People often argue about their beliefs and what they believe is right
and what is wrong.
This is very curious to me. Have they defined though what
"right" is?
For example, someone may say their point of view is right
about abortion, and some one else may say that their point
of view on gun control is right and so on.
This word "right" is an interesting word. Really it means
the way someone thinks something ought to be.
So why should things be the way one sees that it ought to be?
What would happen if things weren't the way you think they should be?
What one person sees as right will often be different from what someone else
sees as right.
Ultimately right is superseded by goals, because really when we look at right we look at desired outcomes ergo someone thinking their position is right means that they believe their objective (right) supersedes your objectives (the position you hold as right), and the means by which one
believes are acceptable in the pursuit of those outcomes.
Typically people think that what is right is something that calibrates in tune with some
higher principle, moral, or philosophy.
Now some might say that the appropriateness of the means, by which we accomplish that which we believe is right, is really relative down to the individual level.
Some people will say that means are justified if the end aim is achieved.
Some will argue that the means and the end must both be "integrous." (*)
Here we need to test for "integrity" of the means and the end.
Some people will argue for the integrity of the means and the end on philosophical or logical grounds.
I would suggest that another and viable method to test the means would be to discover how highly it calibrates on the Hawkins Logarithmic Scale of Consciousness (Map of Consciousness).
Hawkins in his book, "Power vs. Force" suggests kinesiological testing.
While I think we can more or less discern what is integrous and unintegrous from
our own common sense, in this instance, kinesiological testing, as explained
in "Power vs. Force" can also serve as a confirming test if conducted in the
right manner.
Tony Goicochea
* Integrous in this instance is used to mean virtues, and / or principles that calibrate highly on the Hawkins Map of Consciousness.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
Scrutinizing Beliefs and The Evidence Behind Those Beliefs
I don't know what I'm going to write just yet, but I'm going to write.
In case you're wondering, not that I'm being followed on this blog, but in case you look at it
you'll see I post sparely. Very sparsely.
I'm partly being inspired to post by Srinivas Rao.
Ok, not partly. I am being inspired to post thanks Srinivas Rao.
In case you don't know who he is, you should.
Anyway, it's late and I'm going to get to this post ...
or perhaps I never will.
What should I write about?
I could write about my music ... but I won't.
I could write about what I'm doing with my life write now ... but I don't want to bore you.
I could write about politics ... but I don't care too much for it.
Or I could do what I feel I've done best in the past few years and
talk about uhm ... philosophy.
Yeah, philosophy.
Not that I'm a fan of it ... I always thought it wasn't all that
impressive. In order to be taken seriously in the world of
philosophy I always thought you had to be impressive.
Whatever. Anyway ... here goes.
It has always been puzzling to me how many people I have met who
were intelligent, smart, and well educated. By the way the three, while
they do have some correlation aren't always present.
And in reality what's really important are the results. You could have
all three but it doesn't mean anything if you can't produce results, let
alone the kind of results that people want, that are good not in terms
the level of results, but in the kind of results.
Whatever.
Anyway, where was I? Oh ... so yes there are smart, intelligent,
and even well educated people that do something very very
curious to me that doesn't make a lot of sense.
They often are often passionate about politics or economics
or any other philosophy or issue of some kind.
What puzzles me though is this:
Most people are passionate, yet uninformed
or unaware that they are not informed about the issues
about which they are passionate, enough.
Even those who are very well "informed" (and you'll
see why I just used quotes there in a second) about
the issue(s) they are passionate about typically tend to
fail to scrutinize the facts they use to support their arguments.
In other words they fail to scrutinize the methodology that
was used to arrive to those facts. They fail to look at the
philosophy or the epistemology behind the study that
was used to derive those facts.
Even if the methodology was sound, they fail to logically (as
in apply logic) scrutinize (as they fail to apply clear logic in the scrutiny
thereof) the philosophy that drives their beliefs about certain issues.
