10 ms·

He was the first person who introduced me to the idea that if you look at a thing with different mindsets, from different points of view, you can arrive at quit

by bhaak 9mo ago

He was the first person who introduced me to the idea that if you look at a thing with different mindsets, from different points of view, you can arrive at quite different opinions about the “true” nature of that thing. At that age, I didn’t yet understand why some people are incapable of changing their point of view. To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. He had a way of describing things with a vigor that is quite rare. It was a fascinating read as a kid, blending science fiction with history and archaeology. Of course, later learning about the scientific method, or even just Occam’s razor, made it clear that the theory of ancient aliens is very unlikely, but the what if, the “wouldn’t it be cool if this premise were true,” still lingers in my mind from time to time. A quite unique and interesting person departed this planet yesterday.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
humanfromearth9 9mo ago
Incapable: that happens when the acceptance of an idea implies that their perception of their identity is flawed and has, logically to change in order to adapt for the new reality where the idea has its place. Denial is a protection mechanism, and it is very effective when the reality is too difficult to support as it is. Identity is so essential in our beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that most of us won't accept anything that requires it to change. Unless we accept that failure is part of our identity and that this means that our identity sometimes has to evolve. But that has to be done willingly, explicitly (in our minds).
abetusk 9mo ago
I share your confusion about how ideology clouds judgement but I have a little anecdote. I sometimes give people the Monty Hall problem. When they get it wrong, it often falls into the category of staying with the initial pick increases chances or switching has equal odds. I then proceed to give them the example of N=100 doors, opening 98 others, leaving their pick and another closed and then asking them whether that makes a difference. If they insist that it makes no difference, I then start to play the actual game with them, writing down the prize door before the game starts and then proceeding with the game as normal. Only after a few rounds of them losing do they accept the proofs of what the optimal strategy is. My interpretation is that, before playing the actual game, they refuse to believe me. They don't trust me or the logic and so dismiss it. Once actual stakes are involved, even if it's their pride, only then do they start to be open to arguments as to why their intuition was wrong.
- orwin 9mo ago
  The N=100 is a 'lazy' (or abstract if you prefer) way to look at it, it doesn't really explain anything. It's hard to show how to explain the problem just writing about it, but by making them choose one of 3, and then making assumptions about which door will reveal the car, and if it is better to switch. You can easily demonstrate that in two out of three situations it is actually better to switch.
  - abetusk 9mo ago
    For the 3 case, since 2/3 is relatively close to 1/2, it's hard to build intuition from just a few examples. The N=100 build intuition very quickly. I disagree that it doesn't explain anything. After playing, people quickly understand that the likelihood that they chose the correct door initially is very small and when all 98 other doors are revealed, the remaining door provides a red flag that their intuition is off. Note that often I would explain the logic behind switching and still have them not believe me. Their intuition wouldn't be shaken by arguments or even small demonstration. Only when actually playing an the N=100 case would they start to understand.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 9mo ago
    Why doesn’t it explain anything when it clearly demonstrates the point?
    - orwin 9mo ago
      Because that's just repeating a point without explaining why the underlying maths works.
- selcuka 9mo ago
  We used to ask job candidates a variation of the door in an infinite wall question [1]. The initial answer of many interviewees is to choose a direction and walk in that way forever, which is understandable, as infinity makes the question weird. What is more interesting is, even after I pointed out that this answer has a 50% chance of finding the door and I'm looking for a 100% solution, some candidates refused to give it a second thought, didn't change their answer, and insisted that this is the best course of action. [1] https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3915578/door-in-an-infinite-wall-problem https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3915578/door-in-an-...
sublinear 9mo ago
