I think you managed to communicate about what consciousness means, in a very broad way. And then there are all sorts of discussions, yes, at an abstract level, dealing with qualia, even specific qualia.

They don’t have the slightest idea of what they are talking about. From a scientific point of view, there is nothing to explain, everything is already explained the moment you say that consciousness is a product of the brain. All the rest is scientific details that have nothing to do with philosophy. It is like explaining how it is possible that our body moves — Angelo Cannata

But we know how muscles contract and extend. We can explain the movement of bodies. We don't know why we experience things. Saying that it comes from brains, but isn't associated with anything else implies we know what leads to consciousness and so we can rule out that, for example, plants experience. But we can't, because we don't know what leads to consciousness. We know one place where it is, but until we know why it is there, we can't rule out other places.

But you can distrust something that exists and that's what Moses was talking about in relation to Massah. Stop distrusting your God who has already done so much. He was not saying 'Don't test for the existence of God.

prayer
— Bylaw

True, Wikipedia has a page on research i.e. experiments done on (the effectiveness of) prayer. So some religious claims can be tested.
— Agent Smith
And people feel the presence of God and so on. My point with the list is that there are many empirical aspects to religious beliefs, even Abrahamic ones with transcendance in the list of qualities of God. Perhaps not all empirical facets could be tested for, but they are empirical (claims) nonentheless. So, yes the efffectiveness of prayer can be tested. And I suppose all the ghost testing machines could be dragged out to test people in prayer. They could compare their readings for those who felt Mary, Allah, Jesus, God present with those who did not feel that or a non-theist control group thinking about peanut butter.

faith
— Bylaw

Which is to say Jesus couldn't/no one can prove God's existence. — Agent Smith

faith as in trust in. I am not denying epistemological issues, just that the massah quote is about having trust in God, not belief in God's existence.

prayer
— Bylaw

True, Wikipedia has a page on research i.e. experiments done on (the effectiveness of) prayer. So some religious claims can be tested. — Agent Smith

And people feel the presence of God and so on. Not all empirical things can necessarily be tested (now). IOW people don't just believe in a transcendant deity, even the Abrahamists. Most of them talk about experiencing things

God falls under metaphysics, even a novice is aware of this simple fact.

Do not put the LORD your God to the test as you did at Massah.
— Deuteronomy 6:16 — Agent Smith

Wellllll. I think the idea of that test was more about faith in the relationship with God, not in God's existence. They had seen miracles but were now grumbling at Massah. The issue was more, can you trust God, given what God has already done for you. Or do you think he will abandon you?

Test, another name for experiment. To put it simply God is not amenable to scientific inquiry, experimentation's not allowed/prohibited. God isn't an empirical claim. — Agent Smith

Some theists would say that. Others wouldn't. Many if observed over time would make empirical claims about God, prayer, angels, the presence of Jesus and more and that's just within Christianity. At other times they might well agree with you and then go back on implicit positions already taken.

(which is common to people secular and religious, actually. Follow the way a person over a week talks about themselves and all the implications about free will, identity, what parts of the self are me and what are not me and you will find all sorts of implicit positions, many of which don't fit well together. )

I don't think problem of evil challenges work as proofs, for a variety of reasons, or tests. Nor to the counterparts on the theist side.

I see them more as good things for theists to mull. I mean, if you are not disturbed by the problem of evil, you must have done some disturbing mental gymnastics.

(as an aside there is no reason for a theist to accept all the omni adjectives, that's the invention of medieval theologians, taking certain expressive passages in the Bible as literal and more or less mathematical - implying infinite and no impeded by logic or the self ((of God)))

Let's go back to the original dichotomy.

Our faculty of reason.
Reasons to do things — Bartricks

I took this as reasoning, as in reaching conclusions via logic and probably verbal thought. The second seemed to be 'the why we do things.'

But now it seems like the second is really about morals.

Should I do something, should I not.

But a reason-to-do something is not a motivation, for we can have reason to do that which we are not motivated to do and we can have a motivation to do that which we have no reason to do. — Bartricks

We are not motivated enough to do it perhaps. But if we have reasoned that we should do X, but don't do X other motivations are stronger. I mean, if we believe we should do X (either version of should, the moral or the practical) then we have some motivation to do it.

Yes, we can have a reason. IOW it is obvious to others, but we don't seem to notice. But if I have (reached the conclusion that I have) a reason to do something but don't do it, I still have motivation but other things are getting in way, other motivations, laziness, fear,...)

But let me take a break. I literally have a conceptual dyslexia. I suspect that I still have issues with what you are saying here, but it could also be my cognitive, hm, oddity so I don't want to waste out time. I'll read your responses to others.

I took the OP as in part a defense of intuition. That we cannot reason our way to all rational conclusions. There was more I thought was in there of course, but I am reevaluating.

