User:Freddie deBoer

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Contents 1 Welcome! 2 Wikipedia's Policies Regarding User Pages and the Following Section 3 Beliefs Regarding Reality 3.1 Wikipedia quality issus

[edit] Welcome!

--- This is Freddie deBoer's user page. Please feel free to make minor edits and changes, but if you feel the need to make major revisions, I'd appreciate it if you would click over to my Talk page. You can email me at misfitofscience AT hotmail DOT com. My screenname on AOL Instant Messenger is Misfitofscience. Hope to hear from you.

[edit] Wikipedia's Policies Regarding User Pages and the Following Section

First, I recognize and support the fact that Wikipedia is not a journal or personal webspace. I also recognize that user pages should not become spaces for personal ruminations or discussion. However, I do believe that the user page affords more leeway than any other part of Wikipedia. And, more importantly, I believe that everything that follows is fundamentally related to Wikipedia and its project, and to my personal ability to contribute to it. If you feel that what I have to say here is an egregious violation of Wikipedia policies, please discuss it with me on my Talk page before changing things too much. Here goes.

I'm including this next section because I believe Wikipedia has a powerful bias against certain beliefs and the holders of those beliefs. This bias is both a function of the current constituency of Wikipedia, and an intrinsic fact of Wikipedia's nature.

• Many Wikipedians believe that Wikipedia as a community has no character; that, due to the size of the community, and the immense degree of variety in the people who are part of the community, there are no shared beliefs or values. I reject this notion. Simply because there is a large variety of beliefs among the people who contribute to Wikipedia does not mean that there are not majority parties within the community. Although most Wikipedians work hard to eliminate biases against minority groups that are based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual preference, and the like, there is not a similar effort concerning those who disagree with common notions of rationality, science and logic.
  • Wikipedia was founded (or co-founded, depending on your point of view) by an objectivist, a follower of the philosophy of Ayn Rand. While Jimbo Wales's personal views do tend to have little impact on Wikipedia as a whole (to his credit), I do believe that his views to some extent color many of the articles, and certainly the process by which Wikipedia is created.

• There is an intrinsic bias in Wikipedia against those that don't believe in the conventional notion of rationality. Wikipedia seeks to create an encyclopedia based on neutral point of view, through a process of assembling objectively true data. This project requires a belief in truth as an agent detached from human subjectivity and conciousness.

[edit] Beliefs Regarding Reality

So, here are some of my personal beliefs, regarding subjectivism, post-structuralism, and post-modernism (which is a disputed title, but one that is commonly used, so I'll use it.)

• I believe in human failure. I believe in the reliability of imperfection in human endeavors.
  • This is not nihilism. I don't advocate the destruction of human systems. It does not follow that because an effort is ultimately futile, it has to be rejected. I believe in continuing to build and work within human structures; I simply believe in acknowledging the inherent flaws in any such structures, and I reject the notion that any are timeless, perfect, or true.
  • This is not pessimism or defeatism. I am commonly thought of as a reliably optimistic and romantic person. I don't think that belief in failure necessarily leads to depression, ennui or hopelessness.

• I believe that the human consciousness is incapable of perfectly ordering or understanding the world outside it. I do believe in an objective world independent of our ability to access it. But because that world is constantly removed from us, I question the benefit of considering it detached from our human subjectivity. I believe that human consciousness is a product of evolution, which does not create perfectly fit systems-- it only eliminates those that are unfit in a way that prevents survival.
  • Belief in limits to human understanding does not necessarily require the belief that human consciousness is valueless, wrong or futile.

• I believe in judging human endeavors not in terms of truth or rationality but in terms of fit. In practical application, there is little difference in the two, but there are some important divisions.
  • Rationality, to me, is not "true". (Pardon the scare quotes.) Whether or not it is true or real is a question that I can't answer. I can't answer it because it is entirely separate from my consciousness; I can't access truth or reality outside of my mental perspective. Rationality and truth as we refer to them are products of human kind, they are socially created.
    • This does not mean that I reject rationality! Simply acknowledging that rationality is a human product does not mean that rationality has no use. Rationality is very often fit-- it has use, it benefits us and helps us to lead our lives. Nothing is any less real because it is a social creation.
  • Science, likewise, is not real, independent from human creation, from my point of view.
    • Likewise, I do not reject science or its products! Neither do any prominent postmodern thinkers. I recognize the need for science. I regonize the use of science. I take advantage of its products every day. I don't have contempt or disrespect or ill will towards scientists. What I reject is the notion that science is a timeless and perfect creation which is moving ever closer to perfectly ordering reality. I reject the idea that science must be privileged above any other human system. I reject the dogmatic interpretation of science, the notion that anything which questions or criticizes science is heresy. I reject scientism.

