I was. Yes. I accepted it. If you re-read our replies, I think you’ll see that. But others came along and you also continued to chime in and I continued to reply. And I kept bringing it back to the original question as people were repeatedly inferring other motives they thought I had.
Well discussions don’t always follow a straight linear path, so other things arose that brought comment.
Well discussions don’t always follow a straight linear path, so other things arose that brought comment.
They sure did. And I responded in good humor and good faith. Always bringing it back to the original question lest people continued to think I was saying something I wasn’t.
Understandable
Here’s a new branch of discussion. (Since that other branch was settled)
If you accept that cognitive bias is inherent to our species, then why don’t you accept that all humans are subject to it?
You said that it is not the case that all humans cannot distinguish between good and bad arguments. Meaning that there are some humans out there that can distinguish between the two all the time.
Jon, I think it’s a good question and a vexed one. Agree with Henry that the issue more complicated than just logic and mathematics. And with Rick that bias is baked into human intelligence i.e. it’s a feature not a bug of human intelligence. It’s what allows us to select out information from the vast sea we are immersed in. Any minimally functioning human being has to be biased. But that means it can turn on us in all sorts of ways.
The list of contentious views that Richard and Vineeto have on a number of subjects are fairly long - climate change, smoking, NWO (didn’t know about that one) and a fair few others. But this isn’t something unique to them. There does seem to be something in the culture whereby alternative narratives are springing up against mainstream scientific/political views and if anything the process is accelerating. Probably something to do with the democratisation and fragmentation of information since the internet age - sped up now by social media.
Then there’s the thornier question of whether this sort of contrarianism (assuming it’s not entirely correct) has anything to do with actual freedom or not, its progenitors or actually free people in general. Maybe the better question is why are actually free people not protected from the sorts of everyday selection biases and logical leaps that we associate with conspiracy theorists - or even just normal feeling being persons? Does actual freedom give one a privileged and neutral POV in terms of weighing evidence? But if so why do these ideas sound like recycled conspiracy memes, rather than something refreshingly novel - like actual freedom itself? Given I haven’t heard these views from anyone other than Richard and Vineeto, I don’t think it’s something related to actual freedom. My guess is it’s something to do with their individual personalities and histories. But maybe there is a contrarian pull that is part of the territory of actualism. I tend to hold views on things that are quite different from friends and peers I’ve noticed - although not like the ones here mentioned.
I already did accept that. I accept that all feeling beings are subject to emotional bias. And all actually free people are subject to limitations in cognitive function. I am surprised that extremely smart people capable of nuanced opinions that don’t fit any one ideology can still display a severe limitation in a cognitive function that frequently use to great effect. Iow, an AF person who has repeatedly demonstrated skill in deductive reasoning can still persistently hold on to an argument with a shaky premise and/or common logical fallacy.
Possibly something to do with fact that actual freedom is so different from anything else out there and was unknown to humanity for so long? What other things could then be wrong?
Science is problematic. It isn’t value free or apolitical. In modern science, evidence especially with studies of harm, is usually cumulative and consensus driven – rarely is there a smoking gun. Conclusions are probabilistic and provisional - waiting to be disproved by new research. It’s so specialised now that even an expert in one area of medicine say, will be hard pressed to make sense of something in a very closely related area. There are vested interests of all sorts - careers, grants, institutional support etc. Science, is the dominant system of our time and the dominant ideology.
Many people are troubled by this over-reach. They find their lives been profoundly controlled by something they don’t understand, that is so patchy and so compromised. So they question scientific studies, the integrity of scientists and find alternative evidence. Mostly I think they lack skills to evaluate the data and make erroneous conclusions e.g. such as finding a big malevolent person responsible for the problem like Bill Gates - or dismissing consensus claims outright based on isolated data events. But I wouldn’t say they are entirely wrong. At minimum they’re pointing to the holes in the evidence and the unacknowledged political dimension of science. I just think they tend to lack sufficient critical thinking and default to ‘Emperors got no clothes’ a bit too much.
