I quickly found several other sites with references to a "missing law" to be added to Darwin's 4 or 5 "principles — Gnomon

A missing law to be added to Darwin's theory? Darwin's theory was made in 1859 and is outdated... Darwin didn't even know about genes, we've unraveled so many other mechanisms for evolution since then, such as genetic drift, gene flow, mutations,...

Nowadays you can't study evolution without genetics, so if a new law is made and doesn't necessarily require genes, it certainly can't be added to our current theory of evolution.

Now, from a rational point of view, the reason why we could build the theory of evolution is because living beings all have nucleic acids molecules (DNA, RNA), so in a way we somehow identified how these molecules behave in the environment, their properties. If we were to make an "evolutionary" theory for non living things, which molecules would we study, all of them?

What makes these molecules unique is replication, and then reproduction of the living beings. If an entity randomly generated laws that prevented it from destruction, in order to last longer, it has to reproduce and mutate to be able to adapt to changing environments. To my knowledge, there are no Non nucleic acids molecules having that property. Sometimes stable complex entity are formed, but without reproduction, they won't "survive" if the environment keeps changing. Crystals can grow but their property don't include reproducing, there is no "release" of baby crystals. It can happen if something breaks the crystal but it's not a property of the crystal itself. This is why living beings are able to "override" the law of entropy by being complex "stable" entities and why non living things are less complex.

I find it odd that the article doesn't discuss the importance of replication or reproduction since they're necessary for evolution.

It's not necessarily obvious that things must become more complex over time — flannel jesus

That's not what the theory says. "the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s)." There is a big WHEN. If it was true for everything, it would be in contradiction with the law of entropy.

I might be wrong but the way I understand it is: "the functional information of a system will increase over time when the environment around the system is favorable for that to happen".

Humans seem to have always enjoyed altering their consciousness and augmenting their quotidian experiences through all manner of activities - sex, exercise, hiking, travelling, flying, sky diving, deep sea diving, exploring, rock climbing, art, dance, music, cinema, performance, costume, meditation, gambling, massage... — Tom Storm

The difference is, it's easy to see an advantage for all of these activities: it "makes sense" that we get pleasure from sex, or else we wouldn't reproduce, that we exercise be so healthy,... But what about alcohol? If alcohol and drugs didn't exist or triggered a negative reaction that would make us avoid it, what would we lose and what would we gain?

They can make life a bit more interesting and fun. — Tom Storm

But that's the thing, if you didn't consider something interesting sober, why would you want to alter your state to find it valuable? Who would you trust more to access the value of things, your sober self or your drunk self?

But alcohol is not primarily about escape or alteration of mind. In moderation it's a lubricant to conviviality — Vera Mont

It's a lubricant to conviviality because we escape from social norms or fears we had when we were sober... It slows our cognitive abilities, it is an alteration of mind.
To me, drinking alcohol in social events is like admitting we are better equipped at facing this event in our drunker self. I don't understand why we want to change what feels good and what doesn't instead of changing the situation. If I only find a social event fun and interesting when drunk, why go there instead of going somewhere that is fun when sober?

if one is properly 'tuned up' - that is, physical fit and mentally calm - then it is likely the need for such artificial aides to well-being will correspondingly be reduced. — Wayfarer

Yes, then why do we tend to change our perception of reality rather than change our reality itself? I never understood this, if I find people uninteresting, I'm not going to get drunk to have fun with them, I'm going to find people with whom I can have fun when I'm sober...

responsible drinkers know this is an illusion and temporary state, — Outlander

Do they really? It is so normalized to drink during social occasions. Why would you want to cause an illusionary state whenever you socialize, how does that make any sense?

