"Think for yourself", an affirmation, or an aphorism ?

[Stupid]

Either wittingly or unwittingly, many people behold the term, "Think for Yourself".

In the context for this thread and on this forum, I am referring to it's usage as an alternative method to believably create a claim or situation by the use of your common experience, and subjective stances.
....to consciously choose your own belief, over the scientific and otherwise long-held explanations on the matter and method of the world.

Wow...big subject. I'm not here to write a book, or a post-college thesis.

The term seems to imply a choice - a mental decision apart from an "accepted norm". It is an assertion of freedom, even if it breaks the rules of logic and standard practice.

“Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.”
― Voltaire

....My acquaintances are very intelligent, have degrees from respectable universities, and have come up with this very interesting hypothesis. They were trying to discover and understand the workings of the world, but they made a series of errors that will prevent their idea from being accepted by a learned audience: they decided the idea was obviously true without submitting it first to valid testing (indeed, any testing at all). That is, they leapt straight from hypothesis to conviction, mistakenly thinking that a belief in understanding how the world works and valid science were separable.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-...c_b_12217.html

Often on sites like David Icke and his ideas, the phrase comes up often.... "think for yourselves"
The phrase is an attractant and welcome resting place to those who suspect they are being forcefully guided by powerful "establishment" sources.

It frees them to explore their inner intuition. The quote is emancipating and energetically creative. It allows for any idea to slip in to the "force positive", the "entirely possible", the "explain-ably plausible", the "avenue of brave thought and dimensions", the "hidden theory", the "deceit emancipated through an open mind", "free thinking", and the "uncontrolled mind, unleashed of outside influences".

The quote/saying may have come from the idea that there may be powers that "don't want you to think for yourselves". Hence the reaction is the antithesis.

It is likely the root fuel of many conspiracy believers....and I thought I'd bring it up as a topic.

[Stupid]

musical interlude...

[Mick]

Often on sites like David Icke and his ideas, the phrase comes up often.... "think for yourselves"
The phrase is an attractant and welcome resting place to those who suspect they are being forcefully guided by powerful "establishment" sources.

But unfortunately they reject one set of authority figures, and substitute their own. Instead of believing in scientists, they believe in random people on YouTube and Facebook.

When Newton attributed his success to "standing on the shoulders of giants", I suspect he was not referring to some tall bloke he met down the pub.

[Stupid]

It is ironic. In fact they are changing sides.....dwelling with others who have also rejected the status quo.
In that way, they may feel a brotherhood.
Although whether this new brotherhood brings a new cohesiveness....is obviously debatable and quite scatter-shot.....just look at the hundreds of "new ideas" that this alternative thinking brings. It's an open-mindedness bickering-party. Maybe that's why it's so popular, numbers-wise.
..kinda like the tribal ethnic mid-east Asia......same basic religion, different factions that just can't get along.

[SR1419]

Either wittingly or unwittingly, many people behold the term, "Think for Yourself".

It is likely the root fuel of many conspiracy believers

…the real issue is knowing how to “think”. As highlighted in your quote from Steve Hindes- you should not go from idea to belief without the vigorous testing and validating of hypotheses first.

Newton thought for himself…but he made sure he was right via the scientific method.

[Stupid]

Internet blogs and high-profile (top google hits) make it relatively easy for the distrusting public to take an anti-establishment view as a certain "truth".
Yes, this fellow-kinship found on the web is a "new way of thinking". Poor decisions to trust anything found on the web - is what I think, the biggest problem with the web today.
That's above privacy issues, guerrilla marketing, advertizing preponderance, and the social media addiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Wouldn't it be nice to have a search engine that would eliminate "public opinion (opine)" in the search results ?
That's prob not possible. I think the best we can do is to help "debunk" mystical opine by our own actions....like what Mick's site is attempting to do here. Not that our views here are stone-engraved....but that a realistic fact-based view becomes the goal.

