ease up
Today Victoria told me in the car
"Hey, you need to ease up"
The pressure I mount on myself is not blindly induced, but it's to curb pride and complacency. Although this had done it, the pressure sometimes is a bit too much.
It takes time for me to realize that I've piled so much pressure that I finally sit back and laugh at it.
And it will be the greatest piece of knowledge I will gain this year:
Ease up.
Labels: resolutions
mistake
loathe stupidity, loathe carelessness.
but no serious sin to commit a mistake once than to repeat the same :)
move on, but apologize,
and be thankful for their care and concern and some's pardon.
no identical mistake ever.
Labels: mistakes
Case of skeptics QP
The previous post,
the case of the skeptics, was a quick paper. Done in 3 hours with little previous preparation except for inspiration and drive.
But this 3200 page paper must be improved! For several things:
1. Spelling errors
2. Structural errors
3. WHERE ARE THE COUNTERCLAIMS? (But please excuse it first, for it's the proposition side.)
Still the longest post ever written, and I think it's something worth researching. I even thought of reading up on stuff on reasoning ability, knowledge, critical theory, and perspectives to gain a better insight to the matter. Well I'm definitely going to read, but how far? And how long, or how good will this whole paper be?
Well, I will plan to write 4 more posts for "the case of the skeptics":
1. The analysis on the 4 levels of knowledge
2. The need for criticism
3. Case against the skeptics
4. Counterclaims for and against skeptics
Damn, it will take some time.
Labels: quick papers
the case of the skeptics
With the premises of human understanding and limited potential in knowledge gain always results between the conflicts of the skeptics and believers. Though both sides play a functional role to reaching a more whole, all-rounded, tested and refined understanding, the tension between these 2 are biased with a under-recognized view: the biased perception of the skeptic's seemingly more intelligent mind through the eyes of the third or first person. Amongst the reasons for me writing this quick paper is the surfacing of too many superficial believers and skeptics. One theory upon another counter-theory, the formation of rather absurd conspiracy theories, people criticising and being skeptical just for the sake of being different, people being swayed from one belief to another, being convinced by one arguement and another, and falseful manipulation of emotions to achieve these goals had made me think of the case of the skeptic. What I'm talking about now is not my dislike to criticism, but rather, what results to those absurdous superficial criticisms, and thereon, what results to, and causes people to buy into these claims. Also, I'm examining the stance and position the skeptic has in these situations.
Beyond all doubt, understanding towards an issue can never be the same if not for the presence of questions, doubts and criticism. Some seek to clarify, some seek to destroy claims for their joy (not many of these exist though haha), some seek to vitiate claims within the premises of the very fundamental postulates.
What must be understood is that these 2 groups of people play completely different roles, and the success (by how far they had served their roles) isn't measured by the emotions evoked in the argument, but must, instead be weighed in terms of reasoning and understanding towards the situation. Now you will probably be thinking "wtf is this paragraph about?", lol.
The case of skeptics illustrates the advantage skeptics and critics have in an argument. Although there is no reason whatsoever which side should be more powerful in terms of convincing power, the skeptic, I believe, has some advantage in terms of convincing a neutral audience. But before I go on, I must underline this very important model. The 4 levels of knowledge refinement:
Level 1- The innocent believer
Level 2- The innocent skeptic
Level 3- The knowledgable skeptic
Level 4- The knowledgable synthesis between skeptic and believer
By just serving the role of the skeptic and critic, one brings to mind the doubts and weaknesses of the existing belief system. And this evokes emotions and brings to question in the minds of the bystander the validity or credibility of the current belief system. Why does this happen? Amongst the main cause of this is the majority's takes on their beliefs and emotions. Over-reliance on emotions cause loose convictions and weak beliefs held by us in the first place. Many a time, we follow what "seems right" and go after whatever that strikes an emotional resonance within us. And this over-reliance on the gut can be quite fatal. Thus, firstly, is the problem on the side of the believers.
