How to interpret

How to create knowledge

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Start with a problem.

Create multiple proposals for solutions, and with each, explain how the proposal solves the problem.

Try to rule out all but one with criticism.

The solution will have (unrefuted) criticism of all of it's rival proposals.

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If 1 left, then that’s the (tentative) solution.

If more than 1 left…

If none left…

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How to create knowledge (of a text, or body language, or any kind of action that a person does -- herein referred to as an “idea”).

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Start with a problem. (What is the correct interpretation of the idea?)

Create multiple proposals for solutions, and with each, explain how the proposal solves the problem. (Create multiple interpretations, and with each, explain why the interpretation is correct.)

Try to rule out all but one (interpretation) with criticism.

The solution will have (unrefuted) criticism of all of it's rival proposals.

• State the problem the (interpreted) idea is intended to solve.
• Consider the relevant context as a means of creating criticism.
• Check understanding of words with dictionary, possibly more than one dictionary
• Consider EVERY word as a means of creating criticism. (Don't approximate.)

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If 1 left, then that’s the (tentative) solution.

If more than 1 left…

If none left…

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Clarifications:

• When dealing with anyone, the attitude "Maybe this other guy knows something I don't" should be your initial attitude. Actually this is true for any idea (intuition/emotion) even within one person.
• If you produce inexplicit knowledge as an interpretation, e.g. anger at someone, or a gut feeling, or "love at first sight" -- it's dangerous to act on that knowledge because you have not done any explicit work of creating multiple interpretations and refuting all but one. 
• After creating one or more interpretations, if it's practical, ask the author of the idea to confirm that your interpretation is correct. Do this BEFORE attempting to criticize the idea. Also, if feasible, ask the author of the idea for criticism of your interpretation of his idea BEFORE
  attempting to criticize the idea.
• If you are interpreting something someone said, if there is available evidence, then check that evidence while you are explicitly interpreting it rather than trusting your memory that you remember the evidence on first impression.

What should American companies do in foreign nations?

Question:

Is it wrong for US companies to conduct business in foreign nations using business practices that would be illegal if done within our US borders?

Answer:

I am a follower of Objectivism's economic philosophy, which is borrowed from the Austrian school of economics. It advocates for free trade. It says that any law that restricts voluntary trade transactions by giving one group rights and not others will increase the share of the pie for that one group while necessarily decreasing the size of the whole pie.

President Woodrow Wilson understood this well. He advocated for free maritime trade in his Fourteen Points at the end of WWI. He understood that peace requires prosperity, and that prosperity requires free trade. 

Now, there is a counter-argument I've recently heard of but I'm unsure of its validity. It involves the situation where a foreign country subsidizes the production of a product -- case in point, China subsidizes anything made from iron. And this is a sort of reverse tax. And the problem is that this is unfair treatment for domestic companies competing with those foreign companies. And the counter-argument says that we should be able to put a tariff on that imported foreign product in order to offset that reverse tariff within our nation's borders -- and the thing is that tariffs are a restriction on voluntary trade transactions.

Is this feasible? What could go wrong? Will the foreign country stop subsidizing? Or will the foreign companies just decide to put their efforts in exporting to other nations that don't put up a tariff on those products? And what does this mean for us? In any case, I'm going to post this question to the Fallible Ideas email list, where I post my ideas to get quality external criticism.

Now an interesting case is Apple's Chinese workers. Their working conditions are less than American standards, and Apple is heavily criticized for this by lots of Americans. The problem here is that those workers should not be compared to American workers, and instead they should be compared to their Chinese counterparts. Compared to them, Apple's Chinese workers have much better working conditions. So apple should be praised not vilified. 

I should mention that I disagree with some of our laws on labor -- they are anti-free-trade/anti-liberalism. Case in point, children are not allowed to work (except in certain cases). And this law was created in order to protect children from their parents who would force them to work. But this one-size-fits-all "solution" doesn't work. Sometimes a kid *wants* to work -- VOLUNTARILY!  So why shouldn't he be able to work?

