I think this is not so.
Everyone’s thought processes, including the most logical ones possible, (well, OK, with the single exception of pure deduction with no ascertainment of facts being necessary, but that never happens in real life), are driven by emotion. The art of recognizing — of recognizing anything as a current example or manifestion of any previously encountered category or genera — depends on feelings. Logic can’t make that determination. Logic can tell you things like:
*Given, * that all medical medical practices not derived from or supported by empirical observation of their efficacy are examples of nonvalid quackery that should be ignored, If homeopathy is a medical practice that wasn’t derived from and isn’t supported by any evidence showing that it works, then homeopathy is an example of nonvalid quackery that should be ignored.
Logic can’t tell you anything about the correctness of any element presented here. In fact, as worded, it can’t even tell you that the conclusion necessarily follows from the two postulates, because an emotionally-driven intuition is necessary for you to conclude that the slightly different wording of the second term is still sufficiently identical to make it a specific example of what the first term is referring to in its generalization.
Meanwhile, if someone believes in homeopathic medicine after having access to the same general well of information that we on this board have, I’m inclined to think they are not in touch with their own feelings — they are ignoring some, failing to interpret some, and are harboring belief systems not because they’ve distilled them from the repository of their felt experience and what fits and clicks overall but for other less emotionally valid reasons.
That’s assuming of course, that my interpretations are valid (something I cannot demonstrate) in thinking that, that the 3rd-hand and 4th-hand evidence at my disposal from a wide range of sources is accurate (something I accept on faith, partly because of the diversity of those sources and partly because of the body of critical thinkers who have verified the accuracy of those sources while discrediting that of proponents for the pro-homeopathic viewpoint) and that I remember the gist of their contents accurately (which again is something I can’t demonstrate, although I could Google it or head off the library). I feel sufficiently sure of myself to say so: homeopathy is bullshit. It belongs in the same discard barrel as astrology and palmistry. It doesn’t work because the method cannot work and evidence indicates that it does not work, and the reasons given for believing that it does work, explained by those who believe in it, are bullshit reasons for believing something.
That’s not logic, that’s being in touch with my feelings.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and guess that Ahunter3 falls into the second of LSLGuy’s categories. hehheh.
Ahunter3, I completely disagree with you. I do not base my beliefs on emotional baggage, but rather on verification of facts. The following paragraph in particular I find indefensible:
Less emotionally valid? When did emotions get a validity ranking?
But to address a specific point:
“Everyone’s thought processes, including the most logical ones possible, […] are driven by emotion.”
I program all day. It is very logical work, which is nice, because I’m a very logical person. Are you saying that my code construction is driven by emotions? For example, if I’m feeling pissy I write arcane code that other programmers would have a hard time deciphering, just out of spite?
This seems to have veered into a discussion of logic versus emotion or something like that. I only brought up the idea to explain why my friend and I have a hard time talking about certain things. To the posters who responded concerning setting the bar too high I want to say thanks, you have helped me alot.
For the record, I believe that people who claim to distrust logic are are somewhat dissembling. Most people use logic all the time. To abandon it when it suits you, or when it provides answers you do not like, is to lack intellectual integrity, in my opinion.
I’m a little thrown by “do not manipulate me”. You do realise that most things we do around others have an effect on them, I suppose, so what exactly do you mean? Do you mean “underhandedly manipulate”? I tend to feel that it’s possible to “manipulate” people honestly, and if we are open and frank about our attempts to manipulate others, that’s just bein’ people.
For example, here’s my definition of manipulation: I have some friends from a church with heavily cultish tendencies. I believe these people are sincere, but they are consistently kept out of the mainstream by their church’s practice of “love-bombing”. This basically involves everybody in the church being extremely - overwhelmingly - loving and appreciative of new and potential members. I’m afraid it’s a fundamentally dishonest thing to do, because quite apart from anything else it hampers critical thought, and I consider that manipulation. My friends, on the other hand, really don’t understand my position in this. They have been in the church for so long that they consider themselves entirely sincere in love-bombing people, while my point, which they have yet to grasp, is that while they may well be sincere they’re still not giving people enough freedom of choice in whether or not they wish to join the group. They are using others’ emotional needs to bring them into a place they don’t necessarily want to be.
It has led to my family taking some pretty big steps back from these friends, although not cutting ourselves off entirely. Maybe we should.
However, I’d be wrong to assume that anybody being nice to me is that kind of manipulation.
It sounds as if there are two separate issues here. One of them is your “standards,” which sound perfectly fine to me. Don’t lie, steal, or cheat me and I won’t lie, steal, or cheat you. That’s just common courtesy.
The other is your personal way of relating to the world. You are cooly analytical, she has a more emotional, intuitive bent. Just as you might find it frustrating and off-putting to listen to her go on about how she “feels” about something, she no doubt finds it equally frustrating to listen to a pedantic lecture about how illogical her “feelings” are. It comes down to respecting the other persons opinion and not trying to prove them wrong, being hyper-critical of their viewpoints, and having to be “right.”