Do you think fish would invent and make bicycles if they could? Like, most of them would get one?

Our motivations are often the basis upon which we have a reason to do something, but the reason to do something and the motivation are distinct. For example, if I am motivated to torture John, that is not equivalent to me having reason to torture John. What we are motivated to do we can sometimes have no reason to do, and thus the two are not the same. — Bartricks

Can you give me a couple of other examples. If someone is motivated to torture John, it seems to me he has a reason. It may not be what most people call a good reason (when looked at in total) but there would be a reason. He is mad at John and wants John to feel bad. OK, perhaps you grant that but point to the psychopath. He just does it for the hell of it. But then the psychopath gets pleasure from torturing John. John is a human and the psychopath gets pleasure out of torturing humans. That is a reason. We just don't like that reason.

Or maybe I am missing something still, so pardon my slowness. And I almost grasp the OP, at least at times I think so, but then other times, not.

In essence, how do we/should we deal with doubt and uncertainty, and possibility? — Agent Smith

It was a very complicated post and an interesting one. I hope I don't go to far off on tangents. Some thoughts:
The first scenario: gun out or not is a (potentially) emergency moment. It's different from a long term belief because it is a whole different set of skills to always have one's gun out or in. I guess I have similar reaction to scenario 2. What we can do in exceptional moments (or should do) is quite different to long term attitudes and beliefs.
On Pascal's Wager: Pascal actually intended his Wager as one to convince people to continue being Christians, not to become believers. How that affects the ideas in your post I am not sure. But it makes a lot more sense, because I don't think we start to believe from doing cost benefit analyses. Unless it leads to us participating in a religion, say, and participation (long term wagging the dog) leads to belief.

In discussions between (atheists, agnostics and theists), online at least, it often comes down to epistemology and arguments. Whereas in my everyday life it comes down to interest/curiousity/anomolies and long term exploration/participation. The motivational and experiential aspects of what is or might be going on and how these are affected by practices. Could be anything from Buddhist meditation to training as a shaman or joining in rituals
or
lacking interest and not.
Of course what one thinks is likely or possible affects interests, so it's not like there is no reasoning involved or that reasoning does not affect my curiosity/interest. But generally we are talking about long term explorations motivated by experiences or yearnings and the effects of these explorations on experience and belief.

I apologize if this was not really on topic.

If a purely evolutionary story of our development is true, then there are no actual reasons to do anything.

That means that any faculty of reason we have developed is not capable of detecting any actual reasons - for there are none - and will instead be a faculty that generates the hallucination of reasons. — Bartricks

When you say reasons, do you mean motivations? (here that is).

Our faculty of reason.

Reasons to do things — Bartricks

OK, right. I don't think I conflate them.

From there in your post to me I am not sure what you are getting at. Could you use motivation or another word of your choice for reasons to do things. That might help me sort out the point you are making here.

If you think that reasoning cannot do everything that is claimed or needs another cognitive process to be complete, of course you can use reason (without contradicting yourself). Further if someone criticizes reason, using reason, those believing that whatever the criticism is is not well argued, THEY still, given their beliefs, need to find the flaws in that criticism if they want to claim the criticism is false. Unless it is merely their intuition that senses it is false.

I am not sure why mentioning intuition means one can never use reasoning. I believe the OP is arguing that at a foundational level one is dependent on intuition. Not that one should never reason or that all reasoning is necessarily false. But hopefully bartricks will join in.

If we go back to the OP, he is arguing that it is not reasons, it is intuition that leads us to conclude things. The underming of that argument is ok, for him, because he is saying he does not depend on reasoning for certain (important) beliefs. But, I'm calling him in, just to see if I am getting it.

And I think I agree with him.

I think there is a problem with the claim that our positions were arrived at only via reason. (I don't mean in the sense that that would be bragging, that we are fallible, but rather that they can't be reached by reason (alone).

A common reaction to this is to argue that intuition is fallible or that this is anti-science or all beliefs would then be the same. But that's arguing consequences. I also think the last two are not entailed. Based on intuition and experience, I don't believe them.

Hence, the statement "p is an unknown truth" cannot be both known and true at the same time. Therefore, if all truths are knowable, the set of "all truths" must not include any of the form "something is an unknown truth"; thus there must be no unknown truths, and thus all truths must be known. — Fitch's paradox of knowability

There's a jump to 'there are no unknown truths'. You've gone from a specific situation where a certain unknowln proposition is (somehow) known to be true. That is the problematic situation. The specific case. The generalization that there are no unknown truths is not supported by the problems of assertiing Assertion X, which we do not know since it is unknown is true. In the general case no one is claiming to know that any specific unknown truth is true. What we do is go by the experience that we find out new true things and there are likely more, but we, by definition, do not know what these are and can make no claims about any specific unknown truth.