I worked since 12 years old in my dad's convenience stores until age 19 -- this is one of the exceptions, that working for family is ok. Had I not worked for those 7 years, I would not have been successful in my first company that I started at age 19 while in college. And the thing is that so many children were not allowed to work like I was. They were stripped of their opportunity to learn. So this law acted as a discriminatory barrier for them -- it gave me rights that they were not given. So it increased my slice of the pie while necessarily decreasing the size of the whole pie. This is a parochial mistake. Its analogous to the situation where America championed equality under the law *for all*, while still supporting slavery. This is anti-liberalism. And its time for us to expand this great tradition to the last group of people that have so far been excluded -- children!

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Liberalism - Liberalism in economics - Liberalism in parenting - CRC (international law on child labor)

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Child custody battles

Why do people see child custody cases as "battles"?

Its because these parents are fighting each other for custody of their kids. But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact it shouldn't be that way. Its wrong on so many levels.

Oil painting by Ragod Rustom

For one, its wrong in that it ignores the preferences of the children. Surely the children don't want their parents fighting -- especially not about them -- its how kids learn to feel guilty about their parents fighting and breakup. Its as if the parents are using their children in order to hurt each other, all while hurting their children as collateral damage.

Parents should be thinking about their children more so than themselves because the adults can take care of themselves for the most part and the children are caught in the middle because they still need their parents help -- and their parents are still responsible for helping them become independent.

Children should have a say in their lives

More importantly, the children should have a say in how they live, whom they live with, where they live, etc. If a child wants to live with his mother, and if mother wants that too, then they should live together. It doesn't matter what the father wants in this. The child chose. Done deal.

Now here's where things get hairy. Most people will think that I'm advocating whim-worship. But I'm not. Whim-worship is evil. Let me explain.

What is whim-worship?

Whim-worship is the anti-thesis to reason. It is evil because in conflicts of interest between people, if one person resorts to violence to resolve the conflict, its because he acted by whim instead of by reason. Resolving conflicts rationally can only be done by reason. And as long as there are whim-worshippers in the world, there will be evil. When the last whim-worshipper learns the error of his ways and stops acting by whim, evil will have been eradicated.

Can children reason like adults?

Most people think that children can't reason like adults do. They think that a child can't do better than whims. But that doesn't make sense. Anybody can learn to improve his thinking. Anybody can learn the value of a reasoned preference over a whim. Anybody can learn to recognize the difference between a whim and a reasoned preference. Even children -- especially children.

Why did I say especially children? Its because children are more rational than adults in an important way. Adults have far more irrationalities than children do. And its the irrationalities that cause people to ignore their problems. Some people think that having (or admitting that a person has) irrationalities gives that person a pass. But this is wrong. People are responsible for fixing their irrationalities. And they are responsible for their actions even if those actions were caused by their irrationalities. Blaming one's irrationalities does not absolve himself of the crimes he commits because of them.

If you can't imagine a concrete example of what I mean by an irrationality, consider this example. Some adults feel attacked when their ideas are criticized -- they learned this from being raised by parents that shame them to make them feel bad (dirty looks, insults, yelling, emotional or physical punishment). And they also learned to react to criticism by ignoring the criticism, blocking it out of their mind, so that the bad feeling stops. So they've created a conditioned response -- a trigger. And young children haven't yet conditioned themselves to do this. Its because their parents, teachers, and friends haven't yet done the shame/punishment thing to them a lot.

You still think I'm wrong about children? Maybe you remember examples of situations with your child where you failed to persuade your child of something, and your child got upset. And you think this means that children are irrational. Well you're wrong. What you did was resolve the conflict by coercing your child, which means that its against his will. So you resolved the conflict with coercion -- like violence -- instead of reason. Why did I add violence in with coercion? Its because if the child continues to disagree with his parent, at some point the conflict is resolved in one of two ways: either (1) by them walking away from each other, or (2) by the parent resorting to physical violence against his child. Now most parents don't go as far as violence because their kid's will breaks before that. So violence is averted, but not because of the benevolence of the parent and instead its in spite of the evil of the parent. And what's worse is that its these situations that cause children to have irrationalities.

