Objective Perspective Will (volition) denotes unpredictable, endogenous behavior. It is an intricate function of thoughts, desires, and emotions that triggers an action. But thoughts can be inaccurate, desires short-sighted, and emotions maladaptive. Hence the concept of the True Will, which consists of three essential aspects: thinking rationally about oneself and the world around,viewing desires from a long-term perspective, andhaving adaptive emotions. Epistemic rationality … [Read more...]
Statistics Versus the Individual
The distinction between statistics and the individual is among the most far-reaching concepts of the modern world. We can view everything from science and its philosophy to politics, ethics, and economics in the light of that distinction. Recall that statistics is about averages, trends, and patterns that emerge from large numbers (effects of scale), whereas the individual, though it may appear in a statistic as a data point, escapes most typical methods of quantification. This has … [Read more...]
The Spectrum of Reality
The concept of reality spans a broad spectrum of levels of description. On the one extreme, that of pure quantitativeness, reality may be a mathematical structure such as an intricate quantum graph. On the other extreme, that of pure qualitativeness, reality may be what we experience when we rid ourselves of all conceptual thinking in a state of mindful awareness. Between the extremes, our levels of descriptions have different degrees of conceptuality and objectivity: from philosophical … [Read more...]
When It’s Bad to Be Decisive
The ability to make decisions quickly and confidently is widely lauded in our culture. But whether decisiveness is a virtue or not seems to depend, as usual, on the context. Situation A. You know a lot about the relevant variables of your decision and you have reliable intuitions about how they interact and how tweaking them will affect the outcome of each potential action. This might be your situation at work: you are skilled and experienced enough to know what to do, so it's easy for you to … [Read more...]
True Pride Revisited
Although I have written numerous blog plots on the concept of true pride in previous years, I have only now found myself able to distill the concept's quintessence in three sentences, and here they are: There are two types of pride: false pride and true pride.False pride is ego—a defense mechanism that protects us from getting emotionally hurt by others and that undermines rational thought.True pride is devotion to principles—the root of discipline and the foundation of a rational lifestyle. … [Read more...]
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