Reading this article inspires me. It reinforces the very reasons why I write the way I do in order to counter the dribble that comes from those who on the loony far left; big on rhetoric and useless on substance on offering ideas or analysis in accordance to how humnaity and the world works. Bring back the far left which focuses on materialism, such as Tristan Ewins who at least deals with substantive matters.

The day I (or the world) relies on ideas from psychology (or God) to give ideas or analysis to help save the world, is the day I will give up writing about politics.

Though I am all for every one having a go, as nobody has the answers, you need to pay greater attention to what the bloggers say rather than seekeing a higher being as a space age commentator.

I too used to think we lived in an age of reason, and that reason would trump superstition and groupthink. Alas, no. As Christopher Hitchens points out supernaturalism is in fact on the increase.

There is no requirement that organisations based upon superstition - the church, astrologists, fortune tellers, the Reserve Bank - back up their prognostications with solid evidence, or even with soft evidence. That's what a good PR team is for.

In the end people will believe what they want, and after reading OLO you get an idea how whacky it gets.

Great little thought-piece. Well done!Giving a reason for why we are not reasonable sounds a bit like Russell's Paradox ("the statement on the other side of this card is true/false"). I prefer to think that OLO attests to the view that we are capable of reason, but don't use it very often or very well.

Being one of the herd within a paradigm is a sensible way to survive- if you don't know any other way. The way that I usually suggest is something called education- first, learning to have a wide vocabulary so that one's feelings aren't frustrated for want of a capacity for nuanced expression. Secondly, learning about the physical world, science as we call it, so one knows that events have causality and are not the works of capricious gods. That also takes care of leaders who use the fear of the unknown to manage you. Thirdly, learn about people- from a psychological and sociological viewpoint- both your own society and others. Constant exposure to differences reduces the fearful effects of cognitive dissonance.

Fourthly, practice dealing with differences using one's knowledge. This entails drawing breath and reflecting before reacting. Reflection enables you to draw on your education before fighting, taking flight or retreating to the middle of the herd.

Lastly, laugh. Humour, as Freud saw it, is about cognitive dissonance (just think about puns, for example). Laughter is the exhaling after drawing a breath (see point four) when one "sees the joke" ie resolves the cognitive dissonance. Note that tyrants are invariably humourless as they reject all but one resolution of cognitive dissonance.

Hopefully, OLO can make a contribution to a wider use of reason, by encouraging INFORMED opinion, rather than reactive opinion that insists that you are either for us (one of our herd), or against us (one of the herd to be vanquished)

Great article. A very lucid description of the behaviours involved.

I don't like the conclusion though. David seems to analyse the behaviour of our societies in the same way he analyses the behaviour of a single man, and whats more expects them both the society and man to behave in the same way. It can't be so. They are very different animals. It is like analysing the machine from the viewpoint of the cog, or the man from the viewpoint of a cell. Consequently the way societies interact with each other is very different from the way individuals interact.

rstuart
Society is the sum of the individuls. Nothing changes till the individual changes. The two cannot be separated.

david
you said "Society is the sum of the individuls. Nothing changes till the individual changes. The two cannot be separated".

Is that right. Did you hear that Australians. All we need now is a Dr Phil, or an Oprah to lead by exmaple, and we too can be just as fair and progressive as the US. After all, the emphasis upon the individual is so much greater in the US than any other liberal or social democracy and obviously the non-US nations have trended towards other paradigms which did not do them much good.

David, you need to think about what you are saying, and perhaps take on board what the blogger said to you in responding to your article (which he liked)

At times it feels like we could be re-entering the dark ages. Supernatural belief has unbelievably high amounts of covertly expressed power and influence in the highest places in our land. From APN refusing the atheists billboards on buses yet allowing John 316 messages, to the billions funneled into private schools at the expense of a well-funded and well-rounded public education for the majority of society. Well, as long as it helps either of the conservative duopoly's leaders win the lodge. Lets further salute reason by campaigning to delete the phrase "the advancement of religion" from the section of the Tax Act so these citadels of irrationality have to pay their way in society finally.

Chris
Perhaps you intended your comments as satire but I couldn’t see your point.
If you were serious I think you are making some huge assumptive leaps by saying that the US is more individually focused. I would like to see your objective research on that. Likewise Oprah and Dr twit with their following indicate group think not individuality.

When talking about aggregates you by definition are talking in terms of mass distribution of individual perceptions on the 'bell' curve mean. The nature of the curve determines the conclusion

By this reasoning an individual is a singular point on that curve and can be plus and minus of the mean to which the article refers. This also implies that a group of individuals can alter the mean. In this way the two are linked.