Often this failure to examine the epistemology behind our positions
thoroughly and applying clear logic (versus say emotionalism, which
is prevalent in the formulation of most beliefs, and this is of course
presupposing that we all agree that adoption of clear logic is the
litmus test when evaluating the validity of our positions and that
logic is the logical choice when scrutinizing how we adopt beliefs
and positions on issues) is wanton and ubiquitous among us as a species.
This is also apparent even among animals in the engagement of
superstitious rituals (usually created in lab environments as part
of a stimulus response reward type experiments).
So there you have it.
Even if we are informed enough (aka well educated on an issue)
our facts may be unintegrous, and if the facts are actually integrous, it
is still possible that that our positions are epistemologically
unsound.
In other words, the facts may be integrous, in that the methodology
used to derived those facts was correct, with little to no errors,
and conclusions were correctly interpreted with no bias or agenda
other than to discern truth but the question now is, is the epistemology
driving how the {studies, research, experiments, etc, etc)
were conducted logically sound? I'm talking about the beliefs
we are trying to prove, not the actual testing methodology itself.
To phrase it differently, are the beliefs that we have chosen to adopt logically sound?
They may or not be.
Finally, people tend to be vague in the assertions of their beliefs
or their facts aren't really facts at all.
The most powerful tool I have in my tool kit here is to ask someone
not "why" usually, but rather "how."
"How" is an interesting word. It forces us to look at the mechanics of
how something works.
For example we may ask someone "how" does that happen?
With respect to their position or beliefs.
Then ask for solid evidence about that shows the "mechanism"
in action.
Most people can't always answer this.
Here's an example, not that I'm taking sides on anything.
But sometimes you need ask someone for proof when it comes
to their beliefs.
"Facts are stubborn things" as Ronald Reagan once said.
I'm reminded of a protest where a journalist (I think it was Breitbart)
went up to the protesters one of who was holding a sign that said
something to the effect of "Glenn Beck. Stop the hate."
He talked to that protestor and said "What hate?" He asked
for proof of hate and the protestor eventually gave in and didn't have
anything. As the journalist dispelled the crowd, he did talk to this
gentleman again. Anyways they had no hard feelings.
I'm a reminded of a YouTube video I saw where journalist
Andrew Breitbart went up to a group of protesters
outside of a convention where Glen Beck was presenting
in Illinois. The protestors were shouting "No more hate!
No more hate!" There were protestors with signs too
some of which read "Beck = Coward" and "Beck Lies, Truth Dies."
Breitbart went up to the crowd and started asking them
to substantiate their claims. They were unable to.
Sometimes you need to ask people to give you specific
examples.
People tend to generalize phenomena. Some take
empiricism to extremes. In many cases they say two pieces
of data and believe there is a pattern behind it and then
start to generalize.
For example:
Some one may have two events that occur in a day that greatly upset
them albeit for only a few minutes each time, and they will already
conclude that they're having a bad day. Because they have bought
into this generalization, all of a sudden they feel worse.
It was bad enough they had two things that upset them, and they now
generalize that they had a bad day, and having reached this "conclusion"
(really a feeling) they now feel bad about the fact they're having a bad day.
Are you starting to see how people start to generalize and sometimes
wrongfully so?
Sometimes people will generalize with only two "data points."
Now from what I have observed it appears that this very same set of
mental mechanics may occur when it comes to how people adopt
political ideologies, or at least it appears to be this way in most
instances.
For example,
A person may adopt one or two or even three positions initially
of a political party and all of a sudden they start to generalize.
Because they identify with those positions of this political party
they also now identify with that political party. And soon because they
have identified now with that party, they start to adopt most
if not all points of view espoused of that political party without
ever researching facts to substantiate their new found positions.
(Note: It seems like some people take up whatever position
leaders of their identified with political party the moment a leader
in that part espouses it. They start to defend it but ask them
about what facts, which means logical data, they have to back
up their claims. They usually don't.)