Just because you're sober or awake, as you think, doesn't mean you're any more coherent or in touch with the absolute nature of things than someone who is perhaps a bit less than sober. — Outlander

Okay, so let's imagine you have to choose between spending some fun time doing something you only like when you drink, or doing something you like when you're sober, would you consider them both as valuable in your life? Some people stare at lights when they're on LSD, would you consider staring at lights a valuable thing in your life? Some people have sex with people they don't even like or are attracted to when they're drunk, would you consider that a valuable experience in your life?
I've heard people who had life changing experiences with drugs, where they realised something so important and got their life together after that. I've met someone like that and when he told me his revelation, I couldn't help but think "what, but that's so obvious". And the truth is, denial is the reason why most people can't admit obvious things about themselves, and alcohol and drugs, most of the time, feed denial. It's like when we dream about a solution of our problems, in the dream it seems like we're such a genius and that's an amazing discovery, but most of the time, when we wake up, we realise that solution didn't make any sense. And when it does, it's never something complex that we couldn't have thought about when we were conscious.

l so let me tell you a story based on the truths and falsehoods of what people commonly prescribe to be a case or "unchangeable situation" of such. — Outlander

I didn't get the point of your story. Yes, in extreme situation that alter our physical state, our states of mind is also altered, so? And even if there aren't any physical damage to the health, if someone is keeping a person captive and giving them enough food and water, they'll start losing their mind too, so? I don't think "drugs are bad", without drugs, medicine would be hell for people receiving the treatments. But what I don't understand is why we normalize alcohol during social occasions, where there aren't supposed to be any suffering. And if we suffer from our life, how changing how we feel about it doesn't change anything and is only temporary, so what's the point?

The only way forward for it is to abandon dualism, and in evolutionary terms this would be a catastrophe rather than part of a gradual evolution. . . — FrancisRay

Why would it be a catastrophe?

Because the most realistic depictions of people I’ve read have involved unpredictable and illogical behaviour. — Jamal

To me, a story, or a character is "logic" if it is a logic continuum of the premises, whether they are realistic or not.

If in the story, there are a lot of birches (presented as regular birches) growing underground without any light, it's illogical if the author never explains how they do photosynthesis. Similarly, if a character is presented as a healthy human being, then later in the story is completely distorted, if that distortion is never explained, it's illogical given the premises. But if the premises are that the character is completely crazy (or not a human being), then, even if the reader can't make sense of their behavior, it can be considered logical.

But can a story with surrealistic characters be thought provoking?
To me it’s like saying you had a revelation about a philosophical topic by reading a Disney story… You could understand the ideas of the author better, but how can it be thought provoking if you can’t stay in the story and think deeply about the characters, about how they would react in the world the author described?

But maybe it’s just the way people think in general, if the author exposed some human traits, they don’t mind making links with other things without considering humans as a whole.

Of course it’s impossible to make completely realistic characters, but personally when I’m thinking about any topic in humanities or social sciences, I try to think of humans as a whole as much as I can, not just one or a few traits and make an opinion based on that.

an independent thinker would need some sort of education to learn the terminology and ideas employed by the current field of academics he wishes to present his ideas to otherwise it would seem like he was talking in a different language. — simplyG

You mean he would need to learn the philosophical terminology? Or the terminology of the closest discipline (here sciences)? If so, I agree, if he uses scientific premises as a part of his method, he needs to know about sciences and keep updated on scientific discoveries. But in the end, he would still use a new vocabulary he invented for the rest of the method since the end goal of his discipline is philosophy, and not sciences. And sciences, as it is now, is quite clueless about philosophy. No philosophical thought can be studied using only the scientific method.

existing ideas have to be understood first in order to overcome them — simplyG

Existing disciplines would need to be understood, yes. But for example, if he builds knowledge around free will with the method he created, why is it relevant to consider what philosophers said about free will if he already assessed the philosophical method and concluded it is too different from his own to be relevant? It's like I said with sciences and religions, it's totally irrelevant for scientists to read the bible to see what it says about a natural phenomenon if they are already studying the phenomenon from a scientific point of view.

The pace would depend on the amount of good ideas being produced — simplyG

But how exactly can we judge if it's a good idea if it contradicts the methods in place?

due to some people having intuitions more compatible with recognizing the merit of the new idea — wonderer1

I didn't understand that.

even all the Maths and Geometry theorems, that we are able to prove in so clever and irresistible ways, can be considered just another way how power is able to impose itself as the fundamental law, fundamental rule, in nature, in ideas, in everything. — Angelo Cannata

You're still talking about human power, right? If so, with maths, you can objectively prove your solution is better, regardless of your social status. If a homeless finds a solution to a math problem and present it to a professor, since it's pure logic, they can't argue and have to recognize it works. I think maths underlie our "universal logic": throughout history, some things have never change, even if we represented 1 + 1 = 2 in a lot of different ways, the essence is still the same, so the essence can't be influenced by power. This notion of "unit" (=> numbers) and the notion of "and" seem to be universal for all humans.