Well, I seem to be on the inside, part this whole thing, and in motion with desires and goals.

I think this presumes too much that we don't automatically make meaning. Like we are outside looking in, finding not meaning, rather than creatures with preferences, desires,.goals making meaning around these. I don't think or experience the options to be distraction or facing the meaninglessness.

Solipsism implies a vastly more powerful brain than what you believe you have, as 99.9999999999.... % of it is unconscious: the part that remembers everything, so that everything is consistent, every time you check it, the part that simulates every physical phenomenon to perfect exactitude, the part that knows the entirety of every science and art, etc. etc. etc. — hypericin

Or it just seems consistant. There's a built in, this is correctly connected to the past quale. That shouldn't require something more powerful than our unconscious, just something different. Also the OR is about how many entities are posited.

I've read other studies that have found a correlation between when a group was first exposed to alcohol and the rate of alcoholism in the group. Apparently evolution eventually reduces alcoholism.

Jews have been drinking wine for thousands of years, native Americans much shorter, for example, with the latter group devastated by alcoholism. — Hanover

I do think that's possible, though it might not be evolution but cultural development. IOW once the culture catches on that they have a serious problem they develop social pressures and other measures (even religious prohibilitions and limits) to deal with the problem. Folk psychological solutions also.

But with the Native Americans you also had cultures/tribes ravaged by diseases from Europe, to a degree that would have interfered with all aspects of life and probably took out elders more than other age groups with all the damage that did. So, we have devastated communities, children lacking parenting to various degrees, skill loss, wisdom loss. Then add in that many had the lands which were integral to their identities taken away and then more direct devastation connected to wars and battles with the newcomers, then finally their exclusion/inclusion in a society that looks down on them and also tried to tear them away from their languages and culture.

People are much more likely to turn to drugs and turn to them in damaging ways when they are traumatized, unparented or less well parented, marginalized and so on.

It would be interesting to see if other cultures that came late to alcohol might also have undergone similar processes leaving the explanation less clear.

It's a very interesting question. I agree that they can (but it doesn't mean they will) produce insight, but it's not the type of insight that can be expressed rationally. — Manuel

I think the insights can often be expressed rationally. On weed you can realize that someone makes you uncomfortable because they seem judgmental. As an example. You realize that you have felt this way for a while, but it is harder to ignore, so it becomes conscious. Not breathtaking. Perhaps therapy might do this, or an open talk with a different friend. But sure insights from the small to the large can come via drugs. And of course other ways. Dosage and drub type and one's own sensitivity and period in one's life all having effects.

The insights need not be other dimensions, shamanic journeys, the end of subject object split or things that are even harder to categorize let a lone describe.

Well, yes, I took B

instead, they are methodological criteria (not merely "worldviews") for excluding "immaterial" data and "nonphysical" concepts, respectively, fromthe construction of explanatory models of nature (i.e. phenomena

).
especially the part i bolded above has mainly referring to science. And to me methods if they are effective, then they are being used. I don't know how we judge the effectiveness of philosophers ruling out the non-material. I also had a few things to say not just about practice but also cogency, and even meaningfulness.

(A) Neither proposal is an attempt to solve scientific problems; (B) instead, they are methodological criteria (not merely "worldviews") for excluding "immaterial" data and "nonphysical" concepts, respectively, from the construction of explanatory models of nature (i.e. phenomena). As such, IMO, materialism and physicalism have been prodigiously effective criteria for centuries despite their respective limitations. — 180 Proof

I couldn't follow this, my limitations probably. Neither proposal: is this enformationism and materialism or materialism and physicalism. (I probably should have just mentioned one of the two latter ones since they tend to be used interchangeably but not by everyone, just covering bases. We can go with just physicalism from now on, if that's ok).

I am not sure what immaterial or 'immaterial' data would be.

Moving from there, though, it seems to me that people don't exclude non-physical things when making models. I don't see that as part of the process, for a couple of reasons. 1) whatever the results of the research is, the objects and processes are considered physical. There's no moment when they go through research results see something X, consider it non-physical, and exclude it. They are building models off of research and every noun will be considered physical in advance and not labelled such. 2) Because anything considered real is considered physical, regardless of its qualities. Those things now considered physical have different qualities or lack qualities once consider part of being physical. We have fields, massless particles, 'things' in superposition. The concept of the physical is expanding and anything scientists find, they will consider real. I can't see a way to falsify what you consider a methodological criterion or physicalism itself.

