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Sojobo
Joined: 12 Jul 2006
Posts: 2393
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 Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 7:54 am Post subject: |
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| Dogen wrote: | | Sojobo's correction of your post is a perfect example. |
*preens*
| Dogen wrote: | | Rather than admit defeat or change his argument, he has only to show an alternate explanation for his propositions which has yet to be ruled out. |
But wait!
You have mixed Zeke and Sojobo up. Zeke has not been brainwashed into favouring logic, and therefore would settle for less reasonable explanations to support the answer he just plain knows is true. Sojobo has been brainwashed into favouring logic, and therefore, when presented with nathan's evidence, he instinctively prefers the new answer. He'd rather be caught masturbating in a confessional booth than defending an implausible argument.
Anyway, I think nathan is not only (or even mainly?) talking about formal logic, but about widespread (and probably subtle, at first) indoctrination making every answer everyone ever arrives at just a bit more likely to be the one that makes more sense.
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Usagi Miyamoto
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2166
Location: wish you were here
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 10:07 am Post subject: |
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| Sojobo wrote: | | I have amassed a tremendous quantity of anecdotal evidence that some people just will not respond to logic, now matter how loudly you scream it at them, but other people just do, even when it disagrees with their preconceptions. I advocate the training that made some just do. |
I'm not convinced that it's a matter of training. That is to say, I don't know that any training can be counted on to have the desired effect on everyone. I suspect instead that some people are just plain less capable of both the application and appreciation of logic, just as some are less capable of other kinds of reasoning. Whether you're with Kohlberg on levels of moral development, for example, or with Haidt on moral intuition with varying levels of post-hoc rationalization, there are still clearly some people with unsophisticated logic and some with complex and nuanced reasoning, and they don't really trade places that often. Training, or perhaps I should say modeling for and encouraging children to value logical arguments over fallacious forms of reasoning might have Nathan's suggested effect of creating the fast visceral reaction of the nucleus accumbens and caudate nucleus favoring logic and lighting up the anterior insula on hearing illogic - or maybe not, who knows. Being me, I'd happily agree that the experiment is worth a try. Others might not be so sanguine, home schooling their kids to avoid the godless and their amoral logic-worship.
There's a certain level of intellectual honesty and perhaps more to the point, dispassion, required to overcome the internal investiture in a self-image of being correct (upright, moral, logical, pick your virtue) and I think it just isn't there in everyone. It could well be a function of the development of the prefrontal cortex and the limbic pathways tying emotion to reason. That kind of openness to change doesn't necessarily have a lot of personal utility in relatively static socio-economic situations, so it might not be selected for generally. I know it's not that easy to change my own mind, even in the face of what a disinterested third party might consider superior evidence. Can it be trained in to people? I think Sojobo may have amassed a tremendous quantity of anecdotal evidence that it can't, at least, not by means of the frank exchange of views typical of the internet.
Further reading on openness.
And some on the neural basis of moral cognition.
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Thy Brilliance
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3213
Location: Relative
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 10:53 am Post subject: speaking plainly without pretense |
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People don't respond to categorical syllogisms.
They respond to understanding.
If you want children to be more understanding and "logical," you need only tell the children to observe the world around them, while resisting the urge to shove your opinions down their throats. Indoctrination is the enemy of logic, a doctrine in its own right, and as sojobo has shown through his anecdotal evidence, it gets him nowhere. |
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Sojobo
Joined: 12 Jul 2006
Posts: 2393
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 1:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Usagi Miyamoto wrote: | | I'm not convinced that it's a matter of training. That is to say, I don't know that any training can be counted on to have the desired effect on everyone. |
But the desired effect is just somewhat improved reasoning. There is no particular standard of logicality we expect everyone to achieve. I'm calling it brainwashing because I think it's funny, but any kind of parental encouragement that you should generally consider rational arguments more attractive than irrational ones would fit the bill.
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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 9308
Location: Bellingham, WA
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 2:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Sojobo wrote: | | Zeke has not been brainwashed into favouring logic, and therefore would settle for less reasonable explanations to support the answer he just plain knows is true. Sojobo has been brainwashed into favouring logic, and therefore, when presented with nathan's evidence, he instinctively prefers the new answer. He'd rather be caught masturbating in a confessional booth than defending an implausible argument. |
This is where I think our views of the value of logical primacy deviate. I don't think the brainwashing will matter in this case. If you feel strongly enough about a proposition there are a myriad of cognitive biases that will impede your acceptance of its falseness... and my perspective is that you won't see this as illogical, but as defending an otherwise obvious truth. Being invested in a truth emotionally, politically, or financially; having made a public declaration of support for it; having heard it from a figure that holds a significant influence over you... any or all of these things are cognitive hiccups that increase our fallibility, either by blinding us to our own motivation, or by supplying data that we assume is relevant and true because of the source. These are the types of things that I don't think logic indoctrination would overcome, because to the best of my understanding they're more deeply rooted in the type of information processing human brains evolved to perform or ego maintenance (which is powerful in most people).
