Originally Posted by
Walter S
Rather than "depend on" a set of well thought out steps that have been carefully developed with rigorous peer reviewed logic over many years, you could also see the steps as a road map to intellectual development that follows a tried and true process designed to uncover logical fallacies in your thinking and facilitate the development of theories that can be accepted by others as well tested.
But you would obviously rather follow an informal process and IMO that's just for your intellectual enjoyment. You want to follow day dreaming adventures in your mind that are not constrained by a process that might limit the dimensions of your dream free flowing thru the universe. As to whether that results in any truths that apply with anything like the universal applicability in your fantasy, that's an entirely separate matter that probably includes a variety of unstated and unverified assumptions on your part.
In the end what TP calls "critical thinking" is much better described as the latest ramblings where TP again finds joy in radical departures from tradition expressed with childishly over simplified logic in an assumption of its universal applicability. What's so critical about that?
When you start thinking critically for yourself, you will understand. Until then, I guess you'll just keep ranting like this and ridiculing people like me who don't submit to your uncritical assumptions and agree with you.
I cry BS. People are not buying cars because they fear non-conformity. They're buying cars because the car enables various pursuits including income and leisure following a well demonstrated model. I would agree that *some* people have cars for no good reason. There might be functional models they could be following but are not simply because it's not a routine they've witnessed or thought about seriously. OTOH I would NOT agree that such people are huge in number. If living car free is easy in your area then there are probably already examples to witness and follow.
Many many aspects of people's lives are guided by avoidance of non-conformity. When you start seeing conformity for what it is, a mindless/uncritical copycatting of others to avoid mindless judgment based on mindless cultural adherence, you gain the independence to do things that are perfectly good, just not considered normal.
One example that comes to mind is when I posted that carrying plastic shopping bags on handlebars works well if you are able to steer your bike without the bags getting caught in your spokes, etc. Do you realize how many nasty responses I got to that by people who just find it ugly and pathetic on the basis of normative aesthetic judgment? Yes, there is a mindless hate for people who 'look poor' because they/we use low-cost methods for doing things. But guess what? Sometimes those low-cost methods are effective and efficient and the people who are judging us aesthetically are just mindless conformists who are enslaving themselves to unnecessary economic pressures to avoid unjustified ridicule. You can call BS all you want, but I call BS on driving a car because you are conforming to an aesthetic model that expects you to show up everywhere in season-inappropriate clothing, looking like you haven't been outside all day.