Small Talk...

This area of the world is unusually cold.  I've heard some areas are hotter than usual, or more stormy.  We're just cooler.  Still, September and October are often very hot. There may be some interesting days ahead.  I relate it to global warming.  My older brother says it may be part of the normal world temperature shifts, that for the last several hundred years we have been in an unusual time because temperatures have been more stable than usual.  We may just be dropping into the usual chaos.

Small talk is an interesting concept.  Pick-up lines are one example, but those have limited use.  It generally deals with items of no great concern (thus small).  The topic does have to include points of interest, however.  It is often a way to pass time with friends.  Sometimes, it includes a 'hook' or an attention grabber meant to gain interest from a particular person.  It also serves to create a feeling of commonality when groups are forming.

I've never been good at small talk.  I tend to use conversation in a utilitarian way.  "Why mince words?"  Often, I tend to consider small talk a waste of time.  But still, I love language.  Lack of good small talk skills makes it difficult for me to integrate into groups when I don't already have an established relationship with a fair number of the people. 

I've learned that small talk serves a social purpose, and I accept that.  I recognize that small talk is a skill, and that it's one I lack.  If it's a skill, there must be a way to learn it. I look in awe at people who are good at it.  How do they find those words that just flow out so smoothly? 

More Discussion?

I believe that there are actually 2 items that warrant more class time: Analysis of advertising and Analysis of political statements. These are items that affect us daily, and that we are bombarded with. It would be helpful to have significant practice in picking them apart. Perhaps an assignment that involved a review of a political argument in the same way we looked at advertisements might help. However that is not sufficient.


Essentially, this class is an introductory class. I know it is designed to cover a broad spectrum of concepts and applications. It is impossible to work with any one item until it is truly internalized. I think the best we can hope for is to maintain awareness of the general points and some interesting examples that have been presented.

So, I say advertisements and politics – where bad arguments, contradictions, fallacies, innuendo, and strong bias NEED to be recognized for what they are.

What learned this Summer...

Over the summer, I learned a lot about the importance of vocabulary. If there is no common vocabulary, then communication is impossible.  The more the vocabulary matches, the easier the communication.  This is true at work, where people from many cultures mix and communicate every day.  We get calls from all neighborhoods, all income levels and many many ethnic backgrounds.  Language is important. And by language, I mean vocabulary. As people who work in a phone environment, we need to be able to explain things in many different ways, to find understanding with these varied populations.

My friend brought to my attention how difficult English is, with its different words that mean the same thing, words that sound the same but mean something different, and slang terminologies.  It is easy to be misunderstood - and to misunderstand.

One very good thing about this class was that it taught us a common vocabulary.  When discussing arguments, claims and conclusions, we should now all mean the same thing.  Our definition of a good argument and a bad argument and an argument not work saving should all match.  This should make communication easier.

What I Learned from the Class

Much to my surprise, I found I really like to blog. I can see how people get hooked on it and spend all their spare time reaching out through e-space.  It's quite an intriguing concept and a very interesting experience. 

I also learned that I need to be very careful not to step on toes and to hold back when I dealing with people I don't have face to face contact with, especially until a relationship is established.  I need to stifle my own feelings of 'the product will be inadequate unless I fix it'...even though it may, if I fix it, it subverts the group process.  And I think a large part of this class was the group process.

When I think of the people new to the workforce, they seem to have a totally different outlook on life than the students in this class. Part of this, I'm sure is focus.  At work, one has only the goal of work in mind (essentially) - for an extended period. While in class, it only takes up a small proportion of time, so it requires less dedication and attention. 

Examination of 2nd Paper Argument.

I had a discussion at work today with a group of 4 friends. We started talking about Cause and Effect.  I brought out my paper and read it to them.  They commented all the way through my reading.  Essentially, they had no difficulty accepting the argument. In fact, there was no real challenge to our points.  Their valid comment was that it was difficult to tell how true what we said was, because they were not looking at the website.  Very true.  For something like a website review, it's difficult to accept things at face value.  This is really a third or fourth person account of what the organization is about.  I accepted their argument and suggested they review the website. Logically, our paper hung together well.

In truth, I do not accept website reviews.  I need to see for myself.  In a way, I have the same approach to advertising claims.  This makes it very hard for me to buy on the Internet or by mail unless I am familiar with the product.  Even 'satisfaction guarenteed' is not a draw to me. I know from experience that even if I'm dissatisfied I will rarely take the trouble to ask for a refund.

Cause and Effect and the Scientific Method

Experiments and studies are often conducted to identfy causes for observed effects.  'Why does this symptom appear?' or 'Why are oranges orange?'  The problem is, it's easy to innocently create causes that are not really there.  Sometimes the identified 'cause' may be something that is present, but doesn't have anything to do with the effect you are studying. "Oranges are orange because they have lots of vitamin C.'  Well, lots of other things have lots of vitamin C but are not orange.  Look at Kiwi.
 
There are so many potential causes for so many occurrances, that assignment of cause is often difficult.  You need to look for differences.  'How are the ingredients of an orange differentent than those of a Kiwi?' or similarities 'How are the ingredients of an orange like other orange things?'

Then there's post hoc ergo propter hoc': After this, therefore because of this.  In the middle ages, scientists thought that fruit flies spontaneously generated from garbage.  How did they know this? They put fruit in a jar and closed the lid. Lo and behold, fruit flies appeared!  Proof?  The actual cause was discovered in later years.  The fruit flies had laid eggs in the fruit prior to it being placed in the jar.  Post hoc ergo proter hoc.

The Kingdom was Lost

Epstein mentioned that one must accept 'The Normal Condition" as background for any discussion of cause and effect.  Otherwise, it's difficult to tell how far back to go. This is something I haven't considered before. Most often, I'm after root cause. You see the effect, an injury.  Why did it happen? Trace that back far enough and you can do a lot of prevention.


Why was the Kingdom lost?


For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.(Gower, 1390)


So the next question is Why was there Want of a Nail? Where to stop is a judgement call.  How far back is reasonable? Epstein says "For a causal claim, the normal conditions are the obvious and plausible unstated claims that are needed to establish that the relationship between purported cause and purported effect is valid and strong."  Is this string of circumstance strong and valid enough to say the country was lost because of lack of a nail?  Probably not.  Starting with the rider, he might well have been able to find another horse or another means of transport.  One the other hand, how much effect can one sholdier have?  Maybe we can't go any further back than the battle....  

"The earliest known written version of the rhyme is in John Gower's " Confesio Amantis dated approximately 1390"  http://www.rhymes.org.uk/for_want_of_a_nail.htm

Mission Critical...

I found the entire Mission Critical website very interesting.  I hope it is available to us after this class is over.  It provided a different way to look at the concepts we've covered.  I particularly liked the quizes.  They did a pretty good job of explaining why wrong answers were wrong - and they explained in less detail why the right one was right.

It was a very inclusive webiste. I found the table of contents almost overwhelming...so many choices, so little time.

The Causal argument exercise was very good. These types of things make it much easier for me to learn than reading a chapter in a book. I have some vision problems that make reading difficult, and reading from a screen even harder. However, the short amount of large text used in the exercises was excellent.

Clear definitions, separate from text are great.

"A word or phrase is said to be ambiguous if it has at least two specific meanings that make sense in context.
A word or phrase is said to be vague if its meaning is not clear in context. "

Well, Epstein is fairly good at that too.