The Weak Believer - Emotionally SwayedSupplement industries, fat loss firms incite fear upon the viewer by creating a false image of a fat person, that he's undesirable, unhealthy and ugly. The word "fat" is no longer a noun, nor a description, but rather it now takes on a functional role, caused by the advertising fad in the late 20th century. And thus, the desire to look slim elevates amongst people, not jut that being slim is more attractive, but rather, these ads had struck such emotional resonance that they detest the very perception of their size and "fatness", and fear being rejected from their very social circles. They will then introduce their latest drug to combat this very fugly problem, providing reasons like "melting away fat, pulsing them away.." and remember the
igallop's reasoning? It said it pulses away fat (tones the butt) by imitating the way the butt feels when it's on a saddle? Anyone could buy into that sort of reasoning, though not many did.
Religious organizations, through their efforts to win someone over, goes through a process of making one feel empty, making him question himself before showing "God" to be the way out. Well, I proudly proclaim myself to be a christian. I'm not against christianity, but rather, I'm against what some people try to do. Although the way they win people over is nothing wrong, but sometimes they prompt them too hard, and that results to a very superficial, emotional-based acceptance of God and proclaimation of a belief. There was once I even met a friend who said that if he were to meet the dumb people, it would be great. Why? Because he will just believe without questioning too much. But this blind, emotional commitment is the very recipe for disbelief and internal disaster when subjected to questioning. If a believer is made to feel empty, and then he is quickly introduced to God, he will find a quick, surging emotional need to fill that void. And thus, he quickly accepts God. However, just as quick and emotional this commitment started off, he will be subject to deep doubt when being asked "how do you even know your God exists?" The major flaw, in some cases, lies not in the believe system, but in the believer.
The Weak Believer - His Associations With The HerdOur emotional brain led us to make snap judgements based on our gut. The negative consequences of snap judgements (NOT emotions), is insurmountable. Easily influenced by numbers and the herd, the human mind normally tends towards the beliefs of the many, or the herd around him. Which this leads to is a very superficial understanding of the subject matter. As humans are very emotional beings, towards any situation or issue, they will tend to have a certain emotional preference and bias. There is a popular belief that when a group of people come together, the average intelligence and knowledge increases. But this is not always true, in terms of the confines of gaining true knowledge. Consider this situation of a meeting of 4 friends: Ash, Vin, Asa, and Lie. Ash is currently a hardcore democrat, while Asa, not a very hardcore democrat, also supports Obama for his policies which will affect him home country, Indonesia. Vin is a neutral person, and Lie is a neutral voter who was indonesian. The meeting of 4 friends result in a final outcome where all 4 expressed support for Obama. Though one may think that they had a deeper understanding of politics, they had not, because in the meeting, Ash convinces Asa, who then persuades Lie who then influences Vin. All of whom had a one-sided understanding towards the going-ons of the elections. While everyone knew about Obama, none had a comprehensive view of the opposition leader, none of them had a complete understanding towards the candidates and thus the entire elections. Why is this so? Because the conversation is centered on the goodness of Obama as a candidate. Because the group is dominated by pro-Obama supporters, the resultant preferance lie towards Obama, so the overall understanding of the big picture is compromized.
This example illustrate the flaw in our methods of knowing. While so emotionally charged, we are also influenced by the non-neutral herd and thus our understanding and knowledge becomes biased. The implications are huge: firstly, this brings many of the 'knowledge' we have to doubt. Though we claim to believe in something, our opinions may be greatly altered by the confirmation bias of the biased herd. And second, this explains, also, the formation of counter-theories like conspiracy theories. Many of which are based on weak postualtes and assumptions. Why do they materialize? Part of which is due to the emotional brain, and our tendancy to rely on the herd, leading to flawed reasoning and interpretation of matters. This explains the advantage which skeptics have on believers - many believers hadn't much all-rounded understanding towards the matter, but instead, base their understanding from the knowledge of others. It's circular; everyone bases their understanding on each other's knowledge. And this is the power skeptics have: they force the believer to think from another perspective and consider claims which his bias had never allowed him to before. It's quite like a spider web floating in space, not anchored properly on sound assumptions and claims. The attack of even the smallest rock could deform the web and spin it out of control.
