Right answer - Wrong reason

[imported_luckyme]

"They may have the right answer for the wrong reason." I took this out of context from chezlaws comment in another thread where he was making a valid point with it because it contains a neat philosophical twist. It's a normal phrase and it's sentiment is typical of, say, a voting system.realizing that the phrase often means "at least they're doing the right thing ( the solution is the one I want implemented)". That's how it seemed chezlaw was using it when I noticed it and I'm not arguing how the phrase is used..it's used how it's used.

Yet, even in some simple situations, I tend to think of "the right answer for the wrong reasons" as "the Wrong answer." Political considerations, as above, aside- "the right answer" requires the right reasons in order to be right, else it falls under some intellectual version of cousin Vinny's "lucky guess".

Now, I don't think my view on this is the majority view in many situations that arise. Most politicians I deal with ( and I deal with many) are very 'results oriented' thinkers, as are most people. The scientific commmunity is where you find more 'process oriented' thinking and perhaps that's one reason I'm more comfortable there.

luckyme,
if I thought I was wrong, I'd change my mind

[chezlaw]

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Yet, even in some simple situations, I tend to think of "the right answer for the wrong reasons" as "the Wrong answer

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I agree and DS says much the same thing in his threads on right/wrong.

chez

[Borodog]

I concur. I think the real problem with "right answer but for the wrong reasons" is that your faulty logic applied in some other situation will undoubtably lead to poor results.

As a poker analogy, imagine a player who doesn't understand the reasons for raising. If he makes a raise in a particular hand, it may be the proper play. But in other hands where he sees little difference, it may be completely incorrect.

[imported_luckyme]

Thanks for the comments, I'll push this just a bit further. Just got back from an all-candidates meeting. Not the environment for Right Answer + Wrong Reason = Wrong Answer thinking. There are deductions to be drawn - The test for rightness can't be "it worked". The test for wrongness can't be "it didn't work".

You can see how this 'it's the correct reasoning that matters' is tougher in the political arena. It's also easy to see the conservative mindset in this. Conservatives fight change essentially on the "hey, it worked before, it's tradition, we've always done it this way" type of thinking. IOW, the "it worked, therefore it's the right answer" view of the world.

To take this underlying theme farther, it can be extended into some elements of the usual religous-non-religious arguments on here. Some non-theists see morality based on actions as missing the whole point. "I do this because god wants me to ..or will punish me if I don't" can be looked at as "doing the right thing for the wrong reason = wrong". There are no moral 'actions' there is only moral intent. The 'gun to the head' makes the gift a non-gift.

I don't want to overplay this theme, but I think the two divergent views of what makes right right shows up in lots of areas of our lives and can help to get a bit into the others head if taken into account.

luckyme,
if I thought I was wrong, I'd change my mind

[Darryl_P]

What is your stance on "right reasons but wrong answer"? Is that wrong too? Here I mean thinking it through correctly, getting all the important steps right, but making a careless error, omission, or oversight and getting the wrong answer.

Suppose you have a choice of living in

community A - in which everyone routinely gets the right answers for the wrong reasons, or

community B - in which everyone routinely gets the wrong answers for the right reasons

Which would you prefer to live in?

For me it's A by a country mile. I don't have the time and energy to get inside everyone's mind, nor do I feel obligated to do so. I do feel, however, that I have a right to live in a community in which moral actions are the norm, even if no one knows how to articulate why they do what they do.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
What is your stance on "right reasons but wrong answer"? Is that wrong too? Here I mean thinking it through correctly, getting all the important steps right, but making a careless error, omission, or oversight and getting the wrong answer.

Suppose you have a choice of living in

community A - in which everyone routinely gets the right answers for the wrong reasons, or

community B - in which everyone routinely gets the wrong answers for the right reasons

Which would you prefer to live in?

For me it's A by a country mile. I don't have the time and energy to get inside everyone's mind, nor do I feel obligated to do so. I do feel, however, that I have a right to live in a community in which moral actions are the norm, even if no one knows how to articulate why they do what they do.

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I guess that's why you'd rather people avoided education.

chez

[Darryl_P]

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I guess that's why you'd rather people avoided education.


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Not all education, just most, particularly the post-secondary stuff that doesn't lead directly to something practical. And even there I'd say those fields (like math, physics and philosophy) are good and necessary, but they'd still do just fine if only the top 5% of the current students studied it and the other 95% got jobs or did something else instead.

So basically I'm in favor of cutting university enrollments to about 5% of their current levels, but I wouldn't eliminate too many subjects altogether.

The current role of universities as brainwashing centres for the masses is just abhorrent to me. They should do only what they were originally intended to do, ie. do quality research that directly and significantly affects humanity IMO.

[chezlaw]

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The current role of universities as brainwashing centres for the masses is just abhorrent to me.

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I couldn't agree with that sentiment more. Brainwashing is very bad.

but you seem to have a problem with teaching people to question accepted norms and think for themselves. That is not brainwashing.

chez

[imported_luckyme]

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What is your stance on "right reasons but wrong answer"? Is that wrong too?

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You comments are fascinating and we’d likely each be poster boys for the very different mindset/worldviews that I mentioned.

I’ll see if I can get my head around “right reasons with errors = right reasons” so I can give you a useful reply. It’s going to be hard for us to exchange ideas if I define “right answers” as those that are reached by “right reasons” and in your first response you refer to “stand alone” right answers. But maybe I can work around it.