While the point that they are different is true however the individual is part of the whole. I would dispute that the author was talking about individuals but as the collective.
I for example are less likely to ignore (or deny it exists) a problem hoping it will go away than some on OLO and equally I am less likely to be come extreme about issues like dog exports to Asia.

PS I think the article was fine in fact In the absence of further contemplation I thought it explained a lot give the above caveat.

Inner Sydney tranny

You should remember that Australia needs Christians alot more than Christians need Australia. If you remove Christians tax-exempt status, they will eventually stop paying taxes altogether to the federal government.

Christians already have their own code of laws, it is not necessary for Christians to live under the fedearl governments laws. But they do so at the moment because Australian law is mostly in-line with Christianity.

So, I hope I'm clear. Christians don't need the government to have happy, productive lives.

Humanity is driven by emotion, not reason.

Our modern day Caesar’s are still shipping more sand around than grain, putting circus before the bakery.

We concern ourselves with ‘wants’ more than ‘needs’.

Many people will prioritize spending on a new car (regardless of the utility merit of their existing one), before providing for their old age.

Some actually demand government deal with the hard problems, like funding in old age, for them and leave them free to indulge their whims and fancies.

And some folk will even drive out of their way to respond to the implied slight should someone accidently cut them off in a car.

So, I am afraid, thinking that we have ever or will ever live either on the ‘eve of the time of reason’ or the during 'the time of reason’ is going to be like waiting for a fantasy.

People are just not like that and the only thing to do is accept that aspect of humanity because, demanding or insisting or wishing for it to be otherwise is one good way to grow cynical and waste ones’ own life.

Better for us all to live the life we individually see as ‘appropriate’ for ourselves and leave the rest of humanity to, if they wish, go to hell in a hand basket.

Sure as eggs is eggs, no one will thank you for imposing the wisdom of your 'reasoning' upon them,

although, regardless of how 'irrational' it might seem,

flatter them enough and you might start to achieve what your reasoning deduces

Wrong as it might seem, It's all down to the spin :-)

I don't question the good intent of the article, which is essentially about the frustration of dialogue across difference. But sorry, the explanations just aren't right. Groupthink is a small-group phenomenon that Irving Janis identified in the 1970s, whereby people are drawn into a decision without proper debate. Most of the things Young calls paradigms are not paradigms, just institutions and movements. There is no such thing as male and female language. What we do have are frameworks (or "frames") for talking about and representing ideas, some of which we accept blindly from the media, our cultures, etc. And cognitive dissonance is "an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously." (Wikipedia). So if you're going to write an article, Mr Young, do some proper research first.

People who are spiritually blind will never be rational. Often their only defence is pseudo science. Any Government or person with rational thought can see that the public school experiment has been a dismal flop. Humanistic dogmas however refuses them to swallow a little pride and face up to the fact that their psychology, 'science' and philosophy has produced nothing but bad fruit. Thankfully even many non believers still see clearly that biblical principles are by far the most successful. The author of Psalms was right when he said that a fool says in his heart their is no god. We have plenty of them.

Clickcraftsman.
'Dissonance normally occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency among his or her cognitions'. This happens when one idea implies the opposite of another. (same article as your quote). I relate the initial cognitions to paradigms. That may be a matter for discussion (as I hope it will be), but my use of cognative dissonancece is within the definition.
You avoided discussion on Whorf's (spelt incorrectly in the article) Linguistic Theory when asserting there was not a male and female language. That was appropriate. I do not call the quoting of the first line of an article research. 'Groupthink' can be small or large groups.

David's post is interesting and thought provokoing - thanks.

Though, I must agree with clickcraftsman to some extent that the use of terminogy is misleading and accepted terms have been contorted.

The term "reason" itself is worth looking at. A quick dictionary check showed up 9 meanings, the major ones for me being 1) a justification 2) a description of causality 3) a more refined and scientific based approach to knowing things based on deliberately cutting off emotional or other inexplicable phenomana that may interfere, or may not be measurable.

I would say that number 1) is what David has tried to do in his article (as indeed I am doing now, and many of us here are on this forum); that 2) may be a judaistic-christian construct and is imbedded in our language as David suggests and is itself one of the competing frames or paradigms referred to by another commenter above. Causality may not actually exist in any lineal way we can recognize, and may be our construct for understanding the inexplicable; and that 3) presents a cold dank world that wouldn't be worth living in, i.e. a world that discounts or cuts off emotions and all the joys and troubles that derive from them.

