I was wondering… Why do we like the situations and the people we like? Almost instantaneously I’ve thought about identical twins. They have the same genetic material, but still they like different things. It surely is not wired inside of us the things we like and the things we don’t. That is obvious for many  ones but it’s worth mentioning to proof my point.

Imagine two identical twins. One raised in the streets without his parents, having gone through many adoptive families, but none treat him well. The other raised in a big and happy family with caring and open minded parents. The first doesn’t trust anyone and his idea about a family is a bunch of old people who don’t like him because he’s an outsider. The other have friends he trust and his idea of a family is a bunch of caring people he can trust, like, play with, have support from, etc.

It’s worth noting that, genetically speaking, both had the same chances of being like the first or the second. But all the experiences and the capacity of the brain to learn from those experiences led the first to be the street boy and the second to be the family boy. It’s not new to anyone that our brain can learn from experiences and that those experiences can lead us to different assimilations and conclusions. The first boy concluded, by experience, that he’d only feel sad with a family, but the second concluded a totally different thing by experience: family, for him, is a necessty and he cannot imagine living without one.

There is one thing common to those two boys though. Their experiences with family were real world experiences. They happened: the first kid had adoptive parents that didn’t like him and the second one had a caring family. That doesn’t seem to be necessary. They didn’t have much control over the experiences because most of the things one does is influenced by others he cannot control. One may say that much of the experience one has that define his conclusions is based on luck. I agree with that since you cannot control your parents, your friends, people in the streets, etc. But… Why is there always a small group with two or three kids that never gives up? Kids just like the first twin: they have no reason to believe a family can be good to them and friends can be trusted. Why do these kids have this hope of a good family and a life with many friends? It’s not, surely, because of their direct experiences with families and friends because, as I’ve just said, their lives were just like the first twin’s.

Once I’ve read that our internal mind (the one that handles emotions, associations, human nature, etc.) cannot distinguish real from imaginary. For some reason, maybe it’s something these kids saw, these kids have a fantasy inside their minds they like so much to a point they don’t want it be screwd by outside forces. This fantasy is a story of them being happy with a family and friends. A fantasy filled with good emotions these kids believe will be triggered when they have a family around. They know it’s possible to feel that way because they’ve saw it once, but, unlike the first twin, these kids never gave up hope. They were able to fantasize to a point that made families look so good that made them really want one. So, the only difference between illusion and disillusion was the vanishement of the fantasy: the twin had his fantasy vanished by himself because he didn’t develop it very far, but the other kids did it and they still hope having a family to make that fantasy a reality.

Fantasy is powerful enough to make that twin a possible future killer and to make those other special kids, who fantasized, possible future filantropic leaders who will make sure all kids have families for themselves.

Such as disliking, liking is also an illusion (as you’ve just seen with the speical kids). Look at love for example. Sometimes we love people we don’t even know: we just look at them at distance. It is a fantasy we have associating that specific person with all sorts of good feelings that triggers reactions inside our bodies. When we start dating that person, we get to know him and, most of the times, we dicover that our fantasy is just a fantasy, that this person is not what we thought he was and, then, the love vanishes (desillusion).

Mature people (regardless of their age) learn to not rush into conclusions about people after living such an experience. They see a person. They start to like him and they remember, almost instantaneously, that that happened in the past. They also remember the consequences and the bad feelings that can happen in the long term if they let this fantasy take over. So, this time, they decide to take a logical approch to it, which, in theory, won’t hurt their feelings, but besides being hard to accomplish, it won’t please their feelings either. Most of the times, they end up “failing” and beating themselves because they’ve done it again: they’ve let the fantasy take over again and when they really learn who the person is, the fantasy vanishes (that is pretty common among women). When a fantasy vanishes from a person’s mind, this person says that he suffered from a desillusion.

Some people manage to take the logical approach sucessfully for a while. The results are not that good most of the times because since there is no fantasy anymore, you have a relationship based on logic (no drive for sex, doing things together for obligation, etc.). It’s not natural for us to be with someone just because of logic. The result is that the fantasy happens again, but with someone else.

