The Leap Of Faith Into Absolutes

The leap of faith into absolutes.

Karl Popper authored the book “The Open Society and Its Enemies”. The concept Popper illustrates in this book sounds much like the concept of a liberal democracy but his concept is more epistemological than political. It is based upon our imperfect comprehension of reality more than our structure of society.

Popper argues that all ideology shares a common characteristic; a belief in their infallibility. Such infallibility is an impossibility, which leads such ideological practitioners to use force to substantiate their views and such repression brings about a closed society.

Popper proposed that the open society is constructed on the recognition that our comprehension of reality is not perfect—there is realty beyond our comprehension and our will cannot compensate for that lack of comprehension. Even though the will of the power structure can manipulate the opinions of the citizens sooner or later reality will defeat the will. Truth does matter and success will not always override truth—truth being reality.

American culture has lost respect for truth. We have been swamped with PR and spin and untruth to such an extent that we have lost confidence in truth and it has lost its value.

I think that many Americans display and embrace their symbols so extravagantly because we have devalued truth and have glorified infallibility. When we reach such a situation ideologies become more and more important and the adoration of symbols is our method of showing our evaluation of our ideology which is one of our gods.

I think that for many Americans the natural sciences have come to represent that which is infallible. Rather than a solution science/technology has become the problem because it is ill used, especially when applying the scientific method when dealing with human problems.

I think that the more attached we are to what we consider to be absolute truth the more we idolize such things as science/technology and symbols such as flags, nations, and religion. Would you agree?

I have noticed there is this tendency for people to say they know the absolute truth about God, the universe, politics, etc. The funny thing is there is no way any human can know everything about everything. Somehow though, it is culturally uncool to admit that you don't know. If you admit your knowledge may be short of perfect, then nobody listens to you. There is a cultural pressure to say you know it all.

Therein lay the rub!

Very good thread (at least from my perspective, )

A couple comments:

1. How nice to see a modern western philosopher that admits there is only one truth! Most I meet embrace, "There is no Truth"--to which I respond, "including any in your statement?"

2. This is THE BIGGEST PROBLEM in mankind. I guess taking sides, having team spirit, having an "us and them" attitude helped protect your clan/village in the old days, but it has little place in the modern world.

I appreciate the above comments. Yep, admitting that some problems are not easily solved, is a one-way ticket to failure for a politician.

Realization of these things is what makes me mostly (not completely) libertarian.

We live in two different worlds.

I recently had occasion to hang out in the waiting area of St Joseph Hospital in Asheville for a few hours. I was free to walk many of the corridors and rest in many of the waiting areas along with everyone else. It was early morning but it was obvious that the hospital functioned fully 24/7.

A person can walk the corridors of any big city hospital and observe the effectiveness of human rationality in action. One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

We live in two very different worlds; a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion. We are increasingly able to solve problems in one domain and increasingly endangered by our inability to solve problems in the other.

Normal science is successful primarily because it is a domain of knowledge controlled by paradigms. The paradigm defines the standards, principles and methods of the discipline. It is not apparent to the laity but science moves forward in small incremental steps. Science seldom seeks and almost never produces major novelties.

Science solves puzzles. The logic of the paradigm insulates the professional group from problems that are unsolvable by that paradigm. One reason that science progresses so rapidly and with such assurance is because the logic of that paradigm allows the practitioners to work on problems that only their lack of ingenuity will keep them from solving.

Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes ‘what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?’ Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right”.

There is a striking difference between the logic of technical problems and that of dialectical problems. The principles, methods and standards for dealing with technical problems and problems of “real life” are as different as night and day. Real life problems cannot be solved only using deductive and inductive reasoning.

Dialectical reasoning methods require the ability to slip quickly between contradictory lines of reasoning. One needs skill to develop a synthesis of one point of view with another. Where technical matters are generally confined to only one well understood frame of reference real life problems become multi-dimensional totalities.

When we think dialectically we are guided by principles not by procedures. Real life problems span multiple categories and academic disciplines. We need point-counter-point argumentation; we need emancipatory reasoning to resolve dialectical problems. We need critical thinking skills and attitudes to resolve real life problems.

coberst, I agree, but I think you'll also agree that the reasons for what you say lies in man's imperfection, not in some intrinsic fault of ideal logic. There is not a failure of logic, but of man's inability to master logic and also of his inability and lack of opportunity to gather accurate information. Without mastery of logic, or when there is not enough information, then a solution might not be attainable that otherwise would be with ideal logic.

But also, I may not be as forgiving as you when it comes to the stupidity we all so frequently see in the world. In fact, the fact that man can be so smart when he wants to be, rather convicts him when he chooses to be stupid.

Finally, there is some honest lack of intellect, in general, that is sometimes a little hard to forgive, as well. I believe there are very few people (present company excluded) that spend any real mental effort on the subject of "how best to think". So many people go through life just coasting along without ever questioning whether they are logical or not, or even whether logic is something worth thinking about.

Case in point: it seems 97% of all automobile drivers seem to be under the impression that the purpose of the signal light is to cause the car to turn. How do I know this? Because I so frequently see people turning on their signal lights only well after it is blatantly obvious that they are going to turn.

I truly believe this is the subconscious mind really presuming the signal light causes the car to turn, and it is allowed to do so because the conscious mind doesn't bother spending the extra 20 to 30 neuron-seconds to correct that misconception.

The art of thinking can be fascinating. But then, I always had a soft spot in my heart for solving equations that use variables that each have a probability distribution--which is the case for every variable (and "constant") there ever was or will be. Many subconscious minds do a horrible job of estimating probability distributions and/or solving the equations that contain them. It is that sort of logic that we need to master, in order to better solve problems of society.

This post has been edited by fleem on Sep 16 2007, 04:19 PM

to continue (I know I'm preaching to the choir, here)...

The probability distribution that one given politician is sincere and philanthropic might be an inverted bell curve--there might be a higher probability that he is one or the other rather than half-sincere and half corrupt. Other politicians might be more likely half-sincere and half-corrupt--their sincerity probability distribution is a bell curve. Understanding such things, and learning to work with such probability distributions on at least a casual, subconscious fuzzy-logic level, helps people to grasp their opponents "logic", be more aware of truth, and just do a better job of solving problems.

Unfortunately you'll be hard-pressed to find very many people admitting the sincerity probability distribution of a given politician is anything but a solid vertical line on the sincere end or on the insincere end. Its like they think we're suppose to think that way--black and white.

fleem

Maslow estimated that at least 4% of the population is prepared to seek self-actualization. If we had 0.4% of the population to develop an intellectual life and become self-actualizing self-learners we could save the world. Our future is in our hands.

Framing the issue: Petraeous—Betray us

George Lakoff, linguist, cognitive scientist, author of “Philosophy in the Flesh” was the mind behind the ad. He has framed the issue that will focus upon dishonesty and untruth for the next 16 months. One cannot say Petraeous without thinking ‘betray us’.