Possibly unrelated side note: College men understand that the risk of catching an STD increases with the number of sexual partners a woman has had and her consistency at using condoms. An attractive woman who plays the cello but only sometimes uses a condom with her many partners is still rated as less risky than a less attractive woman with the same number of partners and level of condom usage who doesn't play a classical instrument. This is motivated reasoning: the halo effect (pretty people are assumed to have other positive qualities, apparently including not having STDs) and the use of information that seems inconsistant with risk but is actually irrelevant (our mental image of a cello player is one of low-risk, but her skill is totally irrelevant to the question of STDs).
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nathan
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 6269
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Dogen wrote: | | This is where I think our views of the value of logical primacy deviate. I don't think the brainwashing will matter in this case. If you feel strongly enough about a proposition there are a myriad of cognitive biases that will impede your acceptance of its falseness... and my perspective is that you won't see this as illogical, but as defending an otherwise obvious truth. Being invested in a truth emotionally, politically, or financially; having made a public declaration of support for it; having heard it from a figure that holds a significant influence over you... any or all of these things are cognitive hiccups that increase our fallibility, either by blinding us to our own motivation, or by supplying data that we assume is relevant and true because of the source. These are the types of things that I don't think logic indoctrination would overcome, because to the best of my understanding they're more deeply rooted in the type of information processing human brains evolved to perform or ego maintenance (which is powerful in most people). |
Yes, there are myriad cognitive biases - but those exist whether or not one accepts that logic and evidence are a legitimate basis for forming opinions. The revisability of our opinions based on outside input can only increase the possibility of consensus in a group. This does not mean a consensus will be reached - it only means it's more likely than within an identical group whose opinions are not open to review based on logic and evidence. The cognitive biases would still compete for control, but they would now do so within a framework. In theory, someone could invent infinite permutations that would justify their beliefs - but in practice, people can and do change their opinions. This would load the deck in favor of that behavior, if ever so slightly.
As for the (potential) motivating force of logic, I'll just point out that it would derive from those same instinctual drives that do indeed motivate everything else. We wouldn't care about logic for it's own sake, but because of social and moral pressures built in at an early age. Ego maintenance dominates much of our lives, but implicit in the Ego is the concept of Guilt.
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nathan
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 9:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Dogen wrote: | | A Venn diagram of "things Zeke thinks are possible" and "things nathan thinks are possible" may not have any overlap, and there may be no mechanism of formal logic to bridge that gap. |
If communication is possible between us, at all, there exist shared assumptions. If there are shared assumptions, a platform for arbitration exists.
Arbitration may not bridge the gap, but that will be a function of the argument at hand and the nature of the shared assumptions on which our particular conversation is based.
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nathan
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 10:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Sojobo wrote: | | Anyway, I think nathan is not only (or even mainly?) talking about formal logic, but about widespread (and probably subtle, at first) indoctrination making every answer everyone ever arrives at just a bit more likely to be the one that makes more sense. |
Bingo. I'm definitely using it in the informal sense of acknowledging that opinions should exist within a consistent framework, and must be justifiable within that framework.
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All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last. - Marky Mark Proust |
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mouse
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 15457
Location: under the bed
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| Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 10:27 pm Post subject: |
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of course, sadly, people like birthers and bush republicans _do_ have a consistent framework, and their beliefs are totally justifiable within it. but it has nothing to do with logic.
