Critical thinking

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
you are beginning to sound just like one of the slain yet again TD...

is it so hard to remain composed when one discovers the shortcomings in their own critical thought ?

I'd say I'm fairly well composed in systematically defeating your arguments. Do I detect a bit of projection on your part? I mean, you could have risen to the challenge of supporting your claims successfully instead of issuing the above ad hominem, claiming I am "slain" when your claims are defeated.

In any case, this thread is being derailed with more God hang ups. If you wish to discuss the alleged christian nation I encourage you to visit the link to the thread on that very topic which I listed above.

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact

you are beginning to sound just like one of the slain yet again TD...

This is an inconclusive statement. Within it is the premise that 'something' undefined is 'beginning' without actually being specific on what 'slain' means. It is directed at a particular member (TD) and yet tells that member exactly nothing. The standard 'strawman' argument related to a personal list of yours in which you yourself are judge and jury.

is it so hard to remain composed when one discovers the shortcomings in their own critical thought ?

What I 'get' out of the above is another personal statement directed at TD in which an undefined accusation is laid. You say TD is not composed. What makes you say that specifically? Critical thinking requires the study of normative principles rather than description. Normative principles are standards for assessment or 'guides. Desciptions only describe or represent.

the Master of Puppets has been pulling your strings...

pull back !

Please explain the 'Master of Puppets', how strings are applied to us and how it is we are to 'pull back'. Logic has no room for vagueness.

On a monotheistic God or polytheistic Deities in general:

There is NO empirical evidence which lays groundwork for a debate on the subject. It may be either true or false based on faith.

If one states that God created the universe then they need to find non-empirical evidence ( i.e. Causality) to justify such a belief... a pre-supposition.

For this reason, it is difficult to use logic and factual observations to establish fundamental truth and the reliance, instead, falls under a 'foundational principle' for believers alone.

I'm proud of my college for teaching Critical Thinking ,and after they teach it to you they expect you to do it!
love that

no spin no BS we taught you how to think now think! oh and you must think creatively outside the box!

makes dealing with the real world really tough

There is a part of critical thinking which was taught but seldom acknowledge, inherent with our flaws as humans, and that is the continual ASSumptions over that which governs our 5 senses. As long as any events or issues that does not make our 5 senses respond, that critical thinking programming kicks in and ASSumes that those issues and events are stubbornly held as false.

This is a greater danger to critical thinking, for to rely on our 5 senses alone as the hallmark of our existance, it would mean we will only IGNORANTLY deny the validity of something that even though unexplainable today, remains a fact, even though no matter how localized they are, and it is the 6th sense.

For example, if a forest fire is burning a mile away in the middle of the night, and crosswinds are blowing the scents and sounds of the fire away from you, would you belived if someone caring called you on the phone to quickly run away? More often than not, you will disregard the info as a prank for your 5 senses does not respond, and continue to sleep in a deep slumber.

But unfortunately, as fire will touch any dry material regardless of wind conditions, soon your own home is engulfed with fire. The smell of burning cause your senses to respond, but too late, your front door is already on fire and creeping up your electrical cables into your room. You try to run, but to no avail, as the speed of the malestrom is at the speed of light, too fast even to say your last prayer, if any, as you burn to dust.

Thus, my point is, critical thinking is all well and good, as it is based on rationality. But we must also take into effect for considerations over issues that cannot be scientifically explained, but a fact nevertheless based upon experience of not just one, but may testimonials, of the unexplained 6th sense, which many others had accepted, experienced and fine tuned into a factor for consideration and accomplished much in life with such evolved thinking,regardless the myraid difference of each individual human being....

Originally posted by SeekerofTruth101
Thus, my point is, critical thinking is all well and good, as it is based on rationality. But we must also take into effect for considerations over issues that cannot be scientifically explained, but a fact nevertheless based upon experience of not just one, but may testimonials, of the unexplained 6th sense, which many others had accepted and accomplished much in life with such evolved thinking,....

There is another factor at work as well... the reliability assigned by the sleeper to the caller warning of the fire. Had it been one I consider a practical joker who once lit a bag of poo at my doorstep and rang the bell before hiding behind a bush, I MIGHT ignore it. On the other hand, if the caller is known to me as dependable, I doubt I'd go back to sleep without checking the night sky for the tell-tale orange sign of nearby flames.

