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The Forum > Article Comments > The age of reason > Comments

The age of reason : Comments

By David Young, published 15/1/2009

Surely if we were in fact rational beings we would learn from each other and form a human paradigm?

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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You general approach reeks of behaviourism; I think a rather outdated paradigm, of itself a product of the objectivism or old science.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.
Posted by duncan mills, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 7:35:44 PM
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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.
Posted by Daviy, Thursday, 22 January 2009 4:31:17 AM
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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.
Posted by Jedimaster, Thursday, 22 January 2009 9:47:00 AM
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Woops, I seem to have stumbled into a sensible, reasoned discussion forum. Very interesting.
Posted by Houellebecq, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 1:07:49 PM
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