[Stupid]

[Charlie Primero]

Internet blogs and high-profile (top google hits) make it relatively easy for the distrusting public to take an anti-establishment view as a certain "truth".

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I'm old enough to remember when there was No Internet. Knowledge was tightly controlled and expensive to acquire. If you wanted to learn about police use of force, hypoglycemia (which my wife's doctor said did not exist), or nuclear waste regulations, you had to travel to a university library, and/or pay thousands of dollars per year for printed academic journals and printed books.

I'll take the free-wheeling chaos of the internet over that any day.

It's difficult to appreciate something like food, freedom (from jail), or internet if you've never been deprived of it.


> Wouldn't it be nice to have a search engine that would eliminate "public opinion (opine)" in the search results ?

These do exist.

[Mick]

I don't think anyone is arguing that the internet is not a great research and education tool. Just that with all the benefits there also come some pitfalls.

[Stupid]

> Wouldn't it be nice to have a search engine that would eliminate "public opinion (opine)" in the search results ?

These do exist.

Perhaps you are correct...Let's make a list:

[Mick]

Google Scholar is pretty good. But I think also just regular Google search can be used in a way that filter out the chaff, with a little experience, and a few filtering tricks (like "sulphur injection -chemtrails -apostasy")

[Stupid]

History......the first time I heard an endorsement of Google, was from Dr Lucy Jones (cal tech) when she reported on a recent earthquake, and found that she relied on this search engine called "Google".
That was many years ago, when everyone was using Yahoo, Alta Vista, or AOL........Google was for "techies" and "scientists".
This is what drove me to the Google search function.

Google Scholar, while limiting itself to most available "research papers" .....these searches unfortunately also include some unreliable results.
There is no filter there in Google Scholar, to eliminate greatly biased ..."studies".....nor do I expect Google to filter them out.

Here is their stance...of sorts..
http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/about.html

[Mick]

You'd never want to rely entirely on a third party to filter out your sources for you anyway. That way you'd end up in a walled garden, with a narrow view of the world.

Sadly that's what happens with the conspiracists - often they get obsessed with a site like Above Top Secret or (worse) Godlike Productions, or (even worse) davidicke.com, and they start to get 90% of their info (and hence world view) from one site, even just one corner of a site. They think they are "thinking for themselves" because the posts they readily accept as true run counter to the mainstream.

Debunkers need to maintain a broad interface to the world.

[Mat]

I reckon Descarte's said it best in the The Discorse (and similar in Meditations), "The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt."

But Buddha said similar, "Don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you should abandon them."

[Stupid]

Thanks Mat.

Debunkers need to maintain a broad interface to the world.

The broad next door brought a fist "into-my-face" when I suggested her ideas were unworldly.
(sorry, I saw a linguistic parody, and I took it far.)

[AJA]

Either wittingly or unwittingly, many people behold the term, "Think for Yourself".

In the context for this thread and on this forum, I am referring to it's usage as an alternative method to believably create a claim or situation by the use of your common experience, and subjective stances.
....to consciously choose your own belief, over the scientific and otherwise long-held explanations on the matter and method of the world.

Wow...big subject. I'm not here to write a book, or a post-college thesis.

The term seems to imply a choice - a mental decision apart from an "accepted norm". It is an assertion of freedom, even if it breaks the rules of logic and standard practice.

“Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.”
― Voltaire


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-...c_b_12217.html

Often on sites like David Icke and his ideas, the phrase comes up often.... "think for yourselves"
The phrase is an attractant and welcome resting place to those who suspect they are being forcefully guided by powerful "establishment" sources.

It frees them to explore their inner intuition. The quote is emancipating and energetically creative. It allows for any idea to slip in to the "force positive", the "entirely possible", the "explain-ably plausible", the "avenue of brave thought and dimensions", the "hidden theory", the "deceit emancipated through an open mind", "free thinking", and the "uncontrolled mind, unleashed of outside influences".