Walking away from each other is a rational way to resolve a conflict. Resorting to physical violence is an irrational way to resolve a conflict -- its whim-worship. So actually what happened is that the parent was acting irrationally and not the child. So the parent got it backwards, and its because of his own irrationalities that he gets this wrong.

A common thinking mistake that leads to acting on whims goes like this: "I know way more than my child does, so in any given conflict between me and him, the rational approach is to side with my way since I know more." But this doesn't work. This means judging ideas by authority instead of by merit. It means adjudicating between rival theories by working out which theory was created by the guy with the most knowledge. And this doesn't work because the guy with more knowledge can make mistakes just like the guy with less knowledge. That's because everybody makes mistakes. So its possible for the less-knowledgeable guy to be right even when the more-knowledgeable guy disagrees with him. So working out who knows more is not a rational way to resolve a conflict of interest. Its whim-worship. Its anti-reason.

All people are fallible

Still unsure about the idea that children can reason like adults? Well consider this. All people are fallible -- that means everybody makes mistakes. It means that each of us has flawed knowledge of:

(1) reality, which is about how the physical world works, 

(2) morality, which is about how people should act, and 

(3) epistemology, which is about how knowledge is created.

And acting rationally is something that requires knowledge about how knowledge is created. And the thing is that everyone applies knowledge about how knowledge is created, not just adults. How do I know? Well, how do you think children learn a language? Do you think raw sensory data is physically written into their brains like how our computers physically write 0s and 1s into their harddrives? Its not the case. What happens is that babies actively think about things and create concepts of them and they attach labels to them which we call "words". And as they create concepts, they create their own (mostly inexplicit) epistemology which they then use to understand the world. And the thing is that everybody has imperfect epistemology, which means that we all make mistakes when we create knowledge.

Further, because we're fallible, its impossible to know in advance which of my ideas will be found to be wrong in the future. I can't predict future criticisms. That would be predicting future knowledge-creation. That means knowing something before you learned it, which is a contradiction, so its impossible. It means prejudging a case before learning the facts of that case. No good judge does this. So no good parent should either. You should never under any circumstances prejudge a case before learning the facts of that case. Its pure evil. Its what leads to violence in all forms including war.

How do I know if I'm wrong?

In terms of theories and criticisms, just because I feel I'm right about a theory of mine, that doesn't mean that I should act like I'm right even in the face of outstanding criticism of my theory. Having an outstanding criticism means that my theory is refuted -- i.e. treated as false until further notice. To be clear, an outstanding criticism is one that doesn't itself have an outstanding criticism.

So do you agree that children can reason like adults do? If not, then what is your counter-argument to my argument that they can? If you don't have a counter-argument, and you still disagree, then your disagreement is a whim. Which raises the question: Aren't you part of the problem instead of being part of the solution?

If you want to improve your skill at being part of the solution, start by learning better how to do conflict resolution with some advanced epistemology.

If you're still not sure, read this essay covering a lot more details about parenting.

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Check out my other essays on parenting related topics:

How should parents raise children? 

The Nature of Man

Telling people what to do doesn't work 

Why curious children become scared adults 

Relationship between psychopathy and Autism/Aspergers

How do children learn how to act? 

Parental respect 

Traditions vs New ideas 

Lying and responsibility 

Golden rule vs Platinum rule vs CPF 

Why should people collaborate?

Psychology 

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Join the discussion group or email comments to rombomb@gmail.com

Epistemology: How learning works

Epistemology is about how learning works, how knowledge is created, how problems get solved. These all mean the same thing.

Most people don't pay much attention to the way they learn. This is partly due to going to school and accepting their model of learning without questioning it. Students are given material to learn, and they are given tests, and the kids are left to figure out on their own about how to learn the material. Some kids figure out a simple way which is to memorize the facts and regurgitate them on the test. And this "works" for many years until at some point in school things become more difficult and memorizing doesn't "work" well anymore. The amount of stuff to learn becomes overwhelming and the kid starts to get mixed up. They also start putting problems on the tests that were not covered in class or in homework, and the student is left not knowing how to create solutions to the new problems.

