Re: Occam's razor
Well said. It is always foolish to ignore Occam's razor, and for those who are ignorant of Occam's razor, surely we have the school system to blame. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy against the mind that compells schools to leave such things out and thus impoverish the thinking of our population. It is likely a phenomenon related to the "business as usual" mindset that produces "standardized tests" that can be read via scantron device, and that substitute for real evidence of thinking/learning.
In a nutshell, this is the argument that Richard Mitchell developed over the 15 years or so that he published his small-press broadside "The Underground Grammarian" out of his basement in Glassboro, New Jersey. (All of that material is available online, by the way, as well as his four books and a few random lectures. He is always a good read.)
Here's a sample: "Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, if only now and then, in composing small strings of sentences in their heads and achieving at least a momentary logic. This probably cannot be prevented, but we have learned how to minimize its consequences by arranging that such grown-ups will be unable to pursue that logic very far."
Here's another: "If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be."
And another: "Any truthful literature will admit: No, this is not life itself, it is only a serious sort of game, but it is like life, and the mind that plays here is like yours, and this vision is what you too can see, and consider, and find worthy, and by which you may know yourself better. For this book is about you. Every truthful and thoughtful book is about you, every story is yours."
http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/
Herring405
H
Herring405
(view)
Well said. It is always foolish to ignore Occam's razor, and for those who are ignorant of Occam's razor, surely we have the school system to blame. It doesn't have to be a conspiracy against the mind that compells schools to leave such things out and thus impoverish the thinking of our population. It is likely a phenomenon related to the "business as usual" mindset that produces "standardized tests" that can be read via scantron device, and that substitute for real evidence of thinking/learning.
In a nutshell, this is the argument that Richard Mitchell developed over the 15 years or so that he published his small-press broadside "The Underground Grammarian" out of his basement in Glassboro, New Jersey. (All of that material is available online, by the way, as well as his four books and a few random lectures. He is always a good read.)
Here's a sample: "Thought control, like birth control, is best undertaken as long as possible before the fact. Many grown-ups will obstinately persist, if only now and then, in composing small strings of sentences in their heads and achieving at least a momentary logic. This probably cannot be prevented, but we have learned how to minimize its consequences by arranging that such grown-ups will be unable to pursue that logic very far."
Here's another: "If you cannot be the master of your language, you must be its slave. If you cannot examine your thoughts, you have no choice but to think them, however silly they may be."
And another: "Any truthful literature will admit: No, this is not life itself, it is only a serious sort of game, but it is like life, and the mind that plays here is like yours, and this vision is what you too can see, and consider, and find worthy, and by which you may know yourself better. For this book is about you. Every truthful and thoughtful book is about you, every story is yours."
http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/
Herring405