Maybe I didn't understand your point but why should "INTs" be treated any differently than "IRTs"?

In the end it's just easier for most people to guess to meaning an INT rather than an IRT because not everyone has basic knowledge of etymology. The impact of the first judgement/guess a person makes when they encounter a new word is quite small compared to the intuition that will later come as the person hears that word in conversations. Whether we call free will: "partial free will" or "flying unicorn", if there is a definition and that most people talk about it, there will be some kind of unified intuition of what that means, regardless of how it's called.

But of course, it's easier to remember the meaning of the word if it is straightforward. And if we talked about "flying unicorn" to refer to "free will", people would most likely create a synonym that is easier to remember, and that synonym (which would most likely be similar to free will) would take over the flying unicorn. Similarly, if the name of a concept contains too many words, like "partial free will", people will only remember a portion of it and that's what will stay.

Is he capable of recognizing political decisions that are unfavorable to others? — Leontiskos

We can't analyze a political opinion and be certain it is better or worse than another, politics is very subjective. And most people derive their political opinions from their own values.

So maybe when the analysis of an opinion doesn't contain much uncertainties (for example: if we suddenly decide that killing humans isn't a crime anymore), when it's quite certain that this decision would lead to a lot of suffering (short and long term), he could have an opinion. But when it's more uncertain (hence most political opinions) and that people take sides because of their intuitions and values rather than conscious assessment, then he would choose not to have an opinion.

it’s important the wrong ones don’t get elected as they could end up affecting your life. — simplyG

Where does this come from? I never said "what if everyone is like that?", I said, "what if someone is like that?". Or even: what if a group of people becomes like that?". Why should every single citizen be interested in politics? If someone only cares about maths, why force them to vote?

A lot of things affect our lives and we can’t have a complete control over everything. Just because having a bad computer affects your life doesn’t mean you should learn how to build one. We have limited time in our lives, we can’t be interested in everything and do everything ourselves. That’s why we live in a society. So why should everyone care about politics?

Aside from judging, we categorize everything. Without that, there wouldn’t be any knowledge. I find it useful in my everyday life to be able to tell to what extend a person is considerate to other’s feelings or not (which is a big component of the term “selfish”). It’s not to judge their morality, but just to be able to understand them.

It’s a shame there isn’t a term like selfish without moral implication. It would be much more precise and not judgmental.

He believed in more of a "saintly" kind of compassion — schopenhauer1

Maybe that's it, what's missing in the definition is that "holy" aspect of morality, of what's good and bad. If there is some kind of higher judgement that we don't have access to, we could question the nature of humans to see if it tends more towards the good or towards the bad, given the "clues" we have available.

So maybe there is a religious/spiritual connotation to this simple term used in everyday life, even for people who are atheist, since I believe, they could also understand the question "Are humans selfish?".

And maybe this is why I don't naturally understand it, I don't have a high sense of "morality", but would rather weight the potential positive and negative consequences.

What do you think?

I helped a person who was in a very bad situation — Angelo Cannata

Why did you help them? You didn't feel bad for them at all in the beginning?

If selfishness isn't the disregard of other people's feelings, then what is it?
You say selfishness is related to intentions, but what should they be in order to be considered "selfish"?
Good intentions means that you intend to do good to people, meaning that they will feel positive emotions from your interactions with them. But why would you do that if you feel no emotional resonance ?

Some people help others because they are "used to it", or because they want to look good in front of others. But isn't that selfish?

The currently accepted cosmology - big bang, inflation. It's plausible but incomplete. — T Clark

I asked chat GPT to name 15 theories that could explain the origin of the universe, whether they are scientific, spiritual or religious:

Big Bang Theory
Inflation Theory
Multiverse Theory
Oscillating Universe Theory
Quantum Fluctuation Theory
Creationism
Intelligent Design
Hindu Cosmology
Buddhist Cosmology
Native American Creation Myths
Steady State Theory
Ekpyrotic Theory
Conformal Cyclic Cosmology
String Theory
Plasma Cosmology

Even in the realm of science, there are a lot of hypothesis that are really different from each other. The problem is: how can you tell which one is more probable? The big bang theory is the more famous one but does that mean that it's the most probable? Have scientist really tried to assess probabilities and uncertainties of the different theories? If so, I'd love to read a paper about it, do you know any? I find science a bit helpless for assessing probability when it comes to such abstract concept that contains so many uncertainties.

