"Open Mindedness, Corruption of the Mind, and Searching for ‘Truth’"

Continuing the conversation(1,2,3):

Open Mindedness, Corruption of the Mind, and Searching for ‘Truth’, EconTech [CC 3.0]: Mark Thoma began something of a conversation on how Democrats need to respect the views of others more:

If you are a Democrat, let me ask you a question. Do you truly, in your heart of hearts, respect the beliefs of a religious fundamentalist, someone who has a strong relationship with their church, opposes abortion, has doubts about evolution, and so on? If you found out your child had these beliefs, how would you react? Would your first inclination be to try to change their beliefs, to explain through gentle (or not so gentle) persuasion why other beliefs - your beliefs - are better? Or would you fully respect the beliefs as much as you do your own?

In the first instance, the obvious answer is no; if only because it is an essential feature of our decision making process that the beliefs we come to ourselves are respected more than the beliefs of others. Put more eloquently by Robin Hanson:

But this does seem a handy opportunity to repeat that while disagreement isn’t hate, it is disrespect.  When you knowingly disagree with someone you are judging them to be less rational than you, at least on that topic.  (Judging them less informed or experienced by itself can’t create disagreement.)  It might be only a minor disrespect, if you think this disagreement suggests little about whether you’d disagree with them elsewhere.  But disagreement is disrespect, nonetheless.

Of course, I believe Thoma is trying to get at something slightly different, namely how we treat each other, in terms of manners, in the course of political/scientific/social/cultural/etc. discourse; whereas Hanson is discussing approximately what we think of others during that discourse. Certainly a degree of respect, in Thoma’s usage of the word, is necessary in order to have a productive conversation, particularly in resolving political conflict. However, a line MUST be drawn. Some people are simply not worth having a conversation with; the weight we should give the information coming from them is zero.

There are at least two ways to get to this conclusion. The more emotive one is a bit easier (when is it not?): blatant racists, sexists, homophobes, those guilty of crimes against humanity (e.g. genocide), etc. have  lost their moral worth and judgments of value from them ought to be given much less (if not zero) weight. Why should we care about the opinions of mass murderers and those who willingly hold arbitrary prejudices? This is not to say that they do not have the right to express their opinion, just that the rational should not bother paying attention to them.

Isaiah Berlin expressed a similar opinion in his The Pursuit of the Ideal (pg 11, not carefully transcribed):

There is a world of objective values. By this I mean those ends that men pursue for their own sakes, to which other things are means. I am not blind to what the Greeks valued — their values may not be mine, but I can grasp what it would be like to live by their light, I can admire and respect [I believe this is closer to Hanson's usage of the word] them, and even imagine myself as pursuing them, although I do not — and do not wish to, and perhaps could not if I wished. Forms of life differ. Ends, moral principles, are many. But not infinitely [I believe he means here not that there is some finite number of values that people can pursue, but that there is a subset of values which are legitimate, even though that may be an infinite subset] many: they must be within the human horizon. If they are not, then they are outside the human sphere. If I find men who worship trees, not because they are symbols of fertility or because they are divine, with a mysterious life and powers of their own, or because this grove is sacred to Athena — but only because they are made of wood; and if when I ask them why they worship wood they say ‘Because it is wood’ and give no other answer; then I do not know what they mean. If they are human, they are not beings with whom I can communicate — there is a real barrier. They are not human for me. I cannot even call their values subjective if I cannot conceive what it would be like to pursue such a life.

Of course, there are differences here. Namely, Berlin is saying that there is no way to communicate with such people. Thus, even if we wanted to assign some positive weight to what they say, that is, afford them some respect (Hanson/Berlin), we simply cannot because we are incapable of understanding what they mean.

I’m confident that from a rationalist’s standpoint, some religious fundamentalists fit into both categories. I simply cannot understand beliefs which maintain that the world was created a few thousand years ago. There are vast swaths of data which indicate that to be an absurd proposition with nothing to indicate otherwise. The interpretation of the data seems to be accurate. The same models gives us advanced medicine, computers, cars, and all the other high tech conveniences that have made our lives so much easier than our forebears. For such a group, who otherwise lead non-partisan lives and with whom I do not interact in any significant way, I cannot give them respect (Hanson/Berlin) but at least can treat them respectfully (Thoma).

Things are different when it comes to the political landscape, however. Some fundamentalists act to deprive others of liberty, a grave injustice. Some act through intimidation and terror. Others work through democratic processes to pursue anti-libertarian ends. Even though I cannot understand these people, their actions have a moral content which I can contextualize and rightly deem to be unjust, to varying degrees, along with those who would condone them. For such people, and I believe there are more than we care to admit, I do not feel any need to treat them with much respect.