In conclusion, I would contend that reason is itself over-rated, or misconstrued, or downright life - negating. I would also add, somewhat incongruously to my first two comments, that version 3) certainly provides some nice technological comforts that I would not like to sacrifice.

Interesting article but where to from here?

A collection of paradigms might be able to converge towards a single point of humanity but it will be a slow convergence because these paradigms generally work in isolation (geographically and ideologically) from each other. (Occasionally crossing paths but usually in strife).

Rational beings would have to dominate each paradigm and provide the impetus for a paradigm shift to that elusive single point. Religion is rarely rational in the 'Groupthink' context where humans tend to take the defensive ground in a pack-like mentality based on fear.

Psychologically this pack mentality is not exclusive to religious groups but groups of various shades. Throw in economic disparity and you add more fuel to the division rather than toward any possible solution.

Secularism is a large paradigm shift that has occurred and shows promise that we are becoming more tolerant, or at least evolving towards a new tolerance and accepting of other people's beliefs even if we don't subsribe to them ourselves.

Multi-culturalism is another large paradigm shift demonstrating that people of various paradigms can live together even if not always harmoniously at first.

As far as learning from history, I think we do in bits and pieces but because a single human only lives a set number of years these lesson are learnt generationally and have to be relearnt or inherited by subsequent generations within the context of a different environment.

Sounds hopless doesn't it but not so. It takes time for humans to accept and adapt to change but it can happen. Aren't we generally a more tolerant and compassionate society now than we were 100 years ago?

Interesting piece.

The author presents a comprehensive view on the "voluntary" constructs that we have come to use to regulate our social interactions.

A recent Economist article presents another key contributor: evolution itself.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795581

"Traditionally, the answers to such questions [of man's irrationality], and many others about modern life, have been sought in philosophy, sociology, even religion. But the answers that have come back are generally unsatisfying. They describe, rather than explain."

The article observes that many believe that...

"...with appropriate education, indoctrination, social conditioning or what have you, people can be made to behave in almost any way imaginable. The evidence, however, is that they cannot."

It suggests that the traditional starting-point of much human behavioural analysis...

"...that evolution stops at the neck: that human anatomy evolved, but human behaviour is culturally determined."

...is in fact incorrect.

It's well worth the read.

This reference provides both a thorough-going critique of the fragmentary and devisive ways which have INEVITABLY produced the current disaster, AND the working principles for the establishment of a new paradigm.

http://www.ispeace723.org/toc.html

Everything else is just an extension and continuation of the old collective end-game psychosis.

"Everything is perceived in the language we think in."

Thats right when thinking about perception and then only when word labels are attached to the process of identifying observed patterns. Otherwise, one doesnt need language to perceive and instantly process the senses.

Language is the medium for plugging each others thoughts about perception into each other.

Author seems to assume there's no other way of perceiving beyond linguistic labels. Bold statement.

Otherwise, the piece reads like a veiled post-modernist rationalisation of an agenda layered in a touch of defeatism and fear. Understandable too, given the unconscious winds of emotive self(ish) interest blowing us about.

Yet, reason itself has a very strong inclination to shine through the foggy thoughts about perception, continually questioning everything, even itself. l see that as a great strength of reason.

Also, l would posit that it takes thinking to muddle the logical process. Driven by fear of the unknown/unknowable to the point where the mind settles for something that it can use to get a feeling.

One can logically accept the limits of thinking and knowing, whilst utilising it for what it can do, which in my view is a helleva lot. Emotion has a way of harrying reason back into its box, but cannot keep it there.

l'd call that process of tricking the mind into believing something b/c it triggered a feeling... emotion. The physical feeling equals a type of confirmation. If it accords with some sort of recognised pattern, its taken as more confirmation. Then people start to believe their own false thinking. Worse, start believing in the fears. Which unfortunately for society is the ultimate paradigm that shapes its cacophony of maladies.

l reckon that if my mind can think up an emotional context to get a physiological response, then with practice and dilligence it can stop being lazy, stop going for the easy emotive thought process and ultimately think logically.

None of this means becoming a robot devoid of life's sensory range, altho its hard to accept l find. Probably fear.

Hey, but thats just my wordy paradigm shifty-ness.

Plus this thoroughly "postmodernist" essay (etc) describes the origins of the power and control seeking perceptual strait-jacket in which we are now all trapped---Webers Iron Cage or Newtons Shackles (Blake).

1. http://www.adidabiennale.org/curation/index.htm

The thus featured Art provides a vision of what lies beyond and Always Already prior to our fragmentary point of view---quite literally the World As Conscious Light

Related essays by the author on the World as Conscious Light---which is what we always already ARE.