In another document I have, I talk about a rule that says when you have two things contrasted against each other, you tend to over-estimate the difference if the contrast is too big (e.g. contrasting a ugly woman with a pretty woman will make the ugly look uglier and the pretty look prettier). I also have in that document another rule saying that when we got used to a certain aspect of a situation, that becomes the standard (e.g. thin woman as being the beautiful ones). The standard is what we use to contrast most of the things we see everyday. So, when you enter in a relationship based on logic and no good emotions (no thrill, no adrenaline, no love: nothing) and be in it for a while, that becomes your standard for relationship. When another fantasy comes into your mind that shows you the possibility of a relationship full of those emotions you don’t and want to have, there is a huge (really huge) contrast between the possible relationship and and your current relationship. That makes you over-estimate the good side of the possible relaitonship. When one gets to this point, you can expect all sorts of things:

• betray,
• rage against his partner,
• pure cold ending of relationship accepted by both sides,
• that idea of running away from everyone and being happy together in another city,
• etc.

The point is that the things we like, we like because we make fantasies about them. We tell stories about them to ourselves. Good stories. Stories filled with great emotions. For example, a medieval war is one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen, yet many kids like to pretent they’re a medieval knight in some of those wars; they tell themselves the story of a knight who has adventures and all sorts of good feelings happens there. If you throw a kid into a real medieval war, the fantasy will, almost surely, vanish and a desillusion will happen.

I hope that, if you’re reading this, you kept your mind openned and did not rush into conclusions about how bad that is because, in fact, it is not. If you can learn how to control your fantasies, you can make reading the most thrilling thing in the world: just fantasize about it. How? Great question, but I don’t know the best answer. Maybe, just by mentally telling yourself a story of how thrilled you felt when you were reading a guide teaching you how to use a new technique to design software better. I do it all the time and it works.

P.S.: I cannot prove one single theory here. Believe it by your own risk.

I just got back from the ballooning around a part of the wordpress.com blogosphere, tagged Critical Thinking, where I tracked onto the very interesting Space City Skeptics site (“The Official Blog of the Houston Skeptic Society”).

From there I blog-rolled into a post by Jeffrey Ellis, of The Thinker, titled A Thought Experiment on Evolution vs. Creationism.   This was a rather interesting read.

He begins by pointing out the truth behind many apparent conundrums; that the truth is easily obfuscated anytime an argument is couched in a false dichotomy.

As an example, I’m fond of relating the brick layer’s conundrum, myself:  Is the mortar used to hold the bricks together, or to hold them apart?

Given  his observations on the nature of time, and our perception(s) of it, it would at least make it apparent to most critical thinkers that one cannot entirely dismiss, out of hand, the postulate of a god (or gods) ‘hiding in plain sight,’ so to speak (which is the ultimate conclusion he appears to reach).

However, what really got me going on this post, was his device of introducing artificial intelligence into the allegory he was constructing.

Because I was at once reminded of a thought I’ve been nursing for a number of years (and that I may have heard somewhere else).   That, if A.I. ever does, indeed, rise to the level of creating sentient beings with human-like intelligence (and I’m increasingly having trouble seeing why not), we probably shouldn’t be surprised at all, to see “them” dive headlong into the search for an answer to what continues to be a major preoccupation of mankind’s own – namely, a search for the source of their own divinity (the operative term in the afore-mentioned condition being ‘human intelligence’).

But as a postulate, and a place to suppose from, how might they then come to see us?  As their own god-like creators, or merely the human apes in one of the evolutionary steps along the way to their own creation?

After all, how do we view the lesser creatures in our own evolutionary linage?  It certainly says a mouthful about our own sense of self-importance.

These, and many other considerations, would probably completely obviate our even touching on any of our normally more pragmatic concerns – like their possible willingness to do windows.

It at least goes to show, and I think he illustrates (possibly unintentionally) here, that given this sort of a priori exercise of the imagination, consideration must indeed be given to the role that point of view would inevitably play.

This is a Friday Akari puzzle, with a twist. Every lightbulb must illuminate exactly one other lightbulb instead of zero.

