Also, your examples as far as reflection and understanding yourself goes still seem shallow and lacking, and my questioning of how much time you spend in reflection was one of doubt, as in to say, "I really don't think you spend much time at all in deep reflection." I am reaffirmed in this belief by your association with reflection as a mere reaction to regretful action.
Really? I didn't read that from his reply whatsoever. I think it would be quite impossible to gauge one's own character in reflection and not garner that understanding as a response to action. We come to understand ourselves by understanding how we are wont to act and react, and that requires often action that is regretted, as it speaks most clearly to that understanding. Indeed, the fact that he calls himself 'sometimes hot-headed' does not in any way show a lack of relfection. I must add that to merely reflect without having actions to reflect on might lead one to in fact build up some concept of oneself that is entirely based in unreality. As such, I think the far superior form of reflection is in reaction (or, at the very least, solid hypothetical reasoning about how one would react in a given situation), and that to do so in isolation of reaction garners no benefit other than an illusion of oneself not based on truth but rather one one's self-image. But isn't the nature of self-reflection to understand one's self in truth and dispell mistaken self-image? See, Ramsus, I would say that one of the chief goals in reflection is to understand one's flaws so that they can be overcome. And how else rather than in response to regretted actions can that be realised? Just a thought. I don't think BROJ was very much mistaken.
As for your skepticism of the authority of teachers... it might be valid, but where do you draw the line? That is, you've not yourself proven many of the scientific theories you take for valid, yet still believe them. Why is that? There is a certain level of reasonable trust you can put in authority. True, it might not always be correct, but overmuch skepticism garners nothing of use. For example, one can very reasonably disprove the existence of any force of gravity (a simple philosophical point that there is no need for some 'invisible' force to create the effect we observe, and in fact just makes the idea overly complex; it might be useful for prediction, but has not real existence)... yet are you willing to take that sort of skeptical leap, or merely make use of something expedient? The same might go for a thousand other highly proven theories you take for granted. I'd admonish you not entirely admit doubt in the authority of teachers. Convention, Ramsus, is convention for a reason, and usually it's right. If you think it's not, you'd better have a darn good reason other than just generalized doubt for doing so. Otherwise you get into the fringe theories of things, of which sort we have those people who complain about the mainstream historians who don't take seriously their ideas of Atlantis and the like. From what I have found in my time in academics, Ramsus, true, there might be disagreement amongst the 'experts', but that doesn't mean we should despair of putting our trust in them. Most of the time what is 'conventional' does hold up to scrutiny, what is established is established for a reason... at least, that is what I've found in the fields that I have expertise in. If you want to doubt it in the off chance they're wrong, fine... but remember that you can't prove the existence of anything you see, either... all your senses are merely self-affirming data. By the standard you seem to favour, you can't trust that either.
My apolgies, but I have a slight bit of antagonism for the concept that academic authority shouldn't be take for what it is. Yes, it can be questioned, to an extent, but there's a point of absurdity as well. At any rate, the experts have a higher reliability of understanding than the rest. Why not take them as the ground standard? There is nothing wrong in this. Most don't have the ability to intelligently question their knowledge claims (at least not without degenerating into juvenile 'how do you know that' questions ad absurdum), and those who do will do so in a peer reviewed setting. Till such a time as the expert thoughts are found to be in error, there is nothing inherently wrong with taking taught information at face value, at least in a field where you are at that point unlearned and unable to cogently disagree. And since we cannot be experts in all fields at once, there are times in which we will have to simply, for the sake of expedience, assume the correctness and infallibility of our teachers.
You seemed to be disconcerted by BROJ's reply that it's silly to discount long-standing theory just for the sake of doubt. I, however, will continue to stand by him on that. Unless you can give a specific reason why said theory should be doubted, I will not, nor should I, consider them for flawed. That they are long standing and reputable means far more than you are willing to credit. After all, by what standards to you judge what you see and feel to be real, and no illusion? Amongst the most important discriminating factors, Ramsus, are that the things you experience are 'lasting'... that you see your computer now, and will expect to see it again in an hour. It is likely 'real'. The same criteria might be applied to a theory... if it is long-standing, then it has held up to be 'lasting', and the assumption that it is to be taken for weighty is no different than that which you use to discriminate between a visual observation that something is real and a mere rogue figment of the mind. This is, too, what bounds us in the field of 'reason.' After all, what keeps us adhereing to the theories of Einstein? Of Darwin? What else but that they are established and long-standing, having little yet to shake their foundations (at any rate, nothing to entirely discount them as yet.)? We might not have absolute infallible understanding that these things are true, but there is a certain expedience to believing them. Again, in short, there is a reason things become 'established.' Often it's because they're pretty well the best idea we have in the given point. If you think it's wrong and have a better idea regarding it, by all means, academics is free to criticism. But you better have some strong reasons, because those things became established on strong reasons themselves, and it will take something equal or greater to overcome them. It does happen: the old form of Classicists who believed in the singular genius of Greek culture - this greatness which arose out of nowhere to enrich the world - has been debunked, but that took long generations of work and evidence and study. To merely have been skeptical of the authority of the previous thinkers would have been foolish and useless.
I'm not sure if I've made myself clear. I've got a bloody bad way of rambling, I know, but I get a little wary when people talk about this tyranny of the intellectual authority. That seems to me only one step away from that Zeitgeist video, you know. The problem of merely doubting what authority says is evidenced in that... doubt by people who have no bloody clue what they're talking about. From all that I've experienced in my seven years of academics, I'll say that sometimes it's just expedient to use the best theory at hand. I guess I simply must ask, Ramsus... if this test is flawed, what's a better variant?
But maybe I've misunderstood you. I've kind of tired my mind out lately, and it is rather late. Please, if you feel like it, enlighten me as to your thoughts on the matter.
And to Ms Black, I highly doubt he had any self-aggrandizing motive behind this, unless you count the worth of one character form higher than another. If you do that, it is by and large the product of one's own biases, which might just as well cause one to think the same way apart from the test.
By the way, I'm of the 'Engineer' character type. Interesting. Unfortunately these tests have a slightly difficult time reading me, as I'm too criss crossed. I'm not one of those that can identify securely in sciences or arts, in feeling or thinking... I am usually jumping from one to the other. Mentally ambidexterous, as it were. Sometimes, when I'm writing poetry, I feel more; when I'm designing mechanical systems, I think more. I honestly can't say that I entirely favour arts or sciences more... my heart is drawn to the arts, I suppose, but, say, these last few days... I've been running around with my head in the clouds thinking of the nature of gravitational fields. As such, classifying me is a little difficult. But meh, Engineer is as good as any, I suppose. Though I must add that, as fun as a quiz might be, I generally have an aversion to Psychology, and consider it a sort of bastard child of Philosophy.
