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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
 Posted - 07/11/2004 : 05:17:56
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I don't understand
There is a great difference between knowing and understanding. Everyone can answer “yes” when asked if they know music. Of course, ‘all god's chilin' know music. We receive answers that go on forever when we ask a teenager if they know music. We awaken instant and sentimental memories when we ask an older person to tell what they know about music. A great deal of emotion is contained in our ‘knowing' about music.
Silence and puzzlement is our response when we ask a person “do you understand music?” Occasionally the question “do you understand music?” receives an expression of delight and a verbal outpouring. The person who understands music--they are few and far between--has studied music in a way very few of us have. I suspect such a person is not only a lover but also a student of music. I do not understand music but I do understand the meaning of “understanding music”.
I create this musical metaphor for the purpose of illuminating a state of affairs of which we are seldom conscious.
Our formal educational system teaches us the knowledge required for making a living. Our formal education does not teach us the understanding required to live well. The development of understanding is something each of us must create on our own. If we do not recognize this fact we will not pursue this understanding and if we do not pursue this understanding we will remain intellectually naive.
We start our formal education experience as intellectually naïve children and end it twelve to eighteen years later as well informed intellectually naïve grown ups.
After formal education ends our understanding begins. The task of understanding is a private enterprise by me and for me. Understanding begins with this recognition and continues as one creates a process for the solitary activity of self-learning. I think a person could look at self-learning as a hobby, it could be one of your hobbies like tennis or golf, just a few hours each week and I suspect after a while it will become a very important part of your life style. Developing a sophisticated intellect is a solitary study lasting a lifetime.
Carl Sagan is quoted as having written; “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.”
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2004 : 13:21:28 [Permalink]
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Ricky
No, I am not sending these missives directly to any schoolboard. However, I would very much like this message to be carried indirectly to all schoolboards that attempting to teach Critical Thinking. Our schools and colleges are making a valiant effort but are receiving no support from adults because adults were never taught this subject and never bothered to learn it on their own. Adults are thus ignorant and therefor not supportive.
If you do a google search of critical thinking you will find 5 million sites. Most all these sites speak about the efforts by education to teach this very important subject matter to the young people. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2004 : 11:34:15 [Permalink]
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Ricky
What forums do you have in mind? It seems to me that most forums are populated by individuals who are interested only in quick witted responses. Any post that cannot be read and replied to within 60 seconds is a loser. I hear all the time that everyone on this forum are all Critical Thinking experts. I find that very difficult to believe. I am not calling anyone a liar I am however, saying that I doubt that they know what they are talking about. |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2004 : 12:48:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by coberst
I don't understand
There is a great difference between knowing and understanding. Everyone can answer “yes” when asked if they know music. Of course, ‘all god's chilin' know music. We receive answers that go on forever when we ask a teenager if they know music. We awaken instant and sentimental memories when we ask an older person to tell what they know about music. A great deal of emotion is contained in our ‘knowing' about music.
Silence and puzzlement is our response when we ask a person “do you understand music?” Occasionally the question “do you understand music?” receives an expression of delight and a verbal outpouring. The person who understands music--they are few and far between--has studied music in a way very few of us have. I suspect such a person is not only a lover but also a student of music. I do not understand music but I do understand the meaning of “understanding music”.
I create this musical metaphor for the purpose of illuminating a state of affairs of which we are seldom conscious.
Our formal educational system teaches us the knowledge required for making a living. Our formal education does not teach us the understanding required to live well. The development of understanding is something each of us must create on our own. If we do not recognize this fact we will not pursue this understanding and if we do not pursue this understanding we will remain intellectually naive.
We start our formal education experience as intellectually naïve children and end it twelve to eighteen years later as well informed intellectually naïve grown ups.
After formal education ends our understanding begins. The task of understanding is a private enterprise by me and for me. Understanding begins with this recognition and continues as one creates a process for the solitary activity of self-learning. I think a person could look at self-learning as a hobby, it could be one of your hobbies like tennis or golf, just a few hours each week and I suspect after a while it will become a very important part of your life style. Developing a sophisticated intellect is a solitary study lasting a lifetime.