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That’s not the same as cognitive bias, though. It’s unclear whether you accept that all people (AF folks included) are inherently subject to cognitive bias – given its biological foundation in the neural networks. And you don’t have to accept it (of course), I’m just seeking to gain clarity on your position.
Amazing, isn’t it.
Precisely. Thanks for seeing my intention. I’m perfectly fine with a accepting cognitive limitation model. I just wanted more input.
And this is the type of input I was looking for. But it’s still not satisfying is it? Even this comment, which is exactly the type of reply I was hoping to find, is just a rehash of the problem. Why continue to be ideologically contrarian in the face of good arguments. Vexing indeed.
Looking for a conversation and wound up being grilled. I did enjoy the challenge of refuting all accusations against my motives, some condescending replies, one attempt at belittlement (i think?) and the various straw men thrown my way. I have to admit. I do enjoy a good fight (that i can win!) But that was not ever my intention. Would have preferred an honest to goodness convo instead.
In that case, no. I don’t fully accept cognitive bias is inherent biologically (completely open to it). I only fully accept that we have limited cognitive abilities.
And that’s just as good an explanation as any for the weird things you observe. The cognitive bias theory was just offered as a placeholder anyway. In lieu of the sentient lawn bowl theory I offered with all earnest, which you rejected.
I’ll part from this discussion now.
I’m not sure I’d use the word bias when it comes to an actually free person. Opinion / Idea / preference / conclusion - sure. But for the sake of this discussion, I think they could hold on to what appears to be a bias simply because their understanding is limited and shaped by their knowledge and life experience. They may not have been able to ascertain all of the facts surrounding a particular situation. They may be trusting research / news / or information that seems reasonable but is wrong. They may believe something to be true that in the end turns out to be a lie or a mistake. I don’t think becoming Actually Free would prevent someone from these mistakes.
I couldn’t find anything on the website regarding bio-diversity. Perhaps this is a topic you discussed in person with them.
The primary reason that Richard/Peter/Vineeto do not agree with anthropomorphic climate change seems to be that when they researched the topic what they found were that scientists were coming to their many of their conclusions not based on physical evidence, but mathematical models. Much like the evidence for the big-bang.
Peter quotes Enclyclopedia Britanica here:
Unfortunately, there is no period in Earth history that investigators can examine when carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere were, say, twice what they are today and whose climatic conditions are known with a high degree of certainty. For this reason, investigators cannot directly verify their quantitative predictions of greenhouse warming on the basis of historical analogs. Instead, they must base their estimates on climatic models. These are not laboratory models, since no laboratory could approach the complexity of the real world. Rather, they are mathematical models in which basic physical laws are applied to the atmosphere, ocean, and glaciers; the equations representing these laws are solved with computers with the aim of simulating the present terrestrial climate.
Peter goes on to say:
Thus the estimates arrived at by these models are entirely dependant on the guesstimates of data fed into the models and the guesstimated mathematical equations involved. Neither the data is reliable, nor are the equations that form the model reliable, and the models are purely mathematical and not physical.
Here is a take by Richard:
RICHARD: Presuming that you are referring to anthropogenic global warming (and not geological global warming) you may find the following informative:
• [Richard]: ‘… what I was mainly searching for, over about three weeks, were the facts upon which the currently-popular ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming’ hypothesis was (purportedly) based … and the reason why it took that long was because I could not find any (being based upon unverifiable-in-the-laboratory quantum mathematics it is not all that surprising, with the benefit of hindsight, that there be none)’.
What I did find, however, was that in 1900 Mr. Knut Ångström put as much carbon dioxide in total as would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere into a tube and sent infrared radiation through it yet the amount of radiation which got through scarcely changed whether he cut the quantity of gas in half or doubled it.
