Fundamental difference in ability to understand surroundings

[TZK]

Your mind automates processes that help you achieve your goals with extreme consistency, such as reaching to turn off your alarm clock that is always in the same place, or the specifics of how to operate a vehicle.

 

Reasoning processes are not exempt from this and because of this a conflict occurs.

 

On one hand, we start with a natural drive to generalize concepts from our experiences - recognizing patterns between different experiences and cutting out the specifics that are not part of what the concept is. These can then be applied to many different situations and related to other concepts to create a system of understanding - a solid process with relatively little chance of error.

 

Type C Comprehendant

 

This, however, does not allow for persuasion of others as well as simply relating different experiences by metaphor. Since many human goals are socially oriented, it stands to reason that this process would become automated as well - at the expense of reasoning ability.

 

Arguments come to be evaluated based on their ability to convince others rather than their ability to model the real world. A fragmented collection of such metaphorical arguments is retained, unable to be networked into a system of understanding due to the unknown differences in the compared ideas.

 

Attempts at understanding the bigger picture are bogged down by attempts to identify such differences. The perceived value of "thinking" is diminished and human reason is regarded as generally inept and subservient to social pressures.

Type B Comprehendant "Rationals"

 

Some however are imprinted with the value of solving real world problems early on, their Bayesian probability driven minds forever inoculating them from the aforementioned decay of reasoning ability.

 

These people cannot be convinced that tools of persuasion are more important than tools of understanding. Some form of tragedy or abuse is typically the cause, with a higher frequency of such people occurring during bad times. These people are at first unable to reconcile their realistic model of their surroundings with the beliefs and behavior of their peers and therefore may simply avoid people and perform tasks afforded to them by their reasoning abilities.

 

Due to a lack of complex social interaction, animals and young children may fall into this category for reasons other than the rationals.

 

Type A Comprehendant "Masterminds"

 

Class B thinkers who have extended their system of understanding to people, or perhaps even (god willing) class C people who have come to see the value of logical thinking. These people feel empowered relative to other people due to their systematic understanding of all the underlying truths of social interaction and structures. This allows them to take social actions that others would consider doomed to failure, but do them in such a way that allows them to succeed.

 

These people can effectively use metaphors as tools of persuasion, knowing that they are nothing more than tools to pry open the minds of others so that logical arguments can then be presented.

 

Example:

 

What is honor? Type C thinker:

 

"Honor is like sportsmanship in sports. You ever play baseball? You know how you are supposed to take off your hat and shake your opponents hand win or lose? That is kind of like honor.

 

Response: So if an honorable knight wins an engagement with an enemy force, should he take off his helmet and shake hands with any survivors or is this not part of how honor is like sportsmanship? What if the enemy simply takes advantage of this to kill the knight? What is honorable about such action?

 

What is honor? Type B/A thinker

 

Knights and Judges are both honorable and the only thing similar between them is that they both follow rules for the benefit of a greater purpose.

 

Integrity refers to the ability of something to adhere to or perform its purpose and is dependent on the honor of any human participants.

 

The integrity of a competition depends on the honor of participants, for if the loser(s) break the rules out of spite then no one can truly win and the point of the competition is defeated from the start.

 

Morality condemns actions which harm the majority of enlightened individuals for the benefit of a minority.

 

Order is the frequency with which people's plans succeed because they had access to all necessary information. Chaos is the frequency of failure of such plans due to lack of information. Chaos is deemed undesirable by the enlightened majority because it means random suffering and is therefore immoral.

 

People who refuse to honor the rules of an idea or event that they agreed to follow create chaos and therefore have behaved immorally. Therefore honor is a moral imperative.

 

etc etc..

[questor]

What is all this about? Is there something new here to learn? Honor is good, morality is good... yes, we know that. These values are taught to children by parents with good values. How were the original good values conceived?

By centuries of people learning to live with each other, usually by religious

teachings.

[HydrogenBond]

Reasoning is important but it is only as good as the premises. For example, if a=b and b=c then a=c. This works only if a, b and c have a probability of 1. If we use probability less than 1, this is not necessarily true in all cases. If we dwell on the exceptions then one can use logic to come up with a wide variety of logical conclusions.

 

This does not cripple the ability to reason but the ability to come up with consensus conclusions. The <1 probability adds subjectivity to logical conclusions. This requires other attributes such as honor and integrity to thin the herd so the subjective element is dealt with in a fair way.

 

Let me give an example. Gravity pulls downward with a probability of 1 as defined by Newton's equations. If we didn't have this cause and affect premise, but assumed some type of probability function for gravity, then if I throw an apple up into the air there is a slight chance it will continue to go up. Since this is unique and sort of intriguing I will use this as a premise for further logic.

 

If we could somehow tap into this slight probability of up, we could send apples into space with no energy. This could save money. Therefore we need to research this so we can save the space program money. We need to do this scientifically. So will will set up experiments. Even if the exact phenomena does not occur, right away, as long as we improve the probability function, under certain conditions, this will tell us we are going in the right direction. It all looks legitimate and reasonable.

 

Since we have fuzzy premises, we need to dig a little deeper, below the logic, to see if there is a human motivation behind this. This would be a nice research project that could last forever. That means salary, prestige, etc. Honor and integrity might say this is great for you, but maybe money is better spent elsewhere. Very few people would pursue this angle at their own expense, just for the love of science. But many will will be willing to do this as mercenaries. Once it is in motion there is more to defend that just an idea.

 

But on the other hand, the necessity of the investigation can often lead to the need for new innovations to be able to do what is postulated. This can also lead to stumble upon affects that lead to other discoveries. Sort of groping in the darkness hoping to find something there, using reason sort of as a legitimizer for the right to grope.

[questor]

The apple you threw up required energy, otherwise it would have remained at rest.

[ughaibu]

The ghost of Krimminal99.

[freeztar]

The ghost of Krimminal99.

 

Very observant. :unsure:

[TZK]

What is all this about? Is there something new here to learn? Honor is good, morality is good... yes, we know that. These values are taught to children by parents with good values. How were the original good values conceived?

By centuries of people learning to live with each other, usually by religious

teachings.

 

Simply having >A< definition for things like honor is not sufficient for driving the most desirable and enlightened behaviors. Instead, a minimalist definition that is part of and additionally defined by a system of understanding is required. This is demonstrated in the example where the person using the metaphorical definition doesn't know what specific action to take in each case to satisfy honor.

[TZK]

Reasoning is important but it is only as good as the premises. For example, if a=b and b=c then a=c. This works only if a, b and c have a probability of 1. If we use probability less than 1, this is not necessarily true in all cases. If we dwell on the exceptions then one can use logic to come up with a wide variety of logical conclusions.

 

In the context of this argument, the limits of induction are exactly what gives the Type A thinker such an advantage.

 

A metaphor is a type of induction, a weak type, by which two situations are compared and one situation is said to have an outcome analogous to the outcome in the other. Type C thinkers in this model internalize this method of persuasion and use it to reason.

 

On the other hand, Type A thinkers define general concepts that either do not or do apply to any given situation. Concepts allow for some traits of the situation to remain variable and yet still be defined by the concept such that each concept can be applied to different situations.

 

Once it has been determined that a given concept applies to the situation, DEDUCTIVE reasoning is used to gain additional information about the new situation.

 

There is much less room for error due to the limits of induction this way.