I'm currently in the Dallas, TX area. I started in Spokane, WA, and have been driving through Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. I return to OK tomorrow. These trips are primarily to meet with supporters and partners. We want to keep our connections with the people helping us, and the best way to do that is in person. It is a great trip, and I get to meet lots of incredible people, but it is tiring. It also makes writing up posts difficult at times, especially when I am moving from place to place every day, and each trip is over 4 hours.
That's the long way of saying I don't have much to post this week. Next week is much more relaxed, as I will be staying in the Tulsa area for a while.
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March 27, 2015
March 19, 2015
An Interesting Interpretation
Well, I'm back to traveling. I just finished a missions conference in Grand Junction, Colorado, and am on my way to visit a church in DeKalb, Missouri. I love to travel, but I will admit that I also like having a few days between presentations and driving to cool down a bit (and post blog entries). Right now, I am taking a short break in Denver before heading off tomorrow for Missouri.
While I am traveling, I still get updates from the office and our supporters. One such update proved particularly interesting: apparently there was an article in a magazine that referenced an article that I wrote for the Room For Doubt website.
Now, I remember writing the article: I was asked to write a series of introductions to several web articles that people might be interested in reading. The articles in question were not articles produced by Room For Doubt (a Christian website), but by several atheists and agnostics, who were talking about their understanding of ethics, morality, and life in general. The hope was that the Christian readers of the Room For Doubt (I'm going to call it RFD from now on), site would be able to see how outsiders to the faith through about and understood our world. As such, I was asked not be as unbiased in my presentation as possible, allowing readers to think about what these alternative views and their implications (both good and bad).
One of the readers, apparently, was Kent B. True (the nom de plume of Harold Orndorff) for the Restoration Herald. It seems I was a more successful than I had intended in my neutrality, as Kent was under the impression that I was endorsing the content of the articles, not simply the reading of them. Kent's article was sent to us by one of our supporters, who was curious about the interesting position Kent claimed I was taking. Unfortunately, I have tried to find where these articles got posted, but have failed to do so. This means that I have only my recollection of my comments (as my original comments are buried in some deep, dark corner of one of my computers), so it may be that the framing of my comments by the site, or even the comments themselves indicated a position I had not intended to take. So, both for our supporter's and Kent's sake, let me clarify my position.
To be fair to Kent, most of his analysis was of the content of the articles I was recommending. These articles were largely existentialist in nature, and Ken (to brutally shorten a much longer and more complex argument) believed existentialism to be untenable as a source of ethics.
I agree.
There: point clarified. Now this is not to say I was just blowing smoke in my recommendations for these articles, I genuinely believe that the authors are intelligent people making the best case they can for their position. That's why I recommended other people read them; it is important to understand other positions, not just our interpretations or caricatures of other positions. This does not, however, mean I agree with them. Certainly, there are parts of what many of the authors said that I think are legitimate, but I tend to agree with (as well as find fault with) parts of what nearly everyone says. Just because I agree with a point, that doesn't mean I agree with the main point or conclusion of a position or argument.
I believe existentialism to be a valiant effort, but ultimately futile. That is, really, one of the big reasons I am not an existentialist. To me, it looks like someone trying to cross a vast chasm by holding out two boards...then trying to walk across them. The idea of putting out boards to cross is good, and the idea of crossing on the boards is good, but when you put all the ideas together, they just don't work.
So my apologies to anyone who believed I was an existentialist. I know I am amazing, and everyone wants me in their corner, but that's not the case here. Also my apologies to whoever might have been confused by the misunderstanding. Finally, I apologize to anyone who really didn't care about any of this, and read through this article hoping I would eventually move on to something more interesting.
If anyone is interested in Kent's views and opinions, he also has a blog called The Clubhouse. While I do not endorse all of his ideas (or anyone else's, really), I do think he has some interesting points, and endorse reading them.
While I am traveling, I still get updates from the office and our supporters. One such update proved particularly interesting: apparently there was an article in a magazine that referenced an article that I wrote for the Room For Doubt website.
Now, I remember writing the article: I was asked to write a series of introductions to several web articles that people might be interested in reading. The articles in question were not articles produced by Room For Doubt (a Christian website), but by several atheists and agnostics, who were talking about their understanding of ethics, morality, and life in general. The hope was that the Christian readers of the Room For Doubt (I'm going to call it RFD from now on), site would be able to see how outsiders to the faith through about and understood our world. As such, I was asked not be as unbiased in my presentation as possible, allowing readers to think about what these alternative views and their implications (both good and bad).