Whether or not they’ve seen the full picture is a fair question. Richard has said:
In regards to verification (as in your ‘what is real science and what is distortion’ phrasing): one of the problems with science today is that, as there are over 100,000 scientific journals published each year, containing more than 6,000,000 articles, no single person can ever even read them all … let alone make sense of them (no single person could possibly have cross-disciplinal expertise in all areas of scientific research as there are over 1,000 areas of specialised study).
If the AF-trio have any bias, I think it’d be because of the general doom-and-gloom attitude that can saturate these topics. They seem to err on the side that humans tend to often get things wrong because of it, and rightfully so when you look at many historic predictions that have not came true. And perhaps also because they’re acutely aware of just how pervasive and influenced a person is by feeling doomed.
In my research for this post, I happened to look up Knut Ångström since Richard referenced him. It seems Knut is often pointed to as evidence against climate change. I found this article which points out some flaw’s in Knut’s conclusion:
This all might be getting away from the topic a bit too much, turning this into a debate about their stance on climate change. But I hope that it illustrates how they may have arrived at their current conclusion - especially in Richard’s case since he researched while Actually Free.
I think Actually Free people can still hold opinions that influence how they approach a subject. In Richard’s case, I think he’s keenly aware of the doom-and-gloom that effects all humans, so he tends to contradict whatever hot-topic is trending in the alarmist circles. Climate change and smoking are good examples. I do think this could present him with blind-spots, but it’s a much smaller blind-spot than what we tend to deal with as feeling-beings.
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Thanks Nick. Right. My emphasis has been on their arguments. George Soros and the earth is too big were my two examples. I have fully acknowledged that there are good arguments disputing climate change.
This has been my take as well. They quite reasonably have a selection bias that down plays doom-and-gloom scenarios. I really have no problem with this. We are more inclined to read sources that seem more credible to us. There is no way around that. And it would be foolish to continue reading sources that do nothing but push refutable premise and logical fallacies. What confuses me is the tenacity in holding on to bad arguments. They hold onto bad arguments, pretty much any argument at all, that agree with their anti-alarmist bias. It’s as if they can’t distinguish between a good argument and a bad one. Which is my working hypothesis - that they can’t.
Great question @JonnyPitt.
Good points @Srinath, I was literally writing something equivalent. I think people tend not to understand the concepts of hypotheses, models, the probabilistic nature of things and find the constant changing of boundaries and facts perplexing and overwhelming and incredulous like being grounded on shifting sands.
Specialisation has definitely become a bigger problem and the lag in independent verification of scientific papers, as evidenced say with big pharma over simplified models on depression or the false promises of Theranos the company that promised breakthrough blood tests and were able to reach a $10billion valuation without definitive evidence of their products claims.
What is interesting to see is that there are different standards and methods used across the different disciplines in science as well, for example in my background in physics a lot was pushed to the whole 5 sigma criteria, which is 5 standard deviations of a Gaussian mean, which means a probability of being incorrect would be 0.000027%.
Some systems are so complex, dynamic and constitute so many different variables and parameters that there is a slim chance to ever probably be able to reach a 5 sigma criterion, and in some cases it will not be relevant because not everything fits a Gaussian model either.
A doctor determining somebody’s diagnosis based on blood results, histologies and imaging isn’t going to adhere to some 5 sigma standard before attempting to diagnose and treat their patient.
Again, the emphasis of the scientific method is reproducibility and prediction and in some systems the accuracy of our predictions aren’t great but that doesn’t mean they are irrelevant or negligible.
Take the smoking situation, I think the problem comes down to the probabilistic nature of dynamic systems. People are often looking for a simple case of a mono-cause and effect, but in dynamics systems with varying attributes it is hard to demonstrate a mono-cause. When you have complex factors like heriditary/genetic influences, environment influences (living near a polluted city for example) and then habitual individualistic differences. The subtle individual differences can be really complicated as well, maybe somebody smokes their own rolled up tobacco which then has less additional chemicals in it as standard cigarettes, maybe somebody inhales and holds the smoke in longer, maybe somebody also smokes weed occasionally, etc, it is very hard to measure all of these subtle differences.
