papicreative

[papicreative]

What is critical thinking?

Essentially, critical thinking is making sure you have good reasons for your beliefs.

What does that mean?

When we distinguish between good and bad reasons for believing something, we are exercising our critical thinking.

What does it mean to distinguish between "good" reasons from "bad" reasons to believe something?

Good in this usage has nothing to do with the question of morality or ethics.

It isn't morally "right" or morally "good" to believe something on the basis of believing a claim for "good reasons" or bad.

Rather, a good reason for believing a claim is one that is probable, or the reason that gives a belief likely to be true. The best reasons for belief make that belief almost or definitely certain.

Why does this matter?

Since we are nominally rational creatures, we want our beliefs to be true. Rational people want to have true beliefs, not false beliefs. The best way to be rational in this way is to only form beliefs when we have good reasons for them.

What is an argument?

An argument is a set of statements that taken together comprise a reason to believe a further statement.

The statements that are the reason for the argument are known as the premises.

The statements that those premises give you a reason to believe we would call the conclusion. A good argument is one in which the premises give you a good reason to believe the conclusion.

Good arguments support their conclusion. Bad arguments don't support their conclusion.

A key part of critical thinking is learning to evaluate arguments to determine whether they are good or bad, or rather, whether their premises support their conclusions.

What are Deductive and Ampliative Arguments?

Suppose that you and your friend are talking about who is going to be at tonight's party. She says to you quite confidently "Monty won't be at the costume party tonight."

You're not sure whether to believe her, so naturally you follow up by asking, "Why do you think so?"

In response, let's say she makes two different arguments for why Monty won't be at the part.

Both arguments she makes constitute "good" arguments, in that they both give valid reasons for believing the conclusion for why Monty won't be at the party tonight

First Argument

Premise 1: Monty is really shy.

Premise 2: Monty rarely goes to parties.

Conclusion: Monty won't be at the party.

Second Argument

Premise 1: Monty is in Beijing.

Premise 2: It is impossible to get here from Beijing in an afternoon.

Conclusion: Monty won't be at the party.

Evaluating the Arguments

First, let's consider the Beijing argument. If both of those premises are true, then the conclusion must be true because the premises guarantee the conclusion.

When the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion, we call this a deductive argument. One need only consider the given premises to reach a conclusion that an argument is true or false.

Now let's consider the argument about Monty's shyness. Even if both premises are true, the conclusion might possibly still be untrue. Monty could decide to suspend his policy of not going to parties and being shy and decide "Today's the day!" and make an appearance at the party.

Unlikely?

Sure.

But it is possible.

The truth of the premises do not guarantee the truth of the conclusion.

Arguments like this are called ampliative argument. The argument is probable, but not conclusive.

Ampliative arguments can be very good arguments...they're just not deductive.

When you're evaluating an argument, it can be important to know whether the argument is supposed to be deductive or supposed to be merely ampliative.

If the argument is supposed to be deductive, but careful analysis of the argument reveals that the premises don't guarantee the conclusion, that's often a good reason to reject the argument as a bad argument.

In an ampliative argument, to notice that the truth of the premises do not guarantee the conclusion's truthfulness is simply to notice that it's an ampliative argument. If you point out that the conclusion of the premises of argument could be false, you'd be missing the point.

It's taken for granted in an ampliative argument that the conclusion isn't guaranteed.

The point of an ampliative argument is to point out that the conclusion is probable.

Knowing what kind of argument is being made is essential to deciding which tools to use to evaluate that argument.

Critical thinking is making sure we have good reasons for our beliefs.

We understand that a good reason is one that makes the argument probable.

An argument is a set of statements we call premises that together comprise a reason for another statement, called a conclusion.

In a good argument, the premises support their conclusions, which is to say they give you a good reason for believing the conclusion because they make it probable.

A deductive argument is one where the conclusion is guaranteed by the premises if they are true

An ampliative argument is one where the premises don't guarantee the conclusion, but they do make it probable, so they can provide you with a good reason for believing the conclusion.

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[papicreative]

On Traditional vs. Nuanced Faith

I wanted to explain a line from an earlier note where I remarked about the simplicity of traditional faith versus nuanced faith. I forwarded my article to my pastor, and the line jumped out at him. Furthermore, I must explain this thought briefly because the wording condescends traditional believers.

A true believer exists in a simpler moral paradigm because they value the tribal identity and comfort that comes with that identity. 