However, you are correct... there is a need to assess the truth of a statement.

Does it correspend to truth?
Is the statement coherent?
Is it pragmatic?

This can be deduced by either empirical truth claims or non-empirical truth claims. The latter are secure beliefs serving as justifying reason.

reply to post by JohhnyBGood


friggin commies man !

however I have faith in our institutions... it would be obvious we had already fallen from the mass civil rights era of the 60's and 70's but the truth survived it. I have heard it said you can not kill an idea.

I think the country is not doing all that bad either, unless we are only hearing the liberal-biased news medias who would wish to make it so. However the nation is doing much better than any era I have experienced in the 80's or 90's people were roughing it as would seem to me...

every group has their time on top is really the only thing I have noticed, that is probably why things are the way they are... it is the only thing that will work as we have learned from history (all in my opinion of course) freedom is free and truth is free, the main three rules I apply and follow are (1. do no harm to others, 2. threat others as you would have them treat you, 3. love your neighbor) these laws trump any law one would institute or buy into effect in order for one to live under.

truth always wins...

Critical Thinking has been one of my favorite courses in University thus far. It actually changed my thought process on a lot of things and definitely improved me as an individual.

I find it funny how quickly this thread on critical thinking lead to people making arguments that lacked any critical thinking at all. Do they even know what it actually is? xD

I see it all the time on ATS that people lack the skills to make a sound and valid (sorry if I am mixing up or using the wrong words here I seem to have forgotten their precise meanings lol) argument which is critical to establishing their points. Typically these posters end up personally attacking everyone else or the person laying out a counter claim.

I was also tremendously shocked at how Jared Loughner seemed to have no ability to use this skill. Maybe teaching critical thinking could prevent fatal attacks like these by enabling the person to critically assess their thoughts.

At the same time critical thinking can be seen as a threat to the social order and establishment. Critical thinking can be "transcendental" of concepts that we have been led to believe. Instead of accepting all information willingly with open arms, rather we would be able to assess and decide for ourselves if the info presented is valid.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
You said "the philosophies and ideas of the Protestants are directly worded and stated in the Constitution". The Protestants are Christians. Please cite the christianity and/or its philosophies in the Constitution.

yes good eye there... the ideals which drafted this document are reflected in the constitution, try giving it a read first.

If you would like to sit through a logical debate on the subject using established histories you will find that the Protestant reformation kicked Catholicism's right in the chops and established this free nation which is sited so many times all around you and in founding documents. (Catholicism is the Christianity you are thinking of) The United States are "reformed" Britons mainly, although thankfully I am of the Hungarian variety, first generation born here... my mom was brought over when she was 9 years old... I think we all know why by now.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
see God is not allowed in schools in America

That is a huge myth. Children can bring their religious texts to read at lunch time. Children can pray at any given time. What is not allowed is school-sponsored prayers such as teachers leading a class in prayer.

Critical thinking, folks. Let's use it...

There is tragic irony in these words. One would think that a critical thinker knows what a myth is. Indeed, the Bible of which it is fairly presumed Cosmic Artifact is lamenting is not being allowed in schools is a collection of myths. It is mythology in every sense of the word. This is not to challenge or question the factual validity of the Bible by calling it myth, as opposed to the way traditionaldrummer has used the word, I use the word in the way it was intended to be used. To describe the stories by which various origins, tales of gods, or a God, and heroic tales are told. Mythology follows a specific structure, regardless of who or what culture is telling that myth, and they are intended to be life lessons. A critical thinker might not inherently know this, but a critical thinker would come to know this.

The insidious use of the word myth to equate it with falsehood is problematic. While Spiderman is a myth, and any critical thinker knows that it is highly unlikely that a radioactive spider bite will confer onto a human superpowers, this is not the point of Spiderman, and the universal truths that are spoken by this extremely popular myth are what make it so popular. "With great power comes great responsibility" is not a falsehood, it is a truism, and this is the power of the myth. Myths act as life lessons for us. They offer instructions in how we should act, and they inspire us to be more than who we are.