Her: “I’m thinking of taking a homeopatchic remedy for this cold I’ve had. Want to come to the natural foods store with me so I can pick some up?”
Him: “I don’t understand why you insist on doing that. Studies have shown, blah, blah, blah…It is isn’t logical…Colds are viruses, blah, blah, blah.”
or
Her: “I’m thinking of taking…”
Him: “I don’t think it’ll do you any good, but what the hell, it’s your cold. Do they have organic beer, I’d like to pick some up.”
Actually, I am very interested in her feelings, and having her share them wirth me. I try not to be pedantic but I imagine I could be doing a better job. It is because I care for her that I am suspicious about making medical decisions based on feelings. I am, however, morally offended by those who prey on other’s fears or ignorance in order to feather their won nests. I include homeopathists in that group. It is bunk masqurading as medicine, pure and simple. You might ask “what’s the harm in taking a cold remedey that is patently ineffective,” and I suppose for her personally there is little harm. But purchasing these products supports the bastards who sell them and I find that reprehensible. People die because they eschew proper medicine for this crap and there is great harm in that.
Encouraging you, and also suggesting that part of being a friend is knowing when to shut up. Recognize that no amount of logial discourse is going to add to the discussion and will, in fact, get you ignored. I have a friend very much like you in some regards (at least from how you’ve represented himself), and when he insists on continuing to make the same logical arguement, long after I’ve heard him the first half-dozen times, I just tune him right out. Say your piece and be quiet.
It’s probably never the case that I have made the same logical argument a half-dozen times, at least at one sitting. If what your friend is saying makes sense, why would he have to say it 6 times? Alternately, why would you tune out something that makes sense? Would you prefer nonsense?
I think you have misconstrued how I represented myself. In the OP I pointed out that she and I rarely have these kinds of conversations, for just that reason. She tunes out reasoning that is inconvenient to her point of view. She is perfectly capable of being logical when it suits her. That is what frustrates me, and why I appealed for help here. I was hoping for some well thought out answers that would give me other points of view on the topic, and by and large that is what I got.
I admit that I don’t understand how this constitutes manipulating you, lying to you, or cheating you.
As with most threads like this, we’re only getting one side of the story. Could it be that your friend(s) is/are more frustrated with your harping and lecturing about pseudoscience than they are with your insistence upon honesty? I don’t like pseudoscience either, but I don’t badger people about it.
I think we’ve gotten seriously off the point here. My reasons for mentioning this person at all were as follows-
She accuses me of setting the bar too high.
She refuses to talk about it.
Somehow this thread went from me wondering if my expectations of other people are too high to some kind of debate about the value of logic versus feelings. In the OP I was just trying to explain why she and I have trouble communicating sometimes. In retrospect, that was a mistake.
For the record–I love this person. I admire this person. She is the most generous person I know. She has kept me off the streets more than once. Many friends of mine who have met her through me think much more highly of her than they do of me and I agree. I value her opinion greatly. I do not browbeat her or pick on her. I defend her to nth degree. There are just some things we cannot talk about.
I don’t badger anyone about anything. I don’t harp or lecture. I think you and **plnnr ** have confused me with someone else, perhaps acquaintances of yours? WHen my opinion is asked , I give it. When I see a loved one making what I think is a mistake in judgement, I let her know. She is perfectly free to tell me to piss off without fear of haranguing.
Well, it sounds like you’re expecting her to use your preferred methods of decision-making and getting frustrated when she doesn’t. Yes, that’s setting the bar too high. Not in the sense that you’re expecting too much from her, mind you, but in the sense that your expectations are unreasonable. There’s a subtle but important difference. It’s not expecting too much, per se, but expecting entirely the wrong sort of thing. It’s like setting the bar at a reasonable height, but setting it for the long jump.
It also sounds like she’s using the most effective way to deal with arguments, by not letting them get started. You’ve said yourself there are some things you two just cannot discuss, and she refuses to discuss them with you. That seems like a perfectly sensible stategy to me. Like plnner has pointed out, a lot of maintaining a harmonious relationship with someone is knowing when to zip your lips. When there’s a topic that you disagree about, and no amount of discussion is going to change either of your minds, and discussion is just going to start an argument, sometimes it’s best that you don’t get into these discussions. Not even when the other person is trying to goad you into them. There’s nothing to gain from them, and potentially a whole lot to lose, so you just don’t go there.
From your description, it sounds like her belief in alternative medicine and other “illogical” decisions is a pretty big “don’t go there” zone, and she’s self-aware enough to realize this. For some reason, though, you keep trying to go there, and when you do she refuses to engage you and get drug into that muck. If she can’t disengage by saying something, she physically disengages by walking away. When there’s no good to come of the discussion, refusing to have the discussion is perfectly logical.