Puzzle 112

I am building up to three things  here:

Fixing the Economy:

Fixing the Country:

Fixing Religion:

Tomorrow when you arrive at Walmart before 5am in order to get the $15 Miley Cyrus Jacket, the Billboard out front may just have this cheery ad:

It’s debuting this weekend in major cities across America.

While the Logic is circular, the smile a rather creepy, and the definition of Humanism misleading, I give them props for the Santa hats and in doing so referencing a 4th century Saint who battled Arian heresy.

A change promised, on knees and pleas
Asking and announcing a dreamy dawn
With words that soothed a troubled terror
And our unthinking hearts ruled the mind
Trusting a chance and a courage of will
Unable not to hope in a penitent politician

Speak not with smiles, but ask our fate
A sorrowful state unshelled in shackles
Staggering a self-pity, in change’s name
Our heads reeled, stunned by your clout
Unable to conceive meaning, forgive us
But do ask us, once only, our aspirations

Reality has eclipsed our obscured dreams
How can we tap a dance to a tune offbeat?
Our senses insensated by your insensitivity
If we knew, that a sun’s shine could fade
A river’s flow stilled and distilled as drink
Served as wine for dinner, or twas a party?

The gluttony of power, a blinding light
Did cast darkness over your grand vision
Our wounds and aches you did not bear
The woes we sanctified you to eradicate
Our ignorance, your sanctuary of strength
Your intent, worse than our feared fears

Again, you come, to seek and to receive
Our faithfulness, a pledge of our sanity
On a warm day, when a charcoal glows
And a vulture circles above your highness
Asserting your feats in feasts of fulfilment
With specious stories to alter our attitudes

Our hearts’ been punctured in two places
Thus our unflinching wits weave our views
Dispelling the twists and suspense of logic
Our thoughts think and we discern a dawn
We seek a frank reality, not your imaginings
Too long, a perfect lie lived in our name

We cannot visualize your vision, you didn’t
We witnessed your antics, our eyes and ears
Your pomp unmasked in fresh dainty daisies
Demanding the annals to spell you a tribute
The cock crowed at noon, have you heard?
As presaged by the fetish of mumbled words

How soon a sun sets, the twilight has come
We, mere spectators have become judges
Unlike you, we are incorrupt and fairly fair
You are flabby and ailing, what can you offer?
Your image depicts an apology and regret
Sadly sloshed beside stinking shades of frolics

Failed, is a slighted word for your reign
Your ego forth all the differing opinions
Our yearnings and your vision run parallel
Like Achilles, fighting for King Agamemnon
What are we without you, a mystified mob?
Take a rest; stand in the shade and observe

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This is a Thursday Out of Sight puzzle.

Puzzle 111

I tried to make a monochromatic Out of Sight puzzle, and this is the result. It was a little easier to do than I expected, though not by much. I don’t think I’ll be doing it again though; it heavily constrains what I can do with the puzzle.

Aidan is quite an innovative little guy. When he sat down to draw yet another garden plot the other day, I noticed that he had an extra sheet of paper on hand. I watched him draw the brown garden soil on one sheet, then draw soil on the other. Then he picked up the green crayon and started drawing all sorts of interesting shapes on one of the plots. I asked if he was drawing two gardens at once, and he replied, “No. I’m drawing the weeds on this paper so they won’t get in my garden.”

I’m not sure how that would extrapolate to real life gardening, but there you go.

Hey, guys. This installment in my series of top 20 errors of reasoning deals with the False Dichotomy, also referred to as the False Dilemma, the Fallacy of Negation, the Bifurcation Fallacy, and the Either-Or Fallacy. A variation of this, the False Choice, will also be briefly dealt with in this post.

This form of specious reasoning involves an argument in which the number of options in any set of choices is falsely constrained, only two in the usual form, three or a similarly restricted number of choices in the False Choice fallacy, when the actual selection of options possible is realistically much greater.