There is another angle from which this needs to be approached, however. At some point, rationalists are interested in pursuing knowledge. Unfortunately, human minds are not particularly good at maintaining a wall between what we know (at least, in some probabilistic sense) to be true and untrue. This is why I sometimes say (if not here, in my personal life), “He is not even worth listening to”. When we hear things, especially repeatedly, we simply forget if they are true or untrue because our brain does not maintain a bibliography of our knowledge, much less an annotated one:

The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer’s hard drive does. Facts are stored first in the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain about the size and shape of a fat man’s curled pinkie finger. But the information does not rest there. Every time we recall it, our brain writes it down again, and during this re-storage, it is also reprocessed. In time, the fact is gradually transferred to the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally learned. For example, you know that the capital of California is Sacramento, but you probably don’t remember how you learned it.

This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true.

With time, this misremembering only gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength. This could explain why, during the 2004 presidential campaign, it took some weeks for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Senator John Kerry to have an effect on his standing in the polls.

Thus, when I run into someone who is willing to believe that the universe is a few thousand years old, I recognize that they are incapable of making judgements based on evidence, and anything they say to me, if I listen to them enough, will begin to ring true. That I have good reason to believe their opinions more likely than not to be wrong, listening to them would be a mistake. A literal corruption of the mind that I, knowing this to be possible, should take action to avoid.

Stereotypes, however, are still prejudicial. Thus, when Megan McArdle says (via another Thoma post):

…Let’s be honest, coastal folks:  when you meet someone with a thick southern accent who likes NASCAR and attends a bible church, do you think, “hey, maybe this is a cool person”?  And when you encounter someone who went to Eastern Iowa State, do you accord them the same respect you give your friends from Williams?  It’s okay–there’s no one here but us chickens.  You don’t.

What she is really arguing against is prejudicial stereotyping. And it does occur (obviously). I am from a small town in Louisiana. I had a professor (if you want to know, an extremely conservative economics professor) completely write me off because he found out where I was from. Another student I didn’t even know found it worth remarking upon how blatantly this guy was treating me even though I had proven up to that point to be one of the more correct responders in class (the professor spent most of the time berating students for answering his question incorrectly). Further, anyone who has attended an elite institution knows that there is a significant portion of the student body that does not have the intelligence of, say, a bean pole, and that their geographic origins are not concentrated in any one place. Of course, those who stereotype the academics are making the same mistake.

Thus when we meet someone and begin discussing controversial issues, it is best to give them a chance or five to prove themselves capable of making reasoned arguments, regardless of their background. To do otherwise would be unjust and unwise.

Comments

[Robinia]

To listen with practiced empathy allows us to gain access to a worldview that differs from our own.... and, sometimes, one that is genuinely unique. These views from a different direction can be very useful in solving problems that look intractable from our own perspective. So, it is to our own advantage, as well as the open-minded and right thing to do, to afford those we meet the attention and respect of a fair hearing. Once they reveal themselves to hold a stereotypical viewpoint, our interest in gaining their perspective naturally declines, and our interest in protecting our own thinking from corruption takes over, and we begin to withdraw.

[save_the_rustbelt]

"However, a line MUST be drawn. Some people are simply not worth having a conversation with; the weight we should give the information coming from them is zero."

This is the reason the Democrats have trouble getting traction even when they should be winning by land slides.

I'm getting repetitive, but if the Democrats want better electoral results they need to allow blue collar pro-life voters back into the party in a meaningful way.

But why listen to me?

[Alex Tolley]

I simply cannot understand beliefs which maintain that the world was created a few thousand years ago. There are vast swaths of data which indicate that to be an absurd proposition with nothing to indicate otherwise. The interpretation of the data seems to be accurate. The same models gives us advanced medicine, computers, cars, and all the other high tech conveniences that have made our lives so much easier than our forebears.

That statement is just not true. You could have made the same statement about technological advances before 1859. Very few technological advances require an understanding of evolution. Even in biosciences, one could ignore evolution and still make progress. So let's be a bit careful when making such sweeping statements.

When you knowingly disagree with someone you are judging them to be less rational than you, at least on that topic. (Judging them less informed or experienced by itself can’t create disagreement.) It might be only a minor disrespect, if you think this disagreement suggests little about whether you’d disagree with them elsewhere. But disagreement is disrespect, nonetheless.

I disagree with this statement. There are many subjects, especially subjective ones where where you can disagree with someone without incurring the least disrespect. In addition, my lifestyle can be very different to others without requiring that I disrespect them.

When we hear things, especially repeatedly, we simply forget if they are true or untrue because our brain does not maintain a bibliography of our knowledge, much less an annotated one

Which is why we have books and writing. Even better, we have rapid search. Instant fact checking is a great way to neutralize this effect.

[ken melvin]

Very good Robinia.