And even if we could find the most probable theory according to science's standards, the second part that I explained would make the probability of that theory close to zero anyway:

=> The probability that the “true” theory can be made by our imagination, and therefore from knowledge from 1): that tiny part of the universe, is even more ridiculously small. — Skalidris

My point is, I genuinely don't understand why humans even try to answer these questions. Especially since they made the hypothesis that the universe is infinite, which makes our knowledge look ridiculous, so why try to speculate about the origin of everything?

The right word is "unlimited." Humans languages can generate an unlimited number of propositions. — T Clark

Unlimited is still wrong, probabilistically. If you compare human's imagination with the power of creating combinations of elements, if the number of elements is finite, the number of combinations is as well, it is limited by the size of the sample. At least at a given time. You could say that it's unlimited because that sample of elements is constantly growing but it's different from my proposition.

If you assume they are with no evidence, it invalidates the analysis. — T Clark

I didn't understand that.

I'm not required to provide reasons for my disagreement with you if you didn't provide justifications for your statements in the first place. — T Clark

You're not required, I'm just saying I don't see how it is useful for anyone. I don't mean to be rude but who solely cares about the opinion of a random person on the internet? How can it be useful to know a human being disagrees with something, without having any more details on the reasons why? At least if I had the reasons why, maybe it would provide useful information.

I might not have detailed my justification enough for you to be able to make anything of it, but that's personal, the probability that someone can extract useful information out of my 400 word intro is much greater than extracting info from the sentence "I disagree" :p

However, despite the potential for water to be either of these things, when it "is" "ice" ie when it's probability of ice approaches 1, it's potential to be boiling approaches zero, impossible. — Benj96

So what you are saying is that the possibility that the universe is a subject has already happened and therefore cannot be anything else? Also when water is ice, it's not a probability, it's a fact.

Also having subjects in the universe doesn't make the universe a subject. And the possibility of the universe being a subject doesn't mean it is true, it's just a possibility among many others. And assessing the weight of that possibility among others is what's called a probability, which is what this thread is about.

6). Therefore the probability that the universe can exist as a subject is also 1. — Benj96

I'm not sure I understand. The probability of a possibility is one? (you said probability that the universe CAN exist as a subject). It can exist as a subject, this is certain, this is how I understand your statement, but it doesn't mean the probability of it existing as a subject is 1. So what's your probability on the existence of God?

Thanks for playing the game! I'll clarify the points:

6) We don’t have enough knowledge to make a plausible hypothesis of the creation of the universe that would explain all that we know now.

Are you talking about an origin of causality, all of the unknown steps that would lead to what we know today, — Philosophim

Yes, my idea of an hypothesis that could be plausible is that we would be able to relate it to the current laws of nature and everything would fall in place like the pieces of a puzzle. Considering that we cannot even unify laws together (eg. quantum physics with classical physics), it seems impossible to come up with an origin of causality from which would result these laws. Of course, no theories are perfect puzzles but if we call "plausible" a reasonable (or even countable) amount of "unknown" and contradictions, it's not possible for the origin of the universe.

So for 8), to assess the "plausibility", we would need to review the hypothesis one by one, apply it to all the laws we know, maybe count the question marks left unanswered and count the contradictions? But the problem is that there are many more unknown logical links (too many to be countable) and contradictions than actual links. Assuming we could count the actual links that make sense, if we were to make a ratio of plausibility, which would be: valid logical links/invalid logical links, the ratio would be the same for all hypothesis since we cannot count the invalid logical links, which is a great number for all hypothesis, much greater than the valid logical links, which seems insignificant in comparison, and therefore useless to count.
As an analogy, it would be like taking physical laws one by one and trying to explain it using only premises from the bible. I can't even think of one law that can emerge from such premises.

We do currently have a plausible hypothesis. — T Clark

Really? What would that be?