When the word myth is reduced to becoming just another word for falsehood, or lie, and this becomes a cultural meme within a population that largely eschews critical thinking in favor of regurgitation of emotion, then the power of the myth becomes diminished. Whether it be Jesus, Heracles, Thor, King Arthur, Superman, or Batman, these are epic mythological hero's who serve as models for us, and instruct us in how to act as hero's ourselves. To declare Jesus as the ultimate mythological hero should be a sign of respect, but in today's society it runs the risk of being taken as a sleight towards Jesus, simply because a word that once meant what it was supposed to mean has been hijacked to become just another word for lie, or falsehood.

As the O.P. said and as the articles quoted suggested, critical thinking is a discipline that requires hard work and constant vigilance. We are, after all emotional beings, and it is all too easy to fall prey to our emotions, to our gut reactions, to our personal biases, and to react instead of act. To be the effect rather than be cause. Hard work indeed.

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
friggin commies man !

What is the EXACT definition of 'friggin' and 'commies'? You are not specific. Friggin isn't even a word without a 'g' at the end, and, if added, becomes a sexual act. When we talk about 'commies', you might be referring to a wide range of political social structures as well as those which rise from the ground up. You are NOT very clear.

however I have faith in our institutions... it would be obvious we had already fallen from the mass civil rights era of the 60's and 70's but the truth survived it. I have heard it said you can not kill an idea.

Faith is a non-empirical truth claim, yet you assign it to institutions rather than belief. You say we have 'fallen from the mass civil rights era', but provide no empirical datta to back it up. You say truth survived it, yet allow no notion of what that truth is. You say you cannot kill an idea and yet ideas die all the time, especially when they are found to be illogical.

I think the country is not doing all that bad either,

Do you think so or know so? If you think so, you either believe it through empirical evidence or it's just wishful thinking. BTW... I dislike double negatives. They're so wishy washy.

However the nation is doing much better than any era I have experienced in the 80's or 90's people were roughing it as would seem to me...

That you 'experienced' the 80's and 90's assumes you were in control of your own life at that time, which makes you at least 50 years old in order to say that. Are you? It has been MY experience (and I'm approaching 65) that the economic times are WORSE than I have seen since I began working for a living.

truth always wins...

Tell that to the 90% of the population of this planet. They might disagree.

Originally posted by ThisIsMyName
I find it funny how quickly this thread on critical thinking lead to people making arguments that lacked any critical thinking at all. Do they even know what it actually is? xD

I have my suspicions that some indeed have no idea what it is. Making grandiose statements on (i.e.) media bias is, in a world connected through the internet, a bit lame, imho. It does not depend on the media, but instead on the user of the various media to discern fact from irrational techniques of persuasion like loaded/vague terms, loaded questions, false confidences, selectivity, misleading statistics, humor, strawman arguments, guilt by association and, my favourite, persuasive redefinition (which I'm seeing a lot of in this thread).

We, as net denizens, should know that whatever media exists on the planet also has come to the interwebz. If you wish to know the Chinese stance on North Korea's latest debacles, you need not check out CNN or FOX alone but can actually get a more rounded view by visiting the news outlets of China itself and a variety of other sources, like S Korea, Japan, Australia, etc.

To assign liberality to the media is blinkered and a symptom of severe tunnel vision, imho, and indicates lazy research.

Originally posted by Cosmic.Artifact
yes good eye there... the ideals which drafted this document are reflected in the constitution, try giving it a read first.

Thank you.

Please cite the christianity and/or its philosophies in the Constitution.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


interesting and well drafted response there... wish I was as expressive an graceful.

indeed the pun is mightier than the sword

metaphors are just another way of understanding the literal, it is having the sense of both which matter "I think"

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
There is tragic irony in these words. One would think that a critical thinker knows what a myth is. Indeed, the Bible of which it is fairly presumed Cosmic Artifact is lamenting is not being allowed in schools is a collection of myths. It is mythology in every sense of the word. This is not to challenge or question the factual validity of the Bible by calling it myth, as opposed to the way traditionaldrummer has used the word, I use the word in the way it was intended to be used. To describe the stories by which various origins, tales of gods, or a God, and heroic tales are told.

myth

the body of stories associated with a culture or institution or person

This is a proper definition. Are you asserting otherwise or simply implying I have used incorrect definitions in order to give your point more merit?