Some put forth their thoughts seeking feedback in a search for the truth. Others, only seek reenforcement of held beliefs.

says...

I'm getting repetitive, but if the Democrats want better electoral results they need to allow blue collar pro-life voters back into the party in a meaningful way.

Assuming you are sincere....And what is stopping them?

No one ever stops you from being pro-life. The trouble is when you want to force others to do your will.

[save_the_rustbelt]

says:

I think uou just answered your own question.

I like to have two healthy functioning political parties. At this point we seem to have 0 health functioning political parties.

That is our loss.

says...

I think uou just answered your own question.

Huh?

[Syaloch]

When you knowingly disagree with someone you are judging them to be less rational than you, at least on that topic. (Judging them less informed or experienced by itself can’t create disagreement.)

This is nonsense. When I disagree with someone, it's usually because I think they are less informed -- i.e., they believe that X is true, when in fact Y is. Rational people can believe false things too.

But disagreement is disrespect, nonetheless.

Again, this is nonsense. Just because I believe a person to be mistaken doesn't mean that I don't respect them. The people I most enjoy debating are those whose rational abilities I have the greatest respect for, since the whole point of discussion is to have one or another of us change our minds in the face of a compelling argument. Those whose I rationality I don't esteem, I don't bother with. I just smile and move on.

[Power Laws determine our fate.]

The same models gives us advanced medicine, computers, cars, and all the other high tech conveniences that have made our lives so much easier than our forebears.

This statement is false. The Austrian economist debunked it long ago.

Recently, Nicholas Taleb is ripping the notions that models have any baring on predicting the future to shreds. We just don't know as much as we think.

It is your confirmation bias that leads you to think you know more than you know. It is the confirmation bias which precludes you from make a new discovery by looking in the place you think you need to look. It is your confirmation bias that makes you think you can have happiness via meeting a certain need(Daniel Gilbert)

In essence, variation and mutation determine economic outcomes as well. And extreme events (i.e power laws) determine most of everything.

Which means the Liberal Creationist aren't worth listening to either.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Intellectuals, and especially many college professors, feel a compulsion to show off their knowledge, even when others really don't care all that much (anyone who has ever attended a faculty meeting knows what I am talking about).

So instead of going to the Thanksgiving dinner, eating, having a beer and watching football, some of our brighter brothers feel obliged to smarten everyone up and correct anyone in the family who has not been so enlightened. The tattle tale study hall geek all grown up.

If Obama loses the analysis will go something like this, "those rubes didn't know enough to vote for their own best interests."

Of course when you insult people and call them rubes for four years and then ask for their votes you might get disappointed.

[RW]

"Of course when you insult people and call them rubes for four years and then ask for their votes you might get disappointed."

This and similar mythologies are probably rooted in prejudice or mere habit and the inability of anyone to cite significant verifiable instances where Democrats have actually indulged in such insulting practices should constitute prima facie evidence of the weakness or vacuity in such claims.

But that is not the general rule with myths or with big lies for that matter: In this case a million Democrats could treat blue collar workers with complete respect but when one Democrat says or does something considered to be disrespectful or is even reported to have done so it is considered to represent all Democrats by those who so wish. The right-wing propaganda apparatus has been quite effective in expanding the population of those who so wish in this and in other respects.

Evidence strongly suggests that merely correcting a false story is rarely sufficient with most people, in fact it could even serve to reinforce it, so the real message here appears to be simply this: Democrats need to emulate the Republicans and cease their heavy reliance on the truth where that only serves to counter falsehood and develop a more comprehensive and strongly competitive propaganda; if truth and science can be respected in the process then well and good but the Republicans have demonstrated such success in actively besmirching or expressing contempt for those values this should probably not be considered a given.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Google "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and read a few dozen commentaries by major leftish sources. This has been one of the left's major narratives in recent years.

But now, having been to church, I'm headed to the recliner, will grab the flipper, and try to watch two NFL games and a NASCAR race at the same time. Yee-haw!

[save_the_rustbelt]

Oh, RW:

Never fear. Senator Obama is bouncing around the rustbelt making economic promises he cannot possibly keep.

Truth is the first casualty of politics.

[Bruce Wilder]

EconTech: "I simply cannot understand beliefs which maintain that the world was created a few thousand years ago. There are vast swaths of data which indicate that to be an absurd proposition with nothing to indicate otherwise. . . . Unfortunately, human minds are not particularly good at maintaining a wall between what we know (at least, in some probabilistic sense) to be true and untrue. . . . I recognize that they are incapable of making judgements based on evidence."

Syaloch: "The people I most enjoy debating are those whose rational abilities I have the greatest respect for, since the whole point of discussion is to have one or another of us change our minds in the face of a compelling argument."

Aaron: "You can also have your arguments sharpened by having your points challenged. However, the trend in liberal blogs is to block dissenting views."