Borodog had part of the answer for you. Even if a community stumbles on the right answer ( the one you can arrive at by well-reasoned, fact-based analysis), odds are they’ll usually screw things up either directly or indirectly (not considering the bigger picture, for example).

Let’s say I live in community (A) where all the actions taken are the ones we would arrive at in that situation by 'right reasoning'. My co-worker says he helps the little-league because his boss has a son in it. My neighbor says he volunteers at the food bank because he gets a discount on his groceries. My sons teacher say he teaches sex ed so he can talk ‘dirty’ to the kids. And this goes on “always” by your hypothetical. Nope, I’m afraid I’d spend too much time puking to enjoy living in such an environment, in fact just writing it gives me the creeps.

Whereas (A) is merely disgusting and highly improbable ( not the people, just the odds of them all gathering in one town...hmmm, maybe not), I’m going to have to morph your (B) to have any hope of commenting on it. I’ll think of it as the typical “good intentions – crappy implementation”. Most of us actually live in very mild versions of (B) communities, it’s a grander version of “it the thought, not the gift, that matters”, or “well, his hearts in the right place”, or “at least he tried”. I’d by far prefer living in a community where I can respect the person behind their decision and simply need to forgive his not being the best organizer or the sharpest knife in the drawer.

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I don't have the time and energy to get inside everyone's mind, nor do I feel obligated to do so.

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But, it’s your hypothetical and it’s based on being inside peoples heads, cheeesh. Remember though, you’ve totally morphed my definitions and created situations and concepts that are unrealistic ( which I don’t have a problem with when a person is trying to isolate a point) so it's hard to relate to them on the ground. I do appreciate your trying to come up with scenario’s that both test and challenge what I was test-marketing, thanks.

luckyme,
if I thought I was wrong, I’d change my mind.
( this option isn’t open to everyone).

[Darryl_P]

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But, it’s your hypothetical and it’s based on being inside peoples heads, cheeesh.

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When I said I don't feel obligated to get inside people's heads, I meant on a day-to-day basis as part of life in a community. The forum is different. Here I enjoy it and it makes for good discussions. Sorry for the confusion.

I enjoyed reading your response and will have some comments on it a bit later.

[Darryl_P]

[ QUOTE ]
but you seem to have a problem with teaching people to question accepted norms and think for themselves. That is not brainwashing.

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I don't have a problem if it's done in a genuinely objective manner. I am of the belief that in America the slant is towards atheism while in some other places there are religious biases. In Darrylia (my ideal utopian society), there would be some institutions which truly strive to be truly objective, as well as others which have slants in various directions but whose slant is stated up front for all to see.

My problem relates to how far we are from this utopia compared to how close some people think we are, and not to the concepts of free inquiry and objectivity themselves.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but you seem to have a problem with teaching people to question accepted norms and think for themselves. That is not brainwashing.

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I don't have a problem if it's done in a genuinely objective manner. I am of the belief that in America the slant is towards atheism ...

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Assuming you don't mean athiesm in the strong sense (belief there is no god) then any genuinely objective approach will lead towards athiesm. Rational theist hold much the same view as athiest but believe in god as a matter of faith - so what else would you expect?

chez

[Darryl_P]

I do mean it in the strong sense, and in the broad sense too, ie. not just atheism (a belief in no god) itself but also the type of society an atheist culture breeds like an obsession for technology for example.

Americans are seen from the outside as people who are fighting nature, trying to live forever, stay forever young, have gadgets to do everything for them, even think for them etc. This type of culture is correlated with atheism and the implicit message taught in universities is that technology is good and exciting and the way forward etc....something that a religious person would likely disagree with and an agnostic person would like to question in depth before embarking on a career.

Of course I'm not trying to tell America how to live its life, heaven forbid. I am just saying it would be nice if there were some official admission that such a bias exists so that students entering university could have better chances to avoid getting brainwashed into becoming unwitting drones in the big technological machine, only to realize much later that they've been duped all along.

Edited to add:

One could argue that the philosophy department might be a good place to raise these questions, but it seems the most important questions, ie. those addressing the system itself, are underrepresented and/or downplayed. Naturally a student who writes a thesis entitled "universities are full of crap -- a philosophical treatise" will probably not get a lot of support, financial or otherwise, from universities and those who fund them. Yet if universities were truly objective, they'd be self-critical and encourage that kind of thing just as I am always keenly interested when someone on the forum tells me I'm full of crap.

[Darryl_P]

Edit: whoops, I meant this in reply to luckyme...

I think you did a good job with the morph there, but I'm curious as to why it required a morph? Don't those kinds of things happen every day?

A typical case might be if you're having some friends over and you order a pizza....

Which would you prefer:

A: it arrives 30 min. late, cold and soggy, even though the guy was a nice guy who tried his best, had some bad luck and maybe wasn't a very skilled driver, and even apologized

B: it arrives on time, hot and crispy, but the guy only did it because it's his last delivery and he wants to make it to the whorehouse before it closes.

Are you saying that what goes on in the pizza guy's heart is more important than getting the product and service that you paid for?

Are there no services that you purchase for which you expect competence regardless of intentions? I'm thinking of cases in which the service is of high value and importance, and there is little personal interaction with the provider of the service.