1. http://www.dabase.org/dht6.htm
2. http://www.dabase.org/christmc2.htm

Altogether the author points out that we have hardly even begun to consider the revolutionary cultural implications of Einsteins famous equation E=MC2

Plus a related reference by another author Art and Physics--which is also about Art and E=MC2 and culture too.

1. http://www.artandphysics.com

Human beings are rational at least in that they intend by their actions to cause an effect in the future, even if it’s the immediate future, that they will find more satisfactory than without the action.

This statement self-evidently describes all voluntary human action, and in this limited sense all human action is rational.

The means man chooses to achieve his chosen end may be factually mistaken. He may do a rain dance as a means of making crops grow. He may apply leeches as a cure for anaemia. He may socialize capital goods as a means to achieve higher productivity of capital.

Science cannot say whether the given end value is good or bad. But it can say whether the means chosen to achieve it is suitable for the attainment, or the efficient attainment of the chosen end.

The overwhelming majority of people want increased material welfare for themselves and posterity. Even the professed hermits and ascetics make concessions that don’t agree with their rigid principles.

For us humans, society is the great means to the ends we value most. Isolated we can never hope to achieve even a fraction of our potential through society.

All the political parties and all their different platforms purport to aim at the highest material welfare for the majority of citizens. No-one says ‘Vote for me and suffer greater poverty and misery’.

Therefore whatever their apparent differences, all different political programs are agreed on the ends, and the difference of opinion is on whether the means chosen are efficient to achieve the ends.

“Man has only one tool to fight error: reason.” Ludwig von Mises

The English Language is the language of the law, and the basic skills of parsing and analysis are central to its application. Thomas Paine, first proposed an Age of Reason. He argues that the Church and the State are a single corrupt institution which does not act in the best interests of the people—both must be radically altered: ( Wikipedia). Today in Australia not only is the Church the State, its priests are lawyers, and Archbishop French, an atheist by deed if not word. Only an atheist can condone one man judging another as the High Court does.

For sixty years, since Menzies became Prime Minister, the State and Church have been merged, under a State controlled Priesthood of lawyers. Instead of free and unimpeded access to the High Court Menzies introduced the very first restrictive trade practice, in Order 58 rule 4 subrule 3, High Court Rules 1952, so that without consent from a Registrar/Priest no one can access the High Court as of right. This same control by State registered and appointed priests of access to court, was continued in the High Court Rules 2004 by Regulation 6.6 and 6.7, and for the Federal Court of Australia by s 39 Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and Order 46 rule 7A Federal Court Rules.

To merge Church and State the Christian system, adopted by the English as law, had to be neutered, and worship of nine separate Parliaments introduced. In them delegates supposedly operating in the public interest purport to make laws. These laws are contradictory, capricious, unreasonable and often downright frivolous, vexatious, and illegal.

The Christian system was designed to ensure that all law was subject to a higher authority. Both fact and law was triable in a proper “court” comprised of a Justice, a jury, and two adversaries. Whether a law was legal, was a question of fact and a triable issue. Like their Church predecessors, lawyer priests decide what is allowed to be examined. By reason the English rejected this concept. A “court” was where a law was parsed and analysed, confirmed or rejected.

Good thought provoking article.
It is clear we are suffering from a social disconnect. Unlike Clickcraftsman I think the language is appropriate. Groupthink occurs in both committees and whole populations.
Humans have had thousands of years to play with many, many paradigms and I believe the "virtue" of any one paradigm should be measured by it's results.
"Common sense" is a much abused term but it gives a clue as to the best approach. A good paradigm can be common to all people. A good paradigm does not fall apart when new knowledge is gained. A good paradigm leads to more freedom rather than less.
The scientific *method* is open, repeatable and evidence based. If it cannot be repeated by anyone, anywhere then it isn't real science.
Despite runners usual inane comments...the scientific philosophy has achieved more in the last 200 years than humans managed in the previous 10,000 years.
Medical science alone: think dentistry, surgery, anti-biotics...all the result of a measly few scientists yet enjoyed by millions of people. Science has been shown to be the best long-medium term investment of *any* investment. Quite simply, the science paradigm is responsible for the modern world, yet is barely understood by those that suckle from it's teat.
Maybe we need to get all the anti-science folks into one country as an experiment. See how long they last before God shows them how silly they are pretending ignorance and hubris will replace knowledge and competence. (Actually this is already happening...and I am *so* glad to live in a secular country!)

