Critical Thinking: Inert Information, Activated Ignorance, and Activated Knowledge

摘要

It is impossible to reason without using some set of facts, data, or experiences as a constituent part of one's thinking. Finding trustworthy sources of information and refining one's own experience critically are important goals of critical thinkers. We must be vigilant about sources of information we use. We must be analytically critical of use we make of our own experience. Experience may be best teacher, but biased experience supports bias, distorted experience; supports distortion, self-deluded experience; supports self-delusion. We, therefore, must not think of our experience as sacred in any way but, instead, as one important dimension of thought that must, like all others, be critically analyzed and assessed. The mind can take in information in three distinctive ways: (a) by internalizing inert information, (b) by forming activated ignorance, and (c) by achieving activated knowledge. Inert Information By inert information, we mean taking into mind information that, though memorized, we do not understand despite fact that we think we do. For example, many people have taken in, during their schooling, a lot of information about that leads them to believe they understand concept. Often, a good part of information they have internalized consists of empty verbal rituals in their mind. For example, many children learn in school that democracy is government of people, by people, for people. This catchy phrase often sticks in their mind. It leads them to think they understand what it means, though most of them do not translate it into any practical criteria for assessing extent to which does or does not exist in any given country. Most people, to be explicit, could not intelligibly answer any of following questions: 1. What is difference between a government of people and a government for 2. What is difference between a government for people and a government by 3. What is difference between a government by people and a government of 4. What exactly is meant by the people? To generalize, students often do not think about information they memorize in school sufficiently to transform it into something meaningful in their mind. Much human information is, in mind of humans who possess it, merely empty words (inert or dead in mind). Critical thinkers try to clear mind of inert information by recognizing it as such and transforming it, through analysis, into something meaningful. Activated Ignorance By activated ignorance, we mean taking into mind, and actively using information that is false, though we mistakenly think it to be true. The philosopher Rene Descartes came to confidently believe that animals have no actual feelings but are simply robotic machines. Based on this activated ignorance, he performed painful experiments on animals and interpreted their cries of pain as mere noises. Some people believe, through activated ignorance, that they understand things, events, people, and situations that they do not. They act upon their false ideas, illusions, and misconceptions, often leading to needless waste, pain, and suffering. Sometimes activated ignorance is basis for massive actions involving millions of people (think of consequences of Nazi idea that Germans were master race and Jews an inferior race). Sometimes it is an individual misconception that is acted on only by one person in a limited number of settings. Wherever activated ignorance exists, it is dangerous. It is essential, therefore, that we question our beliefs, especially when acting upon them has significant potential implications for harm, injury, or suffering of others. It is reasonable to suppose that everyone has some beliefs that are, in fact, a form of activated ignorance. Eliminating as many such beliefs as we can is a responsibility we all have. …