I see dead people (who can't think)

[J-William]

What is your experience of people who can't think?

I was up until recently somewhat uncertain of what Stef meant when he talked about people who can't think. 

Perhaps it was something of my own insecurity around my ability to think or some part of the conditioning to be small and not notice the when people are saying idiotic things.

regardless of that.

Just the other day I came across a post in a language blog that just felt off to me. I didn't even read it, but the title and first paragraph or so was enough to stick with me. 

"Why Are You Still Trying To Learn from Your Mistakes?" 

 

After spending some time thinking it over I realized that it was almost certainly wrong (for a variety of reasons that aren't particularly important in this context) and became curious as to what the writer's arguments were against learning from one's mistakes.

 

Well, I should have guessed a little something from the title. Right there in the title the writer is playing on your insecurities, maybe you've been doing it all wrong! Reading deeper into the post I became aware that the writer was making no argument at all. He does not define mistake, he doesn't give examples of what kind of mistakes one might make and how those mistakes are not useful to learn from... and to cap it off, right in the title he puts out a big fat contradiction. If it's a mistake to learn from your mistakes then how am I supposed to learn from that mistake to not learn from my mistakes?

 

Anyhow, it was time profitably spent learning that just because you have florid verbiage doesn't mean you can think.

[cobra2411]

I loath people who are intentionally ignorant, but I don't think that's who you're speaking of here. I think you're speaking of those that lack the capacity to think.

 

Lets take a look at the school system. "Memorize this, you will be tested on it". Straight regurgitation. Now, what exactly would you want as a tax farmer? Someone who can learn and regurgitate the task but not think much beyond that. And we reward that type of behavior. 

 

I was fortunate to be blessed with a series of teacher here and there growing up that showed me how to learn. Some where school teachers, some where not, but in the end I learned to think, ask questions and most importantly not think I knew it all. 

[cynicist]

Failure has nothing to teach you. Don’t learn from your mistakes.

 

There is one and only one bit of useful, reliable information you can safely glean from failure: “that didn’t work”. Which is wonderful, because now you know to consider maybe not doing that any more. But that’s all you get in terms of valuable, actionable, safe information.

 

It's funny because he contradicts himself even in the opening paragraph. 

 

That's a good catch on your part. You have to ask yourself why he is dedicating an article to helping you learn from your mistake while implying that it's not possible to do so in the very title. My favorite part about this is how efficient you become once you are able to spot these. As soon as I see that contradiction I can dismiss his whole article as rubbish and spend my time more productively elsewhere rather than slog through it and scratch my head in confusion afterwards.

[J-William]

As soon as I see that contradiction I can dismiss his whole article as rubbish and spend my time more productively elsewhere rather than slog through it and scratch my head in confusion afterwards.

 

I know I've always felt that that confusion is the worst part because it can be hard to understand yourself what is real and what's not real. For years I would struggle with these kind of people who were very good at writing lots of words without a coherent argument.

 

It's very effective that's why all of the arguments against Ayn Rand are full of bullshit. 

Someday people will learn to think as a standard part of childhood, and that will be a beautiful day.

 

It is liberating in its own way to learn how to think and learn how to spot people who cannot think. I have a book on psychology that I read back in 2006 or perhaps earlier that at the time I thought was very good and had many useful things to say, but going back to it now I see that much of what it had to say was not of value and in fact made the important issues of psychology a little bit more hard to understand.

[greekredemption]

 

As soon as I see that contradiction I can dismiss his whole article as rubbish and spend my time more productively elsewhere rather than slog through it and scratch my head in confusion afterwards.

 

 

To completely rip off and totally bastardise a concept from the late Ronald Dworkin... I think it is not possible to consider a theory until it has been considered in its best light. An early contradiction does not necessarily mean later arguments won't be interesting or in some way valuable; perhaps the contradiction as apparent is not in fact a contradiction, or perhaps it is reconciled later. Maybe it's an inherent part of the argument, a la Rousseau.

 

 

 

I suppose that is one of the things that annoys me. 

[J-William]

To completely rip off and totally bastardise a concept from the late Ronald Dworkin... I think it is not possible to consider a theory until it has been considered in its best light. An early contradiction does not necessarily mean later arguments won't be interesting or in some way valuable; perhaps the contradiction as apparent is not in fact a contradiction, or perhaps it is reconciled later. Maybe it's an inherent part of the argument, a la Rousseau.

 

 

 

I suppose that is one of the things that annoys me. 

That may be true but do you have the time to evaluate all of the arguments made every day on the Internet?

Of course you don't.

If you can look at the first line or the first paragraph of an article and realize that the writer cannot think then that will save you a tremendous amount of time.

[greekredemption]

 

That may be true but do you have the time to evaluate all of the arguments made every day on the Internet?

Of course you don't.

If you can look at the first line or the first paragraph of an article and realize that the writer cannot think then that will save you a tremendous amount of time.

 

I'd argue you can't tell from one line that the writer "cannot think". There are a multitude of other possibilities, not least of which is that perhaps the writer "cannot think [in the same way you think]". As I say, you can't really come to the conclusion that the writer "cannot think" without considering her argument as a whole. It may transpire that the argument is amateurish and not to be taken seriously, but until you've done that... well. All you can say is that it doesn't pique your interest or that you couldn't be bothered (both of which are fine, we all do this with all sorts of things), but to say the writer "cannot think"? No.

