From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Sun Mar 30 2003 - 19:18:15 MST
--- Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
> Anders writes
> > The serial [way to spread memes] looks like this:
> ----- You start
> > with one reasonable conclusion, which leads to
> another, which leads
> > to another, and so on. Eventually you end up in
> really wild thinking.
> > Which is reasonable if each step in the chain has
> been correct.
>
> But is this how we actually *ever* think? Even in
> math?
I, for one, tend to think that way. At least when
dealing with known, solid facts. I do, of course,
also
share the limit he noted on assuming things too far
out
when based on not totally reliable data, as often
happens with real world situations - but it is at
least
useful for predicting highly likely events that others
tend to miss. It is just one technique, though.
> Somehow, I always know
> where I'm
> going before the chains of reasoning start.
Intuition-justification, where one's subconscious
heuristics suggest a possibility, so you toss it
through conscious logic to see if it pans out.
Sometimes intuition is perfectly correct; other times
it turns out to be dangerously misleading if blindly
obeyed. More often, intuition gives you part of the
picture, and formal logic gives you the rest,
including
nuances that your subconcious can further key off of.
Properly tuned, this cycle can be almost precognitive,
at least compared to minds unused to effectively
predicting the future. Now, how to robustly tune this
cycle is a matter of wide debate, which has been
touched on in some aspects at least since the ancient
Greek philosophers.
> > Most people are never convinced by a long logical
> deduction, but
> > they are convinced by seeing evidence or ideas
> again and again.
>
> Yes, exactly so. The only purpose that I know of to
> lay out all
> the arguments carefully in a long thesis is to
> reassure the believers.
> (In math, there is one additional reason: to become
> absolutely
> certain of something you already believe. Andrew
> Wiles already
> strongly believed in Fermat's Last Theorem, and
> intuited that he
> was just inches away from proving it.)
There are areas beyond math where this is true, but in
general this usually only works when discussing
science
or engineering, and then with scientsits or engineers
(or others who have been trained in similar sytles of
thinking). This, by itself, can explain many of the
"geek" trends, whose appeal is nearly or totally
invisible to those who can not even perceive tbe kind
of thinking behind them. (Likewise, many of the
heuristic-based but ultimately illogical trends in
mass culture are at best clouded to most engineers and
scientists, especially when the heuristics are based
on
data the engineers and scientists tend to dismiss as
irrelevant.)
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