your past experience won't help you predict the future very well. So you must carefully decide how general of a category of events you must use to obtain an accurate prediction. A more general category would ignore more and more factors while a less general one considers more of the details.

 

Statistics grudgingly acknowledges the problem

 

In statistics this problem is quietly addressed as the need to randomly sample of the entire population which you hope to represent. This understanding of the problem is inadequate... To begin with there is the fact that you cannot randomly sample from the future but what you are trying to predict regards a population in the future. So by the science's own admission statistics is rendered utterly useless.

 

Even if you ignore this, you then have the extreme difficulty of trying to be aware of and account for all factors that might prevent you from sampling randomly from a population you are trying to predict the future of. For instance if you sample people from a street corner for a drug test there might be more coffee drinkers than the general population the results are supposed to be for because the street corner you sampled from is close to a coffee shop.

 

Effecting the way we think

 

It's also the same problem that causes people to reason poorly in general even without unknown factors causing differences from past experiences.

 

Is it true that arguing on the internet is like being in the special olympics... even if you win your still a retard? Or is there some unrecognized differences between being in the special olympics and arguing on the internet that would cause a different result as far as whether or not the participant was a retard? In this case the two compared situations in the similie are obviously totally different. But it shows human susceptability to this type of poor reasoning. In many cases the similie or metaphor might sound legitimate, but there is an unrecognized difference between the two situations that would cause the comparison to be incorrect.

 

Fighting the confusion

If we want to increase our reasoning ability as a race, I believe we first need to recognize this inherent problem with the way we think and combat it. If we carefully look for any signifigant differences between the current situation we are concerned with and our past experiences we will be much more effective in everything we do.