To explain why this memorizing method doesn't work, consider what it means to memorize facts. A fact is a solution to a problem. On the test, the teacher will give the student a problem, and to solve it, the student plans to recall the solution that he memorized that goes with this problem. Now there are a few major flaws with this memorizing method. One, if you are only memorizing a few sets of problems and solutions, then when you are presented with new problems, you won't know how to create a solution, since that's not how you were doing it before. Two, how do you know you solved the problem correctly? In other words, how do you know that the solution you recalled is in fact the solution to the problem you've encountered? How will you check that you got it right? If you are only memorizing facts, then you won't know what to do. Three, how do you know you understood the problem correctly? In other words, how do you know that your interpretation of the problem is the correct one? If you are only memorizing facts, then you won't know how to interpret the problem explicitly, and instead you'll be doing it by first impression.

The right way to learn is by reason, which is a creative and critical process. When you are thinking of learning something, ask why it matters, how it could be used, what is it's purpose. Ask yourself: Why should I learn this? Ask yourself: What problem does this idea solve? Then get answers, from other people, from internet searches, and make guesses yourself. Then criticize those answers -- in other words, try to find out if these answers are wrong and why. Do your own criticism, and ask others for criticism too. None of this involves memorizing. All of it is a creative process.

To explain why this reasoning method works better than the memorizing method, consider what it means to reason. It's a creative process -- you create (new) solutions to (new) problems. And it's a critical process -- you try to find out if your solution is wrong. So, if you're taking a test that gives you a problem that you didn't encounter in class or in the homework, you're ok because you know how to create a solution since that's what you were doing in class and in the homework.

To be clear, you not only use criticism on your solution, but you also do it on your interpretation of the problem. By that I mean that when you read a problem, you shouldn't assume that you understood it. People are fallible, which means that anything we do can be mistaken, so we should make sure to check for mistakes at every step, including the step of interpreting the meaning of the problem. And this interpretation step is a creative and critical process, just like the process of creating a solution to a problem. Actually, interpreting a problem is creating a solution to a problem, which is the problem of what is the correct interpretation of this problem?

Now let's take it a step further. The problem itself could be wrong. A person created it, and since people are fallible, anything they create could be wrong. So it's important to check if the problem is wrong. Now this gets tricky when you are criticizing a problem and criticizing your interpretation of the problem, so it takes some getting used to in order to keep from conflating the two. This gets even more tricky when you are discussing this with another person since you have the problem, your interpretation of the problem, and his interpretation of the problem, and you both are criticizing all three, so it's important to keep track of what you're criticizing.

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Here are some essays that explain epistemology from different angles. These are by the philosopher Elliot Temple. Note, I've carefully put these essays in order so I suggest reading them in this order.

• Epistemology in short
• Why is Reason important?
• Why is Tradition important?
• Why is Fallibility important?
• What does Fallibility imply about communication?
• What is knowledge?
• How is knowledge created? | More on how knowledge is created. 
• How is knowledge structured? 
• Is there objective truth?
• Definitions
• Problems | Solutions
• How to ask questions | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
• Why philosophy first?
• Rationally Resolving Conflicts of Ideas

Here are some of my essays on epistemology:

• What is the relationship between wild guesses and best guesses?
• Justificationism and Critical Rationalism
• How does learning work?  |  What is ambiguity?
• How to solve physics problems?
• Traditions vs New Ideas
• Telling people what to do doesn't work 
• Conjectures and Refutations method
• Why do people demand evidence?
• Will spirituality and science unite?

 Here are some related essays:

• Love at first sight
• Goals.. the destination and the journey 
• Rational people
• Changing your mind
• Don't dwell on the past
• Psycho-epistemology (by Elliot Temple)
• Emotions
• Psycho-epistemology (by me)
• How convention prevents communication
• Why do people rationalize?
• Leadership and first-handed thinking
• Leadership and bad conventional ideas about it
• Golden Rule vs Platinum Rule vs Common Preference Finding method 

How should parents raise their children?

