I just had a revelation and I wanted to share it with my favorate BBS, the Bad Astronomy Forum even before I fleshed it out and cited all my examples: The Two Methods of Thought

Are they mutually exclusive? I don't think so.

My agenda is to spread science and more importantly critical thinking to our children. I will seek and use facts in this endeavor.

I can't argue with you there.

There is an overlap you have found. This might be one of the few examples where you can have both.

In your case, you would have to start with respect for understanding all the facts BEFORE you start out on that (as you would call it) agenda.

In contrast, most people seem to naturally start out on an agenda on the front-end and close their minds off to any facts that might discredit or distract from that agenda.

This, I believe, is how human beings naturally (as in an organic and initial state) think. And I think we need to watch out for this and not allow ourselves to slip back into this.

Only those few of us who can look critically at ourselves and have the courage to throw away all the beliefs we held dear and start over from scratch are able to truly grow. It is the best thing you can do for yourself.

what about AND & OR...

And we dont always have agendas.. when thinking...

they say 1/4 of our brains is dedicated to visual processing.... and as such i would think the facts.. carry more weight, yet indeed, when we think about the fact, we usually have agendas.. even if they are dumb...
like wanting a better spear, or new ways to catch fish...

so in a way.. you maybe correct... but what do i know.

also...

does that link.. site... translate your posts.. into other laugauages.. or is that just is name??

-MT

I think there are additional ways of thought, I just wish I could teach them to my co-workers.

What about stream of conciousness?

__________________
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

I have very vivid dreams... with details so complete its.. well.. you know.
but i do tend to forget... hummm.. thats so common, it must be designed into our species... thus the dreams.. have only a subliminal effect...

hummm
-MT

I am not really disagreeing altogether. Seems like there is indeed some overlap. Unlikely as it seems, someone totally agenda driven could decide facts was the most effective way to go about it.

I basically agree with the OP. Although there may be other forms of thought, you can often divide up the protagonists of a thread neatly into fact-driven and agenda-driven.

__________________
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those waiting for a bus.
If logic doesn't work, then surely it does.

You could say that an animal, like a elephant, operates with both methods of thinking.
a) He/she has an agenda, ie survival(personal and collective)
b) And then there are the facts about how to survive, eg where food and water are, how to avoid predators etc.

What about

(#3) Logic Driven

(#4) Chaos Driven

I believe there are two methods of thought -- namely:

1) That used by persons who tend to divide things into two categories

2) That used by persons who don't tend to divide things into two categories

__________________
Bring back Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Not sure I follow. What is your definition for Method of Thought?

I've always thought of all behaviors (what you think, what you say, what you do - absolutely everything) to be driven by Priniciples, whether a person is conciously aware of the principles behind the action or not. Everyone has a set of beliefs, which is basically the distillation of all our life experiences, which lead to the building of principles. We act out our life as an attempt to meet our basic human needs through a series of behaviors controlled by those principles. Change (aka growth) occurs whenever we add new experiences to the mix, and especially when the new experience conflicts with an existing belief or makes us realize that a chosen behavior contradicts with meeting our needs.

__________________
Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

I thought this talk was about the deductive and inductive methods...

__________________
There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

OK, I missed that. I thought it was about why people do what they do.

__________________
Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

I don't think it was clear which of the two (or another) was meant.

Anyway, I don't think you can have a fact-driven method only. The collection of facts is based on an agenda, on a selection method which has some goal, some purpose in mind. That doesn't mean that it is conclusion-driven (i.e., I have a conclusion, now give me the facts), but it is agenda-driven (my agenda, my aim is to know which types of black holes exist. Now give me the facts concerning those). You want to do something with those facts.

__________________
Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

The OP linked to a post of his on another board that had the two listed, agenda driven and fact driven.

These strike me more as two methods of decision making rather than "two methods of thought".

Or am I missing something???

__________________
I don't ask stupid questions. I just make stupid statements!!!

Well, there are people who want to find out the truth and people who want to find support for what they've already decided. That's how I interpreted the OP.

__________________
Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.