As part of my studies into the relationship between
philosophy and science, lies the question that should
be more important than it is… the question of how we
process information… science itself as is philosophy,
are simply ways to process information… The scientific method
is simply a format for processing information…and the way we
process information impacts our information and how we use
that information…
I will take a recent event and see it through this process…
Not too long ago, IQ45 was asked how would he know the war
between Iran and the U.S will go… and his response was:
‘‘I can feel it in my gut’’
Now this ‘‘gut feeling’’ is one means of processing information
and it has its uses… but its best use is when there are little
to no other choices or possibilities involved within the ‘‘gut feeling’’
or as we also know it, Intuition… if we have one choice, there is
a 100% chance of being right, if you have two choices, the percentage
drops down to 50% chance of being right, and if there are
three choices, the success rate drops down to 33%
and if there are four choices, the success rate drops down
to 25%… down to their being 10 choices and the rate of success
drops down to 10%… at 25%, guessing is as successful as
your ‘‘gut feeling’’… a ‘‘gut feeling’’ only really works if there are
limited choices… say 3 or less choices… otherwise, one may as well
be guessing…
Now as much fun as guessing is, one can’t depend on guesses
to make decisions, or plan the future or plot out a course
about driving across the country… so, the question becomes,
how should we process information?
we can use the ‘‘a prior’’ method, as many do today… which is
the information we gather is judged against already gathered
information… so, ‘‘a prior’’ we decided that the world is evil…
and we get information suggesting that the world is not in fact evil,
how do we then process that new information? For many people,
the ‘‘a prior’’ information, take precidence… for example, there is
no information or evidence that there is a god, but ‘‘a prior’’ we have
decided that there is a god… the ‘‘a prior’’ information, is gathered
by faith, by intuition, by means other than experience… for within
experience, we cannot prove that god does in fact, exists…
(one might say, but Kropotkin, you are wrong, there is experience
to show that god does exists, ‘‘I engage with god every single day’’
but that is your experience, which lies inside of you… that doesn’t
prove anything, to anybody, and can’t be used as evidence because
it isn’t supported by any other information that is public and visible,
it is literally a personal experience that is non-transferable to anyone
else… the bottom line is that you have processed the information,
that god is alive, by your own private rules and processes, which isn’t
valid outside of you)
The point about experiences, is that they are reproducible,
if I were to try to jump over the Mississippi River, and I wind up
in the water, if you try the exact same thing, you will wind up
in the water… that is a true experience that will happen to
everyone who tries… I don’t need experience to even know this,
I can, with the knowledge of gravity, know what the experience
of anyone who tries to jump across the Mississippi River,
no matter who they are, I don’t need experience or intuition to
be able to process this information… not all experiences seem to
be reproducible, because everyone experiences and knowledge
and understanding are individual, not collective… I have known
people who were in a room where everyone else was stifling hot,
and an individual can be quite cold… not every experience
will understood equally…which is to say, not every experience
will be processed the same by everyone…
So, let us follow this through… Stoics say that we should
in invest in experiences, we should not be changed by
any given experience… we should be stoics about every
experience… not happy, not sad, not proud nor devastated,
but we should just process this information differently than what
people normally do… we should become indifferent to what
our experiences show us… my mother, who is 91, is alive
and well, considering her dementia, which I should feel sad for,
but in the process of information, that understanding by Stoics
means that I should be indifferent to my mother’s coming death…
as I should also be indifferent to her being alive… it is, what it is…
and my feelings are not about the high and low of life, but
indifferent… that way I am content, at peace, not disturbed by
the world… the world cannot hurt me if I am indifferent to it…
so, all information, for the Stoic anyway, is treated the same way,
it is process in a way that allows me to remain indifferent to the world
and what happens to it… we engage in this understanding of the
world by many diverse means… and the disciplines like theology
and philosophy and science are disciplines meant to process
information and then how do we deal with that information…
religion/belief in god, is one means of processing information,
as is being a Stoic, as is being a philosopher, or a scientist’s,…
each value system is just a means of processing information in
different ways…it is a method or model of how we should
process information…
Logic or rational thinking is just another way/means of processing
information… is it always, right? Nah, logic/reason has
its own path to follow and we don’t always follow a path
very well and we do get lost, as I have done so in Yosemite
one time, we were following a path and missed a turn and we
were lost… the next day, we found another path which led us going
to the path we were originally supposed to be on… and I had a map
and compass, and I still got lost… logic and rational thinking doesn’t
always led us to the place where we want to be… but irrational thinking,
trusting in intuition, at times also fails…which leads us to a truth…
that certain paths to understanding, to being able to process the truth,
sometimes requires us to change or adapt to another means of
processing information…Sometimes, the correct path is by
intuition and sometimes the path is through logic and rational
thinking, sometimes the way to process information must change
and be changed… in other words, the way we process information,
sometimes requires us to change our method, be it logic,
rational thinking, guesses, intuition, or making lists…
So, as this dovetails into my previous posts, about
science and philosophy, we can accept that my prior
threads are also connected into this thread…
the threads are simply variations on a theme…
So, how do you process information?
Kropotkin