How should parents raise their children? And how does that contrast with bad ways of parenting? Well for starters, having the right parenting philosophy (or worldview) means having a different attitude towards conflicts of interest than compared to everybody else.

Most people treat conflicts of interest as though the individuals involved are opponents trying to win against each other. But the correct attitude is that there are no conflicts of interest between rational people. Instead, rational people think of themselves as teammates working on shared problems -- instead of as opponents each trying to solve their own (rival) problems.

What's it like to be teammates working on a shared problem?

First, one person tries to enlist the other to work on a shared problem, which in this type of case is a disagreement between them. But before they even start trying to resolve this disagreement, there are some principles (traditions) that they have already agreed on that everybody agrees they will try their best to follow.

#1: Any problem is soluble, given the right knowledge. (This is known as the Principle of Optimism. See _The Beginning of Infinity_ by David Deutsch. Also see this blog post by Elliot Temple.)

#2: Any person (including children) can create any knowledge. (This is also explained in _The Beginning of Infinity_.)

#3: So any disagreement is resolvable, and in order to resolve it, it takes all parties involved to learn the knowledge of the resolution.

#4: Finding the right knowledge requires guessing solutions, and refuting and refining them with criticism -- a criticism is an explanation of a flaw or problem in an idea. It also requires guessing and criticizing the problems as much as, if not more than, their solutions. And the right knowledge is a solution that refutes all of its rival proposals. So that means that nobody in the conflict has any criticisms of the agreed-upon solution.

#5: So all the people involved in the disagreement end up with something they fully want. So they willingly choose it by their own judgment. So its completely voluntary.

#6: So in any given disagreement, there does not have to be any suffering for any of the people involved. There's no inherent law of nature that requires that people experience any suffering from disagreements.

#7: Therefore it is both possible and desirable to raise children entirely without forcing or coercing them to do things against their will, or forcibly or coercively restricting them from doing things against their will.

One clarification I'd like to make is regarding a child's goals. Most parents think that it's their responsibility to make sure their kids have the right goals, but what that really means is that the parent wants to control his kid's goals. And this doesn't work because it's involuntary. Children are people, and all people should choose their own goals. A parent's involvement in his child's goals is not supposed to be a negotiation, and instead the parent's role should be as helper/advisor.

Many of you are thinking that talking about principles and all these complex ideas is just not possible with young children. Well, strictly speaking, that's not true. But I do understand the point that extreme ignorance will make it really hard to learn advanced stuff. The thing is though that even this problem is soluble -- don't forget the Principle of Optimism!  Any problem is soluble, given the right knowledge.

Here's one way to break it down from parent to child in the form of a discussion. Note that in the earlier parts of the discussion, the child doesn't know much. And in the later parts the child knows more. This is not one discussion. Its more like a long continued discussion over many years of a parent raising a child.

I want what's best for you

Parent: I want what is best for you.

Child: i know

Parent: Part of that means me helping you get what you want.

Child: But what if I do bad stuff!?

Parent: Why would you do bad stuff? Do you mean like you did something bad but you didn't know its bad? If that's the case, then you're not guilty because you didn't know. But if you're talking about doing something bad and you know its bad, then you're guilty. But don't you want to do what you think is good, and not do what you think is bad?

Child: Ya!

Parent: And that means that I will do my best to help you get what you want.

Child: But, what if I want something, and you don't like what I want?

Parent: Well, part of helping you get what you want means helping you figure out what's good to want. So for example, if you want to meet Santa, and since that's impossible, its a bad thing to want. And if you (fully) agree that its a bad want, then you should change your mind about it, which means no longer wanting to meet Santa anymore.

Child: heh, ya. but that's easy to fix.

Parent: Ok he's a harder one. So lets say one day you wanted me to get water for you right now, and then you found out that I was in the shower. Then its impossible for me to get water for you right now unless I get out of the shower, put a towel on, get the water for you while I'm cold, and then go back to my shower, all while you sit there watching tv and playing on your iPad. So, do you agree that in this situation you should change what you wanted to something like I'll get the water myself, or I'll have water when dad is ready after his shower?