That is why a lot of tests sought to use twins to gauge a deeper understanding of the increased probability of getting lung cancer from smoking when the genetic and environment influences are the same but only the individualistic choices are different.
However, because there is not a singular causal link showing that smoking causes lung cancer it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a higher probability of getting it from taking that activity.
Also, interesting how we pick and choose what is relevant to us.
The same type of epidemiogical studies were used to determine that Chromium VI (the whole Erin Brockovich film is about this poisoning) is carcinogenic and can cause lung cancer.
If Richard and Vineeto were to find their water supply contaminated with it, would they be as nonchalant about it being in their water supply and being a possible risk factor for lung cancer. Or would they say, its fine there is no definitive causal link.
I personally don’t care whether somebody smokes or not, most of my family do, my dad did despite COPD and prostate cancer with lung mets, it is a personal choice and as long as its not blown in my face all the time I don’t care. But it is interesting to see where people decide to accept and reject certain information.
I have learned to accept the limitations of my understanding and awareness. However, even when I don’t fully understand something, I find I am still able to ask questions that help me understand or challenge the validity of something. I guess I am always looking for holes in something, seeing and testing in my mind if I can find problems and seek greater understanding. I find sometimes a good question can show up a flaw in ones argument or reasoning just as much (sometimes more) than a counter argument.
I had a chance to message Richard back in the Topica and Yahoo days but performance anxiety blocked me in that regard. Though I used to have questions I would want to ask. Previously on the other forum I questioned Craig a lot regarding the beliefs he seemed to still have which didn’t sit right with me and I was never answered, not that I have to be but I thought I raised fair and valid questions in a respectful manner. All that is lost anyway…thanks srid.
As regards climate change, it is true that there is no supercomputer yet capable of accurately modelling everything and making an absolutely accurate prediction. The absolute worse case scenario of human extinction might not be a valid conclusion however there is now evidence that human activity has contributed to changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere (to quote NASA lol). So, again we can’t say we have a non existent negiblible impact on our environment.
I guess any time I consider anything that threatens the validity of what actual freedom is about I get this uncomfortable defensive reaction. This happened with things raised in this forum such as actualism and the weird thread. Additionally, the expectations I have of what could tarnish the value of being free, it is because I had some ideal that it wouldn’t allow things I feel bad about such as bias, stupidity, clumsiness, errors/mistakes and other such problems that actual freedom won’t rule out still being a possibility. I.e. it is not some idealised intellectual state that I wish for, like my wish for photographic memory.
I have read a lot of examples that seem to indicate exposure to people who disagree with us or have different perspectives and biases to us, is always good for shining awareness on our own biases. Maybe the reality is some people aren’t exposed to varying opinions. I always thought it was a benefit of living in places like London with such a complex melting point of different people, different beliefs, philosophies, races, upbringings, class etc. Harder for someone in a mono culture where the majority of the community look and believe the same thing to challenege biases, or other things like beliefs, cultural norms etc.
I think part of our disconnect here is that we aren’t talking about the same argument. You’re calling an argument silly, and I’m not, but we’re talking about two different arguments.
Here’s a few times where you’ve mentioned Soros:
If the argument is: “climate change is not man-made because George Soros is a socialist that donates to ‘global warming causes’”… yes, that’s a bad argument, because that isn’t a logical chain of deductive reasoning. One indeed has nothing to do with the other.
But it isn’t like Richard asked himself, “is climate change really being caused by man?” And then he discovered that Soros is funding a lot of the research that points to that, and concluded “No, it isn’t, because Soros is funding this research”.
Rather it’s that (according to Richard, as quoted earlier in the thread) Richard looked for the specific factual underpinnings of the hypothesis for three weeks and wasn’t able to find any (because it was based on “unverifiable in the lab” quantum mechanics).
