At 12:40 AM 7/17/2011, Joshua Cude wrote:
(Remember the skeptics evolution as a phenomenon is proved:
1. It's not true; 2. It may be true, but not important. 3. It's true
and important, but we have always known it.)
Here's the believers' progression:
1. The experiment proves it's true.
2. OK. Maybe it's not proved, but the experiment gives good evidence for it.
3. The experiment provides no evidence that it's true, but no one
ever said it did. But we still know it's true, because we want it to be.
Step 4 has been left out.
4. We told you so!
Both of these pseudoskeptical (the first position isn't skeptical
it's pseudoskeptical) and believing positions assume, the way I've
now stated it, that the "it" turns out to be true.
True even if the first experiment didn't prove it.
"We want it to be" is a pseudoskeptic's view of "believer"
motivations. The motivations of both groups are complex, but
"believer" and "pseudoskeptic" are mirror images of each other.
Neither position is true skepticism, because the pseudoskeptic is
also a believer in his or her own rightness. You can see that in the
first three pseudoskeptic positions. Each one believes that the PS's
own analysis of the situation is superior to that of others.
Usually, the "it" is not the experimental evidence itself, but some
interpretation of it, heavily colored by belief in what is and is not
possible. This, then, can create a feedback loop, where experimental
evidence is itself rejected because of the belief in impossibility.
The same feedback look can arise with direct belief in some new idea.
Belief defends itself, that's how belief is different from operating
hypothesis or general trust.