Then this last part about their being effective criteria. I don't think this is the case. Scientists do their research and what they find is considered real. I don't see a useful step where someone would decide in advance that something is immaterial so they won't investigate it. They may do this sometimes, but it would mean that whatever this phenomenon they won't study is, gets its substance determined most likely by non-scientists. Oh, they say it is non-physical, so I will rule that out and not study it because it fails on the criteria. What if it is real, but physical in a way that we do not understand yet. What we can measure and observe changes yearly. Why give the ontological determination power to an outsider. Now this certainly happens. People do this, but generally I think they choose not to investigate because they do not think the phenomenon is real. Not, oh, ghosts are immaterial, so there is no need to investigate. That's not a good reason to not investigate. Because of course why should laypeople get to have the power to determine ontology. If there did seem to be some evidence something is going on that is not an already accepted phenomenon, then it would be problematic to argue that there is no need to investigate, it's non-material. If it's real, it doesn't matter what it's substance is. The people who have experienced or 'experienced' the phenomenon should not get to make the determination. It might be physical, whatever this means, in ways we have not yet experienced or subtly in ways we have.

I understand why other criteria tend to keep most scientists away from researching some things, but I think that would be a poor reason.

Let me give a kind of example. Native africans thought that elephants communicated over long distances. This was not believed by Westerners until a Western scientist thought this was the case. The idea did not fit known science and perhaps technology, so it was considered magical thinking or that some kind of ESP was being proposed.

If the scientist in question had decided on ontological grounds to not investigate, this would not, ultimately, be a rational choice. An understandible one, but not a good one.

Using models of course does create a base from which to look at what could be investigated next. Current models are used this way. The current models of early periods have been used this way. But there really is no reason to use the criterion physical at any step in the process. If the models are considered good maps of the real, due to research data and ongoing effectiveness of those model predictively, etc, there is no reason to take a stand on the substance, especially if that substance is an expanding set of possible qualities.

So, I suppose I have two points. I actually don't think physicalism is used as a methodological criterion when choosing research topics or in interpreting data or any other stage. Then also that I don't think it should be. And if it is, if that is the criterion that is used to rule out data, a research topic or results, then it may very well slow things down, be part of the problem/resistance during changes in paradigm, for example.

That people who were born blind and recognise an object's shape by touch are not, after becoming able to see, immediately able to recognise an object's shape by sight. This shows that the feel of a sphere isn't like the look of a sphere. — Michael

They are obviously different, they are different senses. So, they experience this thing called shape differently. And one sense has never been used. Sensing are learned skills, just because feeling the shapes doesn't translate into what another completely difference sense experience doesn't mean either one is just a quale.

And I notice you only responded to one part of what I wrote.

Do you acknowledge that there is a difference between colors and shapes in modern science? That the former is not seen to actually be a quality of the object, but the latter in science is seen as a quality of the object? That shape can be confirmed in a variety of ways including by fairly simple machines that presumably to not experience qualia, but can nevertheless move around obstacle courses using measurements of shape?

Can you explain how we can run through a field and no fall down despite the incredibly complicated surface say a cattle field presents?

This strongly indicates that it is not merely qualia involved? That there are aspects of the experience that are qualia, fine. But that it is mere qualia, as in the example of colors, seems off the table to me.

Because red is only a quale. The object is not red. But come at an object with sensors, cast it in brass,shoot particles at it, feel it, and the shape or volume will be confirmed. There literally is not color on the surface of an object that we are seeing. I am not sure what Molyneux's problem says about the external to the perceiver existence of shape. They've been blind and have not learned to see shapes, and then they learn. Sensing is a learned skill, to some or great degree. If I run through a field the colors have nothing to do with what the ding an sich have on their surfaces, but my vision does allow me to make out shapes that, as far as we can tell, actually exist out there. That is significant difference between seeing color and seeing (or feeling) shape and volume. We seem to be incredibly effective at this. Using machine testing, no red is found on the surface of the object, but it will show shape. Now of course this is not a proof against a simulation universe, brain a vat scenarios or various forms of the observer is necessary for even large objects to manifest out of superposition or become real and other sorts of questioning the existence of an external world. But regardless using color will seem very telling in ways that other qualities will not.

A. In science, what specifiable problem does "Enformationism" solve falsifiably?

B. In philosophy, what non-trivial, coherent question does "Enformationism" raise without begging any (or translate into a more probative question or questions)? — 180 Proof

These are good challenges to enformationism. Does 'materialism' pass A & B? or physicalism?

False dilemma. False dichotomy. Fallacy of the Excluded Middle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

And if a red colour is a quality of mental phenomena, not a property of external world objects, and if the apples we see have a red colour, then the apples we see are mental phenomena, not external world objects. — Michael

Which is why it is better to use things like shape and volume for example. Here it's harder to dismiss the experienced as mere qualia. And, then, me and my dog can run through a field filled with holes and nettles and I notice despites our different nervous systems, we choose similar paths and rarely fall down (nor do I get pinced).Color seems to be the go to argument in these kinds of discussion, but that's out balance. And, yes, I realize I have not demonstrated direct sensing. And then on the other side if there was a stone in the middle of our brain, whatever sensing we used would not suddenly be direct. We still be interpreting, or? There'd still be a process with intermediary steps.

