Welcome to the MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my first episode. In this episode we are going to discuss thinking. How do we think critically? How do we determine truth? How do we formulate a worldview? Why is a worldview important to our lives? This is going to be learning process for you and for me. I find that one of the best ways to think about something is to talk about it. So this should turn out to be a valuable dialogue for both of us.
I’m going to try to keep each episode under 25 minutes. I believe we are discussing extremely important ideas and I find that it’s best to focus on one point at a time and develop it thoroughly. Along with this channel, you will also find a link to my website. The website contains a podcast player; links to various directories where this podcast is listed; a contact form that you can use to message me; a link to my Patreon page where you can support the podcast; and there is also a database of transcripts for every episode. I like to transcript each episode because it allows you to search for specific topics that I may have mentioned without having to listen back through the audio for it. On the website you will find a search engine that allows you to comb through the archives for anything that you need.
Now before we get into our discussion I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I’ve always been a truth seeker. For most of my life I was satisfied with my own answers to the questions of why are we here and what happens to us when we die? Then as I got older and ventured further into the world I quickly found out that my worldview was not based on truth.
I experienced what Carl Jung called a psychic death. A psychic death occurs when a set of assumptions by which you’ve constructed your identity collapses and you are left with nothing but the self. You may have heard of this phenomenon as rock bottom. Jung believed that you could rebuild your worldview from rock bottom. Since my worldview was based on my own invented beliefs about reality and since it failed so thoroughly, I decided to look elsewhere to at least gather more information: I started thinking.
So the first area I want to discuss tonight is critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement. We use critical thinking to separate facts from opinions and determine the quality of ideas. Critical thinking is not bound to the framework of the scientific method. They are not the same thing. The scientific method was conceptualized in the 17th century as part of natural science: it consists of systematic observation, measurement, experiment, formulation,testing and modification of hypotheses. Critical thinking predates the scientific method by thousands of years. That’s not to say that one is better than the other. They are just apples and oranges.
Oxford Mathematician John Lennox illustrates the distinction between critical thinking and the scientific method with this example: say you have a pot of water boiling on the stove. Why is the water boiling? Using the scientific method, your answer may sound like this: the water is boiling because heat is radiating from the coils and being conducted by the metal of the pot, agitating the water molecules and heating them up. Heat rises and thus the water boils as it reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Now let’s examine that same proposition from a different angle. Why is the water boiling? Using critical thinking, your answer may sound like this: the water is boiling because I want to make a cup of tea. Both answers are equally true, but the scientific method is limited in that it can never lead you to the second answer. The laws of nature can describe the way that an event will play out, but they cannot account for the causal agency of any given event.
So we have two different answers to the one question of why the pot of water is boiling. Both answers are equally true. Does that mean there is more than one truth? The answer to that is no. You can have two different answers describing the same truth because there are multiple angles on that truth. Reality is composed of more than material and so the scientific method can never deliver a whole truth when answering a question that encompasses the whole of reality. That is because some things, like why I chose to boil the water, cannot be described by natural law.
We understand that critical thinking is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement. Now let’s talk more about truth. There is one truth, and anything that differs from the truth is opinion. In order for something to be true, it must withstand the scrutiny of five different criteria. These are not in order of importance. First is empirical adequacy. Is the claim reasonable when held up against tested and proven hypotheses. For example: if I tell you that I can go outside and pick up a rock, drop it, and watch it float away, then you know my claim is not reasonable on grounds of empirical adequacy.
Second is logical consistency. Does the claim refute itself? You might think this one is obvious but it is actually a criteria that gets overlooked in Western culture. Have you ever heard someone say that there are no absolutes and everything is based on individual interpretation? That’s what is called a self-refuting claim. You can’t posit an absolute statement saying that there are no absolutes. That would mean that your statement itself could not exist. That is a failure of logical consistency.
So the truth is good if it maintains empirical adequacy, logical consistency, and next what we are looking for is a satisfaction of coherence theory. Does the truth hold up when all of the facts involved are taken in their entirety. The classic example of when a truth-claim falls apart under coherence theory is when an aspect of it has to be taken out of context in order to fit the other four criteria. This happens all the time when journalists throw up shocking headlines about a person or event without letting you know the whole story. If they told you the whole story it wouldn’t be as shocking, so they remove enough context to accomplish their goal. In order for something to be true it must remain true when all of its context is present. That is how you satisfy coherence theory.
Next up in the testing of a truth-claim is correspondence theory. Does all of the truth correspond with all of reality? One of the best examples of this is consciousness. We don’t know what consciousness is. We don’t know if it is material or if it something else. But we do know that it exists. And so presenting a truth-claim that does not allow for consciousness would be to violate correspondence theory.
Finally, we have the fifth criteria which is experiential relevance. Have you experienced this truth before? Now remember, this is just one of five criteria but it is important. Consider love. Do you love your spouse, your family, or your pet? If you do then you’ve experienced love and you know that love is real. So a truth-claim that puts forward the notion that love doesn’t exist or that love is just an amalgamation of chemicals arbitrarily firing in the brain would be in violation of experiential relevance.
Empirical adequacy, logical consistency, coherence theory, correspondence theory, and experiential relevance. These five criteria are necessary when determining truth. Once you’ve determined that a truth-claim is valid then you are ready to formulate a worldview. A worldview is a system of accepted beliefs about life and reality. If you’re like me, you had a worldview for most of your life without even knowing it. Everybody behaves in the world in a certain way and that way is predicated on their worldview. If your worldview is built on valid truth-claims you will have behavioral advantages.
You will be able to function in the world much easier because people will understand your perspective better since your perspective is based on reality and they live in the same reality as you do. Having a strong worldview is like having a rock you can cling to when chaotic things happen in your life. And they will happen. You have stability and security and are less likely to suffer a Jungian psychic death – or rock bottom. You can make incremental progress in all of your endeavors knowing that you’re not going to wake up one day and be obsolete or irrelevant.
Developing your critical thinking skills allows you to discern truth that you can build your worldview on. What you will discover is that there is no perfect worldview because no human being has all knowledge. However, I’m going to suggest to you that there is a worldview that fits these five criteria of truth far better than any other option. So at this point you have two choices: you can take it on faith that I’ve done my homework, or you can take a break from these videos and do the investigation for yourself. One of the wonderful things about truth is that everyone will come together around it if they exercise due diligence.
I am committed to truth and I am also committed to a free market of ideas. I believe that the truth does not need to be protected from other ideas because it will withstand its challengers. If you ever encounter someone who is trying to muffle your words or censor your position, you can be sure it is because their own positions are not well thought out or developed. Debate and engagement in conversation are good.
If you’re ready to begin this journey with me, I can tell you there is no better time than right now to focus on this. Even if you’ve invested the last twenty years of your life on a position that isn’t true. You are better off starting from scratch than spending another minute viewing the world through a distorted lens. Group identity and tribalism are flourishing in our postmodern culture and if you see what I see, if you feel what I feel, then you know something has gone seriously wrong. Let’s do our best to determine truth and build stability on that truth. Let’s have a worldview where we don’t have to doubt what we believe in. If we do this, we will know that we are putting our best foot forward and that we are living the best life we can.
If you find this content valuable, feel free to share it and to use it in your own studies. If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so at www.patreon.com/michaelhbaun. There is a link in the description. Your generosity goes a long way to promoting the growth of this enterprise and the cause of free speech. Thank you all for joining me this evening, and I will see you in the next episode.
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