. We can certainly generate an infinite number of propositions about anything. That is one of the fundamental features of the kind of language we use. — T Clark

Well chat GPT doesn't agree on that one, and I'm not sure what your premises are for such assumptions. Our imagination is infinite? Why would that be? Imagine a set a elements of a finite size, and imagine all the combinations possible, how could that ever be infinite?

It's clear that the possible combinations are not random. — T Clark

I never said they were, I said if they were, it wouldn't change their accuracy.

This is clearly not true. — T Clark

I don't really know what you're trying to achieve here with that type of answer. It's not true according to YOU. There rarely are consensus in philosophy, especially metaphysics. And I can't read your mind to figure out why you think it's not true, so that sentence doesn't bring any value to the conversation.

I'm not sure what this means. Do you mean that we only know the substances we've observed or witnessed? That's clearly not true. Or do you mean that we do positively know the substances we have witnessed or observed. That's not true either. — T Clark

The 4) statement makes an attempt at explaining how we gather knowledge in just a few words, while it represents a whole discipline (epistemology) so yes it's incredibly unprecise and lacks a lot of elements. What I wanted to express with that statement is that knowledge emerge from elements we've "experienced", in whatever way we have, whatever tool we built to be "aware" of it. I made that statement to be able to talk about these "elements" that are part of our current knowledge. I didn't express it well, if you think of a more accurate way, yet synthetized, please do tell. Maybe there is a technical word that qualify these "elements" I'm trying to talk about?

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here, but I am sure it's wrong — T Clark

It's quite funny you're actually aware of this. You said just here, that you dismiss my theory based on an intuition you cannot explain. So you admit there is no explicit logic in your opinion (which is that you disagree with mine), but yet claim my answer lacks logic, it's pretty amazing.

Cognitive biases effect both the uncritical as well as the critical thinker. — Caerulea-Lawrence

I would just say that I see cognitive biases as the result of a normal emotional response in humans, which affects the "direction" of thoughts. I don't like to put people in two distinct groups "critical and uncritical", that's actually one of my critique for cognitive biases, it seems like they want to make people "critical" but most of the time, they just tell people how to meet the standards of one discipline (often science) without taking personal experience into account. So basically, it often ends up with "trust serious experts and don't try to understand yourself because you will be biased". And to them, the "critical" people are simply the ones who meet the standards of a discipline. So that term is meaningless to me.

In other words, to me, it's not about being "critical" or "uncritical", it's about how much people fight emotional responses: and the more they do; the more objective knowledge they will produce. And to me, trying to be aware of cognitive biases is not going to help in fighting the influence of emotions on the rational mind. And this is because you can never know if you're biased or not. And on the contrary, working with emotions is clearer. It seems easier for me to judge if I'm angry, defensive or happy, rather than asking myself "Was I biased by the success of the lottery winner?" How could you ever answer that? You can't trace back the unconscious reasoning. So even if you feel like buying a lottery ticket afterwards, how would you know if it's biased or not? However, you could access your emotions and realise you're more excited than before you met the lottery winner, so you could decide to wait until that emotion fades away to see if you still want to buy a lottery ticket. And only then you would have a better estimation of how much it affected your thoughts at the time.

I used the term "ego trap" because a lot of people feel like they're more critical because they know these theories, while to me, it's the opposite. For example, they would judge the opponent's opinion as biased (which is very easy to do because they are so many biases, you can always find one) and reject it because of it. But they wouldn't be as rigorous when it comes to inspecting their own biases: we tend to notice the splinter in the other's eye, but don't notice the beam of wood in our own. And I don't see how any of the cognitive biases theory could help prevent this.

Which I see as concluding that critical thinking doesn't immunize against biases. — Caerulea-Lawrence

So that's not what I meant. To rephrase it, I would say: fighting emotional responses would mitigate cognitive biases, because it's fighting the cause. But fighting cognitive biases directly seems pointless as they're unconscious and are very difficult (impossible?) to perceive with certainty. So fighting cognitive biases directly doesn't help mitigate them!

And my main point is that when you fight the emotional responses, it prevents cognitive biases so naming them and finding "tools" to detect it seems useless and extremely complex compared to just assessing emotions.

Wait...What? You're actually debating it? It's ironic, right?

