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Colleagues,

Steven Henderson wrote, "Both Aristotle and Plato would subscribe to the
idea of true, justified belief as the object of their enquiries, even if
they disputed the means. Would we still have such expectations now?"

That is such a huge question that I've taken the liberty of changing the
name of the thread.

I keep two books on my shelf, near at hand, close to mind.
Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolution
Eric Hoffer - True Believer

Kuhn shows the difficulty in changing paradigms. Established dogma is
enormously powerful, even when we have unarguable proof. It took hundreds
of years to complete the "Copernican Revolution." Almost 150 years after
Darwin's Origin of Species, huge parts of humanity reject evolution.
Beliefs and belief systems stand up to enormous pressure before bowing
to change.

One wonders if any "true, justified belief" is appropriate.
If so, what criteria would we use to "justify such belief"?

Hoffer's book is truly scary. It lays out the circumstances, strategies,
and processes for creating populations of "true believers." He uses Hitler
and Mussolini as prime examples - with major war as the result.
Today, of course, terrorism (international down to gang level) is fed by
belief in a god or a cause or simply brotherhood.
"True, justified belief" of this nature is abhorrent to those not
involved, yet I doubt that any of us is free of "true belief."

One can't help but worry about such "true beliefs."
Can we differentiate between "justified true beliefs" (perhaps belief in
God) and "unjustified true beliefs" (perhaps genocide)?
If so, how?

Me? I believe in accelerating change. The subtitle of my book says that
"Change will never, ever again be as slow as it is today." Humans are not
biologically built for this much change. Sooner or later, change will
overwhelm us, unless we figure out how to adapt.
I truly believe that!
It is justified by mountains of evidence!!
And no one with any argument will change my position!!!
And everyone else should believe like I do!!!!
Further, everyone else should give up their beliefs to join me in
mine!!!!!
Forever!!!!!!!

Now... how do we deal with people like me?
I'm not alone. Odds are, each of you has deep convictions. How do I
deal with people like you?

Is true, justified belief appropriate?
I see great benefit in constant learning, thinking for oneself, and
making conscious and decisions as unfettered as possible by habit, bias,
prejudice, culture, or belief system...
... except for my own, of course.

Best to all for the holidays and 2005

Gary

----------------------------
Innovation Catalyst
Process Accelerator
Gary Lundquist
President - Market Engineering International
www.Market-Engineering.com
Chair - The Colorado Innovation Summit
www.InnovationSummit.com
303-840-9929 GaryL@Market-Engineering.com

On 19 Dec 2004 at 10:13, Gary Lundquist wrote:

> I keep two books on my shelf, near at hand, close to mind.
> Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolution
> Eric Hoffer - True Believer
>
> Kuhn shows the difficulty in changing paradigms. Established dogma is
> enormously powerful, even when we have unarguable proof. It took
> hundreds of years to complete the "Copernican Revolution." Almost 150
> years after Darwin's Origin of Species, huge parts of humanity reject
> evolution.
> Beliefs and belief systems stand up to enormous pressure before
> bowing
> to change.

I'm not sure whether this has any impact on what you said above, but
it's a good thing to know that Kuhn recanted on some of his
conclusions in The Structure. It's a somewhat odd situation (and
probably somehow significant) that the majority of people who love
the initial work have no idea that Kuhn did, in fact, change his
mind, so to speak.

PS. I loved the book too.

Robert Bacal - New - The Customerservicezone.com at
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I liked Kuhn's book, too, and I'm aware that he "recanted" on some of his
views. My understanding is that he was subjected to considerable pressure
to do and in the end did so in response to the firestorm his book created in
the scientific community. Consequently, I view Kuhn's recanting in much the
same light as I treat Copernicus' recantation of his views on heliocentrism.

Regards,

Fred Nickols
nickols@att.net

> -----Original Message-----
>
> I'm not sure whether this has any impact on what you said above, but
> it's a good thing to know that Kuhn recanted on some of his
> conclusions in The Structure. It's a somewhat odd situation (and
> probably somehow significant) that the majority of people who love
> the initial work have no idea that Kuhn did, in fact, change his
> mind, so to speak.
>
> PS. I loved the book too.
>
> Robert Bacal

G'day

I know of a good saying

" The only absolute truth in this world is that there isn't any."

My most favorite saying is btw

"Humans were only put on this earth to create carbon dioxide for trees,
anything else is just an accident."

I would like to through in a few things in regards to decisions, as items
to ponder about.

+ When we are proactive decision makers we use logic and when we are
reactive decision makers we use instinct.