Child: Ya.

Parent: And it goes the other way around too. I mean that if the right thing to do is for me to change my mind, then I'll do that.

Child: Ok. But what if we don't agree on who should change their mind?

Parent: Well most times we'll both be changing our minds, not just one of us. But anyway lets consider that. When we disagree about who should change their mind, then we should both change our minds to the fallback resolution which is to leave each other alone.

Child: Oh ya.

Parent: So that means that I'm not restricting you from getting what you want even when I disagree with you that your want is good.

Child: So doesn't that mean that you would let me do something bad?

Parent: Well, what's the alternative? The alternative is for me to force you do things against your will whenever I think I'm right and you disagree.

Child: Oh! Ya that's bad.

Parent: So yes, between the two options: (1) stand aside as my kid does something I think is bad, and (2) force my kid to not do something I think is mistake -- option #1 is the best. Option #1 is reasonable and voluntary. Option #2 is unreasonable and involuntary -- it's acting on whim.

Child: What's a whim? 

What's a whim? 

Parent: A whim is wanting something without even trying to find out why you want it.

Child: So having a whim is bad?

Parent: No, but acting on a whim is bad.

Child: Why is it bad?

Parent: Because acting that way means preventing yourself from knowing the truth. It means preventing yourself from knowing the right solution. It means preventing yourself from finding out if you were wrong.

Child: But why?

Parent: Well, if you want something, and if somebody explains to you that it's a mistake and gives you an explanation of it's badness, and you disagree but you don't have a reason, and let's say that in this situation you're actually wrong, then how will you find out that you're wrong?

Child: I guess you can't.

Parent: Right. It's impossible to find out you're wrong if you don't expose your reasoning to criticism. And if you don't have reasoning for why you want something, then that means you can't criticize your want. And that's bad because not being able to criticize it means not being able to find flaws in it, which means that if it is wrong, you can't possibly find out that you're wrong. So you stay wrong forever.

Child: eww!

Child: But what about if I run into the street to get a ball while a car was coming?

Parent: I would scream out to save you and if I'm close enough I'll run to grab you.

Child: But that's against my will! I was going after a ball and you stopped me from getting what I want!

Parent: You mean you don't want me to save your life if you're in danger?

Child: oh, Yes I do.

Parent: So then what are you talking about?

Child: Never mind, I was wrong. What's next?

Parent: You were trying to find ways that it's bad for me to not stop you doing what you want.

Child: Oh ya. What about this one? What if somebody asked me to share something of mine, and I said no.

Is it bad to not share? 

Parent: So you didn't want to share, but what was your reason?

Child: oh ya, gotta have reasons for what we want. What if I said "...because I said so?"  or "...because!"

Parent: I'd say "because... what? you didn't say why you want it."

Child: Ok how about "...because I want to.. that's why!"

Parent: Well that's wrong because it's circular. You want to because you want to?

Child: lol, oh ya that's stupid.

Parent: Got any other reasons for me? I love refuting stuff!

Child: Well I didn't think that far yet. I didn't think of anything else.

Parent: Ok I'll suggest some details. Let's say your reason for not wanting to share is that you want to play with your iPad right now, and the other kid wants to play with it too. So in this scenario, you shouldn't share it.

Child: Why?

Parent: If he shares his iPad when he wants to play with it, then he can't play with it. So then he's not getting what he wants.

Child: Well this is a conflict. They can work together to resolve it.

Parent: Yes, and how do you think that might go?

Child: I don't know. Kids can be very irrational sometimes. ;p

Parent:  Ya. Adults too though so I don't see the point of singling out kids -- that's a parochial mistake.

Child: What's a parochial mistake?

What's a parochial mistake? 

Parent: Uh.. well I haven't prepared myself for that question. Gimme a moment to think of a reply.

Child: You mean you don't know?

Parent: Well, I do know, but I'm not sure how to say it in simple terms -- which, by the way, means that I don't know it very well yet.

Child: Uh, 'don't know it very well?' What's that mean!?