Physically, we're somewhere at the bottom; mentally, we top the list. — Agent Smith

Thank you! You directly put it on a scale because you know that "big/small" doesn't give much information. It's the same with the other questions, they implicitly drive people to debate it as if it was 2 separate concepts rather than a scale.

A better way to ask the question would be "How tall is the average human?" or "How tall are humans compared to other species on earth?".

But, for some reasons, when people ask these questions :
Are humans selfish?
Are sciences objective? Is philosophy subjective?
Does free will exist or is it an illusion?

They debate 2 positions instead of creating a scale. Even if we define what "selfish" means, having the answer "yes or no" isn't very informative. Aristotle made a separation of self-love (philautia) into people who love themselves and act morally and those who love themselves and act immorally. In that sense we're all "selfish", we're all focused on ourselves, our needs, but the difference is that some people's need include making others happy, and for other people, it does not as much, so that makes them more selfish. I don't think the question "are we focused on our own needs?" is very interesting, to me it's kind of obvious that we are. In the end we do what we do for a reward, which is the good feelings, whether it's triggered by making others feel good or not. But what's more interesting is to study how our needs include caring about others, and how it varies from people to people.

I don't understand why philosophy is so binary. Why they like to take two opposite concepts and prove they both have problems instead of creating one in between... Like Rationalism vs. Empiricism for example.

What evidence do we have to demonstrate that humans are selfish? I still think the question emerges from an illogical reasoning in the first place.



Yeah okay, maybe it's useful in the educational system as it is now...


Post update

What if the fifth question is : "Are humans big in size?"
Still no obvious common problem?

Components of philosophy that are missing:
4. Logic — Agent Smith

Yes, how does it lack logic? What makes these questions illogical?

By stipulating “philosophical research” sufficient to answer the questions, isn’t an academic answer implied? — Mww

Are all philosophers doing research in academia? I don't think so.

Those “a little bit interested” can offer opinion. Is that enough? — Mww

Enough? What do you mean?

These questions seem to be looking for answers/certainty founded on some kind of metaphysical objectivity, which as far as I am aware is not possible — Tom Storm

Yes. So what would you ask if you want to know more about the "selfish/selfless nature" of a human being?

They read like exam questions. Vague and general, to give candidates the challenge of clarifying and explaining. — Cuthbert

They're more than vague, don't you think they would mislead the students?

In the implicit meaning the questions give to these terms.



Sorry, I didn't mean to play the teacher, and I'm not expecting an academic answer, I'm just trying to understand the intuition behind philosophical concepts.

To be more clear, to me they all lead to the same problem once they're debated, even if the terms are clarified.

Aren't all philosophical topics anthropocentric?

I'm assuming that's how religious people could reassure themselves, yes, why not? They basically stop thinking about it because they trust God, they trust whatever is in the afterlife. So even if someone asks them "yeah but well, what's there going to be in the afterlife and after that? They can say that they will see for themselves when they get there. I'm playing the devil's advocate here, I'm neither religious or spiritual, and I've never been either of the two.

??

Did you miss the part where I say that people assume they're gonna find the meaning of the afterlife in the afterlife itself?

I can tell you from experience that people who are dying and hold religious beliefs and beliefs in god are as likely to be frightened at the thought of dying as anyone — Tom Storm

It's not so much about the moment of dying itself, but dealing with existential crisis during your life. If you start thinking about these topics, if you have faith, you can use that as an escape "it's fine, I'll just go to another world, and what I'm doing here is just a step to something greater".

Besides, "the afterlife" only kicks the can by begging the question of the "meaning of the afterlife." — 180 Proof

Spiritual people just avoid thinking about the meaning, sometimes they say that "only god can understand" — Babbeus

It keeps you focus on one step, on the life you're living now, they probably think that they will find the meaning of the afterlife in the afterlife itself, and so on. It's like a high school student who's passionate about physics and wants to understand a specific concept for which he needs more background than he has, he's just going to wait until he goes to university. But yeah you're right, it actually prevents people from thinking too far for their own good. They "trust" whatever forces out there instead of investigating by themselves. If you think about it, the "why" questions never end, the only way to get closure with it is to know where to stop, which "why" is too far from the reality we live in to make sense. So I was wondering if we could make a rational approach of metaphysics that would get people back on track of their lives, as much as religion does. Like take the physics student, if you tell him "you'll understand at university", or if you tell him "well actually we don't understand that one, it's just a mathematical model that happens to work", one is certainly more powerful for motivation than the other. With the second one, maybe the student is going to be like "well fuck this shit, I like understanding stuff completely, so I'm gonna go for engineering instead".