Photo by Miguel Alcântara on Unsplash

For context, this piece is about embracing the paradox between the two major human tendencies to regress into the safety of the cave and emerge from the cave as Platonic mythical philosopher-kings towards a Utopian future free of all corruption, and finding a balance between these two endemic tendencies.

Someone who is more traditional in their model of faith doesn't care what the nuance is- they are happy to accept "on faith" that their beliefs are correct and true. It's simpler on that basis that for the true believer.

When asked if a truth claim is true, meaning factually correct or at least symbolically correct, there isn't a moment's hesitation to examine the facts. Rationality is of no consequence, only the symbolic meaning granted by tribal identity.

Someone like myself cares a lot about the veracity of truth claims and cognitive dissonance. A more conservative believer doesn't care. It's just "true" to them. 

I've done a lot of thinking and listening to nuanced Brighamite Latter Day Saints (or as they are known to most people, "the Mormons"), and I see the necessity of both profiles. You kinda need both tendencies in a large body and that's okay that the tension exists because the tension is at the heart of violent untamed forces that hold galaxies, stars, and all matter together. 

True believers root the group's identity deep into the soil, but tolerance for nuance allows the faith to sway with the wind to avoid shattering like a Prince Rupert drop from its rigidity. 

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Embracing the Paradox

The mechanic for embracing the paradox is "faithful disagreement", within the context of my religious tradition. A good secular framework for this same principle are Rusty's Rules of Order (a simplified version of Robert's Rules).

Photo by Dynamic Wang on Unsplash

These tendencies exist in greater or lesser degrees depending on the values of a person instilled by their community, their individual biology, and the material environment in which they came to be.

The cultural skin that these tendencies are labelled with vary from culture to culture but ultimately, these behaviors are the same thing different font. Right-left. Progressive-Conservative. Fundamentalism-Heterodoxy. So-on. So-forth.

Nobody exists within either of these pure binaries, and we contain multitudes. A true believer exists in a simpler moral paradigm because they value the tribal identity and comfort that comes with that identity. A heterodox believer may not fit the mold of the tribe perfectly and therefore seek to change it to be more accepting of their non-traditional peculiarities.

This may seem simple enough but on closer examination, if we interrogate every person's beliefs, line by line, you will likely find that the line blurs when you get into the specifics.

The IWW is a leftist solidarity workers union, and yet fairly frequently in their materials, will reject the aesthetics of leftism and point out that conservative workers often make better comrades on the shop floor.

Social Media personalities with hammers and sickles and circle a's in their bios will often shrink away from actions that aren't performative because often these same people came to their perspective by the gifts of education from an upper middle class upbringing that had the necessary material means to support their endeavors that a proletarian worker wouldn't actually have access to reach those same conclusions.

These same aesthetical radicals often find that to engage in effective versus performative protest would threaten their own material conditions, and default to behaviors that favor bourgeoisie dominance.

And then in the middle and the outer fringes you have a mix of people engaging in a mix of actions, effective and performative, from all across the material class spectrum.

Everyone's revolutionary impetus is different. Everyone revolts for their own reasons.

Likewise, on either extreme end of the tendencies of progression and regression tendencies are extremely destructive behaviors. Those committed to the far end of the reactionary end of the spectrum evolve into fascists while those on the far end of the revolutionary spectrum evolve into violent extremists who behave in much the same way as the fascists.

The behavioral function undergirding this phenomena is the alienation these groups have experienced in the current paradigm, with increasingly smaller and smaller amounts of personal agency to achieve anything they hope for in their lives, and increasingly greater lionization of their respective utopian worlds.

As desperation increases, so to grows the willingness to engage in increasingly desperate and violent actions to attain their utopias.

Thus is human nature - at this current point in time. But the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy for a reason. There is nothing inherent in the laws of physics that demand any state of being continue to exist in a configuration in perpetuity.

Joyful Warrior is a project where I share my thoughts and notes surrounding my endless philosophical line of interrogation aimed toward my over-blown ego. Maybe you can glean something useful in the quest to sublimate your own worst tendencies in the journey to be a better human being and build a stronger human family.

[papicreative]

Hello World

This is my tumble feed.  I’ve been seeing more noise lately that this place is starting to be bumping again. The Apple app store ratings are certainly better than that of FB, so I suppose that’s promising.  I am looking forward to posting here again.  I am interested in OSINT, copywriting, digital marketing, ecological, and social breakdown. I like to explore solutions to the seemingly endless array of issues that confront us in life, business, and the political sphere.  Cheers!  Con amor. 

Papi