One of the problems about writing an article for OLO is that it is not known what the comments are going to be. This often means that points that commentators find important are missed. Here are a few points that seemed to have been missed.
1. The title 'Age of Reason' came about as a play on the scientific age of reason heralded in by Sir Isaac Newton that lasted until Maxwell Plank 'discovered' quanta, and science at a fundamental level became one big probability.
2. In using the word paradigm I did differentiate between the social science use and hard science use. Many commentators seem blur the line between the two.
3. I did not intend that some readers would take my article to mean that reason meant divorcing emotion. Before anyone does anything they need to decide what they want. That is an emotional decision. The second part is to work out how to get what is wanted. That requires reason. I hope that the 'reason' part is where we are failing, because if war, greed poverty are the human race want I am resigning now.
Of course someone had to try to make this a religious debate. I have a deep sense of an unknowable force that is ever present in my live. How I relate to this is my affair and mine alone. How anyone relates or not is their affair and theirs alone. I do not need or want anyone to call this 'God' and then claim to be Gods lawyer telling me how I should behave.
Some two hundred years state and religion where separated in the Western world. As a result the Inquisition lost the ability to torture people and burn them at the stake.
The USA in the last eight years should serve as a warning of what happens when the state and religion get entangled again. Guentamino Bay, special rendition etc.
The 'Christian' world has largely separated state and religion. If Islam can do the same we might get somewhere towards bringing peace to the world.

Davly- my heart goes out to you. Many of the OLO responses validate your third point- they decide what they want to on the basis of their immediate emotional response and then cobble together some rationale for their reactions. This is what I call prejudice. I thought that part of the foundation for "The Age of Reason" was that observations are related to previous observations and the presumed causal relationships between those observations. From these observations, possible viable options for courses of actions are inferred, then, and only then, are values (based on emotions) invoked to choose a desirable option for action that has some likelihood of success.

It was more likely Heisenberg, not Planck, who shifted the game from strict determinism to probabilism (if that is a valid name for the quantum mechanical paradigm)with his Uncertainty Principle. Nonetheless, probabilities do not invalidate causality- one can always (in principle) construct a causal chain- just that prediction is fuzzy these days.

The definition of paradigms is still being debated. This is to be expected as most words take a few hundred years to acquire a "strict" meaning. By that time, they are usually no longer interesting.

I am unaware where Daviy has been living lately, but it cannot have been in Australia. Of course if he is lucky enough never to have known or needed a lawyer, never had the State Church jail him without due process of law, never had to listen to a sermon from a magistrate or judge, and simply been lucky enough to earn more than he needs after paying the compulsory church levy called PAYG, he has nothing to complain about. Another gentleman says he is lucky to be living in a secular country. Australia is a State Church run country and there are nine of these obscenities to contend with.

State and Church were separated in the Western Democracies, that is the United States of America where the State has steadily eroded the separation, in Australia until after 1949, in the United Kingdom until Atlee decided to Nationalise the courts, and make them Courts, and as a consequence crime and dishonesty became entrenched. The Jesuit Priest and lawyer selected by Robert McClelland MP to investigate the application of an already passed Act of the Parliament of the Commonwealth, the schedule 2 to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Act 1986 is an example of how the New Age Priests of the Law, have merged Church and State and will brook no suggestion that it be separated again.

We were made compulsory Anglicans when we became compelled to vote on pain of penalty. Our other right, to challenge the right of Parliament to make utterly ridiculous laws, in a Ch III Constitution “court”, was then removed, and so was our right to participate as part as a college of 12 in a proceeding to review stupid legislation. To confuse and deceive us the State Church in New South Wales spends $100 million dollars on a Media Bribe, so the media will not criticize the merger of Church and State. Howard likewise spent many millions, while 100,000 homeless froze. A State Church without a basic philosophy but paying its Priests handsomely, is exactly what the Constitution was made to avoid

Peter, you are right that although I live in a secular country...it is one that is controlled at many government levels by religion.
Thankfully us peasants don't have to live as our "masters" would have us do so. This does not mean that the rants of the self righteous religious doesn't rankle...
Their influence is waning...Jonny Howard and GW Bush do provide an excellent example of why even a little bit of religious thinking is toxic to leadership.
Listen up kiddies: Don't let any man who talks about God tell you what to do! If he helps you understand then he *might* be trustworthy. If he *knows* he is right then run!