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Usagi Miyamoto
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2166
Location: wish you were here
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| Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 5:32 am Post subject: |
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For many, the unexamined life is totally worth living. You can have opinions without thinking about them. That way they don't have to be consistent, and you save so much mental energy. People do like to be consistent with themselves (see Dogen's citation above) but they'll do the minimum thinking necessary to pull it off. And everyone is like that. We all do it. And to a large extent, that's okay. We all take mental shortcuts because we have lives to lead. Nobody has the brainpower to create a consistent rational and ethical framework from first principles all the way to what to do about that dime somebody in line in front of you just dropped. (It's a dime. Let it go.) For a lot of things, you just pick up a constellation of values from your milieu and go with it, and it works, mostly. Now, you may have varying levels of interest in questions of politics and society and justice and community, but even when you're into it you're probably not Kant or Hume or even Rawls, You don't have time. You choose some "thought champions" and learn just enough to follow their arguments, not necessarily enough to recreate them from scratch. And if you're of a certain bent (a bent bent) then you pick it up from O'Reilly and Beck and random talk radio blowhards. It doesn't really matter, because most of that stuff they rail about is outside your everyday existence. You have absolutely no effect on the nation's foreign policy. Your effect on international trade is one part in a billion. The correlation between the way you vote and the representation you get is probably on the order of 60%, if only because people who live near each other tend to vote together by about that much, and not because your vote made much difference. If you're not thinking, you never have to consider things to the point where you have to change your mind. So really, why not save yourself some grief?
Well, I would, but I still can't help thinking about it. Danged brains!
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Sam the Eagle
Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Posts: 2276
Location: 192.168.0.1
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| Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 7:41 am Post subject: |
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My dearest Rabbit,
You're shifting this topic from whether or not children would be able to be 'taught' logic in their early lives and use it to weight the merits of any proposition, many interesting ideas were expressed, to our general puniness and general political system.
Quite a step.
That politics is all about compromises is known since Athens; rethorics didn't change since then for sure. Up until recently, you'll notice that politicians are competing to define the agenda where lines will be drawn so they can hoard most of the vote/ prevent the other side from doing so. Try putting forward issues closer to your heart.
As for our daily lives choices, they're are schools and schools and schools of thoughts, from philosophers and artists to martial arts pointing out the dangers of relying on others for decisions and relying on shortcuts or the need to conform, <insert>. There are some way out, some exercises one can rely on to keep one sharper. Philosphers from every corner of the world ponders the matter. I wonder why so few ever wondered why most of us don't ever feel the need to question that.
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Usagi Miyamoto
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 2166
Location: wish you were here
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| Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 9:43 am Post subject: |
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I embrace my wrongness.
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Thy Brilliance
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3213
Location: Relative
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| Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:30 pm Post subject: I'm having problems finding one. |
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| Is there a Ted talk that is anti-capitalistic? |
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Dogen
Joined: 10 Jul 2006
Posts: 9308
Location: Bellingham, WA
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| Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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| nathan wrote: | | If communication is possible between us, at all, there exist shared assumptions. If there are shared assumptions, a platform for arbitration exists. |
Assuming shared assumptions that allow communication generally will allow for the arbitration of a specific argument is a logical fallacy (of division).  Simply because you can communicate doesn't mean you can resolve disagreements. That requires you to share specific assumptions about certain things - the problematic things like what constitutes compelling evidence. Which is why I keep coming back to cognitive biases. My position is simply that no amount of logic will remove motivated reasoning, or the nature of human memory, and as such there will always be disagreements in which the two sides think the other is ludicrously irrational and themselves the epitome of reason.
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"Worse comes to worst, my people come first, but my tribe lives on every country on earth. I’ll do anything to protect them from hurt, the human race is what I serve." - Baba Brinkman |
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Thy Brilliance
Joined: 09 Jul 2006
Posts: 3213
Location: Relative
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| Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 4:08 am Post subject: logic isn't as persuasive as kindness |
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| Dogen wrote: | | nathan wrote: | | If communication is possible between us, at all, there exist shared assumptions. If there are shared assumptions, a platform for arbitration exists. |
Assuming shared assumptions that allow communication generally will allow for the arbitration of a specific argument is a logical fallacy (of division). Simply because you can communicate doesn't mean you can resolve disagreements. That requires you to share specific assumptions about certain things - the problematic things like what constitutes compelling evidence. Which is why I keep coming back to cognitive biases. My position is simply that no amount of logic will remove motivated reasoning, or the nature of human memory, and as such there will always be disagreements in which the two sides think the other is ludicrously irrational and themselves the epitome of reason. |
When you are addressing an audience, you cannot simply appeal to logos and expect your audience to agree with you right off the bat.
In order to be persuasive you have to actually appeal to ethos and pathos as well.
Rationality is only one part of the equation.
Like I said before, you have to establish an understanding with your audience, you need to know where they are coming from, and have respect for their ideas and ideals.
Otherwise, you will not resolve your arguments with them very peacefully.
You will come off as being haughty. |
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