Power Laws: "We just don't know as much as we think."

EconTech: "I simply cannot understand beliefs which maintain that the world was created a few thousand years ago. There are vast swaths of data which indicate that to be an absurd proposition with nothing to indicate otherwise. . . . Unfortunately, human minds are not particularly good at maintaining a wall between what we know (at least, in some probabilistic sense) to be true and untrue. . . . I recognize that they are incapable of making judgements based on evidence."

STR: "if the Democrats want better electoral results they need to allow blue collar pro-life voters back into the party in a meaningful way."

Somehow, the post leaves aside some critical issues, which should not be left aside, and the comments are fumbling to bring back into the discussion.

One is taste: idiosyncratic, personal preference, which may change, evolve with experience, or become tied to rationalized schemes of criticism, but which is grounded outside the bounds of rationality. Rationality is, ultimately, only an instrument, a means, as Berlin might say, while taste shapes desires in choosing ends.

When we are talking about "(dis)respect" in the political and social sphere, I think we are often talking about respect for taste. Do you respect someone, who likes NASCAR?

Inherent in all schemes of class deference and condesenscion, resentment and disrespect, are beliefs about a correspondence between hierarchies of taste and the social hierarchy of power and wealth and privilege. Abstracting away from all of this to reason about reason, is to miss the main event.

Another curious omission is bounded rationality. No one in a discussion or debate is ever completely correct, because no one is ever complete in her consideration of facts, or explication of logic, or rationalization of values. In a passionate, but disinterested debate in pursuit of truth, all the participants, if rational, ought to be in doubt their own positions and points-of-view and be open to persuasion. The very metaphor inherent in "point of view" suggests the limited appreciation of facts that any individual can expect to possess; no matter how clearly anyone sees the object of the study, the object itself hides part of the object from the viewer.

Bounded rationality and taste combine with self-interest in the consideration of political questions, because political questions are, or ought to be, precisely those choices, where "truth", in the form of the one "right" answer, is not knowable. A political debate is not a disinterested pursuit of "Truth", it is a contest for Power, the right to make a choice.

In matters of governance, deciding who is to make the choice, is often the critical political issue, because we recognize that rationality, while bounded, nevertheless has considerable scope. There are questions best decided by specialists, employing technical expertise, because there is a knowable, right answer, and the best choice, on behalf of all, will be made by someone, who has invested the time and effort to know the right answer.

On the other hand, there are also matters of choice, which rest lightly and directly on a foundation of taste and value, with little or no superstructure of rational calculation. It would be ridiculous to "debate" matters of pure taste, to argue over whether vanilla ice cream is to be preferred to chocolate ice cream. It doesn't take much social structure or rationalization to create grounds for such debate, as critics of wine, food, art and literature demonstrate; humans love a good theory, and aesthetics is not excepted.

My point, however, is that politics is about collective choices, and taste and values and personal interest, not rationality per se, are the grounds of preference.

The problem of the undivided mind is not just that source amnesia leads to potential confusion about what is fact and what is false. The problem of the undivided mind is that no one can maintain reliable separation of what they believe to be true, from what they want to be true. Value and fact are confounded in our individual consideration of choices; we think "A is good" to be a statement of fact, when, really, it may be nothing more than a convenient shorthand for "I desire A".

Collective deliberation and debate, especially when it is conducted among groups with disparate interests and tastes, forces the participants to substitute "objective" measures for "subjective" reports. The group fumbles from individual evaluations -- "It's too hot" "No, it is merely very warm" -- to measurement and "objectivity" -- "it is 31° Celsius". This is one of the functional justifications for pursuing knowledge via the College of Science. And, it applies, as well, to democratic politics.

The danger in democratic politics is that deliberation will be cast aside by a faction becoming a permanent majority able to secure power, and no longer interested in persuading others of the rational, objective value of the policies it wishes to pursue. For a democracy, rational deliberation is not just "a" means, it is "the" means, the preference for which must be girded about by the institutions of the democracy, lest the system of politics and government become something other than a democracy.

In a democracy, not all choices are political. A central concern of politics is separating the choices made by government from the choices made by individuals and private social organizations or private enterprise, and further dividing the choices of government between those to be made by experts and those to be made legislative bodies (or executive or judicial bodies), and at different levels of jurisdictional scope. Disposition is always an issue, and a libertarian spirit animates a respect for the autonomy of individual self-governance as the foundation for all governance. Democracy demands that a democrat (small d) respect the autonomy of the individual, as the residual governor of self and as the atom of democratic governance of society.

That said, disrespect is a useful weapon in democratic political contests. Wield it with discretion and effect, if you can.

Many voters participating in an election will not devote much attention, reason or knowledge to discriminating among the candidates. A calculated show of disrespect by the more committed and more knowledgeable may well be persuasive to on-lookers, if done right.