> why some people are incapable of changing their point of view Do you really want the answer? People don't always say what they think and aren't consistent because they may hold multiple conflicting beliefs. This isn't lying or a lack of curiosity. It's the opposite, and perfectly rational. Actually, if you don't think you have any conflicting beliefs you should think about it harder or seriously question how open-minded you really are. You can give someone all the evidence that convinced you about something, but it will only convince them if they share enough of your foundational assumptions. At the core of all beliefs lie some assumptions, not facts. This quickly becomes philosophy, but I encourage you to seek more if you really want this answer. You are pulling on a thread that I promise will bring enlightenment. I wish more people asked this more often and really meant it. It would resolve a lot of pointless conflict. What I see instead, especially on places like HN or Reddit, is people trying to reassure themselves because they want to settle a question "once and for all" instead of seeking better answers. They want praise for what they "know" and to take a break, but there is no perfect truth, just better answers, and this process never ends. > the what if, the “wouldn’t it be cool if this premise were true,” still lingers in my mind from time to time. This stops being as relevant when you're put under pressure to make real decisions based on what you believe is true. You are forced to weigh the consequences of the decision, not just what you think might be true. This is a compromise, but I struggle to call this dishonesty.
eru 9mo ago
> At that age, I didn’t yet understand why some people are incapable of changing their point of view. To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. Are you describing Erich von Däniken's inability to change his mind when evidence clearly contradicted his theories?
- j3th9n 9mo ago
  “Evidence” is often in time overruled by new knowledge and evidence.
  - atoav 9mo ago
    Yes, but the main question is into which direction the arrow of causalality points for the main part: Does an individual trust their image of the world, because it summarizes the evidence well? Or do they grade all evidence based on the image of the world they want to be true? In reality it has to be of course always a mixture of the two, even for the most reflected person. We cannot go through our days questioning everything all the time if we want to remain functional, some things we will have to take for granted. IMO the whole thing keeps boiling down to two questions: 1. Do you want to believe or do you want your world image to accurately represent the world as it is, even if there might be no such thing as objective truth in some cases? 2. Are you aware of the breadth of evidence you have (or the lack thereof)? E.g. when I develope software, I encountered grown, adult people who would talk about computers with superstition, as if it was some angry deity that had to be calmed. Now in their world there absolutely is evidence their rituals worked. But their evidence was based on an entirely wrong world model, where they treated a computer as a person, instead of treating it as a totally predictable automaton. Turns out praying doesn't help resolving a network issue, especially not if you click away the message explaining why it doesn't work without reading it. The von Däniken question fundamentally boils down to: If you have 1 billion pieces of evidence pointing one way and one piece pointing in the way of a fantastic fantasy novel, do you go with the "boring" 1 billion pieces or do you hyper-fixate on the one piece, build a theory that explains it in the most exciting way and then ignore all points where that theory collides with the 1 billion pieces of evidence?
nurettin 9mo ago
> why some people are incapable of changing their point of view I've thought about this and the conclusion was: What you believe you know makes you what you currently are. You can't just believe in a contradictory position. You could believe that you have been proven wrong, which would then change your belief. Changing your point of view, looking at things from the vantage of someone else with different life experiences and the resulting belief systems would be dishonest at best, and claiming that you are capable of changing your beliefs on a whim is like being able to rip your arm off. You can, at best, adapt your own belief to encompass theirs with caveats or simply not care about your truths.
raducu 9mo ago
> I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. I'm envious of those true believer kind of people. My father is one of them and he's held absurd ideas as 100% facts and we've had many nasty quarrels about it, BUT it also means he 100% believes in whatever his current goal is and he's achieved a lot more than I ever will because he's unwavering in his beliefs and goals, whereas I'm always doubting and second guessing.
- paganel 9mo ago
  You should try and and do what the OP is suggesting, i.e. to try and put yourself in your dad's shows and try to see the world the way he sees and understands it. I.e. this type of conversation goes both ways.
  - watwut 9mo ago
