Short Thought

The most important "computing" is how you form your "mind": when young, it's formed by the environment--people and messages around you.

Likely, people then become trapped by this thing that was formed--directed by their mind, rather than directing their minds.

What is interesting is how little it takes to change it, if you don't metaphorically remain trapped or obligated to it.

You figure-out some small thing that affects something in mind, it riples throughout everything else.

I grew up among what America calls "Evangelicals." I'll still fiercely fight people for unfairly besmirching them.

These folks taught you things like "America is/was a Christian nation."

Through time, however, I began to see that much of what passes among most of those who misappropriate that label to themselves as "Christianity" was not, in any sense of the historic term, its various canons (including "The" Canon aka Scriptures), very "Christian" at all. Or rather, not so compatible with it.

And heck, their own metrics people often say they find the same thing, repeatedly through the years.

Or they say that their guide etc. is "The Bible", only for you to figure out as you learn and pay attention, it is not: a lot of what passes for "Christian" nowadays, for example, is actually "Roman Catholic." Even among non-Roman Catholics. Or as some might put it, "Latin Christianity."

And don't get me wrong, older folks in my mother's half of the family were Roman Catholics, great peopole, often great influences and caring, moral mentors and guides worth being mentored and influenced by.

But when you're among mostly supposed "Protestant" "Bible-Believing Christians" and you realize "weird, even after centuries of 'Reformation' they still hold as 'Bible' or 'Christian' things that are really 'Rome'!" And then they argue with Catholics about things...

And the Catholics will (rightly) point-out, "you say such and such about us, but all these things you assume as natural or normal to the west... you know, we CREATED those things you're assuming are natural or 'western'"...

And they respond "puhleeze, that's not Roman, it's just Christian!"

Which is not me stepping into the "Catholics vs." debate (at all), but pointing-out: minds were formed, and they're set, and they don't know who formed them. They're computing from pressupositions, basically, and ironically despite the work on "presuppositionalism" being work by Protestants, Protestants are often terrible at recognizing their own.

But in part because their "values" or norms come out of Catholic society, with some refinements, or changes in society and faith from the Protestant revolution, and since Catholicism had become the thing to Reform from, it can't be credited, or is assumed not to be the originator of, "our" norms, values, etc...

The biggest computing problem you find is blindness to your assumptions, that your thinking often isn't logical, factual, etc., but "motivated", and that you're often rationalizing to a position, not conclucing it on the basis of grounds, evidences, or other objectively superior things to your own priors.

Then something completely incompatible revises one small part that everything else is built upon, and there are ripples.

And if you're weird enough, you actually take notice rather than rationalizing it as in cognitive dissonance with "actually, it's not REALLY different, because..."

Intead, you go "I've grown, learned, changed views."

And that seems to be what people hardly every do anymore!

I mean, that they hardly do without being "motivated", e.g. you have these people who leave their faith/religion because they want some vice or sinful thing. Then they defend themselves with "I didn't yada yada, actually I GREW..."

And people roll their eyes.

You see similar in the university educated--"I didn't just imbibe and conform to an intellectual clique or school, I..."

Too often without being able to really found their new ideas--the Higher Learning--on anything.

But if you had grown-up in the environment I did, where lefties were supposedly these awful things, and been told, "you'll grow up to appreciate work by the likes of Elizabeth Anderson, have friends and good acquaintances and chat buddies and...and...who are all 'lefty loons'", you would say "noooo way!"

Or if you had and were told "you'll soon understand that 'name it and claim it' and 'prosperity gospel' thinking is utter nonsense'", you would have replied "you must be nuts! I couldn't abandon faith like that!"

Of course, any of ye old faithful, Jew or Christian, would have been able to immediately see, and tell such a person, why it was that it is nonsense, and that abandoning such isn't unfaithful.

Likewise, today there are many who see anything associated with genetics and either think (if on the left) "eugenic Nazi monsters!" or (if on the right) "Darwinist/evolutionist idols!!!"

A darn shame too. Molecular genetics (and its implications) allows predictions that are leverageable into medicine and treatment of very unfortunate people who need help! And not even necessarily requiring experimentation and confirmation first--which thanks to the "Right to Try" legislation, means that otherwise guaranteed-dead people going forward can at least be provided attempts to save their lives!

Where it scares people is in "social" predictions, or predictions about ethnicities and demographics--like if a group has a lot of the "warrior gene", which is something bad to talk about, as opposed to "this group has high frequency of the broken allele for blue eyes": so people are willing to try to silence and throw-out an area of knowledge as "evil", despite that they will necessarily throw-away the good: we used to teach people "you often have to accept some bad to get the good."

They don't imagine things like "you know, genes aren't the ultimate end-behaviors, but LACK of 'bad' might create phenotypes that actually tell us someone will lack very necessary and desirable behaviors!" e.g. if you don't have (much of) the warrior gene, maybe you'll be too domesticated! (People in my day of studying this stuff were worried all too much about that kind of thing being more represented in minorities, meanwhile I had friends (more light-skinned than I) who it was a struggle to take steps just to assert/help themselves or ask a girl out--described by others who knew them as 'puppy dogs on two legs': having 'bad' doesn't mean "BAD", lacking 'bad' definitely doesn't mean "GOOD"--and knowing the applications means being able to predict, and work with people, to get the good out of whatever they did or did not get, rather than being screwed because nobody will talk about and figure-out how to help them.)

"Bad" can be mitigated--but not if you throw out the good. "Bad" may not be bad, but "how you use it." If you don't take the good (that requries some bad), you just have not-good. And if you don't get what could be bad that you could use, you have to find something else to use, or you'll...just get bad.

And that's where I'll end the rant, summarizing the two main points:

(1) our minds are often preformed for and direct us, rather than being tools; small refinements to a truth or real thing, however, can help free us as they ripple through the larger structure which has bound us.

(2) we're overly cautious at times about 'badthink' and willing to throw away all the good over the feeling of a little potential bad; we need to learn to accept some bad with the good, and then just mitigate the bad;

(3) it's not obvious what is good or bad, it's not as though innate things tend to be bad or good;

(4) a thing may not be necessarily either bad or good itself or in consequence, but may be tenditious without recognizing their trade-offs and working to mold and direct them in good ways or compensating.