Disrespect, which is an expression of personal conceit, indeed, inspires resentment. Thus, Republicans have learned to use the righteous earnestness of certain flavors of Democrat against the Democratic Party as a whole.

Disrespect is a skill and a tactic in democratic politics.

[donna]

None of this is the issue for me. For me, it is people allowing themselves to be fooled into thinking others have their interests at heart because they give lip service to the beliefs that person shares. Their actions, OTOH, are completely different and show NO respect for those views.

Why do they believe those who pay lip service respect them while those who speak to them as adults about their well being do not?

[Bruce Wilder]

"My point, however, is that politics is about collective choices, and taste and values and personal interest, not rationality per se, are the grounds of preference."

I mean that many of the main "issues" in an election are typically questions of collective choice, which cannot be solved within the present state of human knowledge, or usefully consigned to individual choice. The choices are necessarily collective, but cannot be made reliably by experts, acting on expertise alone. But, among these questions, perhaps paradoxically, are questions of disposition -- precisely the question of whether some choice should be collective or individual.

Because the political issue is what power the individual will be assigned, the autonomy of the individual, and respect for the autonomy of the individual as a central value of democracy, is at stake.

The Republicans are the Authoritarian Party, but pretend otherwise. This is a central fact of American politics, and the origin of many deceptions.

[RW]

"Senator Obama is bouncing around the rustbelt making economic promises he cannot possibly keep."

Not that a single anecdote means much but, really, what promises are those? Since subsidies for domestically produced hybrid/efficient transport as well as support for middle and working class wage earners are ranked among Obama's core proposals and he has explicitly accepted the increase in national debt those would likely cause (a hefty 3.5 trillion projected over the next decade) one would think that anyone who's nom de plume proclaims a desire to save the rustbelt would be able to cite verse and chapter as critique rather than casual dismissal so ...what makes these promises impossible in your view?

Frankly it would seem difficult for anyone to top McCain for economically impossible proposals although the $5 trillion his current batch are projected to add to the national debt over the next decade should certainly liven up the place assuming additional wars don't distract us from the spectacle too much first.

As for today I'm afraid the missus has other plans for later so I only plan to focus on one NFL game while barbecuing: Go Seahawks!

[hari]

Well...The Pope did exactly that at Paris/Notre Dame Cathederal trying to provide a reasoned dialogue on *secularism* and its meaning today between State and Religion.

Sarkosy invited The Pope (when he visited him in the Vatican) to speak on the growing importance of *secularism* in French political dialogue today.

First, inspite of sacreligious tendencies in a predominantly Catholic country like France, the role of the Church has become more or less irrelevant...which of course disturbs The Pope.

I'd argue that even if you don't accept or even reject what your friends and/or neighbours believe in, it's not sanctimonius to preach tolerance and respect for other's opinion - no matter how vile or disgusting it may sound.
Because from my Granny I learnt early in life that truth is relative. Fighting about relative truth is something like fighting about a loaf of bread, may be or may be not, for some of you.

I'll repeat my youthful experience when forced to chair a meeting of Model UN body on the issue of Palestine. The gavel was very heavy. But the discussion got out of hand with both sides using more or less vile language about each other - Jews and Palestinians - so I tried to bring them to order by lifting the gavel...which was so heavy that it fell on the table with bang! Silence followed....

I told them a story my Granny told me growing up as a kid on the plantation...never to argue about other's beliefs! Always respect people's belief even if you hate or dislke it. Otherwise, Granny taught me, there is no way to mutual respect in society.

May be for some this is going too far...because they can't simply stomach it. They get disgusted with heresay and whatnot. But empathy and respect must somehow rule our social behaviour...even at the risk of sounding as a sunday teacher!

[outsider]

outsider says...

Intrade:

Mccain contract for Prez...52.4

obama ...46.0

Lose Biden as V.P. nominee ..6.5

[Barkley Rosser]

StR,

Probably shows that I am just another disrespectful academic (even if I did shovel slops once upon a time), but I must concur with the question about what it is that Obama is promising that is so unrealistic, especially in comparison with what McCain is promising?

Also, does it matter that McCain's ads are more full of lies about Obama's proposals than we have probably ever seen in a presidential campaign? Does pointing out that he is lying (not to mention pointing unethical conduct and lying by Palin) show disrespect for just plain, regular, folks? Is not the Bible against lying?

[bullbust]

STR is indulging in that delirious dream of kool-aid drinkers - the majority is right.

That's not going to change, till they become the minority, or someone beats the crap out of them.

These people pretend that they are just waiting to be converted with the right obeisance and tribute. If only the other side just did that.

Balderdash. Nothing is going to change them. They will not be convinced.