    Becoming conspiracy theorist yourself is not a way to prevent dangers of conspiracy theorist. It will make the issue worst - instead of one conspiracy theorist, we now have too. Not being like them is a good life goal.
- thinkingemote 9mo ago
  Often we think someone is 100% sure but they only appear that way to us. Trying to change someone's thoughts by arguing with them never works. Nasty quarrels might indicate an amount of uncertainty, or an amount of inability to articulate a thought. We often have ideas we don't really know why we have them, so we can help others to try to explain things to us in a way that helps them understand why too. A "nasty quarrel" requires more than one side, and this other side is also responsible for the quarrel. I think its wise when trying to talk about difficult things to first identify and agree upon the small things you can both agree upon. If a conversation becomes heated it's no longer a conversation and you should get out before it gets worse. If you feel it's leading into fire and can still be salvaged you can then go back to these shared things and start again. However a real conversation about ideas will also challenge and change your own view of the world. You might find your own ideas changing. People generally find this a psychologically painful process and will subconsciously resist such a movement. Generally we prefer to label the other as different, alien, us vs them. Having a quarrel is therefore even more likely as it means that your own psyche is protected from encounter with the dangerous other. Understanding that this also applies to the person you are talking with can also help reduce tensions and increase empathy. Again, starting from common shared baseline will help.
PartiallyTyped 9mo ago
> To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. From what I know, and please correct me if I am wrong; it relates to fear and cognitive dissonance. First, by creating FUD the perpetrator can cause physical narrow-mindedness within the brain, the amygdala — centre of emotions if you will — takes control which reduces reasoning capabilities. Second, by introducing multiple conflicting viewpoints in that state, you induce what we call cognitive dissonance. The brain is unable to reconcile the two opposing (or even just differing) views. This is a conflict at the circuit level of the brain, and the brain needs to reach a conclusion, and conveniently the conclusion is produced by the perpetrators of fud, those who seek to control/exploit others.
453yuh46 9mo ago
I think, that the people that are criticizing Erich von Däniken are doing so from modern viewpoint. People in his time had very limited POV, mostly because there was not much data, compared to how it is now, but modern people also forget that science is not a religion and it can't be based on beliefs only - it requires evidence and without any such evidence all the ideas has to be thrown out. Also, if there are better explanations - old ones are thrown out as well, because that is how it is in science. Unfortunately, no matter how good and exiting his ideas were as a read, but as a science theory they simply did not pass test of time, however IMO he has earned his place as someone as an example to have wider horizons to look around.
- CRConrad 9mo ago
  "People in his time"?!? He only died the other day. Until last week was "his time"! And new weird religions / cults / sects like the "Ancient Aliens" one he founded are being born all the time. The world hasn't changed fundamentally since last week, so it's still "his time". The only place he has earned is as a successful nutjob / scam artist (about on a par with L. Ron Hubbard or Eric Dubay?), as opposed to all the less successful ones.
cryptonector 9mo ago
> At that age, I didn’t yet understand why some people are incapable of changing their point of view. To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. - most people don't like admitting to having been wrong -- they might not be right in their new viewpoints either - some people like to preen and moralize, so changing their view is an admission that they had (and therefore have) no moral authority (this overlaps the previous point) - most people don't like the idea that something everyone knows to be true isn't -- that's conspiracy theory territory, and they know not to go there no matter what - even where it's not any of the above, significant shifts in opinion are simply uncomfortable - in specialized cases (e.g., science) people may have a sunk cost fallacy going on. For example, suppose you have a new theory to replace Lambda-CDM: but you'll be wrecking a bunch of researchers' life work if you're right! This is why "science advances one funeral at a time", per Max Planck. We've seen many cases of this.
foobarian 9mo ago
The main thing I credit EVD with is teaching me disappointment from certain fun tantalizing things not turning out to be true. This prepared me to better cope with the X-Files and Lost TV shows, as well as nuclear fusion research and faster than light space travel :grumpycat:

by bhaak 9mo ago

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

humanfromearth9 9mo ago

Incapable: that happens when the acceptance of an idea implies that their perception of their identity is flawed and has, logically to change in order to adapt for the new reality where the idea has its place. Denial is a protection mechanism, and it is very effective when the reality is too difficult to support as it is. Identity is so essential in our beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that most of us won't accept anything that requires it to change. Unless we accept that failure is part of our identity and that this means that our identity sometimes has to evolve. But that has to be done willingly, explicitly (in our minds).

abetusk 9mo ago

I share your confusion about how ideology clouds judgement but I have a little anecdote. I sometimes give people the Monty Hall problem. When they get it wrong, it often falls into the category of staying with the initial pick increases chances or switching has equal odds. I then proceed to give them the example of N=100 doors, opening 98 others, leaving their pick and another closed and then asking them whether that makes a difference. If they insist that it makes no difference, I then start to play the actual game with them, writing down the prize door before the game starts and then proceeding with the game as normal. Only after a few rounds of them losing do they accept the proofs of what the optimal strategy is. My interpretation is that, before playing the actual game, they refuse to believe me. They don't trust me or the logic and so dismiss it. Once actual stakes are involved, even if it's their pride, only then do they start to be open to arguments as to why their intuition was wrong.

orwin 9mo ago
The N=100 is a 'lazy' (or abstract if you prefer) way to look at it, it doesn't really explain anything. It's hard to show how to explain the problem just writing about it, but by making them choose one of 3, and then making assumptions about which door will reveal the car, and if it is better to switch. You can easily demonstrate that in two out of three situations it is actually better to switch.
- abetusk 9mo ago
  For the 3 case, since 2/3 is relatively close to 1/2, it's hard to build intuition from just a few examples. The N=100 build intuition very quickly. I disagree that it doesn't explain anything. After playing, people quickly understand that the likelihood that they chose the correct door initially is very small and when all 98 other doors are revealed, the remaining door provides a red flag that their intuition is off. Note that often I would explain the logic behind switching and still have them not believe me. Their intuition wouldn't be shaken by arguments or even small demonstration. Only when actually playing an the N=100 case would they start to understand.
- 2muchcoffeeman 9mo ago
  Why doesn’t it explain anything when it clearly demonstrates the point?
  - orwin 9mo ago
    Because that's just repeating a point without explaining why the underlying maths works.
selcuka 9mo ago
We used to ask job candidates a variation of the door in an infinite wall question [1]. The initial answer of many interviewees is to choose a direction and walk in that way forever, which is understandable, as infinity makes the question weird. What is more interesting is, even after I pointed out that this answer has a 50% chance of finding the door and I'm looking for a 100% solution, some candidates refused to give it a second thought, didn't change their answer, and insisted that this is the best course of action. [1] https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3915578/door-in-an-infinite-wall-problem https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3915578/door-in-an-...

sublinear 9mo ago

> why some people are incapable of changing their point of view Do you really want the answer? People don't always say what they think and aren't consistent because they may hold multiple conflicting beliefs. This isn't lying or a lack of curiosity. It's the opposite, and perfectly rational. Actually, if you don't think you have any conflicting beliefs you should think about it harder or seriously question how open-minded you really are. You can give someone all the evidence that convinced you about something, but it will only convince them if they share enough of your foundational assumptions. At the core of all beliefs lie some assumptions, not facts. This quickly becomes philosophy, but I encourage you to seek more if you really want this answer. You are pulling on a thread that I promise will bring enlightenment. I wish more people asked this more often and really meant it. It would resolve a lot of pointless conflict. What I see instead, especially on places like HN or Reddit, is people trying to reassure themselves because they want to settle a question "once and for all" instead of seeking better answers. They want praise for what they "know" and to take a break, but there is no perfect truth, just better answers, and this process never ends. > the what if, the “wouldn’t it be cool if this premise were true,” still lingers in my mind from time to time. This stops being as relevant when you're put under pressure to make real decisions based on what you believe is true. You are forced to weigh the consequences of the decision, not just what you think might be true. This is a compromise, but I struggle to call this dishonesty.

eru 9mo ago

> At that age, I didn’t yet understand why some people are incapable of changing their point of view. To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. Are you describing Erich von Däniken's inability to change his mind when evidence clearly contradicted his theories?

j3th9n 9mo ago
“Evidence” is often in time overruled by new knowledge and evidence.
- atoav 9mo ago
  Yes, but the main question is into which direction the arrow of causalality points for the main part: Does an individual trust their image of the world, because it summarizes the evidence well? Or do they grade all evidence based on the image of the world they want to be true? In reality it has to be of course always a mixture of the two, even for the most reflected person. We cannot go through our days questioning everything all the time if we want to remain functional, some things we will have to take for granted. IMO the whole thing keeps boiling down to two questions: 1. Do you want to believe or do you want your world image to accurately represent the world as it is, even if there might be no such thing as objective truth in some cases? 2. Are you aware of the breadth of evidence you have (or the lack thereof)? E.g. when I develope software, I encountered grown, adult people who would talk about computers with superstition, as if it was some angry deity that had to be calmed. Now in their world there absolutely is evidence their rituals worked. But their evidence was based on an entirely wrong world model, where they treated a computer as a person, instead of treating it as a totally predictable automaton. Turns out praying doesn't help resolving a network issue, especially not if you click away the message explaining why it doesn't work without reading it. The von Däniken question fundamentally boils down to: If you have 1 billion pieces of evidence pointing one way and one piece pointing in the way of a fantastic fantasy novel, do you go with the "boring" 1 billion pieces or do you hyper-fixate on the one piece, build a theory that explains it in the most exciting way and then ignore all points where that theory collides with the 1 billion pieces of evidence?

nurettin 9mo ago

> why some people are incapable of changing their point of view I've thought about this and the conclusion was: What you believe you know makes you what you currently are. You can't just believe in a contradictory position. You could believe that you have been proven wrong, which would then change your belief. Changing your point of view, looking at things from the vantage of someone else with different life experiences and the resulting belief systems would be dishonest at best, and claiming that you are capable of changing your beliefs on a whim is like being able to rip your arm off. You can, at best, adapt your own belief to encompass theirs with caveats or simply not care about your truths.

