Thanks to everyone who is yet again reminding me how great an intellectual leap

Thanks to everyone who is yet again reminding me how great an intellectual leap it is to transform one’s frame of reference from justificationism and meaning: the tools of imagining, learning and hypothesizing – to criticism and truth: the tools of eliminating error, bias, wishful thinking, and deception from our thoughts and words.

The Critical Rationalists agonize over the severity of this issue in public life. They use it as an example of how politicians deceive the populace. And while I criticize Critical Rationalists for their cognitive blindness (their half-truths), in caring only about the ability to think creatively (intellectual liberty) rather than including the consequence of their philosophy: thinking prohibitively (moral and legal constraint), we are both frustrated by this problem.

It is hard. It is very hard to see the continuum from free association, to hypothesis to criticism, to truth candidate, to tautology. It is very hard to grasp when you are still engaged in ‘learning’, that you are largely engaged in justificationism. And, perhaps one needs a critical mass of knowledge before he can begin to see the world critically.

But while it’s hard it’s still possible.