In other words what happens from that point on is any time that
particular political party states a position, instead of researching
it, they tend to go into a trance like state that, because they tend
to identify with that political party, they tend to adopt those other
beliefs and positions espoused by that political party.
But again they don't do research into that issue.
This is generalizing and then changing identity.
Once they have changed their identity they start
acting more congruently with that identity as well.
The interesting thing is they may even start to defend a
point of view espoused by a particular school of thought or political
party they have bought into too even though it may be logically
flawed and / or the subsequent facts are
not concrete enough to prove the point or were derived
from flawed methodologies to begin with.
The Jesuits taught me that God wants us to educate ourselves as
a way to inform our conscience about an issue and then to
make a decision there. Of course I always use this
to also inform my gut hunch too.
Here's another case in point. A friend of mine kept lamenting to me
that he thought he was going to do something crazy one day. I asked
"like what?" He thought he was going to go crazy and hurt someone.
I asked him how long he had felt this way? He said for years.
I asked him how often? He responded a few times a year.
I asked how long does the feeling last when he gets it?
He said only for a few minutes at a time.
You see, here by asking for specifics I'm starting to break down
his reality. He's failed to logically scrutinize his beliefs, and in the process
I'm also helping him change his identity from that of a "crazy" person, which would
become a self-fulfilling prophecy, possibly a dangerous one, to a person who on
occasion has those thoughts. (And by the way all people have "crazy" thoughts
every once in a while. They just pop into our heads. We never act on them though.)
So now instead of him feeling this way for years straight, which is impossible
because at some point he may not notice that feeling because he's busy, or he's
asleep which is a very different state of mind than when he's being anxious or
as he calls it "crazy" he's starting to realize it only happens a few times a year
for only a few minutes each time.
A friend of ours who was with us asked him what has happened
every time he feels this way.
He responded "Well" looking pensively and almost scratching his head "Well nothing."
And on her feet our friend quickly responded "So in other words you have track record
of not doing anything bad on the rare occasions that you do feel like you may do something
bad for no reason." Or something to that effect.
"Well yeah."
"So in other words every time you worry about this you're actually harmless and you have
a track record of doing nothing wrong."
"Well yeah."
He had worried all these years for nothing.
He later found out he was hypoglycemic which was the cause
for his anxiety.
He had a medical condition that made him worry when
he didn't eat.
He was not crazy. Just hungry.
Anyway, those who fail to logically scrutinize (apply logic in order to scrutinize) the epistemology and / or the philosophy driving their beliefs risks being like the race car driver, driving the number 1 car in the wrong race.
These men who fail to do this, tend to use this metaphorically and literally if applicable "confirm their own bias rather doing real science" to paraphrase the saying. (I think the economist F.A. Hayek came up with this).
Truly some men build and subsequently climb ladders to scale a particular wall for a significant amount of time of the most important years of their lives ... only to find out they were leaning it against the wrong wall the whole time.
Don't let this happen to you.
Sometimes it's good to question everything.
So you think your beliefs are sound then after reading this right? My next post may piss you off.
In case you're wondering, not that I'm being followed on this blog, but in case you look at it
you'll see I post sparely. Very sparsely.
I'm partly being inspired to post by Srinivas Rao.
Ok, not partly. I am being inspired to post thanks Srinivas Rao.
In case you don't know who he is, you should.
Anyway, it's late and I'm going to get to this post ...
or perhaps I never will.
What should I write about?
I could write about my music ... but I won't.
I could write about what I'm doing with my life write now ... but I don't want to bore you.
I could write about politics ... but I don't care too much for it.
Or I could do what I feel I've done best in the past few years and
talk about uhm ... philosophy.
Yeah, philosophy.
Not that I'm a fan of it ... I always thought it wasn't all that
impressive. In order to be taken seriously in the world of
philosophy I always thought you had to be impressive.
Whatever. Anyway ... here goes.
It has always been puzzling to me how many people I have met who
were intelligent, smart, and well educated. By the way the three, while
they do have some correlation aren't always present.
