6 ms·

A nice ideal, but likely to be very difficult in practice, because in reality almost nobody disagrees on actual provable, scientific facts. The toughest disagre

A nice ideal, but likely to be very difficult in practice, because in reality almost nobody disagrees on actual provable, scientific facts. The toughest disagreements usually arise around things which are not facts, but are presented as if they were. All human subcultures carry with them a large baggage of "facts" which the group accepts in order to promote social cohesion, avoid conflict or sometimes simply to advertise membership of the group. Try convincing a highly religious person that their religion is entirely fact-free, or that God doesn't exist using logic, and you will get nowhere: they prefer to believe things that other people don't because believing these things grants membership to a group and the benefits of that membership are perceived to outweigh the benefits of being a person of pure rationality. Indeed, a genuine belief that you are entirely rational is simply another form of group membership signalling: probably that you want to be seen as a member of the group "intellectuals" or "scientists" or possibly "educated people". Being unable to recognise the difficulty people have in being entirely rational is itself a form of irrationality. So to get back to your proposed social network, here's what would happen: it would very quickly become dominated by a particular pre-existing social subculture, probably "male internet geeks who believe themselves to be supremely rational" and their baggage of pseudo-facts would come along for the ride. This is NOT an argument against doing what you want to do. Even if the goal is unattainable, creating better discussion forums with better tools for raising the level of discussion is never a bad thing. Just don't think it'd solve the 'friendship paradox' discussed in the paper.

