Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to Tom, Tom, Tom

Robert
TB — (archived)

Part of the problem around here is that there are so many examples of "intellectual flexibility" that one is never sure what's a joke and what isn't. You look at a series of posts and figure, "come on, he or she has GOT to be pulling our chains." But after a while, you realize they're dead serious.

The first post in this thread was a lot longer to begin with. I cooled off, and shortened it considerably. Basically, it said that a lot of people don't look up the answers because they really don't want to know them.

"Open-mindedness" and "intellectual flexibility" used to mean "receptive to new information." It meant that if a person was presented with new facts that they would integrate them into their thinking along with whatever else they knew, possibly changing their views on things. (Integration is a rapidly-fading skill, which is why perceptions of things like hypocrisy and inconsistency are fading along with it.)

Now "open mindedness" means that nothing should ever be agreed on as an objective truth. There is no real "right" or "wrong," "true" or "false." It means that if someone says something is true, and research proves it wrong, his input is still valid, and saying otherwise makes you some kind of hard-nosed freak.

Either facts are important, or they aren't. It's interesting that my view that facts should take precendence over whims, hearsay, random information bites, and irrational beliefs makes me into some kind of inflexible "rock." This probably explains a lot about our society.

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