Do you use doublethink?

[Athenian200]

And it's the very definition of being insincere, so I don't know what your "logic" is for it preventing insincerity. Expressing one perspective out of many as if that one perspective were your opinion is not saying what you truly believe, i.e. insincere.

Well, that's because I ACTUALLY believe it at the time I say it, so it's not a lie. It's the act of bringing one idea into consciousness, and making the others unconscious. It's controlling your own thoughts.

It just... made so much sense to me when I read that book recently. I realized that that's what I do.

 

[MacGuffin]

I've just never heard doublethink described as a useful personal tool before.

"I didn't like feeling like a hypocrite, but then I used doublethink and those feelings went away! Like magic! Order your doublethink today, operators are standing by."

 

[Ginkgo]

Monism vs. Pluralism

 

[miss fortune]

I prefer the term "stuck in a quagmire of confusion" as with my beleifs in religion... I'm not sure what's true and what's not because I can come up with arguments for and against everything and therefore just sit undecided because there's too many possibilities and I can't prove or disprove any of them

 

[Athenian200]

I prefer the term "stuck in a quagmire of confusion" as with my beleifs in religion... I'm not sure what's true and what's not because I can come up with arguments for and against everything and therefore just sit undecided because there's too many possibilities and I can't prove or disprove any of them

That's basically how I feel a lot of the time... I sort of believe in all of the possibilities, and sort of believe in none of them.

 

[Beargryllz]

Red wine is good for you

Red wine is bad for you

 

[ThatGirl]

I always took it as,

Red wine is good for you....

Not right now.

 

[Jonny]

I can't say that I do. There are opinions I hold which seem in conflict to the outside observer, but that is simply because of imperfect information on his part, or my part, or both. Doublethink would require that I be aware of the logical inconsistency of my beliefs, and still hold those beliefs.

 

[ThatGirl]

Not necessarily. It means that logic exists outside of your beliefs, but can be applied within a time.

Phase one: Recognition

Phase two: Time

Phase three: Relevancy


Phase three doesn't negate phase one, phase two is the catalyst.

 

[Jonny]

I'm not understanding what you are saying. I was under the impression that doublethink meant being aware of the logical inconsistency of one's beliefs, but still holding those beliefs. It does not?

 

[ThatGirl]

I'm not understanding what you are saying. I was under the impression that doublethink meant being aware of the logical inconsistency of one's beliefs, but still holding those beliefs. It does not?

TBH I don't know what 'double think' is.

From the OP I got the concept.

From what I have seen philosophically applied in life, is either linear thinking, or the acknowledgment that all things are a duality. Which leads to stagnation.

From a further perspective, I cannot walk into a situation without seeing all sides. Holding multiple concepts. Time seems the only catalyst in which one determines the ONE truth from that point on. Therefore it is applied.

I am highly caffeinated right now so I may be off base.

 

[Athenian200]

I'm not understanding what you are saying. I was under the impression that doublethink meant being aware of the logical inconsistency of one's beliefs, but still holding those beliefs. It does not?

Not exactly.

It means, in your case, considering both beliefs logically consistent, even though they contradict. At any one moment in time, however, you are only entertaining one belief and making the other unconscious, so the conflict doesn't arise.

TBH I don't know what 'double think' is.

From the OP I got the concept.

From what I have seen philosophically applied in life, is either linear thinking, or the acknowledgment that all things are a duality. Which leads to stagnation.

From a further perspective, I cannot walk into a situation without seeing all sides. Holding multiple concepts. Time seems the only catalyst in which one determines the ONE truth from that point on. Therefore it is applied.

I am highly caffeinated right now so I may be off base.

Yes, exactly. That's kind of how it is for me... I see all perspectives, but there is a catalyst that causes me to choose one in a given situation, and treat it as though it is true for me, and always has been. Even though it might not have been yesterday.

 

[Jonny]

In logic, a consistent theory is one that does not contain a contradiction.

I'm having trouble seeing how something can be logically consistent if it is a contradiction. Can you provide me with a specific example of doublethink.

 

[The Machine Stops]

My interpretation of the term, for which I still would love to hear suggestions for a better name, are as follows.

Lets take the theme of abortion. It's a very well known subject, a spectrum of view points is widely known and has been discussed publicly for a long time, many of these views held with much passion and conviction.