reitanqild 10y ago
> Try convincing a highly religious person that their religion is entirely fact-free, or that God doesn't exist using logic, and you will get nowhere Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? A lot of us actually seems to believe in some kind of deity/ies, we just dont mention it because we value HN as a common ground for technical and business discussions. If not I could tell you some stories about stupid, stubborn evil ateists as well :-P
- hueving 10y ago
  >Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? I think youre being a bit defensive. That statement might not apply to your religion, especially if it's one based on facts.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  I did not mean my comments as an attack on religious people. I'm sorry you interpreted it that way. Quite the opposite: I tried to argue that despite the lack of factual evidence for the existence of gods, strongly believing in them anyway can make sense if membership of organised religion is attractive enough. I don't expect anyone who is religious to see it that way though, even though I've met many devout Christians who happily admit there is no factual proof of God and that is why they place their energies in faith instead.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    Ok, thanks, I see. For me it was very easy to interpret as a general attack.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    > I've met many devout Christians who happily admit there is no factual proof of God There are factual cases for God, some attempting to be proofs even. For example, many consider objective morality (race based slavery is bad, say) to be a case for absolute good, which is hard to explain by pure randomness. Faith, to a Christian, is making choices in the face of this problem. A Christian knows that everyone has to decide whether to follow God or not, and in that way, everyone has faith in some set of axioms. Many people (intelligent, kind, smart ones!) have immense faith that only matter and energy exist despite basically no proof in that metaphysical axiom. Despite how hard it is to explain this, it's actually a clear thought to a reasonably educated Christian. It's just hard to communicate since words like 'rational', 'proof', and 'facts' are overloaded and cause confusion in these sorts of conversations. In this way, the balkanization of our culture is a negative feedback loop as misunderstanding promotes division which promotes more misunderstanding. > strongly believing in them anyway can make sense if membership of organised religion is attractive enough The point of Christianity isn't being part of an organization. People who go to worship services because it's their favorite social club are actually criticized pretty heavily by Jesus in the Bible. To be fair, I think most churchgoers don't understand the implications of this.
    - hueving 10y ago
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? As a religious person, I find keeping religion out of normal discourse has been very counterproductive for both religious and non-religious people. I understand that the discussions are more prone to conflict and uncomfortable feelings, but they're nonetheless key to understanding other people and diversity of thought. Keeping religion (and agnosticism and atheism) out of things produces the same problems we see with the 'Majority Illusion'.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    Point is <edit>I felt</edit> GP used his post as a platform to launch a covert attack on religion in an otherwise unrelated thread. I have nothing against discussing religion online but I think it is mostly offtopic on HN. Edit: see also my reply to GPs answer to me
    - humanrebar 10y ago
      For what it's worth, I got the same impression. But I would consider it a problem if HN, which generally welcomes broad topics including philosophy and politics, considered religion off topic. Religion is the defining trait to many minority groups in the U.S. and the rest of the English speaking world. Asking people to keep religion out of things is asking people to stay in the closet in some contexts. I understand that's surely not intended, but it's nonetheless the consequence of making religion off topic.
      - reitanqild 10y ago
        I actually personally agree but I thought there was a rule, written or unwritten, to keep religion out of HN. Would it be better if I said something like "keep attacks on religion out of HN"?
        humanrebar 10y ago
        Something along those lines, sure. I'm actually fine with people civilly criticizing religion, though. It's the stereotyping that really sticks out to me. It would be flagged or downvoted (justifiably!) if someone called women irrational or told homosexuals that their lifestyles should be kept private. I'm convinced that the double standard here just doesn't register for most of the HN community, and almost all the English speaking world besides. I said something to raise awareness of the problem.
- dctoedt 10y ago
  > Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? As a semi-religious person [0], I would purely love to see religious tenets discussed dispassionately on HN, for a couple of reasons: 1. I've long thought that a corollary of the Summary of the Law [1] is "face the facts," that is, base your beliefs on evidence to the extent possible; as a group, the HN crowd is quite good at examining evidence from various perspectives. 2. Much and even most of the HN crowd is quite interested in knowing "what's going on," which ultimately extends to why is there something rather than nothing? [2]. I would greatly value the insights of others in that area. -------------- [0] I describe myself as semi-religious because I do try to base my beliefs on evidence; this is reflected in the title of my religion blog (largely inactive in recent years), "The Questioning Christian," at http://www.QuestioningChristian.org http://www.QuestioningChristian.org . The right-hand column there lists some of my favorite essays. [1] See http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/facing_facts.html http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/facing_facts.htm... [2] For my "naïve conjecture" about what's going on (to borrow a phrase from the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne FRS, an English particle physicist turned Anglican priest), see http://www.questioningchristian.com/2007/02/another_way_to_.html http://www.questioningchristian.com/2007/02/another_way_to_....