Parent: Well did you think I can know things perfectly? Like I can't make a mistake about it? 

Child: Uh, I don't know what you mean, but now we're changing subjects so let's put a pin on that one and get back to what a 'parochial mistake' is. 

Parent: K. So a parochial mistake is when you incorrectly judge the scope of an idea and... 

Child: lol, another word I don't know. What does scope mean?

Parent: Well gimme a moment to explain. Be patient.

Parent: Ok I got it. Every idea has a scope. For example, the idea that all people are created equal, is an idea whose scope is all people. So if someone believes this idea, and if he thinks that black people or women should not have the same voting rights as white men, then he is wrong about the scope of his idea. He doesn't realize that his idea also applies to black people and women. This is known as a parochial mistake.

Child: Oh I get. It's like if a parent knows that movies are good for learning, that's true for all people not just adults, so it's parochial mistake for him to think that some movies are bad for kids.

Parent: Right

Child: Ok. Let's get back to something else. We were talking about sharing and I asked about a situation where a kid wants to share my iPad and I don't want that. And I said, what if they don't agree? Then that's a conflict, and they can resolve the conflict. 

Parent: And then I said how do you think that might go? Oh ya and then you said you don't know. So here's some options. The kid could change his mind about playing the iPad right now. Or you could decide that you don't want to play with your iPad now and you're willing to let him play with it. And there are lots of other possibilities too, like maybe you both decide to do something else instead, like play hide-and-seek.

Child: But what if we don't agree on something?

Parent: Well then you should keep trying to find agreement, and that might mean that you should change your minds to leaving each other alone. That's the fallback resolution.

Child: But then that means that the other kid didn't get what he wanted because that means I kept my iPad and he didn't get to use it.

Parent: Yes he did get what he wanted. He changed his want to leaving each other alone, so that's what he wanted, and that's what he got.

Child: But he didn't get what he originally wanted.

Parent: So what? Why does that matter?

Child: Well don't people get sad about that?

Don't people get sad about not getting what they originally wanted? 

Parent: If you wanted to meet Santa, and then you found out that its impossible to meet Santa, then...

Child: Oh ya, it's stupid to not change your mind when that's the right thing to do.

Parent: Right.

Child: But that's a stupid example anyway. There are things that people get sad about that are real things.

Parent: Well, let's say that you and I want to watch a movie together right now, and let's say we don't agree on what movie to watch. At this point, it's impossible for you to watch the movie you want while I also watch the movie I want while we're both watching the same tv at the same time. So why should we be sad about this? Why not change our minds to watching separately? That is possible while we each get to see the movie we wanted to see.

Child: Ya it doesn't make sense to be sad about that. Better to change your mind.

Child: Ok what if I did things like I didn't want to learn to read? Then I would have a bad life. And wouldn't that be your fault?

What if a child doesn't want to learn to read? 

Parent: Well first of all, why wouldn't you learn the value of reading?

Child: Well, when I was young, I didn't know a lot, and I especially didn't know how valuable reading is.

Parent: Sure but we're all born that way, not knowing the value of anything at all. So how do you think we learn the value of things?

Child: um..

Parent: Well first of all, values are a type of knowledge. So a broader question is: How do we gain knowledge?

Child: Oh I know that! By thinking about it! 

Parent: Yes. And that means making guesses -- like about the value of things -- and refining and refuting our guesses with criticism.

Child: Oh that's that philosophy stuff we read on my iPad!!!

Parent: Right. It's _Why Philosophy?_ by Elliot Temple.

Child: Can we read it now?

Parent: Sure lets do it.

Child: Wait, one more thing first. What if I just wanted to do the easy thing and just do what you say? Because some kids do that and they say they are happy.

Is it bad to do what you're parents say? 

Parent: That doesn't make sense though. So the way this kid judges ideas is like I'll label ideas right or wrong based on what my parents judge is right or wrong. And this doesn't work because what happens when the parents die? How will this kid figure out which ideas are true and which are false if he can't ask his parents? What will he do to replace his parents as the judgers of ideas? Won't he have to start judging ideas on his own?