Carl Sagan is quoted as having written; “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.”
The older I get, the fewer things I understand. Stuff I THOUGHT I understood, I now see I understood so little that I didn't even KNOW I misunderstood. . . . ugh. |
-Chaloobi
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2004 : 19:03:01 [Permalink]
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coberst wrote:quote:
I hear all the time that everyone on this forum are all Critical Thinking experts.
No. We (and I don't speak for everyone here) are proponents of critical thinking. Advocating for the idea does not require expertise in it, only understanding.quote:
I find that very difficult to believe. I am not calling anyone a liar I am however, saying that I doubt that they know what they are talking about.
Actually, I think the same about you. With your repeated refusal to provide support for your assertions (basic fact-checking) and lack of understanding of your audience (a basic requirement for good writing), it seems to me that you haven't given enough critical thought to your goal, your efforts towards it, and the regular readers of this site to understand that your lack of engaging in discussion of the topics you present is, frankly, annoying. And now, with your comment above that you "hear all the time that everyone on this forum are all Critical Thinking experts," you are either starting up straw-man arguments (very bad form for a pretenious capital-C-and-T Critical Thinker such as yourself), or simply lying with intent to insult (which would, again, be bad form).
Unless, of course, you can quote for me people here on the SFN claiming to be experts in critical thought. Many of them, since you claim you hear this "all the time." Do you understand how your own words have betrayed you, here? As a "Johnny Appleseed" of critical thinking, I believe you leave much to be desired. Unless you go by the old adage of "those who can't do, teach." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2004 : 20:20:48 [Permalink]
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I agree with Dave, your posts seem like the very basic introduction to critical thinking. If you were to take a course in critical thinking, I would imagine this is what would be said within the first 5 minutes of the first class. It is lacking in depth. For example, from this post, all I pretty much got out of it was that there is a difference between understanding and knowing, that school does not teach understanding, and that one should learn it. However, I had a sophmore bio teacher who covered the this difference, and therefore it was taught in my school, although I understand that in a lot of other public schools it is not. So where does this difference lie? How would one teach understanding? How would one learn such a thing?
"After formal education ends our understanding begins. The task of understanding is a private enterprise by me and for me. Understanding begins with this recognition and continues as one creates a process for the solitary activity of self-learning."
Understanding begins after the recognition that understanding begins after formal education ends???
"I hear all the time that everyone on this forum are all Critical Thinking experts. I find that very difficult to believe. I am not calling anyone a liar I am however, saying that I doubt that they know what they are talking about." - coberst
"No. We (and I don't speak for everyone here) are proponents of critical thinking. Advocating for the idea does not require expertise in it, only understanding." - Dave
Skeptics and those who advocate the sciences are not the experts in the "field", we are the ones cheering the "pros" on from the sidelines. (just to note, I read that somewhere, but I forget where, not an originial thought on my part) Its the same way for critical thinking.
I don't not even pretend to know critical thinking in depth or out depth. However, I try to find as many articles on the subject (I'm poor, can't buy a book, haha) and read and comprehend them. It does not matter how much you know/don't know, as long as your knowlege is increasing. And that is what most people here try to do. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
| Edited by - Ricky on 07/13/2004 20:23:12 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2004 : 21:38:39 [Permalink]
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The real point, it seems to me (and whether coberst intended it or not), is that grade-school education here in the U.S. prepares people to be jacks-of-all-trades, but masters of none, as it just gives a broad overview of various fields of learning, but a firm understanding in none of them. As I said in another post to you, Ricky, this is a compromise between enforced public education and a desire for "spare time" for the kids. Also, one doesn't even approach real "understanding" of a subject until post-graduate work, and isn't considered an "expert" in a subject until one has added to the knowledge base for that subject.
