----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 11:16 PM Subject: Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
> You completely missed the point of what I wrote. I'm not saying > anything at all about people who accept occasional correction (BTW > there are several others on this very list who refuse to admit to being > in error, yet I don't see you hammering them over it). All I'm saying, > and I said it very clearly, is that for the most part most of us > behave, most of the time, as though our opinions are actually Absolute > Truth. It is probably true that many people do that. I've been trained to not do that....and I've noticed that people who are skilled in scholarship tend not to that. I'll argue a point hard, but I always assign something like probabilities in my head to various positions that I have. I also note who has shown as deep or deeper understandings in an area than I have and nuance my language to reflect that. Getting a Phd in experimental physics, there are two things one learns that are relevant to this discussion. First, one learns to hone one's intuition. There isn't enough time in the world to plod through the problems, one has to have good opinions. Second, one learns to work with colleauges. Knowing how to work together to arrive at a solution that no one person could obtain is critical. Indeed, the department made sure that the average person was unable to do the homework by themselves to teach them that skill. The combination of this is that we are taught to both form opionions, even though we are not sure, and to develop mechanisms for weighing the certainty of each opinion so that the best consensus opinion may be obtained. Someone who always rates his certainty as 10 on a scale of 1-10 will have their 10s automatically downgraded (unless they are Feynmanesq. :-) ) When I was the scientist in an engineering group, these skills came in handy. I worked with field people who were not as educated as I was, but knew a lot that I didn't. I realized that they were sometimes right and I was wrong...often because they had key data that I didn't. Sometimes, I did state virtual certainty "if that's the problem, then we have a Nobel Prize on our hands" But I saved that for when I was willing to stake _a lot_ on being absolutely right. AFAIK, I never was in a position of being wrong. Other professions are the same way. I've read writings of good people in a number of fields....the same realization that one isn't all knowing is there. I think the more one studies a field deeply, the more one understands one's own ignorance. Clinging to an idea against all comers in counter-productive if one wants to _be_ right. New information or arguements should be able to change one's mind. My opinions have evolved from what I've seen, from reasoning I've read/heard, etc. > I'm not sure I've ever seen you do that. The pleasant acknowledgment > part, that is. Look at a recent conversation where Gautam corrected me on the Civil War. He's far better educated than me in that field, so I immediately started asking questions that showed that I knew > No matter what kind of qualifiers you want to put on an opinion, > ultimately you believe that opinion is true or else you wouldn't hold > it. Ultimately, I believe that the opinion I hold has the best chance of being true, given what I've seen so far. But, since I've seen my opinions be wrong before (engineering physics is very good at providing such opportunities), I don't attach 99.9% probability to my opinion, and .1% to someone elses. > That's it. That's what I'm saying. That's all I said. I don't know > where you got the ancillary baggage. I didn't add it and I did not > imply it. You read it in. > At this point I feel intensely frustrated because you seem unwilling to > accept very simple statements without trying to read other ideas into > them. You seem to be quite adept at that, when you want to be -- very > willing to overlook the clear, simple statements I make and instead > substitute a contorted reformulation that is not only inaccurate, but > that attempts to cast me in an unreasonable light. But, we look around, and see that people have different opinions. We know that some opinions are opposite opinions...so it is hard to imagine that they are both right as stated. One way of handling it is to assume that everyone else is always wrong and I am always right. But, I think that reasoning alone can show us (i.e. one could probabily do it mathamatically) that only the very most intelligent and observant among us could come close to being correct in believing this. So, I see you say that you are convinced that you have Absolute Truth. I use reason to see that is a valid statement that very few (perhaps just one person) could make. Thus, it looked to me as though you don't consider the rest of us at the same level as you consider yourself. Otherwise, it would make sense to think that, on issues that have not been subject to definitive verification, that there is some probability that you might be wrong. That there are some issues that one can agree that reasonable people can differ on. > > Once again you throw around academic credentials as though I'm supposed > to know the resume and CV of every person on this list, and you've even > been careful this time not to name the person whose standing I'm > supposed to have psychically intuited. > We've been through this before. It's not my job to know what the > history is of anyone here. Unless I see things like, "So and so, Ph.D. > in such and such a discipline", I'd like you to explain to me how I'm > supposed to reasonably be expected to know precisely who has what kind > of degree. Ah you were told what field Gautam was in the last time you said this. The Soros fellowship was the origional "Big News for a List Member". I try to avoid absolutes like that unless I know the person doesn't have those type of credentials. I don't like my credability reduced by doing something like lecturing Weinburg on QM. > (But I won't accept argument from authority any more than I would > expect you to accept the same, so credentials alone won't necessarily > mean much to me anyway.) Well, let me digress on arguing from authority. The origional problem with arguing from authority was clear in places like sci.physics where crackpots would quote Einstein out of context to support some wacko idea. It is not saying that the consensus opinion of people who study a field is not relevant to a situation. All opinions are not created equal. For example, the statement that "human emmissions are now and will cause significant changes in the earth's temperature" is not a fact. It is a consensus opinion. It is not a proven theory. There are still too many unknowns. Yet, I weigh this consensus opinion much heavier than arguements that it is nonsense. One thing that I think lay people > Get bent. How's that for chutzpah? How's that for an unambiguous ad > hominem? Even when you're trying to be insulting you pussyfoot your way > around it. I"m not trying to insult....in fact I searched for a word that was as uninsulting as possible to make my point, deliberately. I'm trying to make factual statements without being insulting. > And by suggesting that you somehow have a magical formula that permits > even-handed, clear communications, you're at least as guilty of > intellectual arrogance as those at whom you point fingers. It's not magical. I've been taught it; I've observed it in a number of other fields; it is a common technique. It is not that I somehow learned something no-one else has seen. I simply decided to learn from people who were obviously more skilled and knowledeable than I was. Most of the people who's ability I respected worked this way...it's that simple. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