One of the readers, apparently, was Kent B. True (the nom de plume of Harold Orndorff) for the Restoration Herald. It seems I was a more successful than I had intended in my neutrality, as Kent was under the impression that I was endorsing the content of the articles, not simply the reading of them. Kent's article was sent to us by one of our supporters, who was curious about the interesting position Kent claimed I was taking. Unfortunately, I have tried to find where these articles got posted, but have failed to do so. This means that I have only my recollection of my comments (as my original comments are buried in some deep, dark corner of one of my computers), so it may be that the framing of my comments by the site, or even the comments themselves indicated a position I had not intended to take. So, both for our supporter's and Kent's sake, let me clarify my position.
To be fair to Kent, most of his analysis was of the content of the articles I was recommending. These articles were largely existentialist in nature, and Ken (to brutally shorten a much longer and more complex argument) believed existentialism to be untenable as a source of ethics.
I agree.
There: point clarified. Now this is not to say I was just blowing smoke in my recommendations for these articles, I genuinely believe that the authors are intelligent people making the best case they can for their position. That's why I recommended other people read them; it is important to understand other positions, not just our interpretations or caricatures of other positions. This does not, however, mean I agree with them. Certainly, there are parts of what many of the authors said that I think are legitimate, but I tend to agree with (as well as find fault with) parts of what nearly everyone says. Just because I agree with a point, that doesn't mean I agree with the main point or conclusion of a position or argument.
I believe existentialism to be a valiant effort, but ultimately futile. That is, really, one of the big reasons I am not an existentialist. To me, it looks like someone trying to cross a vast chasm by holding out two boards...then trying to walk across them. The idea of putting out boards to cross is good, and the idea of crossing on the boards is good, but when you put all the ideas together, they just don't work.
So my apologies to anyone who believed I was an existentialist. I know I am amazing, and everyone wants me in their corner, but that's not the case here. Also my apologies to whoever might have been confused by the misunderstanding. Finally, I apologize to anyone who really didn't care about any of this, and read through this article hoping I would eventually move on to something more interesting.
If anyone is interested in Kent's views and opinions, he also has a blog called The Clubhouse. While I do not endorse all of his ideas (or anyone else's, really), I do think he has some interesting points, and endorse reading them.
March 10, 2015
A Review of Reviewing Thinking
For the last year or so, I have been posting articles about some of the ideas and theories behind our work at IRI. I have recently had people point out that these articles are mixed in with many other articles and posts, and can be hard to find. I was asked to provide a way to review all the posts relating to our ideas, and so I went back to find all the posts. In the process I discovered two important things:
1) I'm terrible at keeping a consistent posting schedule
2) I am starting to repeat myself in my posts
These are things I will be working on. In the meantime, here are all the posts that are related to our theories, in order. You can click on the address of each to go to the relevant page. I hope this is helpful.
THINGS I HAVE SAID (Volume 1)
What Do the Seminars Do?
Things We Have Learned: Terms & Concepts
Away Longer Than I Thought
(includes a Discussion of Direct and Indirect Learning)
Incoming Insights: Direct and Indirect Identity
What Is ABC Thinking?
What is ABC Thinking (2): Three Components of Thought
ABC Thinking (3): Putting Thoughts Together - How A, B, and C Relate
ABC Thinking and Dr. Stuart Cook
Examples of Cognitive Systems: BCA Thinking
BAC Thinking: A Theoretical Cognitive System
Thinking About CAB: Conceptualized Mysticism
Thinking about CBA: Mystical Materialism
Thinking About ACB: Mystical Conceptualization
Thinking About ABC
Insight Into Cognitive Systems: Extra Thoughts
Insight Into Thinking: Comprehension
(here is where I start repeating myself a bit - consider it a review)
March 6, 2015
It Turns Out Trips Take Preparation
Just what the title says. This particular trip will be about two months long, and involve at least five states where I will be presenting/speaking that I know of so far. I think it's getting to me a bit, but I want to keep posting regularly, so here's the update: I am getting ready for lots and lots of driving broken up by periods of speaking and presenting. I expect I will be exhausted by the time I am done, but I plan to keep posting during the trip. Speaking of which, the next post will be a kind of "recap" for those people who have just started visiting recently, and may not be up on all my "Insights Into" posts. My plan is to give an overview of the topics I have currently covered along with links, so newcomers can catch up without having to read the less interesting posts (like this one). I may also try to give a quick overview of where I am headed with the posts, as well, depending on the amount of time my travels afford me.
Next post - probably from Kansas or Colorado.
Next post - probably from Kansas or Colorado.
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