Anything else besides that – such as Soros funding certain things or not – is circumstantial, and serves to possibly support, but of course not prove, that it climate change is man-made.
For an example where it’d be relevant, consider a conversation like:
- Bob: Global warming is caused by man
- Joe: No it isn’t, there’s no facts to support it
- Bob: But there are all these studies that say it is
- Joe: Which studies?
- Bob: E.g Study A, B, and C
- Joe: Well interesting thing about those studies, they were funded by George Soros who has a vested interest in the mainstream consensus being that it is man-made because of X, Y and Z. So they are not necessarily … unbiased .
In this context, Joe isn’t making a bad argument. Bob introduced (circumstantial) evidence that climate change is man-made, in the form of some studies. Joe is rebutting this by providing (circumstantial) evidence that those studies aren’t necessarily reliable. The fact those studies are funded by Soros doesn’t prove that climate change isn’t man-made – and indeed it doesn’t directly argue that it isn’t – but in the context it’s logically addressing a point that was brought up.
(Also note that in this context, with both participants not being scientists, not trained in the field, and not actually able to evaluate the studies on the merit of the science in and of itself… it’s a matter of opinion, to them, whether they are valid or not. One can say they are because it’s ‘good science’, one can say it’s not cause of ‘bad incentives’… but neither of them really know unless they dig deeply into the studies and possibly undergo a bunch of education and training etc.)
So in short I disagree with you that citing Soros is a bad argument. Therefore asking the question of why actually free people have “the tenacity in holding on to bad arguments” is not valid as the premise (that they hold on to ‘bad arguments’) is invalid – for this one particular argument anyway 
.
Personally whenever I’ve thought an actually free person was making a bad argument, whenever I dug into it enough I come to a conclusion similar to the above, that it actually isn’t, haha.
Hmmmmm. As I detailed above, I think you are misunderstanding the argument. I was making the (irrelevant to the thread) supposition that the reason you misunderstand the argument is because of your personally held opinions about the subject, and this is … biasing your evaluation of whether the argument is bad or not. In other words, if you did think climate change was not man-made, I don’t think you would see it as a bad argument. Indeed you might see it as a ‘good point’. This is all supposition though and indeed besides the point of the thread, so we need not further go down this line.
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May I re-enter this discussion for a second in what I suspect will only add to the clusterfuck of confusion?
Correct me if I’m wrong @JonnyPitt but you would be equally disappointed, would you not, were Richard to say that he arrived at a conventional opinion of global warming from the basis of statements made by Mariah Carrey or Leonardo DiCaprio at some award show.
You are put-off by the acceptance and inclusion of flimsy evidence in the formulation of any opinion, such that it raises the question for you of how anyone with a track record of intelligent output, unencumbered by the influence of emotion, could arrive at conclusions built upon such laughably weak foundations, is that not it?
And @claudiu, also seeking to understand your position:
Would it be correct to say that you are not in any way commenting on or seeking to answer the question Jon posed at the beginning of this thread (and other variations of the question) but are seeking instead to question the very basis of the original question itself (which had to do with the mechanism of bias in people without a “self”). Further, that the original question that Jon posed appears to have arisen from Jon’s conclusion that actually free people exhibit a “tenacity in holding on to bad arguments.” You are now arguing that his evidentiary basis for arriving at such a conclusion – i.e., that actually free people exhibit a “tenacity in holding on to bad arguments” – is without merit. Is this correct?
Follow up questions:
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Are you of the opinion that cognitive bias is a biological feature of the brain/intelligence such that it will unavoidably/inevitably arise in people actually free?
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Do you consider that perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality, is an inherent (and thus unavoidable) tendency for all humans, including those actually free?
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If your response is in the affirmative to any of the two questions above, would you find it inevitable/unavoidable for an actually free person to exhibit, at some point in time, that “tenacity in holding on to bad arguments.” If not, why?