Or maybe the society feeds the need to understand "completely" way too much, doesn't show the uncertainties enough, keeps saying "that's okay, scientists know", or experts or whatever. So naturally people get disappointed when they realize "no one knows", not even "god". Maybe people would naturally stop the "why" questions when they realize it's out of their reach, and it wouldn't come as a disappointment if they're used to deal with uncertainties. Maybe they wouldn't try to play the superhuman who can understand several dimensions, or multi directional times even though we only know past present future. no offense.

Sounds like you may have come from a religious upbringing or culture that privileges afterlife stories — Tom Storm

It's more than afterlife stories (cf last paragraph I wrote on this post).

I'm also an eternalist (I actually thing Einstein's theory is more likely correct than incorrect), and that means there isn't a present moment that will someday not include me, or at least what I call 'me'. — noAxioms

So you're not afraid of disappearing because you believe you'll always exist somewhere in this universe? But to you, to your consciousness, the passing of time is one directional, so when it ends, will it start again somewhere else? What is it going to feel like for you?

I have more of a need for truth than a need for imaginary comfort, but I was surprised to find the latter (and meaning as well) anyway. — noAxioms

So what's your imaginary comfort on this one? That you live for your family? What if your family was dead and you didn't have any friends? Would you then still be comfortable that life has no meaning?

The statement makes no sense unless you believe in an afterlife. — noAxioms

It does not indeed. "There is no afterlife" makes more sense.

Because picturing "nothing" is scary, because death is scary? Also about the meaning of life, there isn't any, why don't we all commit mass suicide?

That's a rumour that appeared after his death... Even if it's true, we would have discovered the structure of DNA at that time anyway because they already had X-Ray images of DNA, that could be done thanks to Wilkins who also got the nobel prize for it... So really no need for an extraordinary imagination or anything crazy.

Freud was said to be a regular cocaine user. — Jackson

Okay, well that explains a lot :lol:

Wouldn't it be an error to ascribe privileged status to the sober state of mind? Aren't both the sober and high states, both simply states, and so coequal? — hypericin

The human body is used to the sober state, so naturally it functions best in that state. When you're high, it's a drastic change into an environment you're not adapted to, and the chances that you will thrive in that new environment are very low. You grew up sober, your brain developed in that state, produces certain neurotransmitters in certain situations, and drugs disrupt it "randomly", it's like randomly miswiring your neurons. The chances that something productive comes out of it are extremely low... And it's tricky because drugs release certain neurotransmitters that can make you feel like you've made the greatest discovery of the human race...

Also, given the amount of people who do drugs, if it had a positive effect on the thinking process, we'd probably have a lot of great inventions/discoveries from high people, which is not the case.

The insights I've heard about (from hallucinogens) are either metaphysical/spiritual (which cannot be proven anyway so we can't judge the accuracy) or people who suddenly find motivation in their life, maybe because it unblocked an emotional blockage or something like that, but then it's not really an insight.

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 — Bylaw

I never disagreed with that.

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

It's really funny cause I created another thread to try and name this kind of behaviour. Wanting more certainty doesn't mean wanting 100% certainty. It's foolish to even think 100% certainty is possible to reach... Of course I never meant to reach 100% certainty in that topic...

Oh, and of course it is falsifiable. You can easily test to see if someone's poltical position affects what they notice in articles. — Bylaw

It's falsifiable as a general concept, I don't have anything against the experiments. But the thing is, detecting it personally in someone at a specific time is much more tricky. An experiment with one person being both the control and test subject is kind of crappy... Say you read two articles, one contradicting your point of view and the other supporting it. What if you remember several info about the supporting one because it reminded you of something that has shocked you in the past? Say you're scared of dolphins, and the supporting one has an analogy with dolphins... You wouldn't remember it because of the confirmation bias, although the result is the same. My point is, you can remember something in one specific article rather than another one for many reasons, even unconscious ones, maybe you just liked the layout of one article more than the other, or something stupid like that...