Jedimaster
The state of your heart is no concern of mine, but may I offer my hopes of a speedy recover. Probability was only mentioned as a passing comment to indicate a time frame, and of no consequence to the discussion on hand. Max Plank was picked because his work on black body radiation was the beginning of quantum physics.
Heisenberg's quantum mechanics and his uncertainty theory where two separate theories, and causality is alien to quantum mechanics, as is evidenced by the Copenhagen Interpretation. But apart from throwing into doubt your understanding of quantum physics (which makes you the same as everyone else) your comments have no relevance to the article. They have simply strayed so far away from the topic as to be meaningless.

Peter the Believer. Your comments intrigue me. I think we are working along the same lines but your communication is not always clear. One of the many reasons I spoke out so often against the unholy trinity of Bush/Blair/Howard was their attempts by them to bring religion into government. That of course was on top of the treat of asylum seekers, IR laws, using retrospective legislation to overrule the high court and other issues.
On one occasion I did end up in the magistrate's court arguing for the religious freedom guaranteed in our constitution. My argument was that freedom could not be made compulsory and it was my right to choose whatever religious (or lack of) observances I followed in the context of compulsory voting. I lost. Apparently in Australia freedom can be made compulsory and, according to Makeledes, that we do not have rights, we have obligations. Reference Australia versus Young at the Fremantle magistrates court before Magistrate Makeledes.

But again, that is a side issue. I thought this discussion was on paradigms and cognitive dissonance. All I want to say on that issue is that the level of cognitive dissonance being thrown around OLO at the moment a paradigm shift seems inevitable.

Davly
It's a pity that you have resorted to sarcasm. I thought that we were getting along real friendly and with informed opinion.

Causality and physics have everything to do with cognitive dissonance. You can only have CD if you are comparing what you know with what you perceive. Resolution comes from checking the perceptions (observations in physics) and checking the knowledge base- hey! Ain't that science?

Things have moved on since Copenhagen (see Steve Weinberg) Probabilism and determinism aren't incompatible.

How does all this relate to modern politics? It could be defined as a kind of denial of CD- ie "All that evidence in front of you is an illusion- what we're saying is actually what we're doing"

Just keep to the informed opinion and away from the sarcasm- that was Bob Menzies main weapon.

David,

A very stimulating article that has led to a large number of reasoned and interesting responses. Well done.

Unfortunately the religious lot had to add their bit through same tired old arguments that are par for the course on OLO. You cannot tackle faith with reason so it is pointless responding to them.

However one post rabbited on about the drivel he is forced to endure from the loony left whoever they are. I suspect the author of this particular post believes that striving to move society towards a more sustainable path is madness. It may be an almost impossible task given human nature and the escalating fetish for growth that has fueled western society in the last number of decades but it is surely better that opting for perpetual growth of either population or per capita material wealth or both as is the case for corporate Australia and the two parties that kowtow to them.

The resources of the planet (and Australia) are finite and the loony right needs to recognize this.

David,
You said that ‘someone had to try and make this into a religious debate.’ I’m not sure who you are referring to if it wasn’t yourself. Your article invites this. You have quite a bit to say about religion. What are religions if they don’t involve paradigms?

If I understand what you are saying, then this means our ability to think and reason is limited and constrained within a paradigm, which perhaps includes our education, family history, geography, culture, among other things, but especially our language. With many of these things, we have no ability to change. (We could perhaps travel or learn another language).

And we may not even be able to recognise their influence. I notice within your statement of how you relate to the unknowable force being your affair alone the influence of Kierkegaardean thought. If I’m not mistaken, I think it was he who popularised in the West the notion that our understanding of God needed to be more governed by our consciences than by dogmas. Are you familiar with this guy?

So I thank OLO for helping us into a bit of conflict with each other so that we can break out of some of our paradigm restrictions. And thanks for writing one of OLO’s more interesting articles.

I look forward to the world to come where we will have endless ages to go out and learn new languages and see how the other person thinks.

This comment should be on the Hillsong site, but it is just as much at home here. Epiphany experiences shaped the world, when Saul who became Paul had one on the Road to Damascus, Jacob who became Israel had one at Penuel, and Moses had one at a burning bush. As they say at Hillsong, the Church is not peripheral to society it is central to it. The church of Jesus Christ, is probably the most widespread community based organization in Australia, and the Anglicans alone claim four million members.

Any debate about paradigms, must consider its influence. The King James Version of the Holy Bible is written in English, and brought about a veritable revolution in the Kingdom of England when between the time of its publication in 1610 and 1688, what is known as the Glorious Revolution, established Christianity as the guiding philosophy of the United Kingdom.

