Language imposes limitations. When we reason, we use language, whether symbolic or natural. But, our understanding, or, perhaps it is better to talk about it as an intuition, runs deeper than our reason. A common example can be found in a terms like "creepy", "janky", etc. We use these terms when there is uncertainty, when … Continue reading The Understructure of Thought
Tag: reason
It Sounds Convincing, But What Am I Missing?
In the digital age, all information is misinformation. No universal ever fits the particulars. Maps and simulations are conjured whole from minds. If you think you understand something, you don't.
How to Read Big Books
"...it is a principal task of a successful modern university to teach people how to read [big, difficult, flawed, incredibly insightful, genius books]. Indeed, it might be said that one of the few key competencies we here at the university have to teach—our counterpart or the medieval triad of rhetoric, logic, grammar and then quadriad … Continue reading How to Read Big Books
Cast Reason Aside
"You can tell time by the cry of 'Never again'...The future is obvious. Escalating suicide, the 20-year real-terms recession, the blackout, the plagues, those people falling onto the tracks, microhomes and governments' continued abuse of 'emergencies', are obvious. Yet many feel it a duty to portray shock of surprise when it comes along...Human beings aren't … Continue reading Cast Reason Aside
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
"'Once formed,' the researchers observed dryly, 'impressions are remarkably perseverant.'" —Elizabeth Kolbert, "Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds." The New Yorker. February 19, 2017. Be careful what you believe.
How Not to Be Stupid
"...stupidity is the cost of intelligence operating in a complex environment...[Stupidity:] overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information...When it comes to overloading our cognitive brains, the seven factors are: being outside of your circle of competence, stress, rushing or urgency, fixation on an outcome, information overload, and being in the presence of an “authority.” Acting alone any of … Continue reading How Not to Be Stupid
Really Reading Means Being Open to Change
To really read any discursive text, whether a philosophical tract or a legal contract, is a disturbing and cognitively disorienting experience, because it means allowing another person’s thoughts to intrude into your own and rearrange your beliefs and assumptions — often not in ways to which you would consent if warned in advance. Even when … Continue reading Really Reading Means Being Open to Change
Echo Chamber Test
"[D]oes a community’s belief system actively undermine the trustworthiness of any outsiders who don’t subscribe to its central dogmas? Then it’s probably an echo chamber... ...An echo chamber doesn’t destroy their members’ interest in the truth; it merely manipulates whom they trust and changes whom they accept as trustworthy sources and institutions. And, in many … Continue reading Echo Chamber Test
There Are No Reasons
"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece … Continue reading There Are No Reasons
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