What does direct mean?

They may not be distinguished in sloppy common usage, but isn't that the point of sharpening usage: to clarify the underlying logic? — Janus

Of course one can suggest a specific usage for a term that people can then agree to use. That's fine, but your posts read as if the people who disagreed with you are wrong. They didn't understand what the word meant. Those two discussions have quite different tones. Here the common usage tends much more against your sense of how the word should be used, and people were likely responding from that knowledge. I would guess they would react differently if you presented it as a proposal for a unified definition and the one you want. I certainly would have.

I haven't said otherwise. — Janus

To me the following does not fit with my description of what certain means...

You can't be certain that God exists, because being certain is knowing and the things we can be said to know are things that are inter-subjectively corroborable.

Do you think we can be said to know anything we cannot be certain of? Do you think we can be said to believe anything we do not feel certain of? — Janus

I am taking these questions as expecting the answer should be 'no'.

I don't think feeling certain or being certain are distinguished in the use of certain. He was certain he was right but he was mistaken. He felt certain he was right, but he was mistaken. Both those sentences read a plausible assessments to me.

And I went into issues like this in my previous post. So, I don't think we agree. But, if I am wrong about the difference in our positions, well, just ignore my post. If I am right about the difference, well I guess I shouldn't have to repeat myself either.

You can't be certain that God exists, because being certain is knowing and the things we can be said to know are things that are inter-subjectively corroborable. — Janus

I disagree, though this is semantics and use does vary.
Certain has to do with a mental attitude, not the truth value of one's belief.
When someone asserts that they are certain, they think they know. They have no doubt. They are sure they are correct. Just as if they are uncertain, they lack the completely confidence in their belief.
They might in fact be correct and would answer correctly on a test when uncertain.
It's a partly emotional attitude.

If someone says they are certain God exists,regardless of whether God exists this can be a true assertion. They are certain of it. Their belief about the existence of God may well be wrong, but that they are certain is not. Just as being uncertain is not about the truth value of the belief. I was so sure I was right. I was so certain he was wrong.

And we also talk about degrees of certainty.
We use those degrees of certainty to describe our confidence in what we are asserting. Our attitude toward the probablity that our belief is correct.

Also we say when finding out something we believed (with great certainty) was incorrect...
I was so certain that X was true.

We don't say Oh, it turns out I wasn't certain, I just believed.

No, we were certain and were wrong.

Often you will see certainty described the feeling of being completely sure about something

Convinced and sure will come up as the first synonyms. And we can be convinced by others, for example, that X is true when it is not. We are talking about an attitude about our confidence level, our degree of certainty. Unsure tells us that this is an attitude related to our confidence we are right. You can be unsure and be right and sure you are right or just sure and be wrong.

Of course language is floppy. Some definitions will define certain using the verb 'know'. But these are not philosophical works. And in common parlance 'know' is often used as an intensifier. You think she's a lesbian. No, I KNOW.
But generally I would say the word leans towards the description of an emotional attitude about what we belief. How certain we are. And look at that sentence. How certain.

I can't see any way to tell someone that they are incorrect if they use certain to be a kind of attitude. I can see arguments mounted that it can ALSO mean one is confident about a belief AND correct.

Yeah sure but how do you prevent yourself from using it terribly? — Skalidris

Some people can, others can't. How does one learn how to weed out pathological boy/girlfriends? Some people can't so no one should bother? You can reflect over what attracted you to the person? You can listen to other people's nightmares, you could ask certain questions earlier in the relationship. Here I am using an analogy where intuition and wisdom are involved. Can one rule out one will not end up getting close to another crazy person? Well, probably not completely. But can one improve? Sure. There are all sorts of things we learn to do better that some people cannot or will not try to learn to do better.

And remember: you are talking about an individual on their own analyzing their own personal cognitive biases. The concept of cognitive bias exists and is well supported by research even if people can't use it as a tool on themselves alone.

And actually you can test to see if people's biases change and reduce and what can lead to this.

Then there's using other people to check on you biases: people you respect, perhaps best with a variety of political/social/philosophical opinions. They can point out when you read an article and manage not to notice the part that goes against your ideas. They can point out when you point out only those life experiences you've had which support or seem to your opinion of women, Republicans, the safety of vaccines, your sense of cosmology, your sense of what a responsible worker does and so on. They can point out when you contradict yourself. And this kind of dialogue (which hopefully is mutual) can and does reduce people's biases.

You want foolproof, then you need to not deal with a complicated lifeform like humans. It's easy to adjust the straightness of a bicycle tire.