raducu 9mo ago

> I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. I'm envious of those true believer kind of people. My father is one of them and he's held absurd ideas as 100% facts and we've had many nasty quarrels about it, BUT it also means he 100% believes in whatever his current goal is and he's achieved a lot more than I ever will because he's unwavering in his beliefs and goals, whereas I'm always doubting and second guessing.

paganel 9mo ago
You should try and and do what the OP is suggesting, i.e. to try and put yourself in your dad's shows and try to see the world the way he sees and understands it. I.e. this type of conversation goes both ways.
- watwut 9mo ago
  Becoming conspiracy theorist yourself is not a way to prevent dangers of conspiracy theorist. It will make the issue worst - instead of one conspiracy theorist, we now have too. Not being like them is a good life goal.
thinkingemote 9mo ago
Often we think someone is 100% sure but they only appear that way to us. Trying to change someone's thoughts by arguing with them never works. Nasty quarrels might indicate an amount of uncertainty, or an amount of inability to articulate a thought. We often have ideas we don't really know why we have them, so we can help others to try to explain things to us in a way that helps them understand why too. A "nasty quarrel" requires more than one side, and this other side is also responsible for the quarrel. I think its wise when trying to talk about difficult things to first identify and agree upon the small things you can both agree upon. If a conversation becomes heated it's no longer a conversation and you should get out before it gets worse. If you feel it's leading into fire and can still be salvaged you can then go back to these shared things and start again. However a real conversation about ideas will also challenge and change your own view of the world. You might find your own ideas changing. People generally find this a psychologically painful process and will subconsciously resist such a movement. Generally we prefer to label the other as different, alien, us vs them. Having a quarrel is therefore even more likely as it means that your own psyche is protected from encounter with the dangerous other. Understanding that this also applies to the person you are talking with can also help reduce tensions and increase empathy. Again, starting from common shared baseline will help.

PartiallyTyped 9mo ago

> To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. From what I know, and please correct me if I am wrong; it relates to fear and cognitive dissonance. First, by creating FUD the perpetrator can cause physical narrow-mindedness within the brain, the amygdala — centre of emotions if you will — takes control which reduces reasoning capabilities. Second, by introducing multiple conflicting viewpoints in that state, you induce what we call cognitive dissonance. The brain is unable to reconcile the two opposing (or even just differing) views. This is a conflict at the circuit level of the brain, and the brain needs to reach a conclusion, and conveniently the conclusion is produced by the perpetrators of fud, those who seek to control/exploit others.

453yuh46 9mo ago

I think, that the people that are criticizing Erich von Däniken are doing so from modern viewpoint. People in his time had very limited POV, mostly because there was not much data, compared to how it is now, but modern people also forget that science is not a religion and it can't be based on beliefs only - it requires evidence and without any such evidence all the ideas has to be thrown out. Also, if there are better explanations - old ones are thrown out as well, because that is how it is in science. Unfortunately, no matter how good and exiting his ideas were as a read, but as a science theory they simply did not pass test of time, however IMO he has earned his place as someone as an example to have wider horizons to look around.

CRConrad 9mo ago
"People in his time"?!? He only died the other day. Until last week was "his time"! And new weird religions / cults / sects like the "Ancient Aliens" one he founded are being born all the time. The world hasn't changed fundamentally since last week, so it's still "his time". The only place he has earned is as a successful nutjob / scam artist (about on a par with L. Ron Hubbard or Eric Dubay?), as opposed to all the less successful ones.

cryptonector 9mo ago

> At that age, I didn’t yet understand why some people are incapable of changing their point of view. To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how ideology can cloud the mind so thoroughly that only a single way of thinking remains possible. - most people don't like admitting to having been wrong -- they might not be right in their new viewpoints either - some people like to preen and moralize, so changing their view is an admission that they had (and therefore have) no moral authority (this overlaps the previous point) - most people don't like the idea that something everyone knows to be true isn't -- that's conspiracy theory territory, and they know not to go there no matter what - even where it's not any of the above, significant shifts in opinion are simply uncomfortable - in specialized cases (e.g., science) people may have a sunk cost fallacy going on. For example, suppose you have a new theory to replace Lambda-CDM: but you'll be wrecking a bunch of researchers' life work if you're right! This is why "science advances one funeral at a time", per Max Planck. We've seen many cases of this.

foobarian 9mo ago

The main thing I credit EVD with is teaching me disappointment from certain fun tantalizing things not turning out to be true. This prepared me to better cope with the X-Files and Lost TV shows, as well as nuclear fusion research and faster than light space travel :grumpycat: