any freethinkers here?

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A lot of people here seem to think that freethought is the same as what you might call "rationalism", "scientific naturalism", "materialsim" or whatever. Is thought really free if you don't think outside of reason?

Don't get me wrong, if you believe in a deity that can charge you with "thought crimes" then you're unlikey to freethink since that could lead to thought crimes. I like to think of "freethought" as "letting your mind wander anywhere and giving all viewpoints a chance", however, come to think about it, that doesn't really mean anything does it? Oh dear... My brain hurts.

If Robert Anton Wilson was correct, that means we all have our own "reality tunnel" and ignore information contrary to our own worldview. Therefore, if he was telling the truth, "freethought" as I define it doesn't even exist does it? I honestly don't even know. This is getting too confusing.

I can't imagne how "rationalism" could really exist either. I think the human mind is too loaded with emotion and instinct to ever be fully rational. We are still beasts and we have beast brains. I think most "rationalists" are either just attempting to be rational (which would make them "attempt-rationalists") or just use the term "rationalist" to mean "democratic socialist atheist technophile".

I live in Stubbington at the minute, and I'm moving to Southampton so make it easier to get in and out of university; I'm studying record production at Southampton Solent, so moving up there would make studio work much easier for me

Also, that's more or less the answer I was hoping for. I'm so terrible at this that I might just full-time lampoon the ppr forum from now on...

Being logical and rational or whatever does not conflict with thinking freely about something. However, one's thinking is not actually "free" when constrained by/within any particular "school of thought" ... and that would include even any seeming "school of free thinking". And of course, it is impossible to think freely while holding one or more "positions" about/on anything. Free thinking can only take place with ignorance acknowledged and in the absence of ego, fear and pride.

Also, "open-mindedness" comes to mind here ... just not to the point of allowing one's brain to fall out either for play or as prey in the hands of others.

I like to think of myself as relatively free.
One often does not know to what extent he is controlled, manipulated, forced.
You know your parents, wife, children, boss, and other employees. Then there is the TV media, government, religion, etc.

We all think we are free, but we are all victims of our environment. Just as you adapt to the bacterium your local water, etc. So too you are conditioned by your local society.
We might differ in something’s, but to start from scratch is must to hard. You only know.... what you have come to learn, but could not know what you are unaware.

Freedom is relative, limited but never absolute. Those that try to fly die young. Only the dead have freedom of thought. (Joke)

Nice to see some like-minded people on this forum.

So, we're neighbours and we do almost the same commute!
Maybe we've met on the nr. 72 bus?



It could be that having an autism spectrum disorder makes you confused, and that it feels like a breath of fresh air when someone clarifies your mind. If that's the case, you're like me.

To those who have made the point that developing views takes more than logic, observation and reason:

I agree that intuition and emotions play a part, and that you often take a lot for granted. However, I think that intuition and emotions can be factored into evidence-based reasonings in order to develop opinions. I also seek to remain open to examining my assumptions - by using logic, observation and reason.

I wouldn't be at all surprised! I used to ride the 72 all the time to St. Vincent. I used the trains mostly last year (fareham to southampton central), but it cost me a small fortune, so i figured if i pay a big fortune, at least I have a place of my own.
Plus, I would probably have to agree. Even so, I'm not very good at making my point, so it might be easier for me to always be vague and light-hearted. this section of the forums definitely needs a joke or two.

I would go far as to say that I view "emotion" or "intuition" as a sense, just like the 5 classical senses.
It is far less reliable, to be truthful about it, but it is a sense, and observing your intuition is observation, and it yields data just like reading a chart of results from a scientific experiment. Like all scientific experiments (unless there is a perfect control on them) there is error and bias that must be accounted for. The problem with intuition is that there is more error and more bias. As a result, you must keep that in mind when you consider your intuition and try to draw any conclusions for it.

Most people listen to their intuition as adamantly as they listen to their ears or eyes. This is the largest single reason why there are so many wrong ideas out there.

Intuition comes from the part of us that sees patterns in things subconsciously and unconsciously. It tries to put causation where causation may not belong, because it is in our nature to seek out causation. Thus the largest issue we have to deal with in observing and removing the bias from intuition is to determine if the causation that it proposes is real. Unfortunately it can be hard to reach into our minds and find all the assumed causation that our brain has made so that we can test it.

