And Critical Thinking

This is addressed to all of those younger people who may be reading here.

There is a difference between someone telling you what to think, and the possibility that there is actually a genuine authentic 100% constant source of truth. And I do mean 'truth' as opposed to just 'true information' or 'correct/accurate information.'

Someone telling you what to think is quite likely to be an indication of that someone also trying to control you. And that is not a good thing. Even if you are that young you are under the control and authority of parents - even then, responsible parents are going to guide you towards, or at least give you enough opportunity, to discover firstly good and accurate information, and then also moral and ethical examples so that you will make your own good judgments about various things.

They're going to try and take you here - to the world
of AI. But you will be prepared for it.

When people are not secure in their own ideas and a sense of what sound knowledge really is, then they turn into little dictators and resort to telling, rather than soliciting critical thinking in other people.

The absolute worst, and most misleading thing you are ever going to hear (and numerous hugely famous world figures have said this misleading thing and are often quoted on it), is 'no one has a monopoly on truth.'

That is not only the stupidest thing you can be told, it is outrageously false.

What those people who have voiced the notion - and who are sincere people - might really mean, is that you shouldn't just swallow what someone is telling you without yourself being able to make clear, objective, independent judgments on those things. 

The good side of modern technology.

The rest who swing the phrase around are being dissemblers - that are saying it to impress you that they are open and honest and ought to be trusted since they are encouraging you to think skeptically... ...but then they always mean that you are to be skeptical about others, and not about themselves.

'Critical thinking' means you have to search by yourself to find a sound, objectively correct basis for making a particular judgment about something. 

Often there are important matters that can have two opposite ways of being morally a-judged: should I lie to someone who has a serious life-threatening condition in order to relieve them of counter-productive anxiety - or should I tell them the truth because one should never lie...? These things are sometimes characterized as 'black or white' issues. They need not in actuality be only one thing or the other, what I'm talking about is simply when these are considered as 'black or white' issues; having only two, usually opposite 'values' in terms of the way you are expected to judge them.

And then there are those matters where there could be a multiplicity of varied potential judgments - and these things are treated as 'matters of degree.'

But in all of these situations there is an initial uncertainty about something that requires it to be judged by the human mind applying moral values or complex utilitarian yardsticks, or 'best possible educated guesses' such as when an experimental scientist has to take a certain risk before he or she can find out with authentic certainty what an outcome, usually a potentially dangerous outcome will be. The testing of the nuclear bomb would be an example of that.

The good side of Paris restaurants - the real side; this
is a real high class place.

Critical thinking means that in the end, you are required to make judgment yourself. If such 'judgments' are only you blindly following someone else's edict, then you are being manipulated and mind-controlled.

The Universe, however, and its underlying physics are a total and complete monopoly of truth. They will do 'their thing' regardless of what you only think, or 'believe.'

The really big and malicious liars, will take you right up next to reality and truth, so so close, but not sufficiently close to actually breach the necessary and vital boundary conditions allowing whatever it is they are saying to be inside the definition of the thing they are telling you about.

Is the Universe 'the Source?' Can you vibrate into a magnetic attraction any particular thing you want, because this is some kind of 'law' of physics?

Or is only some word, some 'holy name' the thing alone, that, without visible process or scientific mechanism, makes or allows things to happen?

If you look at someone as the only source of truth, that is close to a cult phenomenon. 

Now here's a thing - let's say you're a Christian, and you therefore know and or believe, that Jesus is the ONLY source of Truth, the ultimate source of Truth, in fact, the Truth - the relevant scriptural texts actually tell you outright you don't need to rely on that as dogma or mere doctrine: your job is to stick your fingers into the bleeding palms without which personal experience you need not just believe it, because in fact you might not have the faith to believe it.

The complexity of Bouillabaisse... 

But the complication, the complexity of these kinds of 'high end' epistemology discussions is that in the obverse, if you just then suppose personal experiences, are the sole necessary factor, then you are feeding sensory stimulation which can very rapidly turn into a form of addiction - so once again, you are being 'mind controlled.'

The truth is (see what I mean, there is a truth as you will now find), that it is a very subtle, balanced combination of all of our available tools - the mind, logical thinking, and personal sensory, physical, experience/s, and as much objectivity and independence as possible that we can muster, that gives us the way to a reliable outcome of our judgments as to what is true and what is good or bad.

So, despite that Nelson Mandela said 'no one has a monopoly on truth' he was completely wrong because what you just read above in the immediate above paragraph is the absolute monopoly mechanism and pathway to truth.

Use it.

Truth has a monopoly on Truth. Truth is a thing. I'm not necessarily sure what kind of a thing, but it is a definite 'thing' in the sense that it is both a 1. process path and 2. an outcome and 3. a definition of reality. All at the same time. ; )

Truth is Reality.

...They're both Bouillabaisse, they're both good,
but they are different.

Reality can be very very complex. But that is no excuse to suggest there is no such thing as absolute reality. There is an absolute reality, and we are living in it.

'Monopoly' in economics always means it is exchanged expensively. You get truth and you will be rich. You get it. Though you have to get it yourself. 

'No one has a monopoly on truth.' Totally wrong, but I'm not explaining it beyond the limit that I went to just here in this post. I gave you the process path. And that's way enough to get you to where you want to go.

The oldies around here already know this stuff. They use it all the time. It doesn't necessarily make them totally happy all the time, and it doesn't make them rich all the time or enough of the time as much as they want - and that's because we're all only human and we can make mistakes, or be too slow, or too lazy or whatever.

But we're not stupid though. And you shouldn't be either. There are absolutely no reasons whatsoever for you to be stupid. So don't be.

You don't look, you won't find.

All the good stuff is hidden stuff.