fandomhigh | Logic, Reason and Critical Thinking, Class 1: Period 4, Thursday, September 3

When all of her students had filed in, Miss Bennet shut the door. "Welcome," she said, "to Logic, Reason, and Critical Thinking, which is quite the lofty title, I confess. It is my hope that class will live up to that ideal, but I do hope you will bear with your humble instructor as we fall short of perfection."

As she talked, she crossed the front of the room to her desk, seating herself on the front edge of it. "In this class, we are going to discuss ways in which to be mindful of our thoughts. I would not expect any of you to be perfectly reasonable automatons, never swayed in the least by emotion, nor do I consider that something to strive towards. But neither should we be creatures entirely ruled by our emotions, without the least awareness of how those emotions can and do influence our thoughts, our behaviors, and our beliefs.

"The truth is that, in many cases, what seems 'obvious' to one person is patently ridiculous to another, because the first is letting his passions sway his judgment. There are decisions that can only be made by the heart, but there are others where a cool, detached approach will serve far better. And in any instance, it seems preferable - to me, at least, I should say - to know one's heart and one's head, with as little bias as possible, before deciding which to pursue."

"The real difficulty with logic is man's capacity for self-deception. We can hold tightly to a belief, invest our very souls in its truth, and refuse to accept evidence that might challenge that belief. For example, if one of you adamantly believed the sky to be green, then he might dismiss all photographs of a blue sky as being doctored. Taking him outside to show him the blue overhead might be met with a statement that it's far too cloudy today to discern anything properly. This example is patently ridiculous, and yet the pattern is all too familiar. We don't believe that that gentleman paying court is a scoundrel, for we like the way he kisses our hand. We refuse to see that our favorite hobby is dangerous, becase we are too fond of it to consider retirement. We want something to be true so badly that to us, it is true; all evidence to the contrary is simply lies and deceit."

"A special subset of this is what's known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. Fiction is particularly fond of this device, usually in a futuristic, ironic manner -- someone hears a prophecy, tries to circumvent it, and ends up tragically causing it instead. The reality is usually more mundane. A girl wakes up one morning, and reads her horoscope, which tells her that she's going to have a simply miserable day. She is immediately in a pessimistic mood. All day, when the littlest thing goes wrong, she says to herself, 'I knew it. I knew today would be awful.' And it is. But she may not even realize that it's only awful because she decided, when she awoke, that it was going to be."

She clasped her hands in front of herself. "We are going to start by introducing ourselves, naturally, as that seems tradition for the first week, and it allows us to know one another better. I should like to know your name, your class year, and why it is that you chose to take this course. Further, if you would be so kind, I should like for us to discuss self-deception and self-fulfilling prophecies, as both are matters we must be aware of, should we wish to engage in logical, rational thinking."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Have you ever caused something to happen because you believed (or feared) that it would? Is there a better way of dealing with unpleasant prophecies? Is this necessarily bad, in cases where the prophecy is positive? (I.e., someone is told that he will do particularly well at today's job interview, and so performs with great confidence and does, in fact, receive the job.) Why is fiction so fond of the accidental forms of this fallacy?

(Ping freely, my children!)

Edited 2009-09-03 08:39 (UTC)

"If something affects you so strongly that your belief in it is grounded solidly, then whether or not you cause something to happen because of it wouldn't matter, would it? Before... before my curse was broken, I didn't deal with the prophecy that I must marry a blueblood who loved me. You see, I believed it with such conviction that it simply was a fact in my mind, unpleasant as it may be."

Miss Bennet took a moment to parse that. "I'm not certain that I follow," she confessed, apologetically. "If you believed the prophecy so strongly that it became fact, that would seem to be self-fulfilling. Or was it fact besides what you did or didn't think?"

"That was the situation in Narnia, though I hadn't thought of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy before. My siblings and I were told that there was a prophecy and that we were the four mentioned in it. The prophecy did come true, but it wouldn't have if we weren't first told of it and convinced that we had to take parts in the events that led to its fulfilment."

"Intriguing," Miss Bennet allowed. "Did the populace inform you of that prophecy, knowing that you would need the enlightenment in order to fulfill it, or was that a happy accident?"

"I don't honestly know," he admitted. He'd missed that part at Beaversdam. "It was a complicated situation, and not one completely under our control."

"I suppose it's only a philosophical matter, at this point," she mused. "Intriguing, nonetheless."

Logic, Reason and Critical Thinking, Class 1: Period 4, Thursday, September 3

Discussion #2: Self-fulfilling Prophecies [LOG-1]

Re: Discussion #2: Self-fulfilling Prophecies [LOG-1]

Re: Discussion #2: Self-fulfilling Prophecies [LOG-1]

Re: Discussion #2: Self-fulfilling Prophecies [LOG-1]

Re: Discussion #2: Self-fulfilling Prophecies [LOG-1]

Re: Discussion #2: Self-fulfilling Prophecies [LOG-1]

Re: Discussion #2: Self-fulfilling Prophecies [LOG-1]