Another example is learning how to learn. Over my lifetime I have learned how to improve my learning. Even if I am suddenly in the position of having to learn a new kind of subject. One little one is to reflect on what I have learned and how I went about it during a single lesson/study time/whatever.

Does this make me an immaculate learner? No. Does my reflection catch all my assumptions? No. Can my biases regarding my own work affect my self-reflection? Sure.

HOWEVER.....

My learning has gotten better and after I introduced reflective practices the difference was significant and noticed by others.

One can get into one's head and imagine that yes, it is possible that some process of change will have no effect because it is hard to track, is complicated, and I am involved so I may be confused about myself. And one can then say it is impossible to learn or learn with tool X. Welcome to the human condition. But actually these things have been measured in labs and while the individual is in their everyday fog, tools like working against one's own cognitive biases and using reflection in learning have be documented to make changes.

If you want perfect and 100% certainty then apply to be something simpler like a toaster.

But people are learning around you and using tools you are rejecting because there is some possibility it isn't working and you might just be fooling yourself if you think it is. And we might be brains in vats. And perhaps your job situation will never improve. And perhaps you will never meet someone you really get along with, just think you have for a while so no need to look who you are drawn to and how your dreamy romantic nature might be distorting the way you relate to romantic partners and so on. Since it is hard to know for sure, then there is no point in trying to improve.

Parents can't get better via reflecting on their parenting of their first child and talking to other parents because they may just think they got better.

Oh, and of course it is falsifiable. You can easily test to see if someone's poltical position affects what they notice in articles. If it doesn't then there is no cognitive bias in those situations. And hundreds of different hypotheses around what certain beliefs, roles, statuses and more will lead to in relation to cognitive bias have all been wel documented and could have been falsified.

You are not a psychological research center. And yeah, it's hard for us to reseach the way they can. That's our situation. I will bet you try to learn and change things in other areas of you life where the results may be misinterpreted by you, but you still go ahead and try to change through being mentored, through sharing with friends, through reading and reflecting, through engaging in dialogues with people you disagree with, through confessing stuff, through trying new things.

How can we ever be sure that the decision we’re making isn’t biased? Biases are unconscious…
I see a lot of people using cognitive bias as some kind of superiority: “I know about cognitive bias and I try to avoid it, and you don’t, so I’m closer to the truth than you are”… And this is exactly the kind of behaviour that kills critical thinking… Or people who use it to take down someone’s defense: “you’re saying that because you’re biased, therefore it doesn’t have any value”… — Skalidris

Right, this is a fairly useless use of the concept. Hurling or implying superiority is unlikly to improve the conversation. On the other hand, I do think many people do develop ways to check their cognitive biases, to varying degrees of success. A lot of psychological concepts, I think, do describe real phenomena. Projection, passive-aggressiveness, narcissism, or even something like the fancy ass sounding Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory can easily be abused.
They tend to be much better at understanding patterns than resolving disputes via labeling of others You can use ideas like these to improve self-knowledge, understanding of dynamics, perhaps even to make positive changes in yourself or extricate yourself from toxic patterns with others. None of it that is diminished by the misuses people put these ideas to..
The thread is titled
Cognitive bias: tool for critical thinking or ego trap?
But it's not an either or situation as with many concepts from many fields. It is a useful concept, I think, AND people can use it terribly.
Like axes, guns or referendums.

Nah, it's not. I think we evolved with side effects. We have desires, we are curious. I enjoy these things. If you don't, consider that we might be different.
Now you are reduced to telling me what I really feel. And you only responded to a little of my post. You assumption is that any need must come from boredom. But there is no foundation for that. We have our natures. You seem to see us as passive, so resting in boredom, suffering it, so choosing to distract ourselves. That is not what I experience. If free, I was never bored as a child. I was always curious, always learning, always exploring. The ones who are bored as a base I would guess are damaged, though their may have inborn tempermental traits. I don't know. Desires and curiosity do not need to be reactive to suffering. And aren't at base. They are an outward expression of life. Rather than reactions to some negative state. You're positing the negative state as primal. I am bored so I develop desires. I don't think that model fits children at all.

