Talking to ourselves

JulianTheApostate · Sophomore Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 288 Gender:

Susan Jacoby has a relevant editorial in today's LA Times.

LanDroid · Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:45 am Post subject:

That editorial is an excerpt from The Age of Unreason. It emphasizes an undervalued aspect of intellectualism - the ability to entertain and potentially learn from opposing viewpoints.

I don't think Jacoby suggests that atheists must engage and learn from theists - I'm quite sure she considers that matter as settled. However, this brings up a dynamic where many people believe any opinion they hold is a settled matter and the opposing viewpoint deserves zero contemplation. Global warming might be one example where there's not much actual consideration of the evidence - each side seems convinced the other is objectively wrong and therefore cannot be taken seriously.

Jacoby's contrast between the Watergate hearings and the Petreaus testimony was interesting. I remember watching quite a few hours of the Watergate testimony. I admit I watched none of the Petreaus testimony. Jacoby thinks the limited media coverage totally missed the most important points.

Robert Tulip · Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 5:41 am Post subject:

Hi Guys
Nice point. Dialogue is a rare thing. Maybe I am strange, but I am a theist who generally has more respect for atheists than for other theists. At least atheists don't generally wilfully believe things that are false. Suggesting I am interested in booktalk just to validate my existing opinions would be a rather superficial take.

I have been taking up this theme of dialogue in a church monthly magazine insights.uca.org.au/ (circulation 15,000). In a running series of letters I have argued that theology must be compatible with science in order to be credible, and various supernaturalists have accused me of promoting a God-free outlook, which I am not. Sadly the magazine has such little respect for dialogue that they do not publish their letters page on the website.

People have to be willing to enter the lion's den if they wish to change the lion's opinion (er, maybe not Rolling Eyes

)

Penelope · Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 7:05 am Post subject:

There is not an equal risk involved.

If one has been a theist all of ones life....and then begin to be swayed by atheist 'doctrine'. There is the most awful sense of loss of direction.

If one has been an atheist all of ones life.....it must be wonderful to be swayed in the other direction.

It is still good to talk though.......because before I stumbled upon this website....I just assumed that there must be a God because some of us seem to have an inbuilt need for a 'pattern and a reason' and one is inclined to believe that everyone else feels the same.

Just as I once assumed that everyone believed in 'human rights' when it is patently obvious to me now, that everyone does not.

I assumed that because I didn't really want to do 'wrong' things.....ie hurt anyone else.....then it was easier for me to be a 'believer'. I assumed atheists must want to do wrong and hurtful things....and that was why they denied God.

Now I know how wrong I was. I have felt quite a warmth, affection and a feeling of kindred spirit with some people on this site. Before our dialogue, I wouldn't have thought this possible.

DWill · Senior Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 379 Gender:

Bravo to JulianThe Apostate. This needs to be said from time to time within any open community, and BookTalk I take to be a community striving for openness. Freethought is the objective here, but some vigilance will always be required to make sure that "free" thinking does not in fact become a restricted type of thinking, characterized by an informally sanctioned viewpoint. Talking to other like-minded individuals can be satisfying, I certainly agree, but that is the trap as well.

The culture wars that have so occupied this society are for me the main obstacle to an exchange of ideas that is truly free. We are polarized in this larger cultural way, not just politically. Reading Susan Jacoby's book, I become uneasy at times. Does she herself really value an exchange of all wiewpoints? I'm not sure. Does her approach sharpen rather than blunt the knife-edge of the cultural divide?

Ophelia · Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:07 am Post subject:

Julian wrote:

President Camacho · Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:33 am Post subject:

Halle suggests that the brain compartmentalizes most knowledge because just “living” is hard enough on the brain. The brain does this through broad generalizations.

There is a separation between nominal individuals and corporate entities. Every time you say Americans or people or atheists, you are using a corporate entity and saving your brain the trouble of considering every individual as a nominal human being. The brain is economizing and seeks to reduce the many to one.

Ideas, Halle explains, are like the generalizations that our brains make, although a little different. The idea is like the perfect individual of that generalization. The one you create from the generalization (logos – the perfect image).

The difference is that if you take every single person in America and measure them completely, you can reconstruct a generalization from the data. Is this the same person in your vision? …probably not.

It’s a vision we have in our brain called the ‘logos’. It’s the ideal. I know what a straight line is, although I could never draw one. I’ll probably never see a straight line in my life because there will always be some imperfection the closer I look. How do I know what a straight line is? I have an idea of it.

Other knowledge is built on top of this. It’s taken for granted and depended on.

Some other people have brought up that broad generalizations or profiling is a way of survival. This may have been something we relied on especially when we were a very primitive people. Don’t touch snakes, recognizing a ‘mad’ face, a dog foaming at the mouth, etc.

There has to be a study by someone on the stickiness of ideas present in the human being. To get someone to change their minds is to alter the picture they have in their ‘logos’. The picture is of their design and represents an ideal based on all accumulated knowledge. It has been used in some cases as a foundation on which other knowledge has been built. The longer it stays there, the more comfortable the person is with it, and the more times it has been validated will make it even harder to remove the idea or alter it.

So people have an idea, an ideal, a logos. They see their idea as perfection and will naturally seek its validation. Why not? They put the work into creating it and now it’s time to put it to the test. Surrounding themselves with other people that think the same thing is obviously a form of validation.

As for not making generalizations…

Not having an idea is stressful for the brain. It constantly needs to think, doesn’t quite know, and is stressed. It’s much easier for it to decide with a broad sweeping decision rather than pick each piece by each piece as it goes. If this is how it did business, I probably wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning or remember what anything was. Why? Because everything is different even though it appears to be the same. The brain would have to consider this, realize it was different, classify it accordingly, throw out the old info, and then consider the next thing directly in front of it.

Peripheral vision would probably cease to exist because the brain wouldn’t be able to give it the proper attention.

Changing the idea or logos is difficult, stressful, and frustrating for the mind. Validation on the other hand is probably much easier.
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