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For a critical thinker, the baseline facts come from the person's own direct experience. They have to. For example, I probably wouldn't 100% believe that hundr

by javert 5y ago

For a critical thinker, the baseline facts come from the person's own direct experience. They have to. For example, I probably wouldn't 100% believe that hundreds of people can cross the sky in a metal tube (i.e., modern jet airplane) if I had only been told about it. But I've seen it myself. Another example: I've learned enough about technology to think the moon landings were feasible, and I've learned enough about society to think that a successful conspiracy around the moon landings is implausible. So I believe the moon landings happened.

technothrasher 5y ago
Won't relying on direct experience as a basis for critical thinking lead to all kinds of problems due to faulty perception and cognitive biases that we all share? Additionally, how are we to evaluate situations were are not likely to have any experience with? None of us have any experience with, say, the big bang or anything close to what the universe was like then, but can't we still come to many likely conclusions about it without any even indirect experience? So doesn't critical thinking in fact have to have a baseline in something other than one's own direct experience? Rationality, possibly?
- javert 5y ago
  Rationality is a process, but it has to have data to work with. That data comes from perception of the world (sight, hearing, etc.). There is no such thing as "pure" rationality without sense data to work with. Evidence for the big bang ultimately comes from sense data. You have to integrate a lot of sense data into scientific theories, which then are integrated with other scientific theories, and so on. Science has gotten so far - but it all started out with simple experiments, eventually microscopes and weak telescopes, etc. and built from there. Critical thinking allows you to overcome cognitive biases. Faulty perception is pretty easy to detect. A stick in a glass of water will look bent, but it's easy to figure out that it actually isn't bent.
exporectomy 5y ago
You should have multiple independent types of observation. If you only know about the metal tube idea from flying in one yourself, it might have been a simulation. You should have other facts that also support the same conclusion (eg. knowledge of aerodynamics, people quickly moving around the world, etc.) so that it would be hard for them all to be wrong in the same way. You don't have to witness it with your own eyes because, again, it would be hard for them all to create the same consistent lie from multiple perspectives even if they were conspiring.
- javert 5y ago
  I agree with that, yes.
- playguardin 5y ago
  What's with all this nerdy parsing on every thread of this kind about Occam's razor and philosophy is science and logical fallacies and all this talk that may suggest those in power have our interests in mind. They do not. It is very simple. Do Not Trust Authority. Period.
kelnos 5y ago
> For example, I probably wouldn't 100% believe that hundreds of people can cross the sky in a metal tube (i.e., modern jet airplane) if I had only been told about it. But I've seen it myself. By that reasoning, all the people who deny the moon landings happened are completely logical, no? And there should be a lot more of them, right? Hell, I've never even seen a rocket take off (outside of video broadcasts), let alone seen spacecraft in flight, so I shouldn't believe in the moon landings either, right?
- javert 5y ago
  My explanation was incomplete, to make for a good and clear example. If I hadn't seen airplanes and flown in them, I'd still be open to believing they exist. My belief would depend on what other evidence there is (broadly speaking), as in my example of the moon landings. It's easier to make a strong judgment about the existence of airplanes, than about the moon landings. I'd argue that most things in life are more like airplanes in that regard.

by javert 5y ago

technothrasher 5y ago

Won't relying on direct experience as a basis for critical thinking lead to all kinds of problems due to faulty perception and cognitive biases that we all share? Additionally, how are we to evaluate situations were are not likely to have any experience with? None of us have any experience with, say, the big bang or anything close to what the universe was like then, but can't we still come to many likely conclusions about it without any even indirect experience? So doesn't critical thinking in fact have to have a baseline in something other than one's own direct experience? Rationality, possibly?

javert 5y ago
Rationality is a process, but it has to have data to work with. That data comes from perception of the world (sight, hearing, etc.). There is no such thing as "pure" rationality without sense data to work with. Evidence for the big bang ultimately comes from sense data. You have to integrate a lot of sense data into scientific theories, which then are integrated with other scientific theories, and so on. Science has gotten so far - but it all started out with simple experiments, eventually microscopes and weak telescopes, etc. and built from there. Critical thinking allows you to overcome cognitive biases. Faulty perception is pretty easy to detect. A stick in a glass of water will look bent, but it's easy to figure out that it actually isn't bent.

exporectomy 5y ago

You should have multiple independent types of observation. If you only know about the metal tube idea from flying in one yourself, it might have been a simulation. You should have other facts that also support the same conclusion (eg. knowledge of aerodynamics, people quickly moving around the world, etc.) so that it would be hard for them all to be wrong in the same way. You don't have to witness it with your own eyes because, again, it would be hard for them all to create the same consistent lie from multiple perspectives even if they were conspiring.

javert 5y ago
I agree with that, yes.
playguardin 5y ago
What's with all this nerdy parsing on every thread of this kind about Occam's razor and philosophy is science and logical fallacies and all this talk that may suggest those in power have our interests in mind. They do not. It is very simple. Do Not Trust Authority. Period.

kelnos 5y ago

> For example, I probably wouldn't 100% believe that hundreds of people can cross the sky in a metal tube (i.e., modern jet airplane) if I had only been told about it. But I've seen it myself. By that reasoning, all the people who deny the moon landings happened are completely logical, no? And there should be a lot more of them, right? Hell, I've never even seen a rocket take off (outside of video broadcasts), let alone seen spacecraft in flight, so I shouldn't believe in the moon landings either, right?

javert 5y ago
My explanation was incomplete, to make for a good and clear example. If I hadn't seen airplanes and flown in them, I'd still be open to believing they exist. My belief would depend on what other evidence there is (broadly speaking), as in my example of the moon landings. It's easier to make a strong judgment about the existence of airplanes, than about the moon landings. I'd argue that most things in life are more like airplanes in that regard.