Experience
Experience is the "gateway" to knowledge. Sensory experience is how we gain data from the world around us. The process of experience begins on the day we are born--more practically, it begins when our brains develop to the point that we are actually evaluating the information that our senses give us. We learn many things through experience: we learn that hot things can hurt us; we learn that water is wet; we learn that falling hurts.
Experience, however, isn't the be-all and end-all of learning. Intrinsically, experience has its flaws: our senses are not perfect. We can be fooled (or can fool ourselves) into seeing or hearing things that are not there; we can fail to see all of an event; or we can be absent from an event and not experience any of it.
It must be understood that sensory experience is not knowledge: before it becomes knowledge, sensory experience must be evaluated by reason. However, knowledge without some form of experience is impossible: as an example, because no human being was present at the creation of the Universe, it is impossible to definitively "know" about its physical origins. We were not around to experience it. We can, however, correlate what we can experience of the universe that we can experience today, and extrapolate current conditions backwards to get a theoretical idea of the origins of the universe. This is also "experience," of a sort, but we could not make the jump from experiential knowledge to theoretical knowledge without reason.
Reason
We then evaluate our experiences with our reason--and it's at this point that things can go spectacularly right, or catastrophically wrong. The process of interpreting our experiences means that we seek to understand them--in other words, we seek to "fit" our experiences into a context where the experience fits comfortably with previously held knowledge and beliefs.
Reason is important in the Scientific Method. It is by reason that we can generate that first Idea: that "what if" that leads to discovery. It is by reason that we can devise tests to disprove our ideas--or failing all attempts to disprove them, it is by reason that we can extrapolate further ideas from the thesis that we make.
I said I'd discuss why the Scientific Method seeks to disprove the hypothesis, rather than to prove it. Let's look at gravity: Isaac Newton first proposed the hypothesis that mass attracts other mass--legend says he got the idea by watching an apple fall from a tree. Obviously, if the apple fell, he could use this to "prove" that it is gravity that causes this attraction--but that is only a restatement of the original sense experience. Instead, he (and the other scientists over the centuries who have worked with the theory) worked to disprove it. In doing so, he and others have not only quantified how gravity works, but have discovered other principles that allowed us such wonders as powered flight and space travel.
Our process of reason on any specific issue that we experience depends on our world-view. If we experience something that has little or no emotional or psychological impact to us, then we might simply accept it and go on. If we experience something that dramatically conflicts with our worldview, we might change our worldview (a much more difficult proposition than this brief sentence makes it seem), or we might reject the information (yes, it happens, more frequently than some of us would like to admit).
Accept or reject: It sounds like a relatively simple proposition, but it isn't. It's even less simple when we consider the myriad conflicting messages we get every day. Back to the analogy made in the introduction: we have the elephant before us, but we are blind. Our brothers--blind like us--all seek to make us believe that their understanding of the elephant is the "correct" one. Reason is how we choose: do we follow someone else's understanding of the elephant? Do we reject all understanding, and say that there is no elephant at all? Or do we develop our own understanding? Even then we must do our best to be certain that our understanding of the elephant is as accurate as possible, or we fall into error.
Worldview
Reason is based on our worldview. If our worldview is conservative Christian, then we base how we view the world as a product of the Fall. If our worldview is atheistic, then we see the world as empty of Gods. If our worldview is Wiccan, then we see the world as born of the Gods.
Worldview is informed by our religious views, but religion is far from being the only component of our worldview. All that we know, and all that we believe, affects our worldview: indeed, our worldview stems from our knowledge and our faith. Worldview affects the way that we reason: if we receive information that contradicts our worldview, then we either change our worldview, or we reject the information.
Reasoning Critically
This potential for error is why critical reason is so important. Critical reasoning is the ability to discern fact from error. Critical reasoning is not perfect: we all have the ability to ignore or reject facts that do not fit in with our worldview, but critical reasoning--when accurately used to assess the world around us--is the best tool that we have to gain a correct understanding of the Universe.
Imagine, if you will, a television set. The television can receive signals from many different stations, but since the stations are competing, you're going to get different information from all of them. These messages are very different--some are well-crafted commercials from professional advertisers who use any possible argument to try to sell the viewer just about anything you can imagine; some are earnest attempts to persuade the viewer to a certain point of view; some are mindless entertainment with no attempt at a plot; some are educational programs on a myriad of subjects. The viewer can change the channel--we can choose what information we pay attention to, and what information we ignore--but the power switch is broken. The TV stays on all the time that the viewer is awake.
As the "viewer" in the analogy above, we have the choice to reject, or to accept, incoming information. This information can take several forms--sensory input, conversations with a friend, the songs we listen to, the books that we read, classroom instruction, religious training, political speeches, or what have you. We choose what to accept, and what to reject. Most of those choices go on unconsciously--we don't have to be told that a television program is fictional, or that a news program is (putatively) real, we simply assume that they are.
The optimal use of our capacity to reason is to model truth as accurately as possible. The biggest obstacle to that is uncertainty: we are uncertain of many of our facts (due to limits of human perception), and we are--so long as we are honest with ourselves--uncertain of the objective veracity of our beliefs (due to the subjective nature of belief).
Among other things, critical reasoning is the ability to detect logical errors. Now, we'll be covering logic to a greater degree in Section 4 of this part of the website, but for now let's take a brief look at it. If I were to tell you that all politicians are honest, you could no doubt point out some classic examples of dishonest politicians. On the other hand, if I were to take the position that spinach greens were bad for your health (simply because I don't like spinach), you could easily point out the health benefits from eating greens. These are trivial examples of critical reasoning: you are using your knowledge to criticize my statements.
Critical reasoning must be based on fact. If you attempt to use opinion or belief as the basis of your critical reasoning, then you fall into the error demonstrated above by my arguing against spinach. But critical reason is informed my our beliefs and opinions. I can tell you (honestly) that I despise spinach greens--that's an opinion. I cannot truthfully tell you that they're bad for you--they're not. But I can tell you--truthfully--that spinach has a bitter taste. Critical reasoning deals with both objective and subjective experience.
Well, my friends, we've covered quite a bit of ground with this chat, and we still have one more section to go that deals with knowledge--to be more specific, we have one more section that deals with reason. Next week, we'll talk more about critical reasoning. Keep those comments coming, but between now and then, be at peace.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 1997-2003 c.e., et seq., Justin Eiler. This text file may be freely distributed via computer, print, or other media, provided that no editing is done and this notice is included.
Free Forum Hosting
Important Announcement
Prev Message