A pretty face, a noble pursuit, a puzzle, an ounce of pleasure.. we all try to submerge in these entertainments to not face the existential boredom straight on. — schopenhauer1

I don't think this is true, though I would guess it would be hard for either of us to demonstrate our position. I find professional and private interest activities to be fascinating. I don't wake up and find boredom waiting for me and decide to distract myself. I find myself with this great desire to create - I have a few forms of creative activities. At work these are more limited, but they do occur, in my free time I focus on them whenever I can. I also have social desires and so far my interest in people (in general) does not bore me. Some people do, but not people in general. You may argue that I must have so effectively sublimated my fear of boredom that I don't notice the fear is driving my interests and desires. I think I know myself much better than that, though, sure, some people don't. And there are animals who can get bored - the unwalked dog - but once they have something like the kind of life they were made for, they generally do not get bored - oh, the smells, and hey that's a new dog over there - and animals in the wild do have surplus time, heck they even play and explore. Once the old noggin gets big it's curiousity has more potential objects. We like to accomplish things, improve, relate to others. I'd have to live an incredibly long time to get bored as long as I have access to some people I like and find interesting and some media to create for myself and others. There's a life force, I think, and it wants to live and finds things interesting. Curiousity may have killed the cat, but it keeps them from boredom. And we're primates so our curiousity is much more potentially complicated and also social in ways that oxycontin deprived felines will never understand.

Sure, I have some doubt. It's a low amount of doubt. I have other beliefs with higher amounts of doubt. For example, I believe that individual scientists are very affected by paradigmatic biases. IOW they rule out things given current scientific models that may well be true or are good lines of research. My 'very affected' is a vague phrase, but I know that my version of 'very affected' is on the extreme end of judgments related to this. IOW other people believe it is less than I do. I am pretty confident, from my experiences with scientists, but it's not a scientific sample and my experiences were not methodical. So, I know that my biases can be affecting that. I am less confident about the level of my judgment than I am about what you asked me about, how confident I was about that. Despite the differing levels of certainty, I consider both beliefs of mine. Lower on the scale of belief...hm. I believe that the current prioritizing of trans issues is consciously being used by some people. IOW I believe some people with significant power are putting a high priority on this issue, in the media, in legislatures, and other places NOT because they support trans rights (as I do) but because they want to divide people and know this issue will divide people. I believe many people prioritize the issue because of genuine values. So, it is not that I think it is only people using the issue. But I do believe that this issue is so high up in appearances in media has to do with a conscious and not good goal. I do believe this. But I am also aware that there are trends in memes and issues and that while I think the prioritization is out of balance I cannot be sure it is caused consciously for negative reasons. Here my confidence in my belief is lower than it is on the other issues. I also have beliefs about people I know, their personalities, goals, abilities, thoughts about me, trustworthiness and so on. These beliefs cover a wide range of certainties. If I call these beliefs, then they have an effect on how I treat these people. (I am sure there are unconscious reactions to these people also that affect my behavior). I talk to my wife, for example, and thus verbalize my beliefs, sometimes openly qualifying my conclusions, sometimes not. These beliefs might, for example, lead to me restricting how open I am. I might err on the side of caution and not be open when my confidence in my mistrust say is fairly low. But still there is a wide range of levels of belief here that go so far as to affect what I say to my wife and also how I behave in the world. But then, these beliefs are not the kind I am going to assert and argue about in a philosophy forum. Sure, I can put out beliefs I have less confidence in this forum, but often I will present ideas and reactions here that I am more certain of. I'm less likely to assert things here that are lower down on the scale, but which I believe.

You picked that one part to respond to?
Of course you can pick without doubting or believing. I have never asserted that you can't. I might do that on a roulette wheel.

But a scientist is not going to choose that way. They are going to believe that this line of research is more likely than that one. They go to casinos and let the roulette wheel decide. If you ask them, most will say that they are not certain that line of research X is better than the one they did not choose, but they believe it will be.

Doubting would hardly be a motivation to act as if something was true. Believing but having doubts could still be enough motivation to act like it was true. Not doubting, not believing X is true, having, it would seem, no opinion at all, would make it sort of like the mood of tossing stones for the feel of throwing.

I can't see a positive reason to make belief mean certainty. And it doesn't reflect usage. People can be certain about their beliefs, but that is a subset.

What seems most plausible, or likely to be fruitful, could be chosen, without any commitment to believing it is true; and that choice would not be "random", as I see it. — Janus

If you believe it is most likely, you have a belief. If you believe it is or stands a good chance of being most fruitful, you have a belief. You are deciding that these lines are more promisting than those lines of research because you have beliefs. The determination plausibility is a determination bases on belief. Plausible meaning (of an argument or statement) seeming reasonable or probable.

Which is why sentences like I believed it would be a fruitful line of research and it was. (or but it turned out not to be) make sense.

If I choose what I think is a plausible argument or conclusion it does not mean I doubt it. You have contrasted belief and doubt. That makes no sense to me.

Scientists, and the rest of us, have all sorts of beliefs that are about probabilities. Person A: I believe that gun control is better for the nation, but I am not 100% sure because American society is not exactly the same as other societies. I believe even more strongly X, but yes, if cornered I will admit I am not sure.

In fact it makes sense to say, I believe X, but I am starting to have some doubts. I read an interesting article against X, so I have to mull. But, I would still say I believe. Or 'I believe X is the case, but I am less sure than I was before I....'