When people could read the Holy Bible for themselves, and not have its contents mangled and changed by Priests, they insisted upon the Good Government promised by its pages. The Official King James Version has little black stars, in the Old Testament, showing where promises were made, and kept in the New Testament. It would appear that Kevin Rudd had an epiphany experience some twelve or thirteen years ago, and has been made Prime Minister, so the Christian paradigm, enshrined in the Australian Constitution can be reestablished.

We do not know what brought Kevin Rudd to Almighty God but we do know what Almighty God has brought to Kevin Rudd. After sixty years of secularism, pushed by lawyers, we have a Christian Leader, with the intellect and integrity to lead the Commonwealth. His Party, the Labor Party is the natural party of Christianity.

Some of its past leaders have been less than Christian. By attending Church each Sunday, where possible Kevin Rudd is meeting with all comers, in the best possible grass roots environment. The 65% of Australians who claim Christianity are comfortable with that. The Power of One Christian Man, to serve Almighty God in the Christian paradigm, is enormous.

Dan
My religious position is that of a Sheilaist. The definition I read of Sheilaism is that a woman named Sheila was filling a census form and when she came to the question of her religion called herself a 'Sheilaist' because she had her own religion of one. That basically is a position I take in all things, religious or otherwise.
You are correct in your comments that my understanding that paradigms limit our ability to think. In a religious context paradigms would be called dogma. They are the same non-thinking positions.
I am referring to the dogma of those who claim to be God's lawyers as the basis of their elevated judgmental position when I comment on making this a religious debate. To my understanding God does not need a lawyer so their dogma is irrelevant. 'Left' or 'right' in politics is only another form of Dogma. All dogma is a non-thinking position.
Kierkegaardean? I am comfortable with the philosophies along those lines.
Opinion to me requires sufficient knowledge of a subject to make that opinion reasoned and informed. This means that to have opinions we have to keep up to date on what is happening over a wide range and be willing to think about the issues. We also need to be flexible as our understanding increases. Without sufficient knowledge our 'opinion' is only dogma and bigotry. I think that the word bigotry is just another word for paradigm and dogma.
I do not see the exchange of ideas as conflict. I see the dogma as the conflict.
There is nothing that can be done about dogma because it has no base and can never be proved or disproved. Basically dogma is nothing but nothing can be done about nothing.
It is nice to be able to debate without descending into bigotry.

Dan
A Typo. It should have been Kierkegaardean? I am NOT comfortable with philosophies along those lines.
I have just wasted my second post.

David,
Do you think that paradigms are universal in the sense that they affect everybody? Everyone (more or less) interacts with others in their society or community, sharing a common language and way of thinking or perceiving. If we are all affected by paradigms, does that not also include yourself?

And if you are so negative about paradigms (equating them with bigotry), saying that they limit our ability to think, then would that not also reflection your own thought? Are you not also admitting that your thoughts are restricted, or have some somehow risen above these restrictive paradigms?

I am willing to admit that my thoughts are to an extent the result of those who have contributed to my history and my ideas. That is to say, I have a bias. But not all biases are wrong or false.

You say that reasoned and informed opinion requires sufficient and wide ranging knowledge. But you haven’t described how much is sufficient. And my view of wide ranging may be very different to yours. So in the end it could be simply a matter of my paradigm versus your paradigm, my bias versus your bias. Which is the best bias to be biased with?

Dan
I see paradigms as being universal in the sense we all have them, but not that there are universal paradigms. In our society there are many paradigms and many different languages even though the words sound the same.
As I see it as unlikely that any of us are free of paradigms and we are all limited in our thinking. The best I can see in the moment is developing the ability to question our decisions as we make them and accept that it is the best we can do for now.
The question for me is can a person accept that they are making the best decision they can for now with the acceptance that future information may cause a re-think. Rethinking a decision does not necessarily mean we will change it, and not every bias will be wrong or false. In the article I made that case that not everything about a paradigm was necessarily false and the new will probably be no better than the old. I favour evolution not revolution.
Sufficient information is basically as above. It is more an understanding that the knowledge we have is limited and retaining the ability to update opinions as we learn more. Dogma (paradigm) is not opinion because dogma cannot update. Dogma is the end of the line because nobody can learn if they know everything.
If it is simply my dogma versus your dogma there is nowhere to go. If opinion is real opinion then both can evolve.
This is an interesting line and if you would like to correspond on a one to one basis please send me an email through my website.

A paradigm is a pattern or an example, and it is by the study of patterns, and examples that we get to make informed decisions. For example since 1949, there has been a paradigm or pattern of ever increasing government interference in the private lives of individuals, and a dogma adopted that the State is Sovereign. A dogma is a principle or tenet, or doctrinal system, and this dogmatic insistence on State Sovereignty, is in direct contradiction of the paradigms established and adopted by the Australian people in the lead up to independence from Britain in 1900.

