Our educational system and our culture lie to us. We are taught by our educational system and by our culture that there is thinking and there is reality and that thinking’s job is to discover reality; never informing us that reality and thinking go together, one is not separated from the other. Reflexivity is a concept that informs us that thinking is part of reality.
In the natural sciences truth is of the utmost importance because knowledge of reality is a precondition for success. In human affairs there are shortcuts to success—one can lie, manipulate, spin, and use force to gain success. Thus in human affairs truth often takes a back seat.
In his book “Open Society” George Soros speaks of many things; one important concept is ‘reflexivity’. “I started thinking in terms of reflexivity nearly fifty years ago. It may be interesting to recall how I arrived at the idea. It was through the footnotes of Karl Popper’s “Open Society and its Enemies”…I started to apply the concept of reflexivity to the understanding of social affairs, and particularly of financial markets, in the early 1960s before evolutionary systems theory was born…”
The first chapter of this book, wherein he explains this concept, can be found at Businessweek - Bloomberg.
In the natural sciences there is no concept of truth. In the natural sciences all that exist are hypotheses. In the natural sciences all hypotheses are held to be in doubt, all that varies is the degree of doubt.
The one thing that the natural sciences place absolutely no value on value on oare claims to have found truth.
Talk about the false dichotomy. Science and human affairs aren’t separate realm. Scienne is a human affair and only a human affair.
And you also appear to be trying to set a double standard. Or are you trying to claim that one can not beocme successful in the natural sciences by lying or manipulating? Or perhaps you are attempting to argue that one can be succesful without knowing the truth simplyu because one can manipulate other sinto believing lies?
Because if not then science is no different to humans affairs even if we do accept them as distinct entities.
It’s not agood start when every point made in your OP is comprhensively debunked by two posters within 10 minutes.
I’m almost tempted to say that every word in your OP is wrong, including “and” and “the”.
Sometimes thinking is part of reality and sometimes it.s not.
A stone is part of reality. Does it think? No.
Does the stone disappear from reality when no one is thinking about it? Not as far as I know. So it exists in reality when there is no thought present. So reality can exist without thinking.
Thanks for the insight into your age. I’m sorry that I assumed incorrectly. If you have posted here before under another name, I believe that I remember you. But I’m not assuming that that was you!
You must read a lot! Why in the world would you read George Soros? I would probably agree with many of his political ideas, but I get the feeling that that’s not why you read him.
Do we really need a test? Without thinking wouldn’t reality become a still photograph or a motion without any sense to it?
We must think before anything happens, you can’t even move your arm without thought. When you learn a new task you must think through every step of that task like driving a car, later when you become skilled it is no longer necessary to think about each step, but some thought is still necessary to perform the act of driving a car. It is the same with all things.
Yes you might be surprised just how you have caught the truth of the matter.
Cognitive science has much to say about this matter.
We have in our Western philosophy a traditional theory of faculty psychology wherein our reasoning is a faculty completely separate from the body. “Reason is seen as independent of perception and bodily movement.” It is this capacity of autonomous reason that makes us different in kind from all other animals. I suspect that many fundamental aspects of philosophy and psychology are focused upon declaring, whenever possible, the separateness of our species from all other animals.
This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.
The three major findings of cognitive science are:
The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.
“These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting [for traditional thinking] in two respects. First, they tell us that human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains. Second, these results tell us that our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real.”
All living creatures categorize. All creatures, as a minimum, separate eat from no eat and friend from foe. As neural creatures tadpole and wo/man categorize. There are trillions of synaptic connections taking place in the least sophisticated of creatures and this multiple synapses must be organized in some way to facilitate passage through a small number of interconnections and thus categorization takes place. Great numbers of different synapses take place in an experience and these are subsumed in some fashion to provide the category eat or foe perhaps.
Our categories are what we consider to be real in the world: tree, rock, animal…Our concepts are what we use to structure our reasoning about these categories. Concepts are neural structures that are the fundamental means by which we reason about categories.
Translation: I forgot I repeatedly said and continue to say that. I have no evidence, just self-indulgent pot-fueled blather masquerading as random philosophical statements.
Translation: I didn’t think of the obvious before coming here. I will now pretend I’m going to do something about it while I move on to repeatedly responding with trivialities to other people’s posts. Also, I learned how to spell “tough” from garbage bag brand names.
Translation: I’m arrogant enough to think I’m as good as an actual scientist* but manipulative enough to pretend I’m not.
*I should note for the record here that I don’t think much of CHomsky asa scientist, leaving all politics aside. His thesis has serious holes both in logic and in application. Nonetheless, it was very important in his field and the topic he raised, if not his actual thesis, will no doubt prove important in the future.
Translation: I’m incapable of communicating, so I blame the person I’m talking to. I won’t actually explain in the least what I mean until post #17, where I’ve already made 9 posts right here.
Translation: I don’t.
Translation: While I might have a point, this is an actual argument far beyond me and I don’t actually understand it, the ideas limitations, or the fact that far wiser scholars were wrangling over this centuries ago.
Translation:
People have brains, even though I don’t use them.
People can’t see themselves thinking.
I’m repeating the blatantly obvious.
Translation: People are not blank slates and each has his or her own peuliarities. I think this is a major find and can’t understand why everyone is looking at my like I just got off the slow bus.
Translation: Let me beat you about the head and neck with the blatantly obvious.
Translation: Repeat last.
I have no actual arguments and just copied this out of a bookI don’t understand. I cannot cite properly or use the quote feature.
Translation: I forgot I repeatedly said and continue to say that. I have no evidence, just self-indulgent pot-fueled blather masquerading as random philosophical statements.
Translation: I didn’t think of the obvious before coming here. I will now pretend I’m going to do something about it while I move on to repeatedly responding with trivialities to other people’s posts. Also, I learned how to spell “tough” from garbage bag brand names.
Translation: I’m arrogant enough to think I’m as good as an actual scientist* but manipulative enough to pretend I’m not.
*I should note for the record here that I don’t think much of CHomsky asa scientist, leaving all politics aside. His thesis has serious holes both in logic and in application. Nonetheless, it was very important in his field and the topic he raised, if not his actual thesis, will no doubt prove important in the future.
Translation: I’m incapable of communicating, so I blame the person I’m talking to. I won’t actually explain in the least what I mean until post #17, where I’ve already made 9 posts right here.
Translation: I don’t.
Translation: While I might have a point, this is an actual argument far beyond me and I don’t actually understand it, the ideas limitations, or the fact that far wiser scholars were wrangling over this centuries ago.
Translation:
People have brains, even though I don’t use them.
People can’t see themselves thinking.
I’m repeating the blatantly obvious.
Translation: People are not blank slates and each has his or her own peuliarities. I think this is a major find and can’t understand why everyone is looking at my like I just got off the slow bus.
Translation: Let me beat you about the head and neck with the blatantly obvious.
Translation: Repeat last.
I have no actual arguments and just copied this out of a bookI don’t understand. I cannot cite properly or use the quote feature.