People use the term “common sense” to support their way of thinking. If I say that I attempt to use common sense as much as possible I am referring to my own habitual mode of thought, which I assume is based mainly on adequate knowledge and some kind of logic. But “common sense is not that common” is a caveat we should all heed.
Common sense refers to that kind of thinking which is commonly used and agreed upon by most people. This seemingly makes it common to all, we suppose, when actually there is no agreed upon train of thought that all accept. (Take religion and politics for examples.)
Just consider the difference between objective thinking (”just the facts ma’am”) and subjective thought (which contains final meaning only for the individual). Truly logical thought is used by few people rarely. So common sense is not based on logic primarily. Common sense is based on common language usage.
This is why people who speak different languages do not always (or is it often?) make sense to each other, even in translation. Language contains inherent assumptions within its structure. Take English for example. Medieval English, for someone who has tried to read and understand it, betrays a different mind set compared with modern day English, and there are forms of English extant that suggest different world views entirely.
In the strictest sense, much of conversation does not attempt to make real sense at all. It is emotive rather than denotative. It depends on commonly shared feelings voiced agreeably, even when there is not necessarily any agreement as such (putting your feelings into words).
Scientific thought, strictly followed, would be common sense if it were widely shared. But scientific thought often allows two parties to understand what they disagee about mainly. Finding agreement through it is a much harder task. The narrowed thinking necessary for scientific discourse hardly allows it to be common at all.
So I will make a liberal claim about my own commonsensical manner of thinking. If I can express my thoughts clearly, and sometimes agreeably, then this is my own (un)common sense. And for you to talk with me, and I with you, we will have to agree that this will have to do, and I will have to grant your common sense the same status as my own.
One can never prove things in general, only prove things in particular. Then one makes extrapolations from this. All the effort to draw overarching conclusions from limited data are suspect, except (perhaps) when it comes to axioms in science. These applications are limited to the physical world for the most part. So much of what is important to human beings lies outdside of this purvey.
Science has no values to promote, but humans beyond all else need a positive, value laden outlook for their prosperity, even for their survival.
Whether I’m mainly a rural or an urban person may have been made clearer to me since I revisited my home territory in western Pennsylvania. My wife and I spent two days in Pittsburgh, and two more in the more rural surrounding area before driving on to New Jersey. That part of Pittsburgh upgraded is greatly improved. The other parts are run down or worse. Poor road and highway maintenance, and incessant traffic jams and detours in and around the city make driving cumbersome, or at times just plain dangerous. Signs warning “beware of aggressive drivers” are everywhere.
The university area (Oakland) looks great. Residential districts like Squirrel Hill are still upscale and charming. Others like Wilkinsburg hit the skids a while back. South of Pittsburgh many communties are in near total disrepair. Half of the residences are shambles, legacy of the steel industry’s collapse.
With slowing reflexes, and a nagging lung condition, aggravated by traffic emissions, I didn’t appreciate the “challenge” of navigating around the city. The “congestion” was really hard to bear. So I guess the answer is I’ve become more rural in my disposition.
For each person who seeks public recognition for any reason, feelings of self-fulfillment and self-doubt arise simultaneously. Achievement and disappointment co-exist. The feeling that you may not be accomplishing what you intend, but instead are having the opposite effect on others, may prevail. Also, you may doubt your own motivations for “going public” in the first place. Recognition can lead to adversity, and even denial of your true intent and outcome.
At this juncture you should ask, why continue the exposure? You should re-examine your motivation. Is it honest and worthwhile? If not, then bow out gracefully without apology. (Ultimately you will bow out anyway.)
Almost all evidence encountered in everyday living is circumstantial. This means that the circumstances surrounding the predicament dictate what conclusion can be drawn regarding it. Except with simple cause and effect relations this holds across the board. For example, the case for evolution is made mainly (but not entirely) on circumstantial evidence. (Of course, this puts it somewhat ahead of the case made for religious belief.) The lesson to be learned is don’t bet the store on anything which can’t be proven beyond “beyond a reasonable doubt”. It may be better to stay clear of absolutist commitments or entanglements regarding either.
So, why do I write about evolution? Partly because it’s understood poorly conceptually. It’s often misrepresented as something it is not, by both pro- and anti-evolutionary partisans. They both try to use it to bolster causes separate from it. In the first case, to promote a-theism; in the second to promote whatever brand of religion they want to hold sway. I’d like to stay clear of either camp. Unreasonableness abounds in both. In one all inclusiveness becomes restrictive; in the other restrictiveness becomes all inclusive. (You can guess which is which.)
You make over the world as you see the world, that is in how you interpret goings on in the world. Every person is a self-fulfilling prophecy. So far as each person has power to shape the world, some more than others, and each person can shape the world without and within, each of us can make the world better or worse. Nothing is fore-ordained. We are all “free agents” by design and by necessity (”condemned to be free”, as the existentialists put it).
Those who (can) take on more responsibility serve the public better. Those who (can) do less in this regard can develop their own capacities further.
The main reason we went into Iraq the second time around was to protect our oil supplies in the Middle East (maybe the first time too). The reason we went into Afganistan was to punish the Taliban and Al-qaida for transgressions against our country. In order to think about the strategy for war in either place we must keep these facts in mind.