As the names of this form of reasoning suggest, as a rhetorical tool and as a form of black-and-white thinking, it attempts to present too few options, and show that one must be true by discrediting the other(s). The error lies not only in this, but in the fact that the real world is not so conveniently simple as we would like, and such dichotomous thinking can be simplistic to the point of falsity. A few examples of the fallacy are given below:

• If you are not with me, you’re against me…
  

• Either young-Earth creationism is true or Darwinist evolution is true. Since evolution is false, creationism must be true…

• You either have to be pro-choice or pro-life. There’s no middle ground…
  

• You either worship my peculiar notion of God, or you worship the Devil…
  

• You’re either a believer and a theist, or you’re a skeptic and an atheist…

• Anyone who doesn’t support the Patriot Act supports terrorists…

• Either the girl broke her ex-boyfriend’s jaw with that slugger, or it started flying around and fractured his jaw by itself…

• Either your cat stole my burrito or maybe a psychic just teleported in and grabbed it?..suuure…

Note that realistically, not all imaginable options in a set of alternatives need to be considered, only those options that are somehow falsifiable, in accordance with the rule of thumb known as Occam’s razor.

(Last Update 23:13, 11/25/2009, Grammar Correction)

Here are links to several articles, the first on the Skeptical teacher Blog..

Global warming Deniers Get a Double-Dose of Pwnage

The Second on NeuroLogica Blog…

Evidence in Medicine: Correlation and Causation

…and Third, on Massimo Pigliucci’s Blog…

The Logic of Skepticism

The following statement is an example of what many Christians have stated to me regarding Atheist:

“Christian faith allows us to believe in God in the same way Atheists faith allows them to not believe in God.  It takes more faith to not believe than it does to believe. “

Recently someone commented to additionally to this by stating:

“Hating on one disproportionately only shows your tainted bias.”

Lets apply some logic and common sense to these two statements:

There is a difference between having a faith or a belief  in a supernatural being (in this case God) and NOT believing in a supernatural being.  The onus of proof is on those that make a claim.  If their claim is extraordinary, then it is reasonable to provide extraordinary evidence to prove your claim is fact.

Since Christians claim their form of superstition is real and that it has amazing supernatural powers then it is only fair to expect them to provide the evidence in support of such a claim.  Just as most Christians expect and even demand that scientist provide evidence to prove their claims of evolution.  I believe this is reasonable to apply to anyone that is making a supernatural claim.

I don’t believe crossing the path of a black cat for the same reasons that I don’t believe in any of the Gods.  There is NO evidence to demonstrate it is true.

Atheism is a faith? If Christian wish to claim Atheism is a faith then they must accept that they too are Atheist.  They are an Atheist with respect to all other Gods except their own.  I am an Atheist with respect to all Gods, plus one more…their God.

They don’t believe in the other Gods the same reasons I don’t believe in their God.  In their reasoning, they are justified for not believing in other Gods, but I am not justified in not believing in their God?

Any child can reason through the failure in their logic.

In fact, it is far more reasonable to not believe in their God or any version of man made Gods.

Their claim that I am biased or not objective is another attempt to deflect the truth:

As I am an Agnostic, I don’t believe in any of the man made Gods.  I am an Atheist with respect to Man Made Gods just like the Christian is an Atheist with respect to all the same Gods as me, except one.

As an Agnostic, I am not threatened with unfathomable pain through the application of fire on my flesh in a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth for an eternity as punishment for not believing.  I have free will to believe without some constraint of fear of what will happen if I don’t believe.  As an Agnostic or Atheist, we have this freedom.  Christians don’t fear that they will lose their virgins in heaven for not believing.  They have free will to not believe in Allah, in this sense.

Additionally, as an Agnostic, I am not promised some great rewards of eternal life, health, happiness, peace, love for believing in what I believe.  Therefore, some future event doesn’t guide my decision.

I ask, which person is more likely to be objective?  A person that is promised great magical rewards to believe and promised the most horrible punishment if they don’t?

Or, someone that is not constrained by such belief?

They often make another claim as if it validates their God as being real:

“You can’t prove God is NOT real”

This is of course an excuse or an attempt to deflect from the facts.  I can’t claim that they are not able to prove my invisible healing Dod is not real and therefore, he MUST be true.  That is absurd!!!  A pathetic attempt to demonstrate their God is any more relevant or true.

Because they have no evidence, they are forced to make excuses and additional claims that are not supported by facts.  If they cannot provide evidence to demonstrate it is a fact, then it is not true, … it is a LIE.

Victor Davis Hanson on National Review Online discusses the Prophet Obama’s war on reason.  Just superb writing and makes me long for the days when people would appeal to reason to make political arguments.

Kant’s Essay on Enlightenment

Kant might have been only responding to a newspaper query in answering the question, however, the views expressed therein might as well
encapsulize the aspirations and ideals of the intellectual movements that have been acting proactively and reactively to combat the stifling forces of the socio-political systems of the eighteenth century.

He described the means to attain an aspect of humanization of the individual, to achieve one’s full potential as a thinking being, wherein one takes active part in the pursuit of knowledge, and to have sole responsibility in teaching oneself of the truths encountered in that pursuit, so as to arrive at a perspective independent of the prevailing institutions of the time. In short, to be one’s own man.

His statements appear deceptively innocuous and very carefully worded s far as political and military authorities were concerned, but totally uncharitable to religious views and their adherents. It might as well be so, writing in Prussia, one of the most powerful military states of the time, and the Unifier of the then highly fragmented German states.

Other philosophers and scientists might have been exercising more or less restraint in attacking the superstitions and the obduracy of the authorities when it comes to being pilloried, however, the implications of serving the creed of individual/self-determination, on how far freedom and reaction to the realizations of critical thinking could be obtained with lasting results were not lost on those who were under the yoke of colonial domination or any form of intellectual or political repression.

It it debatable whether Kant was arguing for a more radical form of exercising that freedom, of totally overthrowing the Guardians upon proven guilty of being hindrances to that “freedom from immaturity”, but cursory study of the events that suddenly were precipitated after or during Enlightenment, we could theorize with conviction that the peoples in nation-states touched by these concepts of which Kant is one of the spokespersons, had acted on these views to the fullest, if not, to the extreme.

Let us be clear that Kant’s Essay explicitated the necessity of disregarding religious authorities insofar as their guidance was flawed, while rulers/superiors that demand obedience were, by inference, tolerate no dissent leading to open rebellion. Thus, Kant had indicted oppressive governments/rulers and intolerant religious hierarchies as the adversaries of human individual and social progress and/or expansion of knowledge.

Thus, without stating it, it would follow, a reader could reason, that a confrontation or open conflict with these “adversaries” would be inevitable, in the pursuit of one’s reasoning and search for Truth.

It goes without saying that the sudden explosion of scientific discovery, social criticism, critical and satirical literature, and the great political upheavals in the French, British, and American Revolutions, especially the American Revolutionary War, had had their seeds planted during the Enlightenment, and that was followed by the Modern Era. On a local note, Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo novels recounting the abuses of the Spanish overlords and friars in the Philippines further inflamed the Filipinos to revolt from the Spanish Crown.

The importance of Kant’s assertions do not lie in whether he was directly responsible for influencing revolutionaries, anymore we can credit Nietschze of the superstition of Aryan racial superiority or Marx with the Communist Revolution, rather Kant had been a famous element in “internationalizing” liberalism, as was his French, British, and American counterparts, thus helping corroborate the universality of the individual reasoning and its social expression and actualization. Here, philosophers, scientists, and thinkers buttressed each others’ conclusions and modes of thinking. We could perceive here an “underground international democratic movement” as far as the number of unforgiving military, political, and religious authorities were concerned.

The question now remains, “Is Kant’s call to ‘dare to know’, with its revolutionary undertones necessarily relevant in today’s society?” The answer to that would be taken up vigorously by Michel Foucault.

Michel Foucault: What is Enlightenment?

According to Foucault, the reasoning “component”, and thus, its published or publicly expressed intentions, of the Enlightenment, is but a part of the complex power relations and historical circumstances and factors that birthed the Modern Age, subsuming any philosopher, or their theories and convictions, into a greater whole, that Foucault seems to require laymen to comprehend from its totality to its minute machinery. So, any defintion of Enlightenment, in a few facts and explanations, would not suffice without contrasting it to other eras, and making anyone a scholar if one dares to match Foucault’s challenge.

As for his take on achieving enlightenment, one should be aware of one’s own capabilities, or even one’s attitude, and taking into account present reality, the lessons of history, before philosophizing and then undertaking the insinuated quixotic admonition of Kant, “aude sapere”, lest our collective or individual action following this misguided direction lead to the “return of the most dangerous traditions”.

This he adeptly illustrated by mentioning National Socialism and Stalism as humanisms, and that the Enlightenment nourished a plethora of humanisms enthusiatically making good “thinking without guidance from another”, thus pointing out the possibility of people/societies overstepping their “aude sapere”.

Thus, Foucault appears to advocate a more moderate approach to the concepts of enlightenment, one that is in accordance with modern sensibility and stability.

However, it seems ironic that Foucault, a Frenchman, faults the Enlightenment and propaganda/discursive formation, whereas his countrymen

aided the American cause in repudiating the Divine Right of Kings, an Enlightenment political contention, and radically enforcing “Give me liberty or give me death” against British Rule, the political “guardian” of the Colonies.

The victory of the American Revolutionaries could by no means be attributed to blind luck. American and French leaders were visionaries, as far of the reality aspects of the war and the confidence of securing victory, was concerned. They had Foucault’s view of Enlightenment in mind when they

utilized tactics, logistics, and knowledge of terrain to break British Hegemony of the Atlantic, and establishing the world’s largest democracy since the first democratic assembly was held in Athens, Greece.

Question to be asked of Foucault’s polemics on Kant’s assertions is: Is it absolutely necessary for Foucault to discredit Kant, whose views were absolutely IMMEDIATELY PERTINENT to the Enlightenment Era in general, and to the American Revolution and Nation-building in particular, or does his philosophizing beg the question? Furthermore, is he guilty of theorizing for theorization sake?

A follow up question would be: What realizations could a student attain in the analysis of the two essays?

For the former, Foucault should have had recognized Kant’s words value for its reflection on the dependency of the Guardians’ (rulers, governments, church, or any other authority) mandate on the sufferance of their constituents, on the majority’s perception of their maintenance of civil liberties and rights, and the truth about each person being responsible for their learning and decision-making. His perambulation on Enlightenment, his own application of discursive formation, historicity of power relations, is nonetheless brilliant, yet, is far from what a layman would have time for, unlike Kant’s easily comprehensible text, the facility of which easily urges one to action. One could surmise that Foucault strove to be only understood by a few, while Kant was trying to reach a great number of people with his simple-worded text. For the latter, a student should realize: (a) Responsible to learn as much as possible not only to be good at one’s profession but to also uphold dignity and to be in the best position to protect one’s own rights; (b) institutions are established to serve the interests of the constituents. Failure to do so would invite censure, and the people should readily speak out against such abuses of power and advocate reforms; (c) radical liberal views, though attractive and seductive in their passionateness, should be critiqued in the light of today’s due process of law, primacy of social order, the best forums for the redress of grievances, proper expression of dissent, etc., just to name a few possible student responses.

The best definition of enlightenment remains in the hands of the individual, by how far and how purposeful one’s own desire to conscientiously advance oneself in knowledge, skill, and self-actualization and humanization, and in doing so, one would best serve the family and society.

Saludos cordiales.

Hemos comenzado un nuevo tema introductorio a la lógica formal de enunciados. Trata sobre el lenguaj natural y los lenguajes formales. Como introducción al tema, merece la pena señalar la importancia de los lenguajes formales para las ciencias y la tecnología, especialmente las matemáticas, la lógica y las ciencias de las computación, cuyos programas de estudios universitarios recogen asignaturas de los lenguajes formales y sus aplicaciones.

Lo prometido es deuda, pinchando en el enlace podéis descargar el archivo de word con el tema 3.

