Being open minded

[swansont]

I disagree. I was giving an example of this term being understood without needing a dictionary. When the crackpots show up they should be corrected on the fly since they don't care what the actual definition is. Being crackpots they are going to disagree with the definition regardless of where it comes from.

 

You aren't the one who needs to clean up the thread when things go astray. Your disagreement is moot, since we've settled on a definition.

 

Saying something is incorrect is not, in and of itself, being close-minded. If you don't know what evidence has been considered it's a flawed argument.

[Mr Skeptic]

Is it too late to put this as a poll?

[Pete]

Is it too late to put this as a poll?

Actually I was more interested in concrete examples rather than a yes/no response.

[Ophiolite]

That's nonsense. I hope you weren't serious since you are clearly using the term incorrectly.

Really? By whose definition? I maintain I was using it precisely and correctly. [i would also point out that I carefully said you [i]appeared[/i] to be closed minded, not that you were, and included a little smilie to take the sting out of the remark.] But because you were unwilling to offer up your definition at the outset, but warbled on about how it's a well understood definition, we find ourselves here arguing over what the word means. And if the meaning of the word is so well understood, requiring no definition, can you explain how an intelligent, socially active, experienced, literate, well educated individual such as myself could get the meaning so wrong?

 

I can't imagine anything productive emerging from this thread anytime soon, largely due to your stubborness, so I'll leave you to it. Good luck with the poll.

[Pete]

I maintain I was using it precisely and correctly

Prove it.

 

swansont - Given Ophiolite's misuse of the term in this thread I now see that I'll have to agree with you after all.

Edited November 16, 2008 by Pete

[Ophiolite]

Prove it.

Not necessary. I have demonstrated the point being made by SwansonT, Mr Skeptic, insane_alien and (implicitly) snail.

[Severian]

I am very open minded I think. If you come up with a theory that makes a new (non-trivial) prediction about the world, and we test the prediction and find out that it is true, let me be the first to shake your hand.

[Riogho]

Its not my definition. Its Webster's

 

I've noticed you just love argueing semantics don't you?

 

As an edit, I find it funny, that I posted that before even reading the rest of the thread.

 

YEAH ME! I'm in the smart group

[swansont]

I've noticed you just love argueing semantics don't you?

 

As an edit, I find it funny, that I posted that before even reading the rest of the thread.

 

YEAH ME! I'm in the smart group

 

Not to pick on you, in particular, Riogho (yours is merely the most recent comment of this sort I've seen over several threads) but let's stick to the topic under discussion. These side observations/opinions add nothing. (especially if they aren't accurate, since that may foster further off-topic argument)

[Mr Skeptic]

We could also wonder, is there anyone who considers themselves a closed-minded physicist? I'm guessing no one would.

[Riogho]

I aspire to be a physicist one day. I would like to think that I am close-minded in being that I only believe the truth.

 

I also tend to be very unwilling to believe stuff. If you tell me something sciencey, i want you to prove it, and if you can't, I tend to believe it's a crock of crap.

[iNow]

"The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification. "

~Thomas H. Huxley

 

 

"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth. "

~Pierre Abelard (1079-1142) French scholastic philosopher, theologian.

[swansont]

I aspire to be a physicist one day. I would like to think that I am close-minded in being that I only believe the truth.

 

I also tend to be very unwilling to believe stuff. If you tell me something sciencey, i want you to prove it, and if you can't, I tend to believe it's a crock of crap.

 

I don't think asking for proof or supporting evidence is being closed-minded (depending on the context). If the proposal is not plausible, running contrary to experience, then evidence is required. As with my original request for clarification of the definition, "open minded" is not synonymous with "blind acceptance."

[YT2095]

I think it`s only possible to be closed minded in very narrow catagories, by it`s own nature; to be Broadly closed minded would disallow the learning of Anything in the 1`st place to be close minded about.

 

with the possible exception of most teenagers, they already Know Everything

[Ophiolite]

I don't think asking for proof or supporting evidence is being closed-minded

I would go much further. Asking for proof or supporting evidence are integral aspects of the process of being open minded. Thus open mindedness is not simply a condition, but it is a process. It is a readiness to explore the validity of alternative views by considering the arguments for and against it.

Too often the cranks understand open mindedness to mean only considering the arguments for.

[redsaint63]

physics is like religion you believe what believe and the road you take will determine the destination you seek!!!!!

[Phi for All]

physics is like religion you believe what believe and the road you take will determine the destination you seek!!!!!

This is completely false. Please don't interject religious angles into physics threads.

[Royston]

I tend to think being 'open minded' is accepting what logic and experiment dishes out, regardless of how counter intuitive it is.

 

Hmmm, I just reread this, and it wasn't really what I meant. As mentioned earlier, you could blindly accept a theory (which is close minded), or you could attempt to come to terms, and give serious consideration to the implications, which is where a leap of intuition comes into play. There are plenty of examples in physics that turn our intuitive versions of reality on it's head.

 

It's perfectly acceptable to question current theories, but not on an intuitive basis, but on a purely scientific basis i.e proposing an alternative which may, or may not be even more bizarre.

 

Didn't mean to flog a dead horse, I just wasn't happy with my previous statement.

[Mr Skeptic]

It's perfectly acceptable to question current theories, but not on an intuitive basis, but on a purely scientific basis i.e proposing an alternative which may, or may not be even more bizarre.

 

I'd say it is also perfectly acceptable to question theories on an intuitive basis. Just so long as no one forgets that intuition is no a very convincing argument, and that theories even when wrong need to be replaced by better theories, rather than discarded. For example, I question quantum mechanics on an intuitive basis, but there is no way I'm going to reject it unless there is something better to replace it with. I'd love to find a more intuitive theory that also explains the world, but until then I'm stuck with quantum.

 

Alternately, with some more study maybe quantum will become intuitive for me.

[iNow]

I thought this would be a worth-while contribution to the thread. Enjoy.

 

 

T69TOuqaqXI

[Mr Skeptic]

That's and excellent video iNow, thanks.

[cameron marical]

ya, i like that alot.

 

one think i like to say when debating people like that, and they say im close minded and i need to open my mind more, i either say that if im close minded in this crap, your close minded to science, or, i take the comical side and tell them that if i open my mind too much my brain will fall out.

 

thank you tim minchin.

[insane_alien]

everytime some crackpot calls us close minded that video should be linked to.

[Inquisitor]

Scientists, especially physists tend to think themselves open minded.

Up until the moment you ask them about God, or UFO:s. At which point they become all closed and scary eyed and so on.

 

I think this is because scientist in general do not want to think that there could be, in the universe, anything smarter than they themselves are!

 

Which is not very open minded.

 

Or clever.

[Royston]

Scientists, especially physists tend to think themselves open minded.

Up until the moment you ask them about God, or UFO:s. At which point they become all closed and scary eyed and so on.

 

Well if you have personal experience of this, then it's anecdotal, and therefore you certainly can't apply that to the entire scientific community. Also please try to not veer this into a religious discussion, chances are this thread will get locked, but this certainly has nothing to do with keeping an open mind about such things.

 

I think this is because scientist in general do not want to think that there could be, in the universe, anything smarter than they themselves are!

 

Well luckily that's just your opinion, but anyone who questions the validity of something, because they fear it's smarter than them, is being an idiot. The validity of alien spacecraft will come under the same rigor as anything else accepted in science, hard evidence.