To me, one of the trickiest things to do when attempting critical thinking is to separate emotions from the empirical. It's not that it's so hard to do...it's just that it takes focus and concerted effort, especially if you've fallen into some sloppy conversational habits or are reacting to a bombardment of stressful events.

None of us is perfect, of course, even when we try our hardest. But what worries me most is that it's beginning to appear that more and more people are not even attempting it. And I'm no expert here either, but there just might be a correlation here between the decline of critical thinking and the rise of both apathy and at least a couple of types of relativism, moral relativism perhaps being the top among them.

This is a great thread, if a little intimidating. Been following it for a while. More more more.

reply to post by Cosmic.Artifact


Before we move on, could you please FULLY answer this?

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
Please cite the christianity and/or its philosophies in the Constitution.

The thread is about critical thinking where empirical facts. if anywhere near, should be added to the debate.

This generation the studies are mentioning has been raised to be nothing but consumers. "Good" consumers don't ask, don't think. They just buy.

Buy buy buy.

Buy some more.

They want you to buy using emotions, because that's what the marketers can control. A person with refined critical thinking skills can not be effectively persuaded by emotion.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer
I'd say I'm fairly well composed in systematically defeating your arguments. Do I detect a bit of projection on your part? I mean, you could have risen to the challenge of supporting your claims successfully instead of issuing the above ad hominem, claiming I am "slain" when your claims are defeated.

sorry TD, I try to use alot of metaphor too much... it is a condition I have, I am left-handed, but in no way does that mean I am a leftist or orientated in that way politically or by way of thinking. The "slain" simply means to me metaphorically how tortured souls sound in alot of books I have read or even from movies, it just means cries of torment to me. It really was not directed at you this go round because I did say quite literally "beginning to sound" but no offense, I am just learning Kung-fu and am getting lots of help fashioning it from user input.

In any case, this thread is being derailed with more God hang ups.

if we read the opening from the OP and then we watch the video... about 3/4 of the way through it derails itself, I stepped in to comment about it, being that the beginning of the video starts with a fisher of men analogy.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


I am saying first and foremost that you have used the word myth to equate it with falsehood. Even the simplistic definition you have provided doesn't equate myth with falsehood. Secondly, I am saying that myths are far more than such a simplistic definition can provide, and a critical thinker cannot rely on lexicons to come to understand what myths are, and must be willing to dig deeper and do some research.

Certainly both Freud and Jung understood the power of the myth:

he psychoanalytical perspective on myth was unavoidable. When the study of myths and religions intensified through the 19th century, patterns of them were extracted and compared, and theories on what they revealed about common human conditions emerged. Myths were increasingly seen as expressions of needs in the human psyche.

www.stenudd.com...

Expression of needs in the human psyche could also serve as a definition of the myth, and yet not even this definition does the myth justice. So important was mythology to Jung that it profoundly influenced his theories of personal unconscious and collective unconscious:

But then Jung adds the part of the psyche that makes his theory stand out from all others: the collective unconscious. You could call it your "psychic inheritance." It is the reservoir of our experiences as a species, a kind of knowledge we are all born with. And yet we can never be directly conscious of it. It influences all of our experiences and behaviors, most especially the emotional ones, but we only know about it indirectly, by looking at those influences.

Jung broke this collective unconscious down to archetypes:

The contents of the collective unconscious are called archetypes. Jung also called them dominants, imagos, mythological or primordial images, and a few other names, but archetypes seems to have won out over these. An archetype is an unlearned tendency to experience things in a certain way.

And he used his understanding of mythology in a big way to explain many of these archetypes.

webspace.ship.edu...

However, Jung, and to a lesser degree Freud, were concerned with the psychoanalysis of the myth. More recently we have had figures such as Joseph Campbell, who was renowned for being the leading mythologist of his time. Of course, Campbell could not have been the leading mythologist of his time if there weren't other mythologist besides him. That there are mythologists speaks to the importance of the myth, or what Campbell would say is the power of the myth, and that myth is far more than simply being a body of stories associated with a culture or an institution.

Indeed, Campbell points out that myths transcend culture and institutions and showed the remarkable similarities of the myths of various cultures. In doing this he mapped out the structure of the hero's journey, of which he called the "monomyth".

hubcap.clemson.edu...

Reducing the word myth as a term used to dismiss another persons assertion does neither the argument being made when using the word in that context, nor mythology, any justice at all.