The ability that Athenian200 describes, I believe, is seeing this theme of abortion as a focal point for views, rather than simply taking a view and choosing that single perspective as ones own. Instead, I myself hold all views. I hold the reasoning of all views within me, and can use all of them together to contemplate the subject of abortion for myself. The entire spectrum of opinions, all of them in their own way true and all of them valid. They become different perspective points with which to view the issue at the core. Like you need two eyes two see an object in three dimensions, I believe you must be able to hold more than one view to see any one issue clearly defined that is at the core of a spectrum of viewpoints.

 

[EcK]

Then you are a sophist. I can see how this is possible if you truly do not believe in a "capital-T Truth" (i.e., you think truth is socially and contextually determined); but if you don't subscribe to a relativist epistemology, and you persist in this "doublethink," then you're either being willfully ignorant (as MacGuffin mentioned) or deceptive (which Plato thought the sophists were being anyway.)

Well, if you say that two things can be equally true it sort of makes you a de facto relativist. (not absolutly necessary but most likely in the vast majority of everyday situations)
Depends I guess, quantum physics see the very notion of defining things with absolute precision impossible, and two different statements can be equally 'true' from different perspective (relative speed, entering a singularity or observing something do it from the outside etc.)

 

[xisnotx]

I think I do..especially when it comes to value judgments or "outside the system" thinking.
1) I have no mbti type.
2) All the mbti types describe me.
3) I'm intp.

Again..all of these statements are true..or rather can be true. Which truth I decide is true depends on external factors. On this forum I'm intp. In other contexts I'm entp, estp, infj, enfj etc etc...I think I have the ability and tendency to be any type given the right context. And at the end of the day no type is really going to describe me 100% accurately so I really hold that any of the types is actually me. Everyone of those 3 statements is true and is false depending on which context is most applicable at that time. I don't see a contradiction.

Within a system something can be true...and something can be false. But outside of "system think" there are very few truths (or at least truths that I am aware of..and it's not for the lack of looking). There are very few "truths" that I hold true 100% of the time..in fact there is only one. And I can't even prove that "truth" to be actually true..I just choose to believe that truth is true because it is consistent with my experiences (and for the sake of my sanity).

I'm not even sure how people can function adequately without this type of thinking. The world is a paradoxical (at least the way I perceive it). Trying to fit an ultimately paradoxical world into human created boxes and expecting it to in any way be satisfactory is ultimately a futile exercise. (Not that it doesn't have it's place...because it does..)

 

[INTP]

Doublethink -- The power to hold two completely contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accept both of them.

sounds like something that someone with mental illness would do

i can look at two things that are contradictory, but i cant say that both are true and if they are they cant be contradictory. if they truly are contradictory they cant both be true, or its like saying that i believe in god, but i dont believe that it exists..

 

[Orangey]

i can look at two things that are contradictory, but i cant say that both are true and if they are they cant be contradictory. if they truly are contradictory they cant both be true, or its like saying that i believe in god, but i dont believe that it exists..

Well you can, but then you have a form of relativism taken to reductio ad absurdum, which is functionally useless. What you get is a trivialism in which anything follows (e.g., I believe in God and I don't believe in God, therefore God is a snail.) I don't see how that is a useful sort of reasoning.

 

[The Machine Stops]

Well you can, but then you have a form of relativism taken to reductio ad absurdum, which is functionally useless. What you get is a trivialism in which anything follows (e.g., I believe in God and I don't believe in God, therefore God is a snail.) I don't see how that is a useful sort of reasoning.

That would imply it is a method to reach an endpoint, rather than a method to seek understanding. First, a function it serves, if I hold two view points that oppose each other as true and valid at the same time, I can act as a bridge between two people who each hold one of those view points and enabling them to understand one another better by intuitively knowing how to frame the ones view inside the context of the other. I can translate from Estj to Isfj and back, for instance. I wouldn't be able to do that if I wouldn't be able to hold both their perceptions within mine at the same time.

Then, it's not part of a decision making process that reaches a finite conclusion. The point of it is to be a tool, and the more it grows, the more useful it becomes. Decision making, to me, in such a case, isn't influenced by reason, but by personal values. I hold all of these points to be true, but I chose this one, here, for me, without rejecting the others as false. You have to make a choice, because if you make none, you have no course of action. Indecision always being the worst decision, that would be ungood. Even if you use a finite decision making process, once you examine your final decision, in the case of abortion, for instance, you will find that it is a value judgment, I'm sure, rather than a purely logical one.

 

[INTP]

I believe in God and I don't believe in God, therefore God is a snail.

schizophrenic thought much?