+ Decisions are Time and Space specific, with overlaps to other time periods.

+ To make a truly informed decision it has to be slept on and go through a
dream cycle.

+ The question at hand is always changing, we always accept a compromise
when we accept an answer.

+ Every single thing we do is problem based, we either solve it through an
automated responses or a actual choice between a range of options

Cheers
Tony




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Tony Nolan asks us to ponder a number of assertions about decision-making
that, to me, are difficult to accept. The first of these is that "When we
are proactive decision makers we use logic and when we are reactive decision
makers we use instinct." This assertion implies that logic is the exclusive
domain of "proactive decision makers" and that instinct is the exclusive
domain of "reactive decision makers," yet the truth is that the use of logic
and instinct do not rest on whether we might label the decision-maker as
"proactive" or "reactive." Tony also asserts that "To make a truly informed
decision it has to be slept on and go through a dream cycle." However,
informed decisions rely on information, specifically on obtaining necessary
and sufficient information, not on sleep or dream patterns. Tony also
asserts that, "The question at hand is always changing, we always accept a
compromise when we accept an answer." Yet compromise is not an inherent
condition of all decisions or of all alternatives. Thus, while there is an
element of truth to each of Tony's assertions, they misrepreprent the truth
by going too far. Yes, some decisions are rushed; yes, some decisions
involve compromise. But the focal word is "some," not all.

Larry Pate
Redondo Beach, California


-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU] On Behalf Of tony nolan
Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 11:01 AM
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Re: Belief in Decisions

G'day

I know of a good saying

" The only absolute truth in this world is that there isn't any."

My most favorite saying is btw

"Humans were only put on this earth to create carbon dioxide for trees,
anything else is just an accident."

I would like to through in a few things in regards to decisions, as items to
ponder about.

+ When we are proactive decision makers we use logic and when we are
reactive decision makers we use instinct.

+ Decisions are Time and Space specific, with overlaps to other time
+ periods.

+ To make a truly informed decision it has to be slept on and go through
+ a
dream cycle.

+ The question at hand is always changing, we always accept a compromise
when we accept an answer.

+ Every single thing we do is problem based, we either solve it through
+ an
automated responses or a actual choice between a range of options

Cheers
Tony

Regarding the snippet of Larry Pate's post below...

> Tony also asserts that "To make a truly informed decision it
> has to be slept on and go through a dream cycle." However,
> informed decisions rely on information, specifically on
> obtaining necessary and sufficient information, not on
> sleep or dream patterns.

I'm not sure what Tony means by "a dream cycle" but "sleep on it" is
long-standing advice and I believe there is research showing that quite a
bit of information-processing happens during sleep, especially with respect
to vexing, perplexing problems and associated decisions.

I don't know that I'd offer up "sleep on it" as a required step in a
proposed decision-making process but I doubt I'd go to the other extreme and
say that "sleeping on it" is not a good thing to do or that "sleeping on it"
won't inform a decision. I simply wouldn't rely on it to save the day.

Regards,

Fred Nickols
nickols@att.net

From: Tony Nolan [mailto:Tony.Nolan@uts.edu.au]

Good Morning Larry,

To Expand.
I remember being part of a survey & discussion at an OZ acadamy of
management conference in Australia, where it was noted that MBA students in
a proactive environment used their Decision making skills, however when they
were in a reactive situation they didnt use their MBA training in decision
making, but used their Gut Instincts instead. The group became bigger from
several universities and the majority of participants in the discussion
stated that they too had recieved the same type of feedback. I later used
this concept with the NSW Police service, with the concept that if people
used a more structured decision making activities in there normal every day
decision making on shopping, driving, etc. Then they would raise there base
line decision making skills, and then in a reactive environment, there Gut
instinct would be a better decision, because they would feel more natural
with using these processes in a high stress / reactive situation.

When you deal with memory, cognition and biology, there are external and
internal sources of information. The combination of these are Sense Making,
etc. Hence by what i meant by a truly informed decision is one that has as
full as possible intergration of external and internal information to be
included in the decision. Human biology is limited to the process that there
must be a dream cycle to fully intergrate the information recieved iin the
time since the previous dream cycle. This also includes the sub-conscience
contribution of role playing different scenarios to help better understand
the situation, and the various options as answers based on our primary and
secondary experiences.

So basicly, if your human, and you want to make a decision using the full
intergration of both external and internal information sources, you have to
have at least one dream cycle.


I put up the list as a contribution for dicussion points, as a
situationalist i believe that there is always grey and never total black and
white.

cheers
tony