Over the past few days I've scoured the internet concerning a certain irrational concept which is endorsed by a great many and I have actively became involved with several of them in futile attempts to demonstrate their irrational beliefs. I will not identify the concept as I rather not have it distract from my central theme.

It occurs to me that a significant portion of our society here in the US have deeply held beliefs, many of which are irrational and can be dismissed at face value. They will defend these position vehemently. I've been trying to determine how can so many people be misled by such things.

At first, I thought people were just stupid. I thought about it and realized that my initial conclusion was irrational. People cant be stupid because of their beliefs, at least not by my definition. I went back to the drawing board and had an epiphany of sorts. Irrationally is a human characteristic. Beliefs, education and logic are an environmental creation based on the human need to make sense of things.

This led me to other questions. With the knowledge of logic and ability to get educated and the ability to be aware of our own irrationality how is it we have so many people who defend irrational ideas?

I could write it off as humans are irrational but, yet again, this is an irrational conclusion because I know humans are capable of objective reasoning an have the ability to draw logical conclusions. So, again, I thought about environmental considerations. Specifically, how did people come to embrace the irrational over the rational?

The obvious answer is our parents. We repeat what they do as a way of learning but I think there is more to it than that. I think back to my own primary education and I can not think of any class I took that taught me how to think as opposed to what to think.

So, it is my premise that we as a society actively and willfully teach ourselves what to think at the expense of how to think which results in irrational concepts and beliefs that become ingrained into our very consciousness and for many they were never given the tools to combat their own irrationality. I believe a complete overhaul of our educational system should be conducted with the focus on how to think as opposed to what to think. We should teach children to question ideas and concepts using objective reasoning and rational thought in a responsible way. Is this a viable idea?

Curious to hear your new take on Asians and women and blacks. All of which I'm sure you love. This time.

I'm sorry, I'm not following. Why would or should I have an opinion on them?


Would you care to share your stereotypes of the above mentioned groups? Needless to say, I think your question invites irrational thought which I have no interest in exploring, I'm more interested in why you want me to think irrationally or in such wide generalities on purpose.

Im pretty sure public schools teach students how to think already, the what to think is saved for main stream state education.

I disagree. I was taught what science, history, math and language to learn. I was never taught how to form an opinion, other than my own natural inclination, maybe my experience was different. I did not really learn about objectivity until I was in my twenties.

Public schools are main stream state education, and they definitely discourage learning to think.

we already aspire to teach people how to think instead of what to think. this happens pretty ineffectively in lower grades, and much more effectively as you get up through college/masters/phd territory. this makes sense, as at lower grades we're basically just trying to give people some good study habits and a foundation of basic facts about the world that aren't contested. then as you get older and wiser, you can start to explore things that aren't established knowledge, where having your own opinion on it makes more sense. imo, this happens by most mid-upper level college courses, but ymmv.


as far as how people get things so wrong, it isn't a simple answer, and i don't think we know why yet. you're on the right track with saying parents, but i think peers is a better answer. we look to our peers as judges of whether we're right or wrong, and if everyone we know thinks being racist, creationist, anti-vaccine, anti-gmo, anti whatever, is the right thing to do, then we'll keep doing it just out of inertia. why people are so resistant to evidence showing they're wrong, i think is related to not trusting the source of the facts. when someone has a clearly wrong belief, the facts that they're wrong are generally coming from a source that they don't want to trust, and so they double down on their terrible belief, because the facts saying they're wrong come from monsanto/satan/the government/liberals/conservatives/whatever who is bad and you can't trust.

What's more likely, that you are completely rational, perhaps the smartest person on the internet, and everyone else is irrational and/or "stupid", or that you aren't intelligent enough, wise enough or experienced enough to see the merit in views with which you disagree?

I think you are not understanding my premise. Whether I agree or disagree with their views is irrelevant to the issue I want to discuss. A view is a result based on how they think. I am more interested in discussing how they obtained their view, specifically the obvious irrational views that are common place in our society. In most cases, its based primarily on empirical evidence and in most cases when you discuss the issue with them, you will be inundated with endless citations of empirical evidence. However this is nothing more than a demonstration of confirmation bias of an irrational premise. Its not their irrational view I disagree with, its how they obtained that view but its almost impossible to get one to acknowledge the obvious irrational nature of their concepts and ideas.

I think its a societal problem that we are not taught objectivity until we are in college, considering everyone does not have the ability to go to college. Shouldn't everyone be equipped with solid objective reasoning skills?

