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But that probably includes you. You are not immune to this. Actually the entire human specie is subject to it, and regularly discover it's been wrong about incr

But that probably includes you. You are not immune to this. Actually the entire human specie is subject to it, and regularly discover it's been wrong about incredibly important topic, at the level of a small group, a community, a country or the entire planet. As an individual, you have most probably a huge number of things you just believe and never try to challenge. And among that, many that, if challenged by someone else, you would still hold to. All in all, you can't start to change the world unless you recognize your own failures in the other people. They may do stuff you know are perfectly dangerous. And you may know better for a lot of things. But in the end, you are like them, and need to see it instead to have a real influence instead of thinking you are above that.

lordnacho 10y ago
>But that probably includes you. Absolutely, there must be things I think are true which are not. And particularly there must be opinions I would find hard to change. I don't deny that. For instance the whole religion thing, I'd probably take it with a rather large grain of salt if god appeared and started giving evidence for himself, even though I think of myself as someone who is swayed mainly by evidence. But I also think, perhaps wrongly, that we can actually learn things about our world, and the way to do that is roughly what we call science. And currently, a lot of people simply cannot think in this way. They don't have the evidence that hordes of scientists have gathered, and they don't possess the thinking skills to process what they're told when they come across new evidence. Irrespective of what my own personal knowledge gaps are. >All in all, you can't start to change the world unless you recognize your own failures in the other people. I don't believe in this pseudo-psychological idea we need to understand ourselves before we can learn anything about the world, or start to change it. Plenty of people have changed the world for the better without themselves having a complete understanding of their own biases. How could we know anything, if not in small pieces?
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  >But I also think, perhaps wrongly, that we can actually learn things about our world, and the way to do that is roughly what we call science. And currently, a lot of people simply cannot think in this way. I disagree. I think that people contort themselves to find ways to see themselves as internally consistent precisely because they are rational within the inescapable prison of their own perception. The issue really comes down to causation/credibility. Human psychology will cause each person to strongly favor whatever causal explanations best satisfy their biases. Your example with religion is a good one. For purposes of this argument, let's assume that event actually did occur and it was not a hallucination. To a religious person, the event would be a well-deserved manifestation given as a reward for their years of faithful observance, and they would likely continue stronger than ever in their convictions, fully satisfied that their position had been irrefutably proven. But to a strongly non-religious person, the event you've described would be interpreted as a mental breakdown and cause them to seek medical treatment. After being duly medicated, this person would also likely continue stronger than ever in their convictions, having personally "overcome" a hallucinatory episode. The same objective event occurred, but the context of one's psychology makes all the difference in its perception. This works with practically everything. No data, no event, no observation exists in a vacuum. In the case of science/academics, people with agendas and biases are involved every step of the way, from designing the inputs to summarizing and drawing conclusions from the results. And there have been, and surely will be in the future, many significant incidents where the accepted consensus is proven disastrously wrong. Before that happens, the small handful of contrarians attempting to warn about or discuss them are typically considered fringe alarmists, bitter saboteurs, or establishment puppets. This creates logical space for anyone to disregard the naysayers, set up camp in the contrary position, and gear up for an "I told you so" moment down the road. If you know this person to be wrong, you will not win by attacking their conclusions, no matter how right you are. Rather, you will win by properly estimating their perspective, understanding why they choose to discredit the particular authority that proves out your position and credit a separate one that doesn't, and then enlightening the situation for them such that their own natural reasoning process will obtain to the "correct" conclusion. This is called "sales" when it's done on a 1:1 basis and "marketing" when it's done en masse. It can be very difficult when there are powerful entities competing to cast the psychological context in their favor.
  - Qwertious 10y ago
    'This is called "sales" when it's done on a 1:1 basis and "marketing" when it's done en masse. It can be very difficult when there are powerful entities competing to cast the psychological context in their favor.' Uh, marketing hasn't attempted to provide any arguments that attack conclusions, for a long time. It's been primarily about creating subconscious associations that are completely separate from arguments.
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      I agree, that's the point I was trying to get across.

lordnacho 10y ago

>But that probably includes you. Absolutely, there must be things I think are true which are not. And particularly there must be opinions I would find hard to change. I don't deny that. For instance the whole religion thing, I'd probably take it with a rather large grain of salt if god appeared and started giving evidence for himself, even though I think of myself as someone who is swayed mainly by evidence. But I also think, perhaps wrongly, that we can actually learn things about our world, and the way to do that is roughly what we call science. And currently, a lot of people simply cannot think in this way. They don't have the evidence that hordes of scientists have gathered, and they don't possess the thinking skills to process what they're told when they come across new evidence. Irrespective of what my own personal knowledge gaps are. >All in all, you can't start to change the world unless you recognize your own failures in the other people. I don't believe in this pseudo-psychological idea we need to understand ourselves before we can learn anything about the world, or start to change it. Plenty of people have changed the world for the better without themselves having a complete understanding of their own biases. How could we know anything, if not in small pieces?

cookiecaper 10y ago
>But I also think, perhaps wrongly, that we can actually learn things about our world, and the way to do that is roughly what we call science. And currently, a lot of people simply cannot think in this way. I disagree. I think that people contort themselves to find ways to see themselves as internally consistent precisely because they are rational within the inescapable prison of their own perception. The issue really comes down to causation/credibility. Human psychology will cause each person to strongly favor whatever causal explanations best satisfy their biases. Your example with religion is a good one. For purposes of this argument, let's assume that event actually did occur and it was not a hallucination. To a religious person, the event would be a well-deserved manifestation given as a reward for their years of faithful observance, and they would likely continue stronger than ever in their convictions, fully satisfied that their position had been irrefutably proven. But to a strongly non-religious person, the event you've described would be interpreted as a mental breakdown and cause them to seek medical treatment. After being duly medicated, this person would also likely continue stronger than ever in their convictions, having personally "overcome" a hallucinatory episode. The same objective event occurred, but the context of one's psychology makes all the difference in its perception. This works with practically everything. No data, no event, no observation exists in a vacuum. In the case of science/academics, people with agendas and biases are involved every step of the way, from designing the inputs to summarizing and drawing conclusions from the results. And there have been, and surely will be in the future, many significant incidents where the accepted consensus is proven disastrously wrong. Before that happens, the small handful of contrarians attempting to warn about or discuss them are typically considered fringe alarmists, bitter saboteurs, or establishment puppets. This creates logical space for anyone to disregard the naysayers, set up camp in the contrary position, and gear up for an "I told you so" moment down the road. If you know this person to be wrong, you will not win by attacking their conclusions, no matter how right you are. Rather, you will win by properly estimating their perspective, understanding why they choose to discredit the particular authority that proves out your position and credit a separate one that doesn't, and then enlightening the situation for them such that their own natural reasoning process will obtain to the "correct" conclusion. This is called "sales" when it's done on a 1:1 basis and "marketing" when it's done en masse. It can be very difficult when there are powerful entities competing to cast the psychological context in their favor.
- Qwertious 10y ago
  'This is called "sales" when it's done on a 1:1 basis and "marketing" when it's done en masse. It can be very difficult when there are powerful entities competing to cast the psychological context in their favor.' Uh, marketing hasn't attempted to provide any arguments that attack conclusions, for a long time. It's been primarily about creating subconscious associations that are completely separate from arguments.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    I agree, that's the point I was trying to get across.