I discovered an interesting article on the Internet, Praxeology, War, Democracy, and the State by Roderick T. Long of Auburn University. See Roderick T. Long’s Home Page or Wikipedia article on praxeology for a definition of ‘praxeology’. If you can’t read a DOC formatted file, do a google search and you’ll be offered an html … [Read more…]
[Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2000] In the introduction to Part IV, Professor Gigerenzer tells us: The “discovery” of cognitive illusions was not the first assault on human rationality. Sigmund Freud’s attack is probably the best known: According to him, the unconscious wishes and desires of the human … [Read more…]
[Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2000] Professor Gigerenzer starts off the introduction to Part IV with a strong claim: The study of human thinking is deeply suspicious of introducing anything genuinely social into the world of “pure” rationality. As in much of cognitive science, most researchers have fallen … [Read more…]
[“Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World”, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2000] In part III (chapters 7-8), Professor Gigerenzer tells us: “To understand the power of human intelligence, one needs to analyze the match between cognitive strategies and the structure of environments. Together they are like a pair of scissors, each blade of little … [Read more…]
[“Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World”, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2000] In Part II, chapters 4-6, Professor Girgenzer provides a few arguments towards a view of what he labels ‘ecological rationality’ which he defines as follows: Ecological rationality refers to the study of how cognitive strategies exploit the representation and structure of information … [Read more…]
[“Adaptive Thinking: Rationality in the Real World”, Gerd Gigerenzer, Oxford University Press, 2000] Professor Gigerenzer states in the introduction of Part I of his book (“Where Do New Ideas Come From?”): Computers and statistics have both been used to fulfill the timeless longing to replace judgment by the application of content-blind, mechanical rules.” [page 1] … [Read more…]
I seem to have spoken of Creation is two ways. There’s no real inconsistency but I was confused myself for a while a few days ago. In my most recent posting, What is Mind?: Part 4. What Does God Know?, I spoke as if the Primordial Universe, the stuff underlying all of Creation, is analogous … [Read more…]
Obviously God knows all. Perhaps the real question is: “What is there to be known?” But the questions are the same at a very fundamental level. What God knows is what there is to know and what there is to know is known by God. First, if things are true, that is — if Creation … [Read more…]
Reductionism is often seen as explaining something away and, unfortunately, that’s often the goal of those doing the reducing. This isn’t a new development in modern thought. When St. Augustine explained the mind in terms of three components — intellect, memory, and will — he was reducing a complex entity to three components he felt … [Read more…]
I’ve argued that moral reasoning has the nature of narrative, a story, rather than being reasoning about axiomatic principles. This is certainly the most reasonable standard for Christians who accept the reality of the Incarnation. The Son of God didn’t come in glory carrying books on systematic theology and other supporting works in logic and … [Read more…]