I guess it becomes almost tautological. Someone is wacko if they are "absolutely CERTAIN, with no doubt at all, that your beliefs are true and nothing anyone around you says will ever shake your unwavering confidence."
Wacko becomes more or less synonymous with mental rigidity. I'm not sure I would use the term "wacko" for that. I would include in the category of wackos people whose beliefs vary from moment to moment for no apparent reason. But if we just focus on mental rigidity, that would presumably include most people of faith--by which I mean people who believe things that by definition are immune to evidential analysis. So anyone who hold a belief "on faith" is wacko according to your perspective. Some people, though, seem to be perfectly rational about most things in the world but still hold some things by faith. What about them? Does the fact that someone believes something by faith disqualify everything they say? Presumably not. In asking that question I'm asking whether you would be willing to use as a consultant someone who has faith in something. The tricky part here is that you use someone as a consultant when the material about which the person is being consulted is too complex for you to understand. So you have to take that person's word for it. You are not really equipped to determine whether his advice is correct -- or you wouldn't need him as a consultant. So does that mean that every sincerely religious person disqualified in your view from being acceptable as a consultant? But then what about atheists? Are they disqualified also because they believe that religious propositions are false? But since these propositions are immune from evidential analysis that belief too is on faith. One could argue that they don't believe religious propositions are false, only that they are meaningless. Is that better? Probably not good enough. They would have to say simply that they do not understand the religious propositions. Then they would not be holding a belief on faith. Another aspect of the issue of mental rigidity: how rigid is rigid? Is there really anyone who is totally immune from having his beliefs changed? I would suspect not. So there are probably not very many people in the world about whom on can be sure that absolutely nothing with ever change their beliefs. So where does that leave us? The category of wackos becomes vanishingly small. I suspect that most of the people who followed Jim Jones to Guyana might have changed their minds if given enough of an opportunity. As I recall, some tried to resist at the end. What does one say about them? -- Russ On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 3:34 PM, glen e. p. ropella < [email protected]> wrote: > Quoting Robert J. Cordingley circa 09-12-02 02:54 PM: > > "Doubt is the antidote to fanaticism" but I don't recall who wrote it in > > the NYT. So I guess fanatic = wacko. > > I'd say that a fanatic is a specific type of wacko, an enthusiastic > wacko that continually advocates for their pet beliefs. A wacko might > be totally convinced that their pet belief is true but might not be very > _enthused_ about that belief. Perhaps their commitment to the pet > belief leads them to continual states of paranoia, depression, or > isolation. Then they're not a fanatic; but they're still wacko. So > doubt is the antidote to many types of wacko, not just fanaticism. > > It's also reasonable that a person can be a wacko without being totally > convinced, convicted, committed to some belief. The most fun example > would be the impredicative wacko (a wacko who is wacko because they're > not wacko). In my insistence that doubt and skepticism are the only > fundamental beliefs worth holding, you might be tempted to label me an > impredicative wacko. But since I believe doubt and skepticism are > _incomplete_ truths, I don't really qualify. > > OK. I'll stop, now. Sorry. ;-) > > -- > glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
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