It is easy to make a case that we think in discrete steps when
trying to move from uncertainty to decision, and often each step
can involve a binary choice: Is it this, or is it that? A left
turn at the bridge, or a right? Fries or baked potato?
The sort of thinking many of us, including myself, regard as the
best the human mind can produce is the merciless process we call
scientific reasoning,
which is of this discrete kind. However, this wonderful method
of either/or can become a ruthless weapon in the hands of those
who start from unexamined premises, and demand that any opponent
stand, or preferably fall, based on the inexorable conclusions.
My point, if I still have it, is that we must be clear about
any position that is up for a "yes" or "no". History, whether of
philosophy, or religion, or empires, or families, records that
many a "no" threw out all sorts of promising implications that
were never considered. Truly
Thoreau's
"Simplify, simplify" has been much abused.
Gravity, which seems as obvious as an apple falling off a tree,
looks quite a bit more complicated when we consider that it holds
together the solar system, with its elliptical orbits, each of them
falling smaller as
time goes by.
Anyone bitten by a "vicious" insect can think badly of insects,
while enjoying no end of fruit made possible by insect-enabled
fertilization, not to mention honey from bees, or the beauty of
flowers whose function is to entice these insects to do their jobs.
If the oft-muttered wish, "Rain, rain, go away", were actually to be
granted, the consequences would be dreadful, and ultimately fatal,
as a desert climate crept over the earth. The counterbalancing maxim
has also been spoken over and over: "Be careful what you wish
for -- you might just get it". Or, as I'm fond of saying,
"It's not that simple".
So the lesson is to identify your premises, and then proceed
logically to a conclusion. In other words, make clear what it is
you are really talking about.