Im from the UK, here a public school is a private school.

Ok braves at what age do you think children should be taught to think independently? Obviously if you encourage this behaviour in toddlers the mortality rate is going to sky rocket from kids drinking bleach and burning themselves alive. Though I do agree that the education system in most, if not all countries fails to encourage independent thinking at an early enough age.

No, this approach is completely and totally backwards and is why even people with PHDs never learn how to think. When you wait around a decade or two before teaching them how to think, you don't end up with a blank slate. When we teach them what to think, we are actively teaching them the opposite and teaching them to NOT think for themselves. Then, you have to undo all that damage you've done to them for over a decade before you can even begin to teach them how to think. The entirety of grade school involves actively discouraging children from thinking for themselves. Don't ask questions, just do what I say, even if I'm wrong.

This makes no sense whatsoever. If somebody can support his idea with "endless citations of empirical evidence" then the idea cannot be dismissed as "obviously irrational".

How do you reach your conclusions, if not through empirical evidence?

Axioms >>>>>> evidence

This should help you understand better.

I think there is a difference between thinking and acting independently. To answer your question, as early as reasonably possible. I think you can teach a kid to think independently and objectively and conform because they have to learn that even though you may have clear objections to something, sometimes we all have to conform to things that are irrational.

Well I teach math at (a canadian) university. We definitely teach students HOW to think. Nobody could possibly pass a final just knowing a list of facts and not knowing how to think about them. Like the entire culture is geared towards this which is the emphasis of everything that is taught. I highly doubt this is significantly different at any other university.

These definitely arent the only two choices.

Can you say the same about history and social sciences?

I thought he was being sarcastic by presenting a question based on an irrational premise.

I too support the effort to make epistemology and the philosophy of science and math the ceterpiece of our educational system. Maybe we can also formalize the manipulation of symbols, call it logic, prove its equivalence (or ability to represent) to arithmatic, demonstrate how some true statements cannot be proven withinthe formal system, fail at AI for 60 years by relying on a narrow account of what reasoning is, and then discover that mushy concepts like similaity, analogy, and categorization relative to instrumental goals and defualt scenarios constitue the bulk of 'logical' thought. Sign me up for the effort to teach people the nature of correct reasoning procedures. it should be easy.

We'll start with Aristotle's posterior analytics in fourth grade. It's only like 10 pages so should only take a few months.

We'll jump to ratonalisn vs empiricism in fifth grade.

Sixth grade we start with Hoftstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, take a detour through the vienna school and logical positivism and carnap's project, and then consider how Hofstadter's views evolved into the more mature Surfaces and Essences.

After this I'm sure every who thinks the earth is flat will recognize the methodological defects that undergird their position. They will also acknowledge that supply side economics is merely wishful thinking.

I refute the premise that you need to know or not know any of that to understand how to think rationally or objectively. All you've done is provide examples of what to teach children what other people think about thinking.

Simple question for you:

Do you need any of that knowledge to be aware that the following is a irrational conclusion based on an irrational premise by the cowboy?

You seem to use the word 'irrational' as a synonym for 'factually incorrect' (or, more charitably, lacking warrant under 'accepted' espistemic procedures). If what you really want is for people to internalize factually correct statements (or even 'theories'), then we will need to rethink the whole enterprise and come up with some organized was to impart to children generally accepted facts in a variety of domains. Sounds expensive, with uncertain payoff.

You are aware of all that knowledge yet believe I'm pointing to the factual inaccuracies of the statement as the basis of my premise.

You cant determine your sexuality based on what other people think. The cowboy accepted the premise that he could, which is irrational, or absence of reason or logic and used empirical evidence to validate it. While I'll agree the statement by the cowboy is factually incorrect but its besides the point. Whether he is incorrect or correct, his thinking was flawed, consequently leading to flawed conclusions, which can or can not be correct.

Actually, the cowboy's thinking was a model of clarity and its 'logical' form was entirely correct. His problem was a lack of factual knowledge. This led him to the logical but incorrect conclusion that he's a lesbian. He is not 'irrational' but merely uninformed.

Note that there is no accepted definition of 'irrational'--it's used mainly used to identify an agent-specific failure to reach truth, generally due to a 'flawed' approch (when implicitly contrasted with similarly situated entites). The word 'logical' as commonly thrown about also tends point to results rather than processes. I blame Spock.