  - nsomaru 10y ago
    'Religion' is etymologically related to connotations of joining and binding. This implies some sort of separation, and a process of joining. Similarly, 'yoga' (by which I do not mean physical exercise) is etymologically related to connotations of union (from 'yuj'). Again, the implication is separation and a process of union. If you take a serious look at your own experience (the evidence), you will arrive at a similar conclusion to Descartes; roughly, that the evidence of one's senses cannot be taken at face value because they provide similar evidences in a dream which is understood to be entirely illusory upon waking up. Alas, most of 'Western' (I do apologise in advance to anyone who thinks I'm being too liberal with that word) thought takes the waking state to be absolute, and dream and deep sleep to be subsets of this state. This is an assumption but it runs so deep that it will be difficult for most to see what I'm trying to point out. First consider that the three states of consciousness experienced (waking, dream and deep sleep) are completely different modes; that is, the dreamer can neither conceive the existence of a waking world which is more 'real' than his current experience, nor will he readily admit that his experience is illusory...until he wakes up and becomes the waker. At this point the illusory nature of the dream cannot be doubted. The money in the dream cannot service debts of the waking state. Consider, then, that questions as to the origin of the world, the purpose of existence and the nature of God may arise only during dream and waking, because in these states there exists thought and thus by implication a mind -- the conclusion is then drawn that in the absence of a mind, there is also absence of a world (as in deep sleep). Thus one may conclude that the 3 states of waking, dream and deep sleep have relative and not absolute reality. It will, however, be noticed that there is a substratum integrating these varying experiences and arrogating them. These are all evidences available to any human being and perhaps could lead one to believe that there might be something to religion after all, beyond the paraphernalia of clothing, places of worship and specific texts. "The kingdom of heaven is within you; he that findeth his Self shall know it"
humanrebar 10y ago
It sounds like you agree that religious people are not rational, which is clearly not true. They just start from different axioms (not only physicalist ones) when they reason. Charitably, it could be confusion over what the word 'rational' means. At any rate, your points about group membership signalling are well taken. I'd like to point out other forms of social signalling, outgrouping for instance, can be just as powerful and even more counterproductive. I'm not sure how to let people have honest, helpful, and enjoyable conversations while still policing for things like extraneous signaling. Historically, creating 'safe spaces' for frank and productive dialog hasn't been very successful.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  Indeed. I am an athiest, but if sievebrain tried to convince me "that God doesn't exist using logic"; then he would get nowhere. Logic alone is too impartial such debates.
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    My point was a little different. There is actually lots of reason and logic on both sides. But both in general and at specific times, people need to pick the underlying axioms (do only matter and energy exist?) they are going to assume. You probably agree, but I want it to be crystal clear that we don't have to throw out logic or reason (or accuse others of doing so) to discuss philosophy, theology, and their intersection with current events. If you mean there's no proof for whether physicalism is true or false, then I completely agree.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      I think you'll see formerly religious atheists make the most claims about the illogic of (their former) religion, because they are most familiar with it. They can provide logical arguments against their particular former belief, but none that would ever convince the true believers (e.g. those who say things like, "Even if the Pope said tomorrow it was all a sham I would still believe in Catholicism", or similarly for other hierarchical religions). Your mention of axioms is very similar to how I used to reason about my own former belief. When empirical reality contradicted those axioms and I spent some time away from the continuous reindoctrination to examine what I believed was real, I found it far more reasonable to disbelieve than to replace one belief with another. Ultimately empirical reality has to be the arbiter; no amount of soul searching alone, without evidence, can reveal facts about reality. So maybe there is no concrete logical "proof" that physicalism is real, but empiricism isn't about absolutes, and empirically, physicalism has a much, much better track record of supplying new, true knowledge about reality than any other supposed way of knowing.
adrianratnapala 10y ago
You say: almost nobody disagrees on actual provable, scientific facts. The toughest disagreements usually arise around things which are not facts, but are presented as if they were. If that is true, then it is a sign of hope for the scheme. The tendency of people to agree on the provable facts gives us a grip, if the non-facts are merely presented as facts, then a innovative, computer-aided system of presentation might help people distinguish the two.
davidivadavid 10y ago
I think the first hurdle to clear will be to convince people to use their spare time to willingly have arguments on the internet with people who they think essentially hate them. It sounds like a non-starter.
specialist 10y ago
"...in reality almost nobody disagrees on actual provable, scientific facts." Facts have the nasty habit of changing. Much of my activism devolved down to persuading people that their assumptions need to be updated based on the latest, best available science.

