Emile, sit up straight and take that gum out of your mouth. Here is your first lesson.
What is Real?
By definition, the truth must be real. To learn the truth, one must understand what is real, and what is hallucination.
Once, I was on a street corner in a large city. A man came walking down the street. He was talking to someone. Unfortunately, there was nobody with him. He continued his conversation, and came up close to me. I asked him for the time. He told me, and then went back to his conversation with his invisible friend. Another person walked by, and I asked that person if he saw two people talking to each other, or one person. He replied that it was one person.
From this, I realized something. I thought that maybe the man that was talking to himself was in a little drama of his own, and he was the star.
I didn't see two people talking to each other. Neither did the fellow I asked. The only person that saw the invisible man was the guy that was talking to him. My conclusion was that the man that was talking to the invisible man was, to a greater or lesser extent, insane. My reasoning was this: I was on a street. I could see the buildings and I could see the crazy man. The crazy man could see me, and talk to me. The other fellow could see me, and the crazy man, but we could not see the invisible man.
Therefore, the crazy man was real, the buildings were real, the third fellow was real, I was seeing what was real, but the crazy man was seeing, in addition to what we saw as real, something that was not real. It was, simply stated, empirical evidence winning out over someone's dream. Reality could possibility be described for me as anything that someone else agrees with me about. Sometimes, my little drama is not what anyone else is watching, and I must reevaluate. This reevaluation process is very healthy. It helps us keep track of what is really there, and what is not.
Obviously, there are "gray areas". 10 people can watch some event, and when asked for details, they may all have different stories. But when a person concludes that there is an invisible man next to him, and he is having a conversation, we can safely assume that he has stepped over the edge of reality into the Land of Nod.
We can observe things, and then draw a conclusion based on what we have observed. If I see rain clouds forming, I can draw a specific conclusion about what is about to happen if I leave my car windows down. This could be called "logic". If I draw the correct conclusion, and roll my windows up before the car gets wet, then I have empirical evidence that my thought processes were correct. If I assume I can breathe under water and walk into the surf, I will learn in a couple of minutes that my conclusion was in error.
One can work "backwards" from evidence as well. If I leave my car unlocked and parked in a bad neighborhood for 2 days and come back to find no car, I could draw the conclusion that my car has probably been stolen by a criminal.
Now, let's look at conclusions about the world based on data that we have not actually observed first-hand. If someone were to tell me, for example, that aliens from another planet steal unlocked automobiles in the middle of the night and leave puddles of black, oily liquid behind, and I believe it, I can draw a very different conclusion about my missing car. I see my car missing. I see a puddle of oil where my car was. I make the obvious conclusion. My proof is the oily puddle, and that's all I need. Simple.
If I go to the police station and report this crime, and the people I am talking to understand my story and agree that it is quite possible, even probable, then I have further evidence that I could be correct. If my car is later photographed being taken by aliens, I have even more empirical evidence.
But, if the cops look at me like they never heard such a cockeyed story, and laugh, I may draw a different conclusion. I might, if I were curious and interested, ask why they were laughing. It all depends on how firmly I believe the space alien theory. If I believed the space alien theory fully, if I knew it were true, then it would be difficult to change my mind. I could even go out in the parking lot of the police station and show the police empirical evidence of aliens taking police cars at night.
Physical evidence is good evidence. True, ideas are not the same thing, but we can address that more in another lesson. The proof is in the facts. If my cousin Shorty came by with my car the next day and told me that he saw it unlocked so he moved it for me, my whole space alien theory is ruined. If the police find my car in a chop shop, the alien story won't hold up well. I could look like a nut case.
If a person deduces facts from data that is supplied, he is considered to be sensible. If he forms incorrect conclusions, and deduces untruths, he is not so sensible. The less correct his conclusions, the more we can deduce about his reasoning capabilities. Correct conclusions = sane, incorrect = insane. As an example, let us say I tell someone that I grew up in Wyoming, went to college for Forestry in North Dakota, have lived all my life in the mountains, I don't like cars that pollute the atmosphere, and I want to move to Utah and retire. We ask 3 people to draw any conclusions they wish about me, using just that information and no more.
Can we tell who is the sanest person?
One person concludes that I must like snow, and I might be a forest ranger. This is a pretty good guess. One person concludes that I am probably freezing cold most of the time, so I need a better coat, and I should move to Hawaii immediately, where I will be able to think better and not have a frozen brain. This is not such a good guess. The third person concludes, from the same information, that I am an alien that steals cars at night and leaves oily puddles, that I am the enemy of all people that live in tropical regions, I am cold-blooded, I have rabies from being bitten by wolves, I worship wolves, and I eat wolf cubs raw.
This is what we could call a Very Bad Guess.
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Let's review the facts: I politely asked you several times to leave a particular thread because I don't like your ideas. #reply-5506497 #5506523 #reply-5506569 #reply-5506576 #reply-5506613 #reply-5506677 #reply-5506742 #reply-5506852 You refused. So, I created a new thread to ask others if they agreed with me, that you should not be allowed to post your ideas on SI (I am a shareholder in a publicly traded company that owns SI).
From this, you concluded that I was a child, a Jew or a Moslem (that's a bad thing according to you) a nazi, a communist, antichrist, and an enemy of the First Amendment, and you pronounced me "guilty" of same in writing. #reply-5510971 #reply-5510644.
All of these conclusions are, in fact, false. This could illustrate to anyone that your reasoning powers are...uh...suspect.
Further, I know that while reading this, you have been assuming that I am attacking your religion (false) and your right to "free speech" (false), and you have been using your faulty reasoning to draw conclusions about how you can "prove" that I am "wrong" about what I am saying, and how none of what I say actually applies to you for some complex reasons that you feel compelled to put in writing.
I also know your true intentions. That's the end of the lesson for today.
Future lessons will include:
"How squiggly lines on paper relate to ideas."
"How bearing false witness against someone may not be the best way to get agreement."
"From hallucinations to automatic weapons in one easy step."
"Why fanatics have no sense of humor."
"Saying really mean things on purpose because I really love you"
"It's OK if you can't spell it, you might possibly still understand it maybe I guess."
"Is crapping on my living room carpet 'free speech'?"
"World Peace through rabid hatred of racial and cultural differences might not make total sense."
"When a dog looks at an airplane, what does he think he is seeing?"
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