From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Sat Jan 04 2003 - 23:38:08 MST
Lee Corbin wrote:
> As for
> "intolerable complexity", I don't happen to find it so.
> Now "the nature of consciousness", "the two envelopes problem",
> and the dismal science I find incredibly---but not intolerably
> ---complex.
Breezy, breezy, breezy. My use of the word "almost" slipped right by:
]]me: I think the entire arena of creating and bringing up new human or AI lives is,
]]me: and always has been, *charged* with issues of almost intolerable complexity.
When you have a teenager berate you for bringing her or him into the world,
you gain fresh access to grasp of the near-intolerability of which I speak.
But when i look around, there's a lot of human "expertise" that seems to read:
"Kids? Nothin' to it! Fuck, squirt 'em out, wipe 'em off and then do whatever you want until they're
big enough to whup you rather than t'other way 'round. Wander off to die when they stop feeding you."
I seek better than that. I'm sure you do too. It's not *you* I'm worried about.
>>Edward de Bono has famously said "Critical thinking is cheap thinking."
>>Lots of rhetoric, including pop-up Socratic dialogs, seems cheap to me, too.
>
>
> Socratic dialogues, especially those written by Plato, aren't
> what I'd call cheap, but each to his own taste. As for critical
> thinking, I find it indispensable and am surprised you don't.
You appear to be unfamiliar with de Bono--he likes to frame simple observations in provocative
(and thus memorable) ways--and you have apparently decided that "cheap"and "indispensible" are
somehow at odds. From this you think I find it dispensible. Adjectives are tricky. If you want to
compliment an Eames or Shaker chair, you can call it "iconic" or "elegant"; if you want to slam it
you can call it "angular" or "rudimentary". What changed? Not the chair.
Anyway: Air is cheap where I come from, as is water. Neither is dispensible, both have
advantages and limitations which are both neatly packed into the adjective. As another example,
most houses are built with cheap techniques. Even so, there are building codes.
Now please consider: smarties and everyone else in this culture are taught habits of thought such that after
(1) rearranging one's prejudices (not really thinking much--jumping to conclusions, etc.), and
(2) critical thinking (which we do indeed observe is often not employed, een by smarties),
there is a huuuuge gap in difficulty (or at least, in frequency of employment).
Typically, smarties feel smarter because they at least do (2), as well as (1). They are praised for it.
Other kinds of thinking are readily seen to be less frequently fostered than either of the first two kinds.
de Bono slices thinking up 6 ways (the "Six Thinking Hats" of the eponymous book) to try to help promote
the conscious employment of more than just what the culture (especially the "brainy" subculture) holds up.
de Bono suggests that cheap thinking of the form "Find the fatal logical flaw, knock
the heresy down, and move on" became ensconced in this culture around the time of Augustine--
because there were so many heresies and so little time. Cheap, in this context, maps well to "efficient".
He's British-Maltese, so there's a little less of an onus on the word for him. "Inexpensive" doesn't have
qite the punch of "cheap", though, and I believe he _was_ intending some provoation. Rightly, in so far as
I think a wise person must be aware of the limitations of critical thinking when used, e.g., as a club.
Winning the argument being more important than finding the right goes back farther than that, though.
I include some of "Socrates" in that camp. Win the argument! NEXT! Do we seek the good, or the true?
Settle for winning the argument! NEXT!
Houses and civilzations aren't built just by winning arguments. Even winning them brilliantly.
> First, I would say that it's not reality that is inconsistent,
> it is only our ideas and interpretations that can be.
And our observations, and our categories.
And thus, our rules and heuristics must be. Which is my point. I do agree that we should reduce this
tension when practical, rather than retreat to commitment, etc.
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