reitanqild 10y ago

> Try convincing a highly religious person that their religion is entirely fact-free, or that God doesn't exist using logic, and you will get nowhere Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? A lot of us actually seems to believe in some kind of deity/ies, we just dont mention it because we value HN as a common ground for technical and business discussions. If not I could tell you some stories about stupid, stubborn evil ateists as well :-P

hueving 10y ago
>Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? I think youre being a bit defensive. That statement might not apply to your religion, especially if it's one based on facts.
sievebrain 10y ago
I did not mean my comments as an attack on religious people. I'm sorry you interpreted it that way. Quite the opposite: I tried to argue that despite the lack of factual evidence for the existence of gods, strongly believing in them anyway can make sense if membership of organised religion is attractive enough. I don't expect anyone who is religious to see it that way though, even though I've met many devout Christians who happily admit there is no factual proof of God and that is why they place their energies in faith instead.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  Ok, thanks, I see. For me it was very easy to interpret as a general attack.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  > I've met many devout Christians who happily admit there is no factual proof of God There are factual cases for God, some attempting to be proofs even. For example, many consider objective morality (race based slavery is bad, say) to be a case for absolute good, which is hard to explain by pure randomness. Faith, to a Christian, is making choices in the face of this problem. A Christian knows that everyone has to decide whether to follow God or not, and in that way, everyone has faith in some set of axioms. Many people (intelligent, kind, smart ones!) have immense faith that only matter and energy exist despite basically no proof in that metaphysical axiom. Despite how hard it is to explain this, it's actually a clear thought to a reasonably educated Christian. It's just hard to communicate since words like 'rational', 'proof', and 'facts' are overloaded and cause confusion in these sorts of conversations. In this way, the balkanization of our culture is a negative feedback loop as misunderstanding promotes division which promotes more misunderstanding. > strongly believing in them anyway can make sense if membership of organised religion is attractive enough The point of Christianity isn't being part of an organization. People who go to worship services because it's their favorite social club are actually criticized pretty heavily by Jesus in the Bible. To be fair, I think most churchgoers don't understand the implications of this.
  - hueving 10y ago
humanrebar 10y ago
> Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? As a religious person, I find keeping religion out of normal discourse has been very counterproductive for both religious and non-religious people. I understand that the discussions are more prone to conflict and uncomfortable feelings, but they're nonetheless key to understanding other people and diversity of thought. Keeping religion (and agnosticism and atheism) out of things produces the same problems we see with the 'Majority Illusion'.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  Point is <edit>I felt</edit> GP used his post as a platform to launch a covert attack on religion in an otherwise unrelated thread. I have nothing against discussing religion online but I think it is mostly offtopic on HN. Edit: see also my reply to GPs answer to me
  - humanrebar 10y ago
    For what it's worth, I got the same impression. But I would consider it a problem if HN, which generally welcomes broad topics including philosophy and politics, considered religion off topic. Religion is the defining trait to many minority groups in the U.S. and the rest of the English speaking world. Asking people to keep religion out of things is asking people to stay in the closet in some contexts. I understand that's surely not intended, but it's nonetheless the consequence of making religion off topic.
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      I actually personally agree but I thought there was a rule, written or unwritten, to keep religion out of HN. Would it be better if I said something like "keep attacks on religion out of HN"?
      - humanrebar 10y ago
        Something along those lines, sure. I'm actually fine with people civilly criticizing religion, though. It's the stereotyping that really sticks out to me. It would be flagged or downvoted (justifiably!) if someone called women irrational or told homosexuals that their lifestyles should be kept private. I'm convinced that the double standard here just doesn't register for most of the HN community, and almost all the English speaking world besides. I said something to raise awareness of the problem.
dctoedt 10y ago
> Lets keep religion out of HN, shall we? As a semi-religious person [0], I would purely love to see religious tenets discussed dispassionately on HN, for a couple of reasons: 1. I've long thought that a corollary of the Summary of the Law [1] is "face the facts," that is, base your beliefs on evidence to the extent possible; as a group, the HN crowd is quite good at examining evidence from various perspectives. 2. Much and even most of the HN crowd is quite interested in knowing "what's going on," which ultimately extends to why is there something rather than nothing? [2]. I would greatly value the insights of others in that area. -------------- [0] I describe myself as semi-religious because I do try to base my beliefs on evidence; this is reflected in the title of my religion blog (largely inactive in recent years), "The Questioning Christian," at http://www.QuestioningChristian.org http://www.QuestioningChristian.org . The right-hand column there lists some of my favorite essays. [1] See http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/facing_facts.html http://www.questioningchristian.com/2004/11/facing_facts.htm... [2] For my "naïve conjecture" about what's going on (to borrow a phrase from the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne FRS, an English particle physicist turned Anglican priest), see http://www.questioningchristian.com/2007/02/another_way_to_.html http://www.questioningchristian.com/2007/02/another_way_to_....
- nsomaru 10y ago
  'Religion' is etymologically related to connotations of joining and binding. This implies some sort of separation, and a process of joining. Similarly, 'yoga' (by which I do not mean physical exercise) is etymologically related to connotations of union (from 'yuj'). Again, the implication is separation and a process of union. If you take a serious look at your own experience (the evidence), you will arrive at a similar conclusion to Descartes; roughly, that the evidence of one's senses cannot be taken at face value because they provide similar evidences in a dream which is understood to be entirely illusory upon waking up. Alas, most of 'Western' (I do apologise in advance to anyone who thinks I'm being too liberal with that word) thought takes the waking state to be absolute, and dream and deep sleep to be subsets of this state. This is an assumption but it runs so deep that it will be difficult for most to see what I'm trying to point out. First consider that the three states of consciousness experienced (waking, dream and deep sleep) are completely different modes; that is, the dreamer can neither conceive the existence of a waking world which is more 'real' than his current experience, nor will he readily admit that his experience is illusory...until he wakes up and becomes the waker. At this point the illusory nature of the dream cannot be doubted. The money in the dream cannot service debts of the waking state. Consider, then, that questions as to the origin of the world, the purpose of existence and the nature of God may arise only during dream and waking, because in these states there exists thought and thus by implication a mind -- the conclusion is then drawn that in the absence of a mind, there is also absence of a world (as in deep sleep). Thus one may conclude that the 3 states of waking, dream and deep sleep have relative and not absolute reality. It will, however, be noticed that there is a substratum integrating these varying experiences and arrogating them. These are all evidences available to any human being and perhaps could lead one to believe that there might be something to religion after all, beyond the paraphernalia of clothing, places of worship and specific texts. "The kingdom of heaven is within you; he that findeth his Self shall know it"