As for her saying that logic can’t explain everything, she’s kind of right. Near as I can tell, we still don’t know how and why aspirin does what it does. We just know that it works. My dad had bypass surgery several years ago after a series of mini-heart attacks that left him with a sizable dead area in one chamber. The surgeon was concerned it would just crumble when they touched it. By all the rules of science and logic and reason, he should have been wheeled out of that OR with a sheet over his head and a tag on his toe. Instead, he walked out that hospital five days later and was doing just fine when I talked to him on the phone yesterday. That’s how medicine is sometimes–people recover for no reason, and sometimes they die for no reason.
[Hijack]
At first I thought you were posting links to me losing my cool, which wouldn’t be hard to find, but after reading a couple sentences from the first link, it is clear I have a fair amount of interesting reading to catch up on. I’ll check them out. Thanks for the links.
[/hijack]
Both of those are strategies for avoiding hearing what you have to say. Now, it’s possible that she is simply entirely unwilling to hear anything she disagrees with, but from your warm regard for her, I suspect she’s simply tired of discussing it. So she disengages. It’s a strategy I had to work hard to develop for myself; I think a lot of the more analytically-minded people in the world wish to help others realize the things that they know. So the logically-minded person tries to explain something to the emotionally-driven person, in order that they’ll eventually come to an agreement. Realizing that someone else is ignorant about something, the logical person explains it - and they do it without judging the person in the slightest.
Nevertheless, the recipient of this explanation feels judged. Your friend’s actions suggest to me that she feels that you’re judging her, and she doesn’t want to hear it. I used to get the same thing from time to time - and through the years, I taught myself to actively shut up in some situations. It’s made me able to interact with people who are quite different from me, even though in the past, someone who believed in astrology, or homeopathic medicine, or any number of other things, would have driven me nuts.
In the end, does it hurt you if she uses homeopathic medicine? Will her purchase of homeopathic medicine be the deciding factor in its continued existence? No. You’re entitled to debate, argue, yell, scream, and ultimately pick someone up and carry them if you have to do these things to get them out of a burning building. But helpfully trying to inform someone that they’re behaving irrationally is not a nice thing to do as long as they’re not hurting anyone.
Besides, logically-minded people DO come to different conclusions. Look at the now cliché eternal war between PC and Mac uses - from the outside, it looks ridiculous. And yet, given that we’re talking internet geeks, chances are the participants are the logical, cerebral type, and yet they still get solidly emotionally invested in things to the point that they behave completely irrationally. Of course, you don’t see that when you’re one of the participants; I’m willing to imagine that you’re engaging in a certain amount of the same behavior here.
Which brings me to my next point.
The point being that, based on this quote and the one above, you probably have an analytical mind, and yet you don’t realize that you’re behaving in an irrational manner sometimes. Self-insight is not a gift that either the logical or emotional mind possesses, although both types would like to believe they have it. Witness your strenuous objection to the use of alternative medicine above. You’ve implied that you’ve mentioned this more than once to her (and her behavior suggests the same) and yet she keeps doing it. Now, a probably apocryphal quote attributed to Einstein defines insanity as continuing to engage in a behavior, and yet expecting different results.
No, you’re not insane. But you are having the same argument - and, if the above example is accurate, you’re starting your share of them - more than once, and yet expecting it to work this time. That’s not rational, especially when, as I pointed out above, her individual use of homeopathic remedies doesn’t hurt anyone. You’re arguing using logic, but your logic is motivated by an emotional response. You’re irritated at your friend for not behaving in the way you would. It sounds like you’re pretty solidly motivated by emotion, in fact.
Everyone is, of course. All the logic in the world won’t replace emotions - and of course, the reverse is equally true. But if you’re convinced that you behave in a strictly rational manner, it indicates that you’re a little bit lacking in insight - since, after all, you’re not. Like I said, self-insight is not something people are born with; it’s not meant as an insult when I say this. No one has a perfect understanding of themselves, after all. So you can make up for that gap by smiling calmly and trusting other people to make the right decisions for themselves when it won’t hurt you.
Myself, back when I was a little teenager, I used to have a tough time being friends with people with radically different mindsets. It was only through gritting my teeth that I managed to maintain harmony with extremely religious friends and family, for instance. Because, after all, logic tells us that there’s no reason to believe in God. So I had to realize that, number one, these people were decent, nice people who weren’t hurting anyone with their beliefs, and number two, the fact that I can’t understand something may mean that it’s beyond my understanding. And that’s okay with me now. I’m still nontheistic, but I get along fine with my strongly religious friends. Because, after all, it’s not my business to ‘correct’ them, and in the end, I can’t prove that they’re incorrect anyway.
In the end (sorry for writing so much! Thank you to anyone who’s still reading!) it’s worth making the effort to smile and nod when people do something irrational but ultimately harmless (and, again, her custom is not the only thing keeping these people in business; in the above example, her behavior was essentially harmless, if silly.) In the end, it’ll start to take, and you’ll feel a lot calmer about it on the inside. Or at least I did. And I’m much happier now, since I don’t have to worry so much about what other people say and do.
Urk. I ressurect an old thread to write an extremely long-winded reply, and now I see that every other sentence started with “in the end”. This is not one of my gold-star efforts.