And in reality what's really important are the results. You could have
all three but it doesn't mean anything if you can't produce results, let
alone the kind of results that people want, that are good not in terms
the level of results, but in the kind of results.
Whatever.
Anyway, where was I? Oh ... so yes there are smart, intelligent,
and even well educated people that do something very very
curious to me that doesn't make a lot of sense.
They often are often passionate about politics or economics
or any other philosophy or issue of some kind.
What puzzles me though is this:
Most people are passionate, yet uninformed
or unaware that they are not informed about the issues
about which they are passionate, enough.
Even those who are very well "informed" (and you'll
see why I just used quotes there in a second) about
the issue(s) they are passionate about typically tend to
fail to scrutinize the facts they use to support their arguments.
In other words they fail to scrutinize the methodology that
was used to arrive to those facts. They fail to look at the
philosophy or the epistemology behind the study that
was used to derive those facts.
Even if the methodology was sound, they fail to logically (as
in apply logic) scrutinize (as they fail to apply clear logic in the scrutiny
thereof) the philosophy that drives their beliefs about certain issues.
Often this failure to examine the epistemology behind our positions
thoroughly and applying clear logic (versus say emotionalism, which
is prevalent in the formulation of most beliefs, and this is of course
presupposing that we all agree that adoption of clear logic is the
litmus test when evaluating the validity of our positions and that
logic is the logical choice when scrutinizing how we adopt beliefs
and positions on issues) is wanton and ubiquitous among us as a species.
This is also apparent even among animals in the engagement of
superstitious rituals (usually created in lab environments as part
of a stimulus response reward type experiments).
So there you have it.
Even if we are informed enough (aka well educated on an issue)
our facts may be unintegrous, and if the facts are actually integrous, it
is still possible that that our positions are epistemologically
unsound.
In other words, the facts may be integrous, in that the methodology
used to derived those facts was correct, with little to no errors,
and conclusions were correctly interpreted with no bias or agenda
other than to discern truth but the question now is, is the epistemology
driving how the {studies, research, experiments, etc, etc)
were conducted logically sound? I'm talking about the beliefs
we are trying to prove, not the actual testing methodology itself.
To phrase it differently, are the beliefs that we have chosen to adopt logically sound?
They may or not be.
Finally, people tend to be vague in the assertions of their beliefs
or their facts aren't really facts at all.
The most powerful tool I have in my tool kit here is to ask someone
not "why" usually, but rather "how."
"How" is an interesting word. It forces us to look at the mechanics of
how something works.
For example we may ask someone "how" does that happen?
With respect to their position or beliefs.
Then ask for solid evidence about that shows the "mechanism"
in action.
Most people can't always answer this.
Here's an example, not that I'm taking sides on anything.
But sometimes you need ask someone for proof when it comes
to their beliefs.
"Facts are stubborn things" as Ronald Reagan once said.
I'm a reminded of a YouTube video I saw where journalist
Andrew Breitbart went up to a group of protesters
outside of a convention where Glen Beck was presenting
in Illinois. The protestors were shouting "No more hate!
No more hate!" There were protestors with signs too
some of which read "Beck = Coward" and "Beck Lies, Truth Dies."
Breitbart went up to the crowd and started asking them
to substantiate their claims. They were unable to.
Sometimes you need to ask people to give you specific
examples.
People tend to generalize phenomena. Some take
empiricism to extremes. In many cases they say two pieces
of data and believe there is a pattern behind it and then
start to generalize.
For example:
Some one may have two events that occur in a day that greatly upset
them albeit for only a few minutes each time, and they will already
conclude that they're having a bad day. Because they have bought
into this generalization, all of a sudden they feel worse.
It was bad enough they had two things that upset them, and they now
generalize that they had a bad day, and having reached this "conclusion"
(really a feeling) they now feel bad about the fact they're having a bad day.
Are you starting to see how people start to generalize and sometimes
wrongfully so?