Aside from the problems with the believers, the advantage of the skeptics have in an arguement lies in their mere role as the skeptics. What makes skeptics sound so powerful is accentuated by 2 things. As said, it's the fault of believers, as we've discussed earlier, and the easiness it is to be a skeptic.
The Fleeting AttackSkeptics have a natural advantage over the believers in their ability to raise doubts and cause believes to question themselves. Furthermore, the role of the skeptics is to raise questions, but not answer them. What I mean is, their barrage of questions are not even required to be considered to be answered by the critic. The advantage the skeptic has is that he can take advantage of the limits of human understanding. There are things in this world that we just don't understand. The skeptics take advantage of this and ask "why does this happen? If your belief is true, why is this happening?" Certainly, I'm not stating an excuse for insufficient belief, but the holes every belief has because of the things we don't understand.
"How do you know God is here?"
"Because he works in my life."
"How?"
"Because when i needed help he was there. For examples......blablabla...."
"How do you know if it's him or is it pure luck?"
"Well, he not only worked once, but many times, for example..... he also made the impossbile happen before. For example, he healed my cancer."
"But you should also know that many of these are psychological, I mean, you THINK he's working, but actually it's luck, or even your inner will. This is the confirmation bias, see, when you take a neutral example and interpret it biasedly towards your belief system."
"You may be right, but what's the probability that so many improbable outcomes happen at once?"
"It may well ALL be luck, or thing you don't know which function at the background which aids your luck at that point of time."
"But what's the probability it's all luck?"
"Well, not very high, but it still exists. And for that, the claim of your God is flawed. There's still this tiny chance that your God doesn't exists. And also, you can't hear, feel, smell, nor see him. If he is God, why can't he reveal himself?"
In this conversation between a atheiest and a believer, we can see the arguements the atheist bases his arguement on. The problem here is that, the atheiest is trying to rationalize something far bigger than the confines of our understanding. Something even the believer doesn't understand. The skeptics could take this little portion which no one really fully understands and blow it up, and calling it a serious flaw.
The perfect systemFor a believe system to be very sound, it needs to be very, very coherent and work towards the goal of perfection. This is to be able to fend off the attacks of skeptics, as skeptics could take on any small flaw or contradiction in the system, blow it up, and render the entire system flawed. The the above example, the christian believe system is rendered to be flawed because the person can't answer all the questions. But the problem is, not one person would be able to answer the very nature of God, for not one can fully understand that. What makes the skeptic so convincing and powerful the first part of the statement: any small loophole renders it false. What they do not look at is this: not even I, nor anyone, can understand that.
The skeptic attacks a belief with a counter-claim, but had not the need to fully justify it as the believer justified his claim (plus the believer needs full knowledge of the belief to be able to properly couter the critic). The power of the skeptic is in his ability to raise doubts by provoking the emotional functions of the human. Consider a situation of a government decision to build a nuclear plant. The plant is designed such that it's very safe, that any meltdown or even a missile attack on the power plant, the reactor core will remain unaffected.
Reporter - "what if a plane, loaded with explosives, crashes into the power-plant. The consequences are insurmoutable."
Spokesman - "no, as crash tests and computer simulations have shown, that though the power plant will be damaged, the reactor core remains intact and unaffected"
"so what if 3 planes, loaded with 2 tons of explosives, crash simultaneously into the powerplant, the probability of a meltdown must have be very high, right?"
"True, it will be higher. But what is the probability of this happening?"
"Very low, but it still exists."
The critic preys of fear of the people by imagining every situation possible to crack the beliefs and trust people have in a certain claim or belief. Similar to the previous example of the arguement between the atheiest and the believer, the critics create their own circumstances and play on human doubt and emotions, such that even the most improbable of situations will turn out to be very very real. Although things may be very improbable in the minds of the bystander. By taking advatage of human emotions, the sheer improbability of situations turn out be so real. Such as, the fear of a nuclear meltdown turns the risk of the planes crashing into the reactor so real, and so, the critic wins the support of the masses, although his claims are very improbable, not very valid, and actually very funny.
