Q of the Week: Freedom of thought?

Started by Leon, 28 September 2010, 05:56:49 AM

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lentulus

Quote from: Luddite on 01 October 2010, 01:19:43 AM
Hey we've strayed into religion! 

It's been where the rubber meets the road on freedom of thought for a long time, in the West at any point.

One of my colleagues, who comes from the People's Republic of China, made an interesting comment yesterday: "If you don't want to talk about politics, China is way freer than here (Canada)"  -- which is an interesting comment on the relative perception of freedom of thought, speech and action.

Luddite

Quote from: lentulus on 01 October 2010, 02:02:48 AM
"If you don't want to talk about politics, China is way freer than here (Canada)"  -- which is an interesting comment on the relative perception of freedom of thought, speech and action.

That's interesting.

What did you friend mean by this?
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lentulus

Quote from: Luddite on 01 October 2010, 09:57:37 AM
That's interesting.

What did you friend mean by this?

I think she is referring to the complete absence of regulation (or of enforcement thereof).  At a low level, it is effectively an unregulated free market economy.  For example, if you want to go to a doctor, even though they officially have socialized medicine, the doctor is expected to charge a fee under the table.

So you get shoddy buildings that collapse in earthquakes, melamine in the milk, and god-knows-what in the water.  But if you don't want to talk about politics, you can do what you want...  You will notice she and her husband are raising their child here.

I will also confess that I may have the interpretation off slightly.  She is a brilliant software developer, and her English is far better than my (non-existent) Chinese, but we still have low communications bandwidth on non-technical topics.


lentulus

Quote from: clibinarium on 01 October 2010, 12:44:19 AM
I imagine it winds up scientists a bit if the Church says constantly "Yeah that is how it works, but of course it is, that's the way God made it".

I expect that if most educations were as sensible as yours, most scientists would not get wound up.  Having married a marine biologist, I know *lots* of scientists and many of them are Christians.

What gets the ones I know torqued up is the way the religious right has grabbed the education system in much of the US (which has implications for the textbooks everywhere) and basically made it impossible to teach the simple facts of evolution. In fact, if there is a state in the developed, democratic world where freedom of though is most in peril it may be the US - you need an education to be able to know how to think freely.

Personally, I don't think you can do science with God looking over your shoulder.  The temptation to say "right, God did it from here out, lets go have a beer" is just too great.

Ben Waterhouse

Back to the original thought, people tend to want consensus rather than truth - the major problem with for example Wikipedia. I find my sixth formers are far more clone like in their interests and views that say 20 years ago, because of the unrelenting wall of information?

I went from atheist to Russian Orthodox when 40... 8)

Sandinista

as long as you are prepared to look at differing viewpoints and understand were they are coming from and respect the differences then enjoy the differing points of view of the world

lentulus

Quote from: Ben Waterhouse on 03 October 2010, 10:19:48 PM
Back to the original thought, people tend to want consensus rather than truth - the major problem with for example Wikipedia. I find my sixth formers are far more clone like in their interests and views that say 20 years ago, because of the unrelenting wall of information?

I went from atheist to Russian Orthodox when 40... 8)

I think they have always wanted consensus.  Or, to quote Tolkien, they want "books that set things out that they already know, fair and square, with no contradictions" (the book's at home, but I think that's pretty close).

How old is sixth form?  I suppose I could ask Google, but hey...  Also, is this perhaps better in one respect -- when I was a teenager and I wanted to know something, I could either truck to the library and look it up -- like that was gonna happen  ;) -- or ask an equally ill-informed friend.  Is consensus really worse than a variety of made-up facts?

Leon

Quote from: lentulus on 05 October 2010, 05:22:56 PM
How old is sixth form?  I suppose I could ask Google, but hey...  Also, is this perhaps better in one respect -- when I was a teenager and I wanted to know something, I could either truck to the library and look it up -- like that was gonna happen  ;) -- or ask an equally ill-informed friend.  Is consensus really worse than a variety of made-up facts?

Sixth form is 16-18 year olds. 

I suppose the next questions is, when there is a wealth of information available if people are willing to look for it, does it bode well for the future that in general, people are too lazy to make that effort?
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