The quote/saying may have come from the idea that there may be powers that "don't want you to think for yourselves". Hence the reaction is the antithesis.

It is likely the root fuel of many conspiracy believers....and I thought I'd bring it up as a topic.

I hold the subjected phrase close to my heart. I think the term "alternative" is somewhat perverted in its cultural usage. I do recognize that there is a common usage of such words as "alternative", yet I still prefer to consider it, in most cases, as misconstrued. As far as long-held and scientific methods go, I do not think they hold as much longevity as you presume. Theories and even viciously guarded facts sometimes become overwhelmed by new ideas and evidence.


Regardless of my opinion on the phrase at hand, you are correct in that there are many people who use it as a foundation to manipulate other people. I consider it to be of the utmost importance because of the implications of changing ideas and theories, as I stated in my previous paragraph. It is a shame that spirituality and science have become so polarized and that they continue to create distance between themselves in the eyes of so many people. I think the idea of intuition can sometimes be dubious in its nature for the simple fact that humans do require the same developmental process of every other living creature on the planet(you live and you learn). I think a better definition of the phrase could be, "consider the ideas and evidence at hand, then formulate an opinion".

[Mick]

In conspiracy culture "think for yourself" is not so much an encouragement to consider the evidence and to form your own opinions based on your life experience and your powers of reasoning. It's an encouragement to reject mainstream trusted sources, and replace them with less mainstream, less trusted sources.

Take chemtrails. "Think for yourself" does not mean go out and do some experiments with relative humidity and ice supersaturation - it means: "Don't trust NASA, don't trust science books, don't trust scientists. Trust Clifford Carnicom. Trust Michael J. Murphy."

It's the ultimate doublespeak. "Think for yourself" really means "let me think for you".

[AJA]

In conspiracy culture "think for yourself" is not so much an encouragement to consider the evidence and to form your own opinions based on your life experience and your powers of reasoning. It's an encouragement to reject mainstream trusted sources, and replace them with less mainstream, less trusted sources.

Take chemtrails. "Think for yourself" does not mean go out and do some experiments with relative humidity and ice supersaturation - it means: "Don't trust NASA, don't trust science books, don't trust scientists. Trust Clifford Carnicom. Trust Michael J. Murphy."

It's the ultimate doublespeak. "Think for yourself" really means "let me think for you".

Another example of that perception is "Magic is causing change in accordance with The Will(the will of the universe / the greater good / the will of God)" and "Magic is causing change in accordance with the will(your will)". I think there is a clear difference between thinking for yourself and others thinking for you. I would like to think most people can tell the difference. And I would like to point out that you just created a perfect example of double-speak. They clearly don't mean the same thing.

[scombrid]

I think there is a clear difference between thinking for yourself and others thinking for you. I would like to think most people can tell the difference.

Most people can.
Those people that are telling you that:
1)Contrails always dissipated quickly before 199X.
2)Cirrus clouds flowing off of intense convection be it pop-up thunderstorms or a tropical cyclone are not natural and are "chemdumps or chembombs".
3)Persistent contrails are impossible where they live because it is summertime where they live and it is too hot or they are in Phoenix and it is too dry.
4)Altocumulus clouds are "HAARP" clouds and didn't exist prior to HAARP
5)and various other demonstrably false beliefs

Those people either cannot or are choosing to not think for themselves. When they then admonish you for being closed minded and brainwashed by (government, school, maintstream media, etc...) and then challenge you to think for yourself they really are asking you to accept their fantasy without real thought. In the case of such people "Think for yourself" really does mean "Believe me".

