Comments on: Logic: how to introduce it and improve mush-minds

By: SamAdamsGhost

SamAdamsGhost — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 17:23:51 +0000

Thanks Frances, youre probably right.
My personal attitude is I really don’t care about being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. I’m just interested in what works. And if someone has a better way, “Fantastic ! Please show me !” is my approach.

One time I actually said to a family member (regarding a practical physical skill) –
” Would you be open to considering looking at another way of doing this, that might produce better results ? ” He answered No. — This guy is all about appearing to never be wrong. I stopped right there. Logic would be of no use.
Going no further on that subject saved time, frustration, and pointless friction. We changed the subject & had perfectly fine discussions on other topics,

By: Frances Gollahon

Frances Gollahon — Sat, 05 Mar 2016 13:07:55 +0000

Sam, don’t start by telling…it makes people feel stupid or slapped in the face. Get their minds in gear by asking questions and getting deep into what they want to have happen. Then present your information, maybe in little bites. Like fishing, you’ve got to set the hook first before you can reel them in.

By: SamAdamsGhost

SamAdamsGhost — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 15:54:05 +0000

@burrado – I know exactly what you mean. Long time professionals are the worst – – (especially doctors). Many (the vast majority ?) of them won’t even entertain the possibility of looking at alternative viewpoints regarding their field of ‘expertise’. It seems that many people would rather be impoverished, sick, or dead – – – than be wrong.

I’ve spoken to a few young people – late teens to mid-20s – who are more open. During a discussion about higher education, one young fellow asked me “How can you tell what’s true & what’s wrong ? How do you wade through the b.s. ?” I mentioned that there are methods for doing this that go back thousands of years. Our conversation then got into the Trivium, and sound reasoning.

By: Brian Steere

Brian Steere — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 12:44:28 +0000

Logic is consistency and congruency of thought but does not provide its own basis or foundation from which to automatically proceed or unfold itself.
Such a starting point may be an assertion or stated definition or belief that can take the form of a foundation – while already being in contradiction.
“This is that” or false association is the minds capacity to imagine meanings that reflect its own wish to override, distort, exploit and re-frame Felt and Shared Relational Meaning as a sense of power to invoke a private mind-dream upon Shared Mind-Stream (Communication Itself) and reconfigure such mind in emulation to project and externalize its denials and interpret them as world to be likewise manipulated, exploited, usurped.
Imagination without integrity is conflicting purpose. Mind Itself is another term for without limit but thought that is not directly extending the Qualities of Mind is self-contradiction. The law of Mind is its unqualified nature and never in fact defined by any framing perspective within thought by which to use ‘As If’ to replace ‘As Is’. What Is – Is and what Is, is as it is – but can be experience infinitely – which includes experiencing it as it is Not as an effect of holding focus and desire in definition that is untrue of What and Who you are as the awareness of existence; a unique expression of the movement of Being in the act of creation that is integrally part or and one with Every other likewise unique expression of Existence – within a richness or multidimensional interrelated that is both the wholeness (Non Local) AND the specific (Local) at Once – with every instant being a wholeness of integrality clearly felt and received and shared – or mis-taken within the lens of a falsely or incompletely asserted self-definition.
The ability to differentiate in thought within and seemingly from Awareness, is a power to forget, cover over or Not Know, (that you are knowing) is part of the movement of segregative consciousness. Implicit to initiating such movement is the reintegrative movement of coming back into your right (whole) Mind – as Is. The interplay of shifting focus in these apparent polarities of possibility and probability is Experience. But the nature of the Integrative movement is a higher, more embracing perspective of synchronicity… presence – as is.
‘What you give out is what you get back’ is also a law or unalterable nature of Mind – and regardless any form of expression, its foundation is your reflection. So it can be said as ‘where you are coming from is where you are experiencing yourself to be’. Coming from or embodying an idea of conflicted self-definition must result the reflection of conflicting relation or world.
So the experiencing of a self-conflicted dissonance is a result or effect of taking a definition of self and allowing it to run instead of the Mind that is your source and nature – for your own reasons.
But the law of mind as it applies to a false foundation projects itself out as a split off logical extension of denial and denied-ness, that operate in the active but disguised suppression and avoidance of dissonance-guilt, dissonance-terror, dissonance-rage – and so forth – so that a self-focus can be ‘born’ within but temporarily unconscious of a deeper imprint conditioning that generates the framing of its world or life experience.
The willingness or grace of noticing and releasing of the false is the stirring or rising of and honesty or undefended awareness of being that recognizes what it is NOT as NOT true and not available or in any sense meaningful to accept, use, focus within, value, identify with or against or persist in giving attention and investment to. The natural movement of being simply operates clearly to a free attention and is recognisably Life – not conceptualizable forms of derivative impressions and association by which to assert or claim a mind of one’s own – over (any symbolic or conceptual image of) Life.
This Movement of being is the capacity of discernment – for the acceptance of what is truly resonant and relevant to who you in this instant know and feel yourself to be, illuminates all that is incongruent or dissonant to you within the light of an awareness of a relational wholeness of being – that in simple terms is the call to joy – but as the unfolding or your own unique receiving and giving of wholeness, fulfilment, appreciation, and gratitude.
The Movement of (the focus) of being within the Infinite or edgeless and open quality of wholeness is the restoring of imagination as the true expression of an integrity of embrace – and the healing of a split off sense of self-hatred that was fed by denial and given power by fear to rage demoniacally in an unwatched mind.

