Some Thoughts on
thought http://www.home.earthlink.net/~jnewell957/#Articles
.
1) Common sense is
reasoning based on long experience with all the elements of
an argument. If there
is no long experience with one or more element(s),
then the use of common
sense is not justified.
2) It is better to believe,
than not to, in everything that one hears or reads, that
one cannot argue against.
Certainly one will, as a result, believe false inform-
ation, but eventually
one will be able to sort out true from false. If one insists
on only accepting
information from sources that have scientific or professional
Standards one,
ironically, will be very ignorant, as such information is expen-
sive to produce and thus
the amount is very limited. In addition the economic
forces that pay for it
will suppress any negative information, thus making the
exclusive user of such
information biassed. Other criteria for used "truth"
are the "yuckie-yummy"
test, the authority test and the consistency
test. If some
information is yuckie, it is false; if it is yummy, it is true.
The authority test holds
that if information is consistent with prestigious auth-
orities then it is true,
if not, then it is false. The consistency test holds that
if information is
consistent with prior information it is true and if not, false.
3) There is no periodical
nor book that either completely true or completely
false. Every book or
periodical has something that is true and of possible
value, even the writings
of Conservatives, Socialists, Catholics, Protestants,
Hitler, Stalin or even
Mao.
4) The educational system
develops the intellect of the child until the age of nine
or so, thereafter all
that is taught is memorisation. Thus the intellectual level of
999 of every 1000 adults
is stuck at this level. Certainly rational thinking is tau-
ght in certain
specialties in colleges, such as law, medicine etc. but the rational
thought is only practised
within their specialities; the rationality does not extend
outside of the speciality
and the experts think just as childishly as the rest of
the population.
5) Intuition is a sensitive
instrument, but a dumb one. To rectify this, dumb, raw
thoughts should be
expressed in complete, grammatical English: then the thou-
ghts could be rationally
evaluated and the dumb ones identified.
6) A statement that something
does not exist (called a philosophically negative state-
ment) can be difficult or
impossible to prove. To prove a negative statement the
author, or a reliable
agent, must search the whole context stated or implied by
the statement. For
example, "There are no apples in those ten boxes" can be
easily proven. The
statement: "There are no icicles in Africa" would require the
whole of Africa to be
searched.