"I am hungry" is a good intuition to follow
"I feel like someone is watching me" might not be.

Good points there, Exclavius.

Are you aware of the personality types defined by Carl Jung, e.g. sensor vs. intuitor, thinker vs. feeler?
http://psy.rin.ru/eng/article/148-101.html

I prefer the understanding from the expansion of Jung's types into the Myers Briggs personality types.
INTJ here.
Introverted Intuitive Thinking Judging
Strength of the preferences % 56 88 75 22

Maybe i need to strive to be more judgmental?

with 704 votes on the poll on personality types here on WP, 1/3 of our members report INTJ

ENFJ 1% 1% [ 9 ]
ENFP 1% 1% [ 8 ]
ENTJ 0% 0% [ 6 ]
ENTP 1% 1% [ 9 ]
ESFJ 0% 0% [ 3 ]
ESFP 0% 0% [ 0 ]
ESTJ 0% 0% [ 2 ]
ESTP 0% 0% [ 4 ]
INFJ 8% 8% [ 57 ]
INFP 8% 8% [ 63 ]
INTJ 33% 33% [ 234 ]
INTP 20% 20% [ 141 ]
ISFJ 2% 2% [ 20 ]
ISFP 1% 1% [ 12 ]
ISTJ 14% 14% [ 99 ]
ISTP 5% 5% [ 37 ]

Interestingly the opposite ESFP is the one that 0 have reported.

I expected a lot of people to reply to this thread as being freethinkers. I think the problem is that here in the PPR forum of WP you get the absolutely worst of the pedantics. We'd all rather spend 20 pages arguing over the validity of the word freethinker than to actually participate in free-thought activities.
Now, i'm not criticizing, cause I enjoy being pedantic as much as the other frequents here. But I also feel there is a time to loosen the semantic bounds placed upon a concept.

While in absolute principle, freethought is not possible, as has been said over and over here. But it is the attempt to be a freethinker, and the success one has in moving towards it that is the core of issue. Not whether someone can be "perfect"

No one can "meet the specific absolute definition of a concept" unless they are the mark by which that concept is defined -- in which case, being something is only semantically true, and otherwise meaningless.

Some people *want* to think freely and make honest efforts to do so, but old ideas still hold them back.

well, the issue is that a freethinker may be more likely, and this is my opinion, to be related to liberty and freedom of expression, in essence, something that it is possible within democratic societies that values liberty and also values the existence of different ideas. I mean, in totalitarian regimes which they censor and punish anything contrary to their own political ideology, I would consider its people to not be "freethinkers", when it comes to not persuing and expressing opossing ideas that are forbidden to avoid punishment. (ie In the Soviet Union people were not allowed to persue any lifestyle or express ideas contrary to the soviet political philosophy)

And I think that may have been part of the issue with the movement from the raissenance period leading to the enlightenment, against the authority of the catholic church about knowledge, in which they were the answer of everything.

I believe however that that has to have some basis, such as why science separated itself from religion, for good.

i respect those people greatly. The desire to be free is an important as any other aspect of the fight.
I'm sure you're own past battles have told you that.

Each and everyone of us fight the battles with old ideas and behaviours that die hard every day of our lives. I'll never be free of the brainwashing I suffered as a child, though perhaps I would not want to be. It let me understand the enemy of thought, I know it well, and I can fight to destroy it now. I would not likely have the ability to fight as hard, had I not suffered what I did. Nor would I have the desire.

Every thought will always be a fight though. It's so much easier to accept what you've been told. It's so much harder to question and research. If I were religious I would consider myself blessed that I have an innate desire to ask why, a burning need to understand. But instead, I realize it was most likely just pure chance, tempered by the anthropic principle, because "I" wouldn't exist if my body hadn't suffered what it did. What as a religious person, I hated myself for, now has become my greatest source of self-value.

Even there we can find things standing in the way of free thinking, can we not?! "The desire to be free" indicates a presumption we are not already so, and mention of "the fight", whatevere that alleged "fight" might be, presumes a need to overcome something I have found we cannot. Freedom, then, actually is free and we must simply discover it and accept it on its own terms.



Do you believe you might have been better off if whoever did that alleged deed had instead left it empty?! But yes, I do realize you likely do not.

Do you have a link to the personality tests?



I think that is autistic peoples' tendency to take things literally.