Discussion on critical thinking question?

This seems more like a statement, you've outlined the basic thought process, but what exactly are you trying to pick apart for dissection? You've left this very open... Though, I would suspect your viewpoint on the Gestalt reference to the whole picture, and then injecting God and creation, and the open minded to mean acceptance of all faiths? I'm all for thoughts and debate on psychology, but I don't see where you were going with this. I can see your thesis...

> Too often as humans we decide what we think is right or

> wrong and there is no budging.

But where was this to be debated? Can other products of thought be used to show that they can be open-minded as well or applied as uncritically as something that could be described as broader in its whole package? If you debate something then are you not choosing, or is your presentation meant to show a true lack of bias of an inclined process of directed thought?

Isn't looking at the whole picture the inherent lack of the debate for seeing the forest for the trees? I see this a lot sitting around circles with meetings over my daughters, and the Psychologists looking at the broad depths of the situations that my daughters are creating as they disrupt school, fail to act as functional students, and treat the surface symptoms, but fail to look at the actual problem that may be creating those symptoms.

Hence the debate, is it better to treat the underlying problem, or is it better to look wholly at the environment created by the singular. This singular in this instant could be one of my daughters for instance doing cartwheels up and down the classroom aisles during class, and being labelled with Attention Deficit Disorder. So they instantly suggest drugs...

What you are suggesting as presented by the Gesalt, and focusing on the whole instead of the parts, you would fail to realize that the drugs could be avoided by limiting the sugar intake that the school is doping my daughter with, by feeding her junkfood for snacks and lunch, and pumping her full of caffeine laced soft drinks. Now, would it not be easier to go a healthy route and regulate the diet by looking at the parts of the problem, or would it be wholly better to stick her on the drugs by merely looking at the offshoot system creating a new perceived problem? I would hazard by your statement it would be easy to conjecture that the writer of this lecture would have biased to the drug route, instead of treating the problem. This is, however, what the school wants, and is suggesting to put her on drugs. Though, through it’s own poor comprehension of dietary regulation in their school programs is a likely a major contributing factor to causing the problem in the first place.

I would defiantly be against anything that does not look at the parts of the cause, the parts of the symptoms to find the underlying simplicity of the solution. It's easier to treat the symptoms because no real research needs to be done to find the root of the symptoms and then ultimately solve the real cause of problem. Then the process becomes self-defeating.

I do not have to have a strong command of the different schools of thought to understand what is more than 'Common Sense' to me. Sometimes education becomes our downfall and in the end limits our thoughts. In your conjecture to maintain an open mind, how can an open mind be kept if the mind if being told to be closed by the paths of education that we're being taught. Does education as a whole then become a downfall in the debate of what route may be better, when possibly the keeping of an open mind to all ways of thought becomes completely necessary to identify the Symptoms as a whole, or the result, and then begin to narrow down the symptoms to their causes by looking at each of the individual parts to begin to isolate the cause through complete education of all things universally. Then the study of Psychology bridges Psychiatry, and Medical in relation to Dietary needs through a Dietician, as well as other routes not just within the realms of Psychological Schools of thought.

Personally, either way could still be debated as faulty, but using all things conjointly, and falling back on your...

> Too often as humans we decide what we think is right or

> wrong and there is no budging.

Then I am 100% in agreement, but it's impossible when having interaction or contact in a society that is primarily reflective by nature without having to take some sort of a side or bias to a situation. It is impossible to enter a debate without making a choice, no matter how unbiased to a conclusion you attempt to remain. Even in foregoing to choose, you've still decided not to make a choice. This is what it means to be cognitive.

> He doesn’t directly state this but he does show us the

> accuracy of each view point only to let us know that each is

> also incomplete.

Does it matter so much that each is incomplete, or that they can all be used together to find something that might be complete? For instance, one by itself may not, and the one singular piece of a certain frame of thought when applied in relation to the parts of the others may not always be either, as it's unlikely to be the same part that is drawn on in a given circumstance as we're all unique with unique problems. Does this necessitate the true essence of maintaining an open-mind, or does it then end up being labelled inconsistent, foolhardy and impractical because no order of logic in a direct pathology can be used to determine the outcome?

Maintaining rules creates rigidity, and by maintaining a true open frame of reference to logic, it becomes free to be explored without labels, and we return to the person, and treating the person instead of the disease on an individual basis. If we can't understand the personal needs of a human being, their environment, perceptions, spiritual, physical and mental needs, then can we truly understand the individual on enough of a nature to truly 'help them' with their problems?

Firmness in choice is resistance; I'll agree it's critical to be open and uncritical in that openness. And you're back to...

> is that we have to be open minded about all view points.

And then... the debate becomes realized, for or against being open to other views? Even attempting to be considerate, what does God have to do with being open to thought, and the things presented before us? Why is your association with the whole picture associated to a singular school of thought and their Diety? You can't be open to all viewpoints if your viewpoint of creation is limited to a singular Supreme Entity... even in the Bible there is reference to other Gods, spheres of their creation, and such, so much to state there are other cuneiforms of creation theories...

A serious question to ask yourself, how open are you willing to be in relation to what you consider to be open to other viewpoints, as you've apparently already taken bias. ;)