We now have a small but very influential minority of University graduates, in all walks of life, who subscribe to the doctrine of Secular State Sovereignty. The dogma of State Sovereignty is extremely destructive. The pursuit of education has coincided to a large degree in the rejection of dogma. At the same time, the dogma ( uninformed Christianity) rejected has been replaced with another even worse dogma; The fallacious dogma that the State will look after you, fed continuously by the media, seeking sensational news.

State Sovereignty as dogma enacted as the Australia Act 1986 is a direct contradiction of the paradigm, enacted in 1900, in S 116 Constitution. Like all dogma’s it is riven with contradictions. Even before the English could all read and write, their leaders realized that there was a paradigm in Christianity, that contradicted the dogma promulgated by the Roman Catholic Church.

The entire purpose and object of the life of Jesus Christ his resurrection, and the life of Saul who became Paul was to establish a paradigm of individuality, as opposed to tribalism. State Sovereignty is tribalism, and nine State tribes make laws in Australia. No matter where we come from or what race we are derived from, we are subject to the paradigm of a United Australia. The dogmatics won’t permit universal jury trials, and an unfair unjust Australia will continue until that right is reestablished, as the universal paradigm, that glued society together for 755 years. Until jury trials are restored we are tribally dogmatic

Congratulations David for refocusing us on the timely and vexed issue of our flawed humanity.

You general approach reeks of behaviourism; I think a rather outdated paradigm, of itself a product of the objectivism or old science. However I do not for a minute doubt your humanity or belief in rationality, I just think that in the struggle for understanding we too often pick up the wrong tools. I am sorry also for the materialists who's very language is based on the social consensus of abstract language, a sophisticated metaphysical schema in itself.

You speak of Wolfe and the way in which language creates paradigms; more recently David Abrams in "Spell of the Sensous", suggests that the very abstraction of language from the body and its relation with the earth may to be to blame for our collective loss of integrated consciousness; there may be some truth in this.

I do however find Eckhart Tolle's comprehensive reflection on human consciousness incredibly persausive and timely.He suggests that it is our unaware investment in the abstraction of thought itself that is the primary problem. Nothing much new in this, some very old and timeless. A very lucid explanation of human immaturity and some very simple and proven tools for each of us to improve our clarity of Being human.

We can only hope that we will come to this higher state of consciousness together and in a timely manner that curtails the wastage of the wonder that is life on earth.

Hi Duncan. I am surprised you think my approach is that of a behaviourist. That was not my intent or my position. My philosophy is 'Think for yourself, make your own decisions.' I am in fact an 'anti-behaviourist' if there is need of a label to explain a small part of my being.
Maybe the confusion is that I think paradigms cause us to run on automatic like a mouse in a Skinner box.
I see Skinner and others describing how the human race reacts to blind dogma. However unlike Skinner I do not see this as a 'natural' way of behaving or as the way the human race is 'supposed' to work. I see behaviourism as being the way the human brain works when it is sick and believing this how it should be. It is like having a car that has run on three cylinders for so long we believe it is supposed to run on three cylinders.
Somewhere, somehow the way we think has fouled up, which is hardly an original thought.
I see the possibility that the 'error' in our thinking is we do not think because dogma(paradigm) removes the need to think. The cost is to live a halve life.
If you add to that the idea that natural thinking would be based on what we want, rather than what we believe we are supposed to want and I might get close to what was intended.
It is a pity that comments cannot be made before an article is written because the comments often point out what needs to be covered in greater depth to bring out the real intent. If I write a similar article in the future it will certainly benefit from comments such as yours that point out where my intent was not clear.

David, you said:
"It is a pity that comments cannot be made before an article is written because the comments often point out what needs to be covered in greater depth to bring out the real intent. If I write a similar article in the future it will certainly benefit from comments such as yours that point out where my intent was not clear."

To me, this gets to the nub of what OLO COULD be- a medium for elevating and ordering our scattered thoughts, rather than a source of further turmoil. Perhaps OLO could provide an opportunity for authors to have a "second bite", in which they respond to blogger's contributions. Without this step, we are left with a muddle of good ideas, half-baked notions and a bucket of Pavlovian droolings by the victims of behaviourism who respond identically to every bell.

This does not preclude readers from making up their own minds from what they have read. Thesis-antithesis-synthesis. That's intellectual progress.

Woops, I seem to have stumbled into a sensible, reasoned discussion forum. Very interesting.