Sometimes people will generalize with only two "data points."
Now from what I have observed it appears that this very same set of
mental mechanics may occur when it comes to how people adopt
political ideologies, or at least it appears to be this way in most
instances.
For example,
A person may adopt one or two or even three positions initially
of a political party and all of a sudden they start to generalize.
Because they identify with those positions of this political party
they also now identify with that political party. And soon because they
have identified now with that party, they start to adopt most
if not all points of view espoused of that political party without
ever researching facts to substantiate their new found positions.
In other words what happens from that point on is any time that
particular political party states a position, instead of researching
it, they tend to go into a trance like state that, because they tend
to identify with that political party, they tend to adopt those other
beliefs and positions espoused by that political party.
But again they don't do research into that issue.
This is generalizing and then changing identity.
Once they have changed their identity they start
acting more congruently with that identity as well.
The interesting thing is they may even start to defend a
point of view espoused by a particular school of thought or political
party they have bought into too even though it may be logically
flawed and / or the subsequent facts are
not concrete enough to prove the point or were derived
from flawed methodologies to begin with.
The Jesuits taught me that God wants us to educate ourselves as
a way to inform our conscience about an issue and then to
make a decision there. Of course I always use this
to also inform my gut hunch too.
Here's another case in point. A friend of mine kept lamenting to me
that he thought he was going to do something crazy one day. I asked
"like what?" He thought he was going to go crazy and hurt someone.
I asked him how long he had felt this way? He said for years.
I asked him how often? He responded a few times a year.
I asked how long does the feeling last when he gets it?
He said only for a few minutes at a time.
You see, here by asking for specifics I'm starting to break down
his reality. He's failed to logically scrutinize his beliefs, and in the process
I'm also helping him change his identity from that of a "crazy" person, which would
become a self-fulfilling prophecy, possibly a dangerous one, to a person who on
occasion has those thoughts. (And by the way all people have "crazy" thoughts
every once in a while. They just pop into our heads. We never act on them though.)
So now instead of him feeling this way for years straight, which is impossible
because at some point he may not notice that feeling because he's busy, or he's
asleep which is a very different state of mind than when he's being anxious or
as he calls it "crazy" he's starting to realize it only happens a few times a year
for only a few minutes each time.
A friend of ours who was with us asked him what has happened
every time he feels this way.
He responded "Well" looking pensively and almost scratching his head "Well nothing."
And on her feet our friend quickly responded "So in other words you have track record
of not doing anything bad on the rare occasions that you do feel like you may do something
bad for no reason." Or something to that effect.
"Well yeah."
"So in other words every time you worry about this you're actually harmless and you have
a track record of doing nothing wrong."
"Well yeah."
He had worried all these years for nothing.
He later found out he was hypoglycemic which was the cause
for his anxiety.
He had a medical condition that made him worry when
he didn't eat.
He was not crazy. Just hungry.
Anyway, those who fail to logically scrutinize (apply logic in order to scrutinize) the epistemology and / or the philosophy driving their beliefs risks being like the race car driver, driving the number 1 car in the wrong race.
These men who fail to do this, tend to use this metaphorically and literally if applicable "confirm their own bias rather doing real science" to paraphrase the saying. (I think the economist F.A. Hayek came up with this).
Truly some men build and subsequently climb ladders to scale a particular wall for a significant amount of time of the most important years of their lives ... only to find out they were leaning it against the wrong wall the whole time.
Don't let this happen to you.
Sometimes it's good to question everything.
So you think your beliefs are sound then after reading this right? My next post may piss you off.
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Entering Sleep
.jpg)
This is the original. This was for my 2D Art class in Uni. My teacher loved it and gave me an A on the assignment. This is by far one of my favorite pieces I've created. Below is the alternate version
.jpg)
All writings, photographs, and artwork posted here are copyrighted by Antonio Goicochea. You may not use them without written permission but you may link to the posts or give out a link to the posts.
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©2003 Antonio Goicochea
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