Tema 3

06 L natural y Ls formales

Para más información sobre el tema:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenguaje_formal

http://enciclopedia.us.es/index.php/Lenguaje_formal

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/es/Formal_language

http://www.mitecnologico.com/Main/GramaticasYLenguajesFormales

“Critical thinking is a mystery to me. What is it?” ~ Fred Oliveri, letter to the Morgan Hill Times editor about one of my columns

I write frequently about critical thinking. I do so because fostering this skill is integral to the survival of core American principles. Without it, we’re swayed by outrageous claims, fallacious arguments and seductive half-truths promoted by greedy, power-hungry fear-mongers. This Thanksgiving week, I’m grateful that Oliveri provided me another opportunity to write about an important topic.

Critical thinking is “… the careful, deliberate determination of whether we should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim, and the degree of confidence with which we accept or reject it.” (Brooke Noel Moore and Richard Parker in Critical Thinking)

In his article “An Introduction to Critical Thinking,” Texas Citizens for Science president Steven Schafersman wrote, “A person who thinks critically can ask appropriate questions, gather relevant information, … sort through this information, reason logically … and come to reliable and trustworthy conclusions about the world that enable one to live and act successfully in it.”

I find that examples are helpful in understanding difficult concepts. Let’s consider 10-year-old Will Phillips, a fifth-grader from West Fork, Ark. Phillips, like most elementary students, rotely recited the Pledge of Allegiance in his classrooms for years.

Unlike most elementary students, Phillips thought critically about the Pledge’s assertions and was troubled by its claim that America has “liberty and justice for all.” Phillips knows that homosexual couples cannot marry, so he rejected the “liberty and justice for all” claim as untrue.

Then Phillips did something about it. He’s only 10, so can’t vote for politicians who might pass laws permitting same-sex marriage. Phillips wants to be a lawyer, but even though he skipped the fourth grade, he’s not yet ready for law school and the bar exam, so he can’t argue cases before judges who might strike down same-sex marriage bans as the violations of the Constitution’s equal protection clause that they are.

But he did find one concrete action that he could take: Refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. When his class stands for the Pledge, Phillips stays in his seat, even as his teacher repeatedly tried to persuade him to conform.

It’s a courageous thing for anyone to do, but especially for a 10-year-old fifth-grader in the deep south. Since his decision, Phillips has endured predictable, juvenile homophobic taunts, but he isn’t backing down.

“I think that [gay people] should have the rights that all people should and I’m not going to swear that they do,” Phillips told CNN, adding that he won’t recite the Pledge until there’s “truly liberty and justice for all,” which “entails everyone being able to marry.”

After his decision, Phillips undoubtedly heard many fallacies (errors in reasoning) like the appeal to common practice, appeal to popularity, appeal to ridicule and ad hominem fallacies, but he has identified them as invalid arguments and refused to be swayed by them.

Phillips illustrates the steps of critical thinking in one heartening story. He questioned an assertion, gathered facts, logically analyzed the assertion, identified and rejected fallacies, rendered judgment on the claim, and took action based on that judgment.

Critical thinking can — and should — be applied to any issue: legalization of medical marijuana, continuation of super-majority requirements for budget passage, disclosure of public employee salaries, influence of religion on public policy, choice of gubernatorial candidate, which, if any, religion to follow, and on and on.

However, even if everyone used critical thinking to analyze every issue, it wouldn’t mean that peace and unanimity would suddenly break out. But it would clarify that when issues are logically analyzed based on facts and free from fallacies, any disagreements that remain usually result from differing priorities.

For example, I disagree with a fellow critical thinker about whether public employee salaries ought to be public information. He and I both gathered and analyzed facts and dismissed fallacies, yet we disagree: I believe public employee salaries ought to be public, he believes they shouldn’t. Why? I prioritize transparency in government over privacy; his priorities are the opposite. The California Supreme Court prioritized transparency over privacy when it ruled on this matter. As a taxpayer and citizen, I’m thankful for that.

This Thanksgiving, I’m especially grateful for Will Phillips’  simple, inspiring, courageous example of critical thinking in action.

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” ~ John F. Kennedy