This is a sketch in word-meanings of a willingness to open/share perspective of a Living Movement of being. The word-meanings can never substitute for the willingness – excepting a wish to seem to be who or what I am not – for my own reasons. That is – for reasons that can be uncovered and enquired of in simple curiosity to be found revealing of something that serves me in a way that I can now accept, release and move on from or ‘put behind me’ by the simplicity of embracing what I prefer rather than being defined by what I do NOT want.

By: D and J Oldfield

D and J Oldfield — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 09:32:00 +0000

DEAR JON, WHAT A GREAT HIT. WE ARE HOMESCHOOLING actually UNSCHOOLING OUR CHILDREN. THANKS FOR THIS ARTICLE ON LOGIC WE WILL INCORPORATE IT INTO THEIR SUBJECT WE CALL “MU-ZEN” [ AWARENESS ETC. ]

WE WIIL PASS IT ON TO OUR LARGE ACTIVE GROUP OF HOMESCHOOLERS IN FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA.

THANKS , JON , YOU ARE A CHAMPION.

KIND REGARDS david , jocelyn , isaac , araH OLDFIELD????

By: Wally

Wally — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 06:52:38 +0000

“Your archaeological mission unearths a city that no one knew was there.” Thanx Jon.

Are there any journalists left?

By: burrado

burrado — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 00:39:35 +0000

How do we even survive this mass hysteria? I know almost exactly what you’re talking about, but in my case, I’ve all but given up trying to talk like you did. This is nowhere near as thought out as what you described, but this reminds me of the time many years ago when I naively believed I could simply rush in and show my retired physician dad an alternative view on the cause and cure of cancer and have any kind of positive response. His response: I don’t want to see that. His response wasn’t physical, but I could almost feel the violence beneath that terse remark. I haven’t had a logical conversation with my dad ever since. Beyond painful. But this also just reminded me of another time when I dared tell my mom that I wanted to go on a mission for Christ. She literally fell apart before my eyes as I’ve never seen her fall apart before or since.

By: SamAdamsGhost

SamAdamsGhost — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 22:03:07 +0000

Logic is needed more today than ever. There actually seems to be an atmosphere of ‘anti-logic’ out there, with many people verbally attacking those who attempt to bring evidence and sound reasoning into a serious conversation.

“Oh, you always have to be right.” and “You think you’re so smart . . . ” are typical ad hominem attacks that you get when presenting facts and applying logic to those who have neither of these.

Young people below the age of 30 are my source for some hope. They haven’t been equipped by their ‘education’ to actually think – – but much of the financial & social burden will be put on their shoulders in the future. They’ll have plenty of motivation for seeing through all the lies & propaganda. We need many more of them to take Jon’s course and others like it.

By: davidgaskill

davidgaskill — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 21:50:58 +0000

The article the students should read should be by Paul Krugman.

By: SamAdamsGhost

SamAdamsGhost — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 17:22:03 +0000

Thanks Jon. I sure needed to read this article today. (By the way, I have all of your Matrix series, including your logic course.) This morning I tried to present some research findings about harmful symptoms that one of my elderly relatives is experiencing who’s taking statin drugs. I was actually excited to be able to share this information with them. Maybe it would encourage them to look into this for themselves. Maybe they would seek out the opinion of a more wholistic, independent minded M.D.
Nope, . . no dice. They reacted emotionally, – saw the list of statin drug symptoms as somehow a criticism of them, as a ‘personal attack’ of their health habits. Huh ? There’s definitely no logic operating in this case.

I’ve presented evidence and used logical arguments to make a point with people in the past. Often I’ve been met with criticism for ‘always trying to be right’. Or some will say, – ‘Oh, you think you’re so smart.’ All I had done was present lots of evidence to support a well constructed, logical argument. Amazingly, many people seem to consider this ‘elitist’ today. It’s alarming and discouraging to run into this.

My hope is with young people, under 30 years old. Most of them haven’t been equipped to think after years in public ‘schools’. The vast majority of them are unable to even recognize the value of logic and aren’t willing to do difficult intellectual work that challenges their core beliefs. However, there are a few young people who haven’t had curiosity and creativity and the desire to learn completely stripped away from them. They’re perfect candidates to learn these critical thinking skills. Teach enough people these skills and the mass brainwashing crumbles.