Special thanks to Blogger for eating the first draft of this post. There is a special layer of hell reserved for people who like JavaScript.
A friend forwarded a link to an interesting blog post and a reference article [PDF]. While I find a few of the conclusions from the blog post a bit misleading, the original research article is thought-provoking. Simply put, the more we know about something, the more we are biased towards it. Our attitudes are only reinforced through knowledge. It shouldn't be a big surprise that we spend more energy in the realm of the familiar--as I've already discussed, conformity is the strength of inertia and it is impossible to rebel against everything. Our neurons work by forming associations between things, and that ability helps enable us to survive. It is impossible for us to be truly objective, since we are all human and are stuck with the apparatus of the human brain.
So, should we reach the same conclusion, that more knowledge can only hurt us? I find the notion a bit silly, because if that were the case, our attitudes would never change. What causes us to change our minds about things, if not knowledge and experience? Obviously the latter has more weight than the former, but we don't always have to experience jumping off a cliff in order to know that it may be bad for us. Also, I don't find it unhealthy to put faith in experts. The converse--putting idiots in charge of things--is simply dangerous.
One of my objectives in starting this blog is to promote what I call "healthy skepticism." This is "healthy" in the sense that it doesn't mean to blindly question everything (until you end up in subjective reality / conspiracy theory / Philip K. Dick space), but to question enough in order to possibly reform attitudes and be open to new information that becomes available. It means admitting when I may have been wrong or less informed about something at a prior time, which can be a difficult thing, especially for a stubborn guy like me.
Part of healthy skepticism involves becoming aware of logical fallacies. This is especially important when reaching ethical positions (such as my position post on homosexuality). Another part of healthy skepticism is to question my interior monologue--what is my real purpose behind a particular ethical position? Is it about something that benefits me personally, or something much larger than myself? Like anyone, I appreciate peer acceptance, but I do find it less important than arriving at the objective truth (contrast Nite Owl with Rorschach in Watchmen). I also recognize that the objective truth is much larger than my own capabilities and requires a collective input--and a diversity of opinions.
Interesting concept. I always find it intriguing as an adult student to sit in a class and watch peoples reactions to the ideas the professor is presenting.The assumed notion is that because this person is in the position of "educator" that the ideas are somehow infused with a certain level of permanency and hence, unequivocally true. Yet what I have learned is that even the most apt instructors are invariably transmitting their ideas through the filter of personal biases. Higher education is a great asset, but ultimately serves only to expand the intellectual horizon. The idealized expectation is that from there, an informed opinion on the students side can be formed. Too many times I have seen (I include myself in this statement) that educational opinion is taken as truth. It's a failure on the students end to not separate the facts from opinion. Though there is a certain relevance to the information being conveyed, there will always be someone out there, with an opposite set of views, and equally valid arguments on that particular subject.
ReplyDelete"Equally valid" is a bit problematic. Consider that there are people who believe that dinosaur bones were put out there to test our faith. Is it wrong to invalidate such an opinion? If all opinions are "equally valid" and everything is subjective, is there any point to education at all?
ReplyDeleteI think Stephen Hawking put it most eloquently. The simplest and most elegant model wins. While it can't be *invalidated* that dinosaur bones were put out there to test our faith, it creates a much more complex state of affairs that can be more easily explained by evolution. Furthermore, every discovery made since then continues to conform to the evolution model without requiring additional explanation. It seems to approach objective truth more readily than creationism.
Even in the state of politics, if thousands of people show up at a march on Washington for "Cause X" and a group of six counter-protesters across the street hold up "Anti-X" signs, does that deserve equal weight? Note that the media does this with *every* story, frequently interviewing a bunch of kooks just to give an artificial sense of contrast that is hardly indicative of the actual situation.
So is history an objective truth because a large number of people can all agree on what happened? If we can't be objective individually, how can we know that we can all be objective together? Is it that through the varying threads of truth, one truth is teased out?
ReplyDeleteHistory, for sure, is *not* an objective truth. A collective memory is no more or less faulty than an individual memory.
ReplyDeleteIn "Raiders of the Lost Ark", Professor Indiana Jones describes archaeology as the search for "fact." "If you want truth, that's the philosophy department."
Objective truth is an ideal that may or may not be attainable. I think of fact as a good place to start, then use *that* to tease out the threads of truth.