Which motivation is more important? John McCain thinks the first, and Barack Obama thinks the second. John’s motive is to win to save oil for us. Barack’s is to get even for past transgressions against us. What’s more important to you?
Regarding the economy: There’s more than enough blame to go around for the fault(s) leading up to the mess we have now. It’s absolutely nonsensical to say that one party only or this administration exclusively got us into our present fix.
Did either of the candidates address these pertinent issue(s) in their debate? If so, I missed it while watching and listening. They both just went on promoting unproven contentions and unworkable (before the fact) propositions. What I heard mainly were more “talking points”, assertions that sound good to some of the public in order to get votes, but don’t hold a lot of water when considered further.
Yes, the economy will recover in time, but at how much loss for the American public. From their debate, did you get any idea how long this will take? And how much government intervention and ownership this will entail, before we have a predominantly socialistic economy? Is this the big transition that many seem to be talking about?
Charles Murray, somewhat well known as the co-author of The Bell Curve, recently put forth the idea that we as a society have become too enamored with college education for all, that we are trying to fit everyone into the same mold mistakenly.
He could make the case for better (more appropriate) vocational education at a younger age in high school. By tenth grade normal students learn the essentials of living and learning. After this year almost all students tend to “go their own way” no matter what is taught. All teachers know this. Those students who are inclined toward more academic education move in this direction without much reluctance. The others balk at this approach.
To try to make everyone into a potential college student is wrong. Because the system is skewed in this direction does not make it functional for everyone. The truth is that even for those who do attend college there is a lot of”fill time” in classes that disinterest them, and are of no earthly use after they graduate.
The high school student who has no interest in college level studies finds that he or she is marking time after tenth grade. Little they are exposed to afterward holds much interest, and even less is useful. As a result they pay little attention in class. This “college prep” approach removes them from more meaningful and potentially rewarding learning experience.
We need curricula specifically designed for those who wish to finish high school in some completed fashion. As it is now, those who prefer not to enter college are made to feel that they are wasting their time in class the last two years of high school, and are failing as a result. But what is failing in fact is the hide-bound strictly academic curriculum which they must tolerate.
An accommodating high school curriculum, which is more elective, and which demonstrates individually that each young person has mastered the “bare essentials” before moving on to either an academic or vocational curriculum, would be most appropriate. Of course, afterward at the college level we would need to convert much instructional time into more appropriate vocational channels.
Robert Sopolsky, a leading researcher on stress, has looked long and hard at the behavior patterns of baboons in Africa. What he found is that these animals, which have a severely structured social hierarchy, incorporate many of the stress laden patterns of living that we see in human society, with much the same results, large scale social dysfunction and related physical illnesses.
Striving to be always on top has adverse effects even on the people who succeed. Chronic stress can wreck a person’s immune system. The resulting immunosuppression can cause extreme disability, and even premature death. The overly aggressive “top dogs” in one baboon troupe, when exposed to tuberculosis, succumbed, leaving behind a more tolerant, and apparently happier local society. Even aggressive male adolescents from outside who joined the group, having all of the usual bad habits noted elsewhere, found that in little time they fit in better by adopting the new found benevolence.
Our human society suffers from the same ills as these baboons. Both exhibit unwise and essentially dysfunctional behavior through constant competition. Also, similar and specific disease patterns show up in both groups. Truncal obesity, leading to adult onset diabetes, atherosclerosis of large and small arteries leading to heart disease, peptic acid hypersecretion leading to stomach ulcers, and neurological degeneration leading to memory loss (Alzheimer’s disease) all have been shown to occur in baboons.
The main message is that we can improve our lots in life with less competion and more cooperation. What we need truly is a kinder and gentler society. Jesus Christ pretty much outlined this approach in his teachings.
In this locality with its plentiful German descendants the difference between the words ”wissen” and “kennen” might be considered for reference to English language usage we hear about us every day. To use the word “wissen” means that a person has objective knowledge about some topic. “Kennen” means that a person has acquaintance with another person, that is knows someone else personally, perhaps intimately. The difference is often obscured in English by a singular use of ”to know” to cover both of the above meanings. In English speech and writing both kinds of knowing drift back and forth between these two catagorizations. This often creates unnecessary confusion and cantankerous disagreement.
To take an example: If a person say that he or she ”knows Jesus Christ as my personal savior”, this means “kennen”, not “wissen”. (Ich habe ihn kennen gelernt.) The relationship is both personal and subjective. No one else can share this relationship through direct involvement as an intermediary, nor have a complete understanding of the relationship. But the person claiming this relationship cannot claim to have objectively demonstrable knowledge about Jesus Christ either, which would be “wissen”. Neither kind of knowing is more “true” than the other, just essentially different. This is the fundamental difference between religion and science. These differences are experienced in separate realms of understanding.
It would help us all very greatly if these fundamental differences in understanding could be recognized as substantailly different, and each in its own right valid, and be respected as such. This would help with communication between individuals who have essential differences in belief.
And this then brings us to the German word “glauben”………………….