Scientists don't have to believe anything in order to practice science; they simply have to entertain provisional hypotheses and presuppositions. — Janus

Actually they do have to believe things. Or they would have little basis to focus their studies. Those not believing would be picking approaches, subjects and hypotheses at random, which would put them at a disadvantage in relation to anyone with a more practical approach. But the truth is they do believe things. That's the reality, if one uses the word in the ways it has been used

I believe this may be the objective the OP had in mind. Personally I can't see the sense in defining away a word. If we confine beliefs to those matters about which we are absolutely certain (not even 99.9999999999999%), then no one has any beliefs and we have a spare word. — Isaac

Especially since belief is contrasted with knowledge already, whether one consider's knowledge to be beliefs arrived at rigorously (something along the lines of JTB) or a different category.

I just recommend a more nuanced way of speaking about what we are doing when our conviction is not 100%. For example if I say I believe God exists, I would mean that I have no doubt God exists. Or if I believe the butler did it then I would be 100% convinced that the butler did it — Janus


Why 100? If you want to reserve a special word for when one considers the probability 100%, why not another for 99%? One for 51%, one for 32%... What is it about 100% that warrants it's own word? I can't see the advantage of what you're advocating. — Isaac

I believe, Isaac, I am on your side of this one. I don't see that believing something to be true entails 100% certainty. Further i don't see how one could even ransack oneself, let alone others, to determine, then, if one met that criterion. It would mean, in my case, that I have no political beliefs at all. I would suddenly lack all sorts of beliefs about my family and friends and certainly people I know less well. Jimmy is kind. Hm, well, I don't know what he is like when he is abroad. Scientists, given their epistemology and methodology, would have to refrain from believing pretty much everything. From saying they believe X. Since they would have to admit that perhaps what seems obvious today may be revised by further research. It's not like a light switch, even one with a third position (half lit). If we say we believe something it means that is our position on something with varying degrees of certainty. But it is the position we take, the conclusion we have drawn, some with greater certainty that others. Sure, some people are damn certain about nearly all their beliefs or at least they think they should feel that way and present themselves that way. I don't see them as the role model for a definition of belief.

OK, I think I have a better idea where you are coming from. Yes, these ideas get used in terrible and politicized and/or financially motivated ways. I have beliefs that do not match mainstream media biases. And a lot of sloppy thinking unaware uses of concepts like cognitive bias exist. Sure.
And they manage to use these in part because of cognitive bias and people's unwillingness to notice their team's cognitive bias, media bias, contradictions, counterevidence, control of media and more.

But cognitive bias exists and this can be demonstrated in research that is not being used for these kinds of purposes. Many true ideas can be misused. Many neutral things can do evil in the wrong hands. The people who hurl that around aimed at certain groups are not citing research, they are aiming a psychological concept at people the disagree with. This used to happen with psychological ideas like 'projection' 'delusion' 'paranoia' and so on. Those are real phenomena, but once laypeople or professionals acting as laypeople start hurling them around it has little to do with the research and further is just intuitively being applied. (and of course research can and is more and more biased, given the concentration of money controlling research in fewer and fewer companies, but that's another story)

Much of what you say, for example around negative emotions, seems like an explanation for why we have cognitive biases.

We withdraw from people who alarm, disturb or confuse us with ideas that don’t make sense to us, and that as a consequence we may feel are harmful or immoral. — Joshs

And fail to read, take seriously, notice counterevidence, anomalies, portions of texts, portions of what is said in the same way. This is cognitive bias. For the purposes of the discussion it doesn't matter much why, it's just that we do it.

In today’s polarized political climate, we spend a lot of time psychoanalyzing our opponents. We say they refuse to accept reality, create fake news, are brainwashed, succumb to shady motives, ignore what they don’t want to hear. What we have a great deal
of difficulty doing is recognizing that a fact only makes the sense it does within a particular account, and people from different backgrounds and histories use different accounts to interpret facts. — Joshs

Which is another way of saying they have biases. Some people can have more than others. But we all have this.
Yes, there is a lot of bullshit 'analyses' of other people out there now. And rarely do the accusers (because that is part of accusing and labelling people and I now understand better where you are coming from) actually demonstrate their psychoanalysis nor do they realize that cognitive bias cuts both ways. I hold positions on current and past events that do not fit with mainstream media's version of reality. So I think I have great sympathy for what you dislike. I don't think the misuse of the idea of cognitive bias means that there is no cognitive bias. I see cognitive bias in all political groups and yes, political power generally determines what is objective and sweeping philosophically weak judgments of people do get thrown around. And, in fact, cognitive bias contributes to people's wholehearted certainty when they go along with BS getting shoved our way. And it has gotten worse. There is a centralization of media power and this has allowed