[farbot]

I am a bit in between on this subject. I once held a discussion with somebody on the nature of money

I'm not going to retell the whole story but basically....interests and loans cause more 'money' to enter the 'market' hence inflation of prices (and not the other way around (i.e. inflation starts with traders that let their prizes rise). This is something that can be demonstrated very easily mathemathically. Not only is this a fact (using this statement on a debunking site...i've got goose bumps all over), but I once read in a history of economics that inflation is necessary to keep a positive investment climate. If money looses value, people will be stimulated to invest in the market. If on the other hand you had complete 'sound' money, like gold, you'd have deflation (in that the increase in the market of goods could not keep up with the 'increase' in gold on the gold market). In a deflatory market, money get's worth more over time, hence people start hoarding their money, hence no investments in the market, hence the market does not get it's necessary funds. This last thing works the other way around of course: people lose trust, they hoard money, less loans,... deflation.

Suffice to say that this person thought I could not be right, that I was surely mistaken and that she'd ask somebody els who 'knew'. While a notebook and optional calculator would do the trick for her (at the very least on the loans/intrest and inflation front). But she chose to put all her trust in an 'expert'...which was some clerk working in a bank.

Which I feel is kinda sad. In that she didn't even try to think... I would have understood checking with this person, a second opinion (or third or fourth,....) if you will, but she admitted not even to have tried the mental excersize.

On the other hand...we can hardly be experts at everything. My opinion is that a good middle ground or daedalic flight path should be found: not thinking we can be experts at everything and at the same time not giving over all our knowing, choices, etc. towards 'trusted sources' (where the reason why we trust those sources may be very much faithbased).

[Mick]

I think people who know something about a subject that is somewhat technical often greatly overestimate the capacity for other people to understand it. It's often not realistic to even expect most people to understand basic math and science. Stuff like atom vs. molecules is meaningless to many people, and relative humidity is just something the average joe just can't wrap their head around.

So "think for yourself" is often not very useful. It think it would be more useful to tell people "learn what a reliable source is", then you could give them some reliable sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantity_theory_of_money

so they can read:

Content from external source:

In monetary economics, the quantity theory of money is the theory that money supply has a direct, proportional relationship with the price level.The theory was challenged by Keynesian economics,^[1] but updated and reinvigorated by the monetarist school of economics. While mainstream economists agree that the quantity theory holds true in the long run, there is still disagreement about its applicability in the short run. Critics of the theory argue that money velocity is not stable and, in the short-run, prices are sticky, so the direct relationship between money supply and price level does not hold.

But don't need to understand:

Content from external source:


In its modern form, the quantity theory builds upon the following definitional relationship.

where

is the total amount of money in circulation on average in an economy during the period, say a year.
is the transactions velocity of money, that is the average frequency across all transactions with which a unit of money is spent. This reflects availability of financial institutions, economic variables, and choices made as to how fast people turn over their money.
and are the price and quantity of the i-th transaction.
is a column vector of the , and the superscript ^T is the transpose operator.
is a column vector of the .

(although admittedly the first quote is probably opaque to most people too)

[farbot]

Point taken...but in my opinion as somebody who has helped some people personally with scientific courses, it mostly depends on will and understanding the basic grammar of these definitions. All those definitions have nice terms that are being used, but unless those terms in themselves are understood, the logic behind them will go astray as well. So indeed, the definition you've put up would allude a lot of people, but with either somebody to help them along to get them to understand, or the necessary will power to pick it apart, most people could get a basic understanding.

In my experience, most people get spooked by the idea of grasping the whole thing at once (so they mentally give up in advance before even trying it.... which will follow them the next time they come across something similar....etcetera). If you don't understand it, pick it apart....maybe you won't understand it completely after a bit of picking, but you will at least have learned something which undoubtedly will serve you well in the future.

When I was 19 or something I wanted to read the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, but alas my local library no longer had them available in Dutch. So I read them in English. My English was not bad up to that point, but it was far from sufficient to understand everything. But a crash course in the world of Tolkien did give me lots of knowledge and understanding after I finished it.

I guess my point is....if you give away your mental power every single time to someone else (even learning what makes a source/statement/piece of logic credible is not an easy feat) because you don't even try to grasp anything, you will always miss out in the end.