Unless you’re some kind of religious fundamentalist, it’s likely that you will agree that an open mind is a positive quality. And, when arguing, both you and your opponents should be on guard against having a closed mind, that is, refusing to even consider the possibility that you are wrong.
However, some people - I see this from time to time - use the “you don’t have an open mind!” argument in a very peculiar way…
It goes like this:
Person A: “2 plus 2 equals 4.”
Person B: “That’s very closed-minded. You’re not even considering the possibility that you’re wrong, and that 2 + 2 equals something other than 4. You refuse to listen to any opinions or ideas different from your own. Other people may believe that 2 + 2 equals, say, 5, and who’s to say that you know better than them? How can you be so arrogantly sure? You talk about keeping an open mind, and yet you accept on faith than 2 + 2 equals 4, and refuse to think further about it. That’s dogmatic, like any religion.”
<sigh>
Yes, relativism is a terrible thing - it denies the existence of facts, of an objective reality. To a relativist, there are no facts, only opinions, and there’s nothing that says that one is better or truer than another. A relativist prides himself on “an open mind”, because, after all, he’s prepared to believe anything and everything, without judging, without using his mind at all.
However, that attitude is nothing more than a refusal to think and to deal with an objective reality on its terms. It’s pure cowardice - reality is scary, so you deny it.
An open mind does not mean denying the existence of facts. That’s just an absurd distortion of the concept.
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Phew… Post-modernists are almost as bad as the fundies themselves, and unfortunately that “perception rules reality” bit is prevalent in the up and coming generation.
Nice blog. I’ll be back.
Perhaps a better understanding of these people can be “knee-jerk”. Anything is possible, if (10 dimensional) string theory pans out. Its just right in one of all possible universes!
Obviously there are different levels of truth, and while the person you argued with was of meagre intellect, I think they were after something like this:
As a small exercise, lets take ten theories accepted as fact by most of the scientific community about the physical world and you can assign probabilities to those facts. Others too.
1. Gravity is explained by string-theory.
2. Black holes exist.
3. The big bang caused the universe.
4. The universe is expanding but will in the future shrink and collapse.
5. There is a tenth planet in our solar system.
6. Genes cannot skip generations.
7. Placebo cant cause biological change in the organism.
8. String theory is correct.
9. There is a grand unifying theory.
10. There is no god.
For fun, heres mine:
1. 2%
2. 50%
3. 50%
4. 2%
5. 80%
6. 2%
7. 2%
8. 1%
9. 1%
10. 20% (I do believe, but know I may be wrong)
Ben.
Just to throw a monkey wrench into the dialogue above. It is possible for 2 + 2 to equal something other than 4… if you change the rules that is. For instance if I ask you what is 5 hours later than 10 o’clock, you would most likely answer 3 o’clock. This is the same as saying 10 + 5 = 3. This is something in math called modular arithmetic. (The ‘mod’ in this case is 12.) Using ‘mod 3′ we could then say that 2 + 2 = 1.
Of course, this is just another example that keeping an open mind can lead to some interesting discoveries!
However, it also points out that it is very hard to define what is ‘objective reality.’ There are often implied assumptions and perceptions that lead to our ‘objective’ facts.
Interesting blog, I don’t think I will be able to sleep tonight. =p
P.S. Jim left a very intriguing comment.
I quote ‘ As a small exercise, lets take ten theories accepted as fact by most of the scientific community about the physical world…There is no god ‘
Here’s a little insight into the scientific community; they DO believe in god. This ‘being’ is referred to as ‘Factor X’
Factor X, huh? Sounds pretty uncalculable.
Actually the effect of a placebo on the human body is well predictable (usually water or a solution of VC). And that’s why they use it (they expect that the subject substance will result in more drastic changes along diff lines). Also don’t be paranoid.
Replying to Jim above:
Although you’re right that 2+2=1 if you use ‘mod 3′, unfortunately, there’s no way of making 2 + 2 = 5 without changing the definitions of the numbers…
2 + 2 = 4, but like you mentioned relativism is a terrible thing. You can’t prove without a shadow of a doubt there isn’t a God can you? So you are saying more along the lines of 2 + x = 4 without knowing what the x is. Granted Christians don’t know what the x is either, but there is where faith steps in.
Lincoln: my point is that, in my opinion, saying “you can’t be 100% sure that there is no God” is like saying “you can’t be 100% sure that 2 + 2 will be 4 tomorrow”. However, I’m pretty sure about both… reality has never disappointed me, so far, and I’ve never seen our universe being anything other than 100% natural. And I don’t think that being sure about those makes me “arrogant”.
Pangwan… that is exactly my point! The definitions change. Each person operates under their own set of assumptions. We can talk about and agree on any number of them, but the bottom line is no two people will have exactly the same ones!
And if we want to have a conversation with the hope that we come to an agreement on, then we need to make sure that we are working under the same assumptions/definitions about that particular topic.
I’m not saying by this that there is no objective reality, but for those people who quickly point to “objective reality” as the basis for their beliefs, it should be pointed out that it is their “definitions” that color what they see.
“2 + 2 = 4, but like you mentioned relativism is a terrible thing. You can’t prove without a shadow of a doubt there isn’t a God can you? So you are saying more along the lines of 2 + x = 4 without knowing what the x is. Granted Christians don’t know what the x is either, but there is where faith steps in.”
I don’t see the logic you’re using here. We know that 2 + 2 = 4 because - and only because - we know that both numbers ARE ‘2′. There is no ‘X’. Believing without a doubt that 2 + x = 4 is a better analogy for religion than for atheism. God + Creation = The Universe for instance. No one knows exactly who or what ‘God’ is and no one has any evidence of how the ‘Creation’ took place, yet some theists would believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that when you put the two together you get our current Universe.
Excellent post Pedro, I’ll be coming back to keep an eye on this blog.
Gnack
I understand where you’re coming from on this, but relativism isn’t necessarily cowardice, but simply another way of looking at the universe. Because, honestly, our interaction with our environment exists in chemical signals in our brains that can and are (frequently) fucked up. Therefore, you really can’t prove that anything exists. I don’t think it matters one way or the other, but saying that 2 +2 can equal whatever the fuck you want doesn’t mean that you can’t work around a fact of 2 + 2 = 4.