There are people who really can be convinced. They will be convinced by only one thing. When their leaders are exposed for the frauds they are. Discredit their leaders, and the STR crowd with their trademarked petulance will become a minority.

[Lee A. Arnold]

Let all the independents who just swung to McCain know that Sarah Palin is the "Trojan moose" of right-wing social issues. The independents are not going to like this, so the Republicans have hit the "Mute" button on it.

Palin has the quietly cheering endorsement of James Dobson and others in the Christian mega-funding group, the Council for National Policy. See Hullabaloo, September 1:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/yes-sarah-palin-was-vetted-by-dday-it.html

Make no mistake. If McCain-Palin are elected, it will be the end of Roe v. Wade.

If McCain wins the election and a liberal Supreme Court Justice dies, it will likely be the end of Roe v. Wade.

This gets us to Dee Dee Meyers, who in a consideration of Sarah Palin just wrote, "I don't know where abortion rights are going to end up in all this, and honestly that concerns me..." It's not hard to figure out. If McCain dies, and a liberal Supreme Court Justice dies, it will certainly be the end of Roe v. Wade.

[Lee A. Arnold]

The Republicans have sent a woman to kill Roe v. Wade.

Another item for this election's remarkable history.

[Barkley Rosser]

Now, now, tsk, tsk. Have you not all learned by now that any criticism of any woman candidate is sexism, pure and simple? Dear anne has made this very clear. So there.

Of course, even though we have seen people on TV saying they will not vote for Obama because he is black, none of the criticism of him reflects racism, none whatsoever. This is not an issue, and nobody should even think that it is. Bringing it up will just offend and upset all those regular racists, ooops! I mean just, plain, regular, all-American folks. It is obviously un-American to suggest racism on the part of any of them, any of them at all. But, criticizing a woman candidate for anything, well, tsk tsk...

[reason]

I'm wondering who this magical figure is:
This statement is false. The Austrian economist debunked it long ago.
who showed that science has nothing to do with technical progress.

[reason]

By the way the whole post is a wonderful series of non-sequiturs. I just hope it is a parody.

[anne]

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/09/open-mindedness.html#c130712028

Barkley Rosser:

"Now, now, tsk, tsk. Have you not all learned by now that any criticism of any woman candidate is sexism, pure and simple? Dear Anne has made this very clear. So there."

[I have not commented on this thread, however any candidate can be fairly criticized on policy but criticism of a woman candidate as a woman is and has been an important problem from the beginning of announcements of candidacy. Failing to recognize the ways in which women have been dealt with as candidates these many months is a serious social problem and will possible turn to be a more serious problem for Democrats.]

[reason]

Anne...
don't you ever wonder why the other female commentators here don't share your (hyper?) sensitivity. I could just as well argue that your comments are sexists as regard male candidates. Can we just cool it?

[anne]

Reason:

Don't you ever wonder why the other female commentators here don't share your (hyper?) sensitivity. I could just as well argue that your comments are sexist as regard male candidates....

[I had not made any comment on this long thread before being mocked. I am not the least concerned who shares any sensitivity I may have, and suggest wondering about the use of the term "hyper." I am not aware of having pounded on a male candidate for President or Vice President because of the candidate being male. Possibly a people that for several hundred years have never had a female President or Vice President, and only a lone candidate for Vice President before now, might pay attention to why and might also wonder whether that reflects a relative lack of attention to women's issues.]

[realpc]

The things people disagree on are questions that, as yet, have no clear answers. There is very little controversy these days about whether the earth is flat or whether pigs can fly.

We should be able to disagree respectfully since none of us have the answers. The problem is, very often people feel they know the complete truth about things when they don't. It's the illusion of certainty that results in disrespect.

Since none of us have answers for todays controversial questions, we could learn from each other. No one has read or seen everything, so we each have only partial information. Of course, not everyone realizes their information is only partial.

Someone who believes that all truth and all answers can be found in a particular religious book cannot respect anyone who feels differently. If someone disagrees they must be a fool or under the influence of Satan.

At the other extreme are the scientific atheists who feel certain that science has solved the mysteries of the origin of life and the evolution of species.

The bible-believers, of course, tend to be Republican and the atheists, of course tend to be Democrat.

The same thing happens with economic questions -- libertarians are at one extreme and socialists or social democrats are at the other. The most respected economists don't really know how the economy works or what tricks it will play next. But there are still people who insist they know the best way to approach any economic problem.

There are Americans who can respect the opinions of others and there are millions of us. We are everyone who can see that certain problems are not solved and certain questions are not answered. We realize that when someone disagrees with us it may be because they have different information and experiences than our own. We try to spend more time hearing the views of people who do not share our views.

People who feel they have the important answers cannot respect anyone who disagrees, and therefore will not listen to them. So they never hear opposing views, and their certainty, and their disrespect and intolerance of alternative views, gets stronger every day.