[J-William]

I'd argue you can't tell from one line that the writer "cannot think". There are a multitude of other possibilities, not least of which is that perhaps the writer "cannot think [in the same way you think]". As I say, you can't really come to the conclusion that the writer "cannot think" without considering her argument as a whole. It may transpire that the argument is amateurish and not to be taken seriously, but until you've done that... well. All you can say is that it doesn't pique your interest or that you couldn't be bothered (both of which are fine, we all do this with all sorts of things), but to say the writer "cannot think"? No.

Ah yes obvious contradictions are not examples of the writer's inability to reason or use logic (and therefore think). They just mean that he thinks in a different way...

 

Thinking is the ability to apply reason and evidence. Logic is a part of reason, and non-contradiction is a part of logic. If someone makes an obvious contradiction and does not seem to notice the contradiction then there are two possibilities. One the person does not know he is starting his argument with something logically unsound and can therefore be said to be unable to think. Or two, he knows he slipped in a contradiction, but hopes you won't notice, which makes him a liar.

 

In neither the case of the fool or the liar is it worth my time to continue reading the argument when I could be doing much more edifying things like having some ice-cream.

[cynicist]

I suppose that is one of the things that annoys me. 

 

Why does it annoy you? 

 

An early contradiction does not necessarily mean later arguments won't be interesting or in some way valuable; perhaps the contradiction as apparent is not in fact a contradiction, or perhaps it is reconciled later.

 

Seems to me that you are confused here. If an early contradiction is indeed a contradiction, then it does mean that any argument based on that contradiction is invalid and has no truth value. As J-William said above, I don't have time to sift through everyone's bad arguments to see if there is any value in what they are saying, and even in the unlikely event that there were, it would be completely accidental. 

 

If I want to repair my car and a mechanic tells me how I should go about doing it but while giving me instructions he reveals that he has no idea how a transmission works, I could follow his advice and hope he just made a simple mistake.... or I could go to a competent mechanic. This idea that I should try anyway because it might work or there might be some value in what he's saying is irrelevant to me.

[greekredemption]

Why does it annoy you? 

 

It's the combination of arrogance and lack of rigour.

[cynicist]

It's the combination of arrogance and lack of rigour.

 

So if I come across an article with an argument that something is true, and the author begins his argument by contradicting his own premise, (thereby invalidating it) I am both arrogant and careless for choosing not to continue reading it? 

[LovePrevails]

they usually act like everything is subjective and reason and evidence is equivalent to personal opinion

 

but no one really believes that, because to act consistently with that belief you wouldn't bold any positions, you'd just say

"It's all a matter of the way you look at it" when anyone asked your opinion on anything

 

usually the truth triggers feelings of anxiety, fear, shame or guilt in them and they are not equipped to work through those feelings and release the trigger

they've never done it and don't even know it's possible, can't see any benefit to doing it either

probably don't even know that their ancient emotional triggers are holding them back in any significant way and don't want to know because it would be hurtful to process

[greekredemption]

So if I come across an article with an argument that something is true, and the author begins his argument by contradicting his own premise, (thereby invalidating it) I am both arrogant and careless for choosing not to continue reading it? 

No, the arrogance and carelessness comes from assuming an apparent contradiction invalidates an entire argument. It may well transpire that the argument is in fact a poor one, but might I suggest that your approach is a little hasty?

 

I mean, for instance, using this approach nobody would have read anything of Rousseau's. In hindsight, perhaps that would have been a good thing, but his follow-up arguments are more than a little interesting.

[RyanT]

Yeah, I was once on a date with a girl, carn't remember what exactly we were discussing,

But with this air of wisdom she said 'islam's actually a very beautiful religion'

 

At that point 'why' didn't really come into it....

[labmath2]

If you are the kind of person who cannot learn from mistakes, you will not learn anything from his article. If you can learn from mistakes, then you will learn to avoid these kind of articles.

[J-William]

If you are the kind of person who cannot learn from mistakes, you will not learn anything from his article. If you can learn from mistakes, then you will learn to avoid these kind of articles.

I think I am going to donate just so that I can give you a reputation point for that comment 

Yeah, I was once on a date with a girl, carn't remember what exactly we were discussing,But with this air of wisdom she said 'islam's actually a very beautiful religion'At that point 'why' didn't really come into it....

wowee! that's pretty awesome.

 

She must have been really pretty because ugly people don't get away with saying things that stupid.

[RyanT]

wowee! that's pretty awesome. She must have been really pretty because ugly people don't get away with saying things that stupid.

Not quite sure I get you mate?

[J-William]

Not quite sure I get you mate?

I'm pretty sure that most pretty girls can get away with saying whatever they want to say because there are so many men would like to sleep with them.

Very few people will call them on their nonsense.

[RyanT]

Well in that case I like to think I just couldn't be bothered,

Kinda like reading that article, no use wasting your time on

flawed ideas....although to be fair it probably played a part.

 

 

Do think I redeemed myself a little though when she said,

'people who don't vote have no right to complain about the government,

to which I said if your guy wins, you chose him so you carn't complain

if the other guy wins, you're obligated to respect democtic process,

So carn't complain

 

As you say she really wasn't used to been disagreed with,

especially not on a 'social norm' like that.

[Phuein]

What is your experience of people who can't think?

 

Animals. It's the first thing that comes to mind. We delegate thinking into verbal logic, so only an animal with abstract communication skills can actually "think". A person without such skills is basically a human-animal; slightly better at communicating with me, but not trustworthy to make wise decisions.

 

It's frustrating, when animals pretend to be people, and then they disappoint. Also true about non-human animals.  Raised with a dog, and live with a cat.