There is no system that is perfect, and very few beliefs to be near perfection. There is always that very small probability of something cropping up. There is always a small aspect of something that we don't fully understand. The critic uses all these, however small or big, to win over the support of the people, to win over the views of the people.
The Chord of EmotionAnd as I've discussed earlier, that people are emotional creatures, the critic's claims, whether intentional or not, alters emotions within people and can thus manipulate their viewpoints with little difficulty. Also, the innocently believing will be swayed to be the innocently skeptical people. The problem of all these is that it's circular. Some people are won to beliefs because of their emotional states and what "feels right". And they are swayed by the skeptics who provoke their emotions, and also the emotions of the bystander and makes their claims (seem logical).
One such example is seen in the of the elections in Singapore. Opposition leader speak and speak about the failures of the PAP. Rather common views that I expected. And what do these do? They evoke emotions within the viewer, and by winning over his agreement and support, the supporter is blinded by the opposition's inability to address the issue. It's one thing to raise an issue, but it's a totally different story to try to solve it. The issue here, is that many people are won over by the vituperation of the PAP of their failures and flaws in certain areas. But the problem is, their emotional siding with the opposition (because the criticisms strike an emotional resonance amongst the people, so much that they see the opposition as their savior, their true representative and someone who understands their feelings) had failed consider the true ability of the opposition to do a better job than the PAP. I am not a PAP supporter (neutral btw), and in fact, am unhappy with some of its policies. But the game of the critics and skepticism never ends. It's explored in such superficial levels in fact.
The OffensiveAside from the perfect system and the emotional resonance effect, the skeptic also has a psychological advantage over the believer in the eyes of the bystander, in my opinion. The skeptic takes on an offensive stance, one who has a point to make, one who has something to prove, one who goes against the system. In some ways, he is seen to have a mind of his own. And the implication is that his views and questions are seen to be well thought-out. It has an adverse effect on the bystander, because the skeptic is not seen to be one of "the masses" who "blindly" follow an idea, but rather, has a clear mind of what he's doing because of his different stance.
In fact, the skeptic IS different. He challenges the views of the people believing something. And this challenge stretches one's beliefs and faith, and thus the power of the skeptic. He creates a tension between himself and the believers, and the belief and the believers. And thus, the influence of the skeptic cannot be understated.
But also, the psychological advantage makes it so easy for a skeptic to be a superficial one, or someone who tries to win public opinion. Again, this is seen in the example of the opposition parties, as they list things detestable about the PAP without fully justifying it. The skeptic is powerful, he's alone, he has his own views, he strikes a resonance within me, he's different, he makes me think. But he can't suggest anything useful either. This advantage makes it so easy to become a skeptic. Or, more specifically, a superficial skeptic.
The case of the skeptics is therefore defined by 2 things: the problem with the believers, and the problem of superficial criticism. These are stemmed by our human nature: the over-reliance on the gut and believing what we want to believe. I believe, the best way to solve this problem is through a process of self-questioning and careful consideration before accepting a view. No quick judgement must be taken, no snap opnions must be accepted at face value. As for the skeptics, he must have a sense of responsiblity. Just as he is concerned with the situation, he must show and effort towards bettering the knowledge, instead of passing fleeting statements. For the bystander, he must understand the effects of emotions, carefully weighing the knowledge advanced and the knowledge created, not just the knowledge challenged in the arguement.
The work towards a better understanding must come with the bettering of knowledge and the using of one's valid reasoning skills. He cannot blindly accept the flow of the norm, nor what seems right to be his belief. He must constantly reflect, and must constantly criticize his beliefs to better his understanding towards the subject. Too, he must accept different opinions and evaluate it through cognitive analysis for the validity of such claims.
Such, is hard to do, and thus, the healing power of the good skeptic can become quite useless.
Labels: quick papers