[reason]

realpc...
the problem with the waffly relativism you have expressed here, is that there is no process included for making intellectual process. That has been the great contribution of scientific thinking in the last few centuries, a process based on scepticism and empiricism for sorting which ideas can with reasonable certainty be rejected. To ignore the success of this disciplined approach is to risk stillstand or worse.

[realpc]

No Reason you didn't get my point at all. I am saying that when there is a big controversy that probably means no clear answer has yet been found. Yes, the extremes on both sides are absolutely certain that they have found an answer. The fact that not everyone agrees is explained by deciding your opponents are stupid/ignorant/deluded/crazy.

You would never imagine that a fundamentalist Christian might know something you don't, or that some of their views might be partially correct. You think science has solved problems which it has not solved.

The scientific method is extremely useful but it does not automatically result in answers. And it cannot answer any question it has not asked. And every scientist only knows a tiny percent of all scientific knowledge.

The great success of technology has turned Science into a religion with many believers. But science is a method, a very difficult method, that has not provided us with answers to the ultimate mysteries.

[Patricia Shannon]

Saved!
copyright 1992 Patricia M. Shannon

I have an acquaintance named Sue
who believes all religions are true
because she can't tell
which will send her to hell
if she doesn't sit in its pew!

[reason]

I am saying that when there is a big controversy that probably means no clear answer has yet been found.

You mean like the 30 years war? It could be that both sides are wrong.

The scientific method is extremely useful but it does not automatically result in answers. And it cannot answer any question it has not asked. And every scientist only knows a tiny percent of all scientific knowledge.

I don't dispute any of that. And I don't dispute that some religious fundamentalists may know some things that I don't. But that still doesn't make fuzzy relativism useful when empiricism enables some questions to be actually objectively tested. When people recognise the limits of human perception, and work within those limits, then our communication might start to improve.

[reason]

realpc...
science may not tell us definitively what the answers are, but it sure is good at ruling out lots of ideas.

[swells]

realpc, well it is obvious that science has not provided us with answers to the ultimate mysteries. They wouldn't still be mysteries if it had done so. But, I think you need to realize that the notion that human beings deserve answers to ultimate mysteries is a large, large part of the problem in and of itself. Some of these issues may yield to the scientific process in the short, middle and long term. Some may not. We don't deserve answers to questions for which we are not able to figure out answers. The problems really arise with intellectually lazy people who want answers to precede efforts. This desire for easy answers is what makes religions popular in the first place in my opinion.

Anyone who holds out science as a religion is a fool. It is a method of posing questions and deciding when answers are sufficient to the context in which they are posed. That's all and that's enough for anyone who has a reasonable view of their place in the universe.

[realpc]

I am not talking about fuzzy relativism. I am talking about being able to admit you don't know something.

There are many scientific atheists who believe they know how and why life originated and evolved. They are absolutely certain that it has all been explained except some of the details. And they are absolutely certain that those details will eventually be explained within their atheist/materialist perspective.

And those scientific atheists have convinced most educated Democrats. Most of these Democrats who have been convinced have never thought much about biology or evolution and do not know the history of the evolution controversies. They take the word of experts like Dawkins that Science has answered the ultimate questions.

That is authoritarianism, not science. That is Science as religion.

[reason]

Seriously though Realpc you cannot seriously believe that the presence or absence of controversy says anything about the truth value of any proposition. It was uncontroversial for a long term that the earth was flat.

[Patricia Shannon]

Barkley Rosser
Right on the mark!

[realpc]

"It was uncontroversial for a long term that the earth was flat."

Yes, and then it became controversial as evidence was gathered and experts started thinking about it. Once the evidence had become convincing, more people changed their minds. Now that we have satellite photography you have to be completely demented to take an adversarial position on this question.

Whenever you see millions of people believing something it makes sense to wonder why, and take a look at their reasoning.

The trouble with scientific atheism is that you are absolutely certain that all other beliefs that ever existed or that still exist absolutely must all be false. You justify this by saying the human mind is extremely vulnerable to delusions and hallucinations. Every piece of evidence that does not support scientific atheism is immediately written off as delusion, error, wishful thinking, or hallucination.

Even scientific evidence that questions scientific materialism/atheism is immediately written off as error and wishful thinking.

[Patricia Shannon]

realpc
I don't know whether you would consider me a "scientific atheistic". I don't believe in a God that personally created the earth in 6 days because it seems to me that God would have done a better job in various ways. Eg., humans were created after other animals, but the structure of our eyes makes them more susceptible to certain conditions causing blindness. I don't believe that Christianity makes people better because I saw that in the 1970's, many "Christian" churches in the southeast opened church schools in order to avoid integration. In general, with an occasional exception, my experience is that the more "religious" a person is, the less Christian they are. I think anybody who can derive comfort from the belief that God cares for and protects them, in the knowledge of the horrors that happen to many, are either fools or twisted and warped. If you practice caring for others, as Jesus preached, the pain of others is painful to you.

