4 ms·
> This is hardly a novel idea in the rest of the world. It is an ancient one and widespread. This (like so many other things) is a very ontologically tricky pr
by mistermann 3y ago
> This is hardly a novel idea in the rest of the world. It is an ancient one and widespread.
This (like so many other things) is a very ontologically tricky proposition due to the deceptive distinction between abstract and concrete "is-ness". It is true that at least one Human in each country possesses at least some knowledge of such things, but how well distributed is the knowledge? The so casually deployed symbol "is" makes no distinction, and Humans generally do not have the ability to consider such things.
Even weirder: Hard Whorfism "is" "false".
> It strikes me that westerners have lost the roots of their culture and are having to relearn it from elsewhere.
Absolutely agree....perhaps this is (at least in part) because we never learned in the first place (other than abstractly, and even there only for a small percentage of the population) the difference between abstract and concrete "reality", because such things are not taught in standard curriculum in school (see also: financial planning, how to be nice, categorization in general (ontology/taxonomy), etc).
I often wonder if all of the sub-optimalities in our "advanced, 'scientific' culture" are purely coincidences / oversights. That people seem to so reliably (in frequency, and form) have an innate and very strong aversion (a lot like how religious or anti-religious people get nervous/agitated if one is to call into question the truth of scripture) to discussing such matters in the context of concrete reality makes me more than a little suspicious.
- divinie 3y ago> a lot like how religious or anti-religious people get nervous/agitated if one is to call into question the truth. You're recognizing the same bias. It's not that there are oversights so much as there are widespread ideas believed to be definitive. Rather than teaching people the "right ideas," at this point I feel it's critical that people learn how cognitive biases work, namely, authority bias. On the matter of beliefs, Crony Beliefs is a gem https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/ https://meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/
- graemep 3y agoI agree it is a problem, but I do not think teaching people about cognitive biases will solve it. It is very hard to apply it to yourself, and any kind of critical thinking is hard. A lot of people will not even make the effort. The motivation comes from existing values and beliefs, which will have been subject to biases themselves!
- divinie 3y agoNot claiming this is ethical, but the biases can be used on the person to generate the motivation and emotional response to recognize that they don’t want to suffer from exploitation of the biases As for the reason it would help the issue, if the person is not susceptible to these, they will not be susceptible to the industries, governments, teachers that exploit these. They’ll recognize it before falling for it. As for the difficulty level, it could be made simple. They aren’t complex, they are just unknown
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- graemep 3y ago> I often wonder if all of the sub-optimalities in our "advanced, 'scientific' culture" are purely coincidences / oversights. That people seem to so reliably (in frequency, and form) have an innate and very strong aversion (a lot like how religious or anti-religious people get nervous/agitated if one is to call into question the truth of scripture) to discussing such matters in the context of concrete reality makes me more than a little suspicious. I think you are right, but I am not sure what the underlying problem is. I wonder whether there is a bit of cowardice there and a fear of where the line of thought will lead - not wanting to turn the stone over for fear of what you will find. Our scientific culture is afraid of facing facts.
- mistermann 3y ago> but I am not sure what the underlying problem is. --- > Our scientific culture is afraid of facing facts. You are getting very warm! ;)