Child: Ya

Parent: And since he hasn't had much practice judging ideas on his own, then all of a sudden when his parents die, how will he be good at judging ideas if he hasn't practiced it much?

Child: Ya that doesn't make sense at all.

Child: Ok what if somebody believed something because their friends believe it?

Parent: Well, what if they are wrong?

Child: But what if they are right!?

Parent: Well they might be right, and they might be wrong, but how will you find out which one it is if you don't question their reasons for their ideas?

Child: Wait a minute.. something doesn't make sense. I remember when you told me that caring about social approval is wrong. And I said that I agreed. And you didn't tell me why!

Parent: Actually I tried but you didn't ask enough questions. You basically stopped trying to figure out whether or not it's good to want social approval.

Child: Oh.

Parent: It's possible I'm wrong, so you shouldn't take my word for it.

Child: You mean I shouldn't have believed you?

Parent: Right. You shouldn't agree with an idea unless you agree with the idea's reasoning. So you should have asked more questions. And actually, I should have warned you that it's bad to agree with an idea without criticizing it's reasoning. But at the time I didn't know to explain that.

Child: So I shouldn't believe you when you tell me things?

Parent: Well I make mistakes too. I might be wrong. And think of it this way. If I tell you a wrong idea, and you believe it without questioning the reasoning of the idea, then you can't find out that it's wrong, and then that wrong idea will be in your mind for your whole life causing lots of problems in your life.

Child: What? Why would one idea affect other parts of my life?

Ideas affect each other 

Parent: Because your ideas are connected. They affect each other.

Child: Can you give an example?

Parent: Well, if you have the wrong idea that you should judge ideas by just taking your parent's word for it, then that'll affect all new ideas that you try to learn. You'll adopt all the mistaken ideas that your parents have. But if you didn't have that bad idea, then you won't adopt all the mistaken ideas that your parents have.

Child: Wow that idea affects like all my ideas then!

Parent: Right. But most ideas aren't that far reaching. Each idea has its own scope.

Child: Oh there's that scope idea again! If you mess up the scope of an idea, then that's a parochial mistake.

Parent: Right. And by the way, I learned that from _Why Philosophy?_. There's lots of goodies in there. I still read it and find new things every time. Oh and...

Child: Really!?!?!

Parent: Ya.

Child: Why are you still noticing new things? Why didn't you notice them before?

Parent: Well, each time that I read it, I'm an improved version of myself. I'm smarter. So each time that I read it, I'm smarter than the last time, and that means I'll be able to notice things that I couldn't notice on previous readings.

Child: Oh so that's why you're reading all the time. I always thought you were reading new stuff each time.

Parent: Nope. The best books should be read many many times. It's the same with movies and tv shows.

Child: Oh ya! When I watch a show the second time, I notice things I didn't notice before. And I didn't know why. Now I know it's because I'm smarter the second time.

Parent: Well that's one possible reason. There's other possible reasons too. Like maybe the reason you noticed a new thing this time is that when you read that part of the book you were really tired and missed it, and this time you're not tired and you didn't miss it.

Child: Oh ya.

Parent: And by the way I was also going to say that I improved my understanding of parochialism from discussions with Elliot and the other philosophers on the Fallible Ideas email list.

Child: Cool. I wish I could talk to Elliot.

Parent: YOU CAN! And I bet he'd love to talk to you! You just need to start emailing. And then you can email him. And he'll reply. He likes talking to smart people.

Child: COOL! ok, I want to watch Burn Notice again from the beginning. It'll be my third time now! You wanna watch with me?

Parent: Na. I'm gonna read _Why Philosophy?_ again.

Child: K bye. 

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Check out my other essays on parenting related topics:

Rethinking Higher Education

Child custody battles

The Nature of Man

Telling people what to do doesn't work 

Why curious children become scared adults 

Relationship between psychopathy and Autism/Aspergers

How do children learn how to act? 

Parental respect 

Traditions vs New ideas 

Lying and responsibility 

Golden rule vs Platinum rule vs CPF 

Why should people collaborate?

Psychology 

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