humanrebar 10y ago

It sounds like you agree that religious people are not rational, which is clearly not true. They just start from different axioms (not only physicalist ones) when they reason. Charitably, it could be confusion over what the word 'rational' means. At any rate, your points about group membership signalling are well taken. I'd like to point out other forms of social signalling, outgrouping for instance, can be just as powerful and even more counterproductive. I'm not sure how to let people have honest, helpful, and enjoyable conversations while still policing for things like extraneous signaling. Historically, creating 'safe spaces' for frank and productive dialog hasn't been very successful.

adrianratnapala 10y ago
Indeed. I am an athiest, but if sievebrain tried to convince me "that God doesn't exist using logic"; then he would get nowhere. Logic alone is too impartial such debates.
- humanrebar 10y ago
  My point was a little different. There is actually lots of reason and logic on both sides. But both in general and at specific times, people need to pick the underlying axioms (do only matter and energy exist?) they are going to assume. You probably agree, but I want it to be crystal clear that we don't have to throw out logic or reason (or accuse others of doing so) to discuss philosophy, theology, and their intersection with current events. If you mean there's no proof for whether physicalism is true or false, then I completely agree.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    I think you'll see formerly religious atheists make the most claims about the illogic of (their former) religion, because they are most familiar with it. They can provide logical arguments against their particular former belief, but none that would ever convince the true believers (e.g. those who say things like, "Even if the Pope said tomorrow it was all a sham I would still believe in Catholicism", or similarly for other hierarchical religions). Your mention of axioms is very similar to how I used to reason about my own former belief. When empirical reality contradicted those axioms and I spent some time away from the continuous reindoctrination to examine what I believed was real, I found it far more reasonable to disbelieve than to replace one belief with another. Ultimately empirical reality has to be the arbiter; no amount of soul searching alone, without evidence, can reveal facts about reality. So maybe there is no concrete logical "proof" that physicalism is real, but empiricism isn't about absolutes, and empirically, physicalism has a much, much better track record of supplying new, true knowledge about reality than any other supposed way of knowing.

adrianratnapala 10y ago

You say: almost nobody disagrees on actual provable, scientific facts. The toughest disagreements usually arise around things which are not facts, but are presented as if they were. If that is true, then it is a sign of hope for the scheme. The tendency of people to agree on the provable facts gives us a grip, if the non-facts are merely presented as facts, then a innovative, computer-aided system of presentation might help people distinguish the two.

davidivadavid 10y ago

I think the first hurdle to clear will be to convince people to use their spare time to willingly have arguments on the internet with people who they think essentially hate them. It sounds like a non-starter.

specialist 10y ago

"...in reality almost nobody disagrees on actual provable, scientific facts." Facts have the nasty habit of changing. Much of my activism devolved down to persuading people that their assumptions need to be updated based on the latest, best available science.