"Understanding" is extremely specific, time-consuming and resource-intensive. A single person cannot have "understanding" of (usually) more than a handful of subjects within an average lifetime. There are simply too many things to know. Medical doctors may or may not have an understanding of evolutionary biology. Rocket scientists may or may not have an understanding of classical opera. NFL quarterbacks may or may not have an understanding of stock market analysis. Software developers may or may not have an understanding of the Federal tax code. Etc., etc., and vice versa all around.
From what I know, "formal education" does teach "understanding," but only at the master's degree level and above. And by that point in time, the "understanding" is so particular that it's difficult to apply it to fields outside one's chosen course of learning. This is not particularly a failure of the educational system, but rather a failure of the average human brain to be less then perfect in it's absorbtion of knowledge.
Who'd've thunk it? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2004 : 05:06:37 [Permalink]
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Ricky
One of the problems that have resulted by our educational system of teaching by telling is that we were not taught to go out on our own and capture what knowledge we need and want. We have become passive recepticals into which a teacher places packages of knowledge for our consumption.
One thing Critical Thinking emphasises is self-reliance in learning. Find that knowledge be an aggressive learner.
The Internet is a great assit in this regard. You can do a google search of Critical Thinking and will immediately, like magic, be provided with over 5 million sites that are filled with knowledge for you. |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2004 : 05:10:39 [Permalink]
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Dave
I agree with your analysis of formal education. I think you have stated the matter very well.
Regarding the fact that you are interested in protocol and I am interested in specific idea we have debated this problem before and I suspect I can add nothing to it here. |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2004 : 07:58:55 [Permalink]
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coberst wrote:quote:
I agree with your analysis of formal education. I think you have stated the matter very well.
Thank you. Unfortunely, my analysis implies that critical thought will also be given less-than optimal attention at undergraduate levels, out of necessity.quote:
Regarding the fact that you are interested in protocol and I am interested in specific idea we have debated this problem before and I suspect I can add nothing to it here.
I suspect you think that one can be a critical thinker regarding ideas without following the typical processes involved in critical thought? I would really enjoy discussing some of your ideas, but without support for your assertions of fact, I consider such discussion to be a waste of time, as it cannot possibly "move forward" an incorrect premise. So, per the "protocol," I ask for substantiation of your axioms before bothering with addressing your main point(s).
In other words, not all the things you say are self-evident. Not to me, at least, and so I suspect not to at least some others here. You bemoan the state of teaching in the U.S., and yet are unwilling to teach us in any way about some of your premises. I find such hypocrisy unbecoming to someone who presents himself as a "Critical Thinker." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2004 : 09:27:51 [Permalink]
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Ricky
I suspect most teachers of Critical Thinking will try to get their students to go it on their own. I suspect that most will not yet be ready to fly solo. |
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coberst
Skeptic Friend
182 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2004 : 09:31:22 [Permalink]
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Dave
I am not a qualified teacher of Critical Thinking. I think highly of the subject but unfortunatly am not qualified to teach. You have discovered my only weakness. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/14/2004 : 10:15:10 [Permalink]
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I'm not talking about you teaching critical thinking. I'm talking about you teaching us the reasons why, for example, you feel there are no long-standing paradigms in sociology. You appear to think yourself qualified to opine on the subjects as they relate to critical thinking, and all I've been asking is that you tell us how you discovered those things you use as axioms in your many threads here, when those things are questioned by other members like myself. If you simply won't do so, nobody here - you included - will learn anything new.
Frankly, I don't have time to go out and educate myself on all the diverse subjects you've brought up. I do have time, however, to ask questions of a person who seems to know enough to talk about them: you. If your answers are interesting, I might make the time to follow up on them myself. Stonewalling, however, leads me to believe that the premises are weak, and so there may be no reason to learn more.
Supporting one's ideas with facts is a basic tenet of both scientific and critical thinking. You appeared to claim a distinction between 'ideas' and 'protocol', but an idea without fundamental support is pretty worthless unless it is truly axiomatic. I don't think it's as easy to separate 'ideas' from 'protocols' and still have a productive discussion as you seem to think. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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