• I find it ironic that many of the arguments against postmodernism, poststructuralism, deconstruction and the like come from those who claim to speak for logic and rationality, but their arguments often contain logical fallacies.
  • Very often, arguments against postmodernism beg the question. At times (but not always), postmodernism uses stepping outside of logic as a technique to better understanding. This is commonly seen as being the case in deconstruction. Many would say that postmodernism offers a critique of logic. But when it is condemned, very often those condemning it resort to logic in order to make their attacks. They take as a given the supremacy of logic as part of their arguments against a system which rejects logic. They presume the thing they are hoping to prove-- they beg the question.
  • Most criticisms of postmodernism use straw man tactics-- they misrepresent the beliefs of postmodernism or its prominent thinkers, and then attack those misrepresentations. For example, they maintain that:
    • Postmodernism rejects logic and science. (No, only the use of either as dogma.)
    • Postmodernism is relativism, it suggests that all opinions are equally valid. (No, it maintains that the criteria for determining validity must constantly be examined and debated. The debate on what is and is not valid should never close.)
    • Postmodernists suggest that there is no real world, no objective physical reality. (No. That world however is removed from us by a human consciousness that can never trancend itself, and so any assumption about the objective worlds character must be carefully scrutinized. Hypothesizing about an objective world outside of human consciousness has little use, because it is impossible to escape that consciousness.)
  • Finally, many criticisms of postmodernism are simple non-sequiturs or ad hominem attacks.
    • Postmodern writing is meaningless and intentionally difficult. (It's only meaningless if you take as an assumption the rejection of its beliefs. Difficulty in writing is a product of complicated and dense theory, and is hardly unique to postmodern thought.)
    • Postmodernists are all lefties who want to subvert everything. (There is little connection between postmodern philosophy and traditional liberal/left wing politics. What conservatism postmodernism rejects is intellectual conservatism, the belief that certain subjects are beyond intellectual review.

• I dislike those who inconsistently question faith and dogma. Many scientists fashion themselves as religion-destroyers; they question faith and belief. And yet they refuse to consider their own biases, the things that they take on faith. Belief that the human mind can eventually create a perfectly ordered and accurate system for portraying the world is based only on faith. Belief in the triumph of rationality over human failure is based on faith. The idea of science as a temple, as something which is inelligible for criticism or review is dogma. I dislike those that challenge faith when it is faith in God (or whatever), but not when it is faith in the power of the mind, or capitalism, or secular humanism, etc. I dislike those that fight dogma when it comes from the Catholic Church but not when it comes from Paul Feyerabend or Alan Sokal or Daniel Dennett. I dislike those that privilege their own system of looking at the world so that their own views are "objective" or "rational", but those who disagree with them are under the influence of a cult or the supernatural. (Again, sorry for the scare quotes.)

• I believe that the irrational anger, out of hand rejection, and defensive zeal with which people on Wikipedia reject postmodernism reveals the degree to which that rejection is the product of doubt and fear. I think people protest too much. I think nothing can be accomplished without an attempt at genuine dialogue, founded on mutual respect and a good faith understanding of the opponent's viewpoint.

• I believe in respect for everyone, even those whose opinions I don't agree with. This has become an unpopular opinion, particularly on Wikipedia. More and more often I see people who say something along the lines of, "I don't respect people's opinions when they are wrong," or "You only have the right to an intelligent position." There is a lot of that in people's user pages. I reject it for these reasons:
  • First, I sincerely doubt that the protocol that is implied there (listen to argument, reject argument, deny respect to speaker) is the way that it actually takes place. I think much more often, people make snap judgements about what the other believes and stops listening.
  • Second, I disagree that the conversation is ever at an end. When do you decide that the person has adequately expressed himself? When are you confident that the person is not worthy of respecting? You do people a disservice to assume that they have stopped evolving, that they are at an end.

• I believe that there is nothing that is beyond review or criticism by the human mind-- not logic, not rationalilty, not science, nothing.

[edit] Wikipedia quality issus

Finally, I believe that Wikipedia is imperfect in a lot of ways. But I still participate, because it is a worthwhile endeavor, and I think it is the perfect example of an endeavor that is not invalidated by the fact that it is bound to fail. I mean there's a sense in which you can see Wikipedia as a case study in the failure of objectivism. On any given day, on many talk pages, people who believe in objective truth and neutral point of view and are dedicated to the creation of an encyclopedia that reflects those beliefs are involved in bitter disputes about what really is true, about who's perspective really is the objective reality. They start edit wars, they get angry, they constantly refer each other to Wikipedia's policies, they accuse one another of being in violation of Wiki: NPOV and Wiki: NPA and Wiki:Civil. And no matter how many people get involved, no matter how much consensus is built, the truth is, the project will never be completed, and people will never stop arguing.

Now that's okay. It's okay for the website to be imperfect. What bothers me is that people have begun to think of Wikipedia as a religion; anyone who criticizes it is a philistine. For the record, I think some of the articles are great, some are terrible, many are passable. Despite what the eventualist crowd will tell you, that won't improve. The idea that more and more contributions will move inevitably towards perfection, or even higher quality, is extremely dubious. Whats more, the fact that editing the Wiki takes effort means that people will always work to deny any criticisms, because they have emotional investment in it. And, maybe most importantly, content is always going to be secondary to process. The act of creating the Wikipedia is more important to most people than the content itself. Most will probably deny that, but I feel that it's an accurate claim. And though I can't quite wrap my mind around it, I think that's a part of the reason that there's ultimately a cap on the quality of the encyclopedia. I don't think the Wikipedia will ever rise much higher above the quality that it is right now.

But like I said-- it's okay to be imperfect. It's still worthwhile to try. I just don't like the way in which criticism of the Wiki can be discouraged. Criticism is the only route to improvement. I promise to make a good faith effort to improve the content of this website, to treat others with respect and courtesy, and to preserve the agreed on concept of neutral point of view as best I can.