Because of personal experience, I do believe in a universal consciousness, formed from the consciousness of living beings, that we are all a part of, and not existing apart for the living beings that generate it, but I wouldn't try to force these beliefs on others. I do think that such a philosophy would have positive effects. It has similarities to Buddhism, and I have noticed that Buddhist groups are rarely involved in organized violence, even more rarely to force their beliefs on others.

[realpc]

"I don't believe in a God that personally created the earth in 6 days "

Patricia,

I don't believe that either, and hardly anyone who has given thought to the evolution question believes it. A scientific atheist is not someone who doubts Christian dogma. A scientific atheist is someone who claims that intelligence is created by physical brains, and that intelligence cannot exist apart from a physical brain.

I believe that what we vaguely refer to as "intelligence" is at the foundation of all existence. I think intelligence can be, and is, everywhere and everything. Intelligence results from relationships, from information, not from matter. Matter itself is made of relationships, information.

I think that the level of reality we perceive with our physical senses is only a small part of what actually exists. It seems like all there is to us, because our conscious attention is usually focused on it.

I think that most of what exists is beyond our knowledge and outside our limited attention. Scientific atheists absolutely and completely disagree with me. They think the laws of physics have already been discovered and understood, and they strongly deny that the universe is made of intelligence, or information. They can't say what it is made of, but they are sure the currently understood laws of physics are adequate to explain everything.

[Eric Dewey]

Going back to the original post, there's a statement in the quote from Isaiah Berlin that I think points a way to understanding the problem better:

"There is a world of objective values. By this I mean those ends that men pursue for their own sakes, to which other things are means."

But, is there really a "world of objective values"? If so, what are they? Can those on the right have different objective values than those on the left?

I think the problem is that too many on both sides believe that there is a world of objective values, and that it is composed of their own values, all dressed up with strong arguments based on individual experience, or on a shared understanding held in their circle of experience.

(WARNING: Gross generalizations follow - avert your eyes if necessary to get the larger point!)

Those on from urban areas may tend to take some pride in having a larger, more educated and worldly circle of experience, and believe that because of this their values more accurately reflect the larger world - even though they may realize that their values are less sharply defined because of this.

Those from rural areas may tend to take some pride in holding to more sharply defined values that hew closely to their personal experience or the experience of their immediate circle, and have not been subject to the diffusion that may come from a more vicarious and abstract education.

(END of Gross generalization zone. Please continue reading).

But I'm not really sure that there is a world of objective values - although it would be comforting to believe, I just don't see any evidence that this is the case.

The concept of value presupposes the power of choice, as in free will. I'm not sure that free will exists in a rational, scientific world. Nor am I sure that free will exists in a fundamentalist Christian world...

So what's all the fuss about?

[Patricia Shannon]

realpc

I guess than you would label me a "scientific atheist" because I don't think that thought exists independently of physical structures of some kind which I would label a brain. I don't say I can know it absolutely, but I don't see any reason for me to think otherwise. But I don't care if other people believe otherwise. What I care about is how people behave.

[Patricia Shannon]

realpc says...

I think that the level of reality we perceive with our physical senses is only a small part of what actually exists. It seems like all there is to us, because our conscious attention is usually focused on it.

I think that most of what exists is beyond our knowledge and outside our limited attention.

I agree with you there.

I found out some years ago that the term for my spiritual orientation is "pantheist". It sounds like you might be one, too, but differing in details. Or you might be more panentheistic or pandeistic in nature, I'm not sure from your comments. By the Wikipedia definition, I guess I would be a naturalistic pantheist.

See also http://www.religioustolerance.org/gl_p.htm

[outsider]

outsider says...

God did not create the earth in 6 days, he screwed off for 5 and pulled an all-nighter.

[Patricia Shannon]

outsider says...

God did not create the earth in 6 days, he screwed off for 5 and pulled an all-nighter.

So that explains the results!

[realpc]

"I guess I would be a naturalistic pantheist."

Yes, I am something like that. I don't really have a fixed belief system, just try to be open-minded.

[reason]

realpc
But evidence, evidence, evidence don't believe something just because it sounds sort of cute.

[reason]

realpc
You justify this by saying the human mind is extremely vulnerable to delusions and hallucinations.
Yup - that is why we need independently verifiable evidence. Look you can believe whatever you like, just don't expect me to believe it unless you have independently verifiable evidence. And I don't give two hoots about what name you chose to give me. But don't tell me scientists are following another religion. At the heart of science lies scepticism.