On 25 June 2014 21:07, Kim Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > If you look at a plate and see two apples on it then the testing apparatus > is your eye. Anyone else with properly functioning eyes would see the same > to Apples. > > When people tell you about their experience you are not using their > testing apparatus directly. The person might have experienced an illusion. > The person's memory might be faulty. When some children were asked about > their childhood several falsely accused a parent of abuse. This was not > deliberate but memory had constructed a scenario which never existed. A > person might also be deliberately deceitful. > > The whole purpose of 'scientific truth' is to get rid of most of these > difficulties and to show that the same tests applied by many different > people will produce the same results. What scientists do not always > understand is that this validity of testing does not equally apply to the > interpretation of the results. The interpretation of results is more > individual and relies on individual hypotheses and frameworks which have > not themselves being tested. > > In science, proof is often no more than lack of imagination. We are sure > that B must have been caused by A simply because we cannot imagine any > other cause. So many errors in science have arisen just from this obvious > limitation. >
That isn't how I am told science is supposed to function, but I assume this does happen. But aren't there a lot of checks against this sort of thing going mainstream (peer review, independent replication etc?) > > With 'general experience' we are we accept as true what most people claim > to have experienced. This gets rid of the problem of personal deceit, > personal faulty memory and personal illusion. What it does not get rid of > is 'selective perception'. > > The patterns formed in the brain insure that the brain perceives what it > is most ready to perceive. This gives rise to prejudice, stereotypes, > discrimination etc. If there is an existing prejudice that people from the > land of Palia tend to be thieves then you will particularly notice any > thieving behaviour by Palians. You will not notice that 98% of Palians are > not thieves. You will not notice that thieving among Palians is not higher > than among any other ethnic group. It is for these reasons that newspapers > in many countries are forbidden to give the ethnic origin of arrested > criminals unless this is directly relevant. > I think this is called "Confirmation bias". I see it - but not very often, in fairness - as a woman posting on mostly male-dominated forums. > > Belief based on selective perception is one of the most dangerous forms of > belief because it is genuinely experienced and genuinely believed to be > true. > And I imagine genuinely impossible to avoid, because all perception relies on earlier hypotheses about the world. You can see these forming when children learn to interpret their surroundings. > > 'Truth' based on selective perception is a particular form of 'belief > truth'. Here we set up a framework of beliefs and values. Looking at the > world through that framework reinforces the truth of that framework. Belief > is that way of looking at the world that reinforces that way of looking at > the world. Religious beliefs are of this type. > > Unfortunately, in order to confirm the truth of your beliefs you may need > to show that other belief systems are 'not true'. This has historically > meant war, persecution, pog-roms etc. On this list it means the usual > childish squabbles and snide remarks, none of which assist the search for > the TOE. > > Muslims accept Christians and Jews as 'people of the book'. They consider > that Islam is merely the latest edition of the same book or religion. This > may explain why historically, Muslims were much less inclined to persecute > Christians or Jews in Muslim cities than the other way around. If you are > confident you have much less need to prove yourself right. > > The need to prove yourself right and be seen to be right by others about > something is the first great sin committed by anyone who wishes to learn > how to be an effective thinker. There is a much greater need to be able to > navigate a large terrain of ideas with a correspondingly large range of > possible values. Judgement is always prematurely applied by poor thinkers > and this is the source of much fallout, argy-bargy and is an enormous > impediment to progress. True explorers have no map to refer to in their > quest. Rather, they construct the map. > I agree. This is why I keep trying to understand comp, for example; I don't consider myself in a position to agree or disagree with anything I don't understand. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