They can point out when you contradict yourself. And this kind of dialogue (which hopefully is mutual) can and does reduce people's biases — Bylaw

You don't need the cognitive bias theory for that. If a person ignores some data because it contradicts their opinion, you could ask them how they take these data into account in their ways of thinking, and if they can't answer/don't want to, you know they have some emotional blockage with that. I find it much more efficient to lay all the data on the table, link it logically, and ask the person how they reached another conclusion, discussing the logical link. And if some data are ignored (because of the survivorship bias, because of the confirmation bias, or because unicorns are white), it's going to be visible and you can point it out to the person. Like this technique mentioned by @jgill. But who cares about the cause in the end? Who cares if you act like this because of some trauma from your past or whatever? Point is, if you force yourself to lay everything on the table, you're going to be more objective anyway, you're going to mitigate these "biases", even if you have no idea they even exist.

I honestly don't think psychoanalysis is a good tool for improving yourself and trying to detect cognitive biases in someone seems to have a lot of common grounds with it.

I'd call it "equivocation" -- because you both mean different things by "selfish" — Moliere

Yes, thanks, I guess this would include what I'm talking about, although equivocation is not specific to the binary vs non binary problem caused by simplification of language.

Suppressed correlative fallacy. — DingoJones

Ah that's much better, thanks! I'm going to be greedy but there is still something that's different from what I meant. From my understanding, in the suppressed correlative, one kills the meaning of a word by making two categories into one. Like saying "this product is not natural", and the other person would be like "nature is everything that surrounds us, including us and what we do to nature, so everything is natural". That makes the adjective natural completely useless. But what I meant is really about the non binary nature of things. What I mean is more about the debate "this product is more natural than that product" (who could be phrased as "this is natural and that's not" as simplification) and the other saying "but a product that's 100% natural is impossible because we manufacture it anyway". They don't destroy the meaning of natural but they fail to see it on a scale. So it's not X or not X in the first place but like aX with "a" ranging from 0 to 1, and the other person would see it as X or not X and use proofs that X is not possible if your position is 0.9X. In my example, actually they both agree that 1X is impossible, but the person who can only see it as X or not X doesn't understand the 0.9X (or doesn't want to); Do you know what I mean? Did I understand the meaning of suppressed correlative fallacy correctly?

That's bosiness — baker

You mean bossiness?

Anti-difference-of-degree-ism — emancipate

Did you just make that up?

they have a specific contextual reason for making that statement at that time to that person — Joshs

Oh okay, that works too, but not in all cases. It would be like a deliberate change of context, if one is trying to insult and the other goes all philosophical about the nature of selfishness in humans. But if you're arguing about whether sciences are more "objective" than human sciences, and that the person says that nothing can be objective anyway, it's still the same context, it's an epistemological context in both cases.

they were choosing to ignore the specific contextual sense of the phrase in favor of a generic meaning — Joshs

Mmmm I don't know, it doesn't seem context related to me. I believe anyone (who likes questioning things) could say "you're selfish" and mean "you're more selfish than average" in any context. Actually I don't like the word selfish as it is, in its meaning it's already simplified as if it was black and white (" lacking consideration for other people; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.") anyone tends to do that to some extend...

Everything's closer. — bongo fury

Everything is closer than everything? :sweat:

Possibly hyperbole - deliberate exaggeration — RussellA

Yes, it's getting closer. The only problem I have is that saying "you're selfish" or "how can you be sure" isn't a deliberate exaggeration, they're actually very common statements, it's more of a simplification.

Context insensitivity — Joshs

Context-insensitive expressions are governed by linguistic rules that determine their contents (semantic values), which remain invariant in all contexts of utterance.

Is that what you meant?

It's not really a phenomenon but a type of fallacy maybe? It's not just skepticism, because both persons could be skeptics, one is just using a simplification of language, which the other deliberately ignores to be right about something...

Or maybe there is name to describe people who refuse to see things as non binary?

certainty brings insanity”, Certainty is not possible. — ArielAssante

So you shouldn't try to work with things that are more certain than others? You shouldn't try to maximise the certainty? When I said "how can you be sure", I obviously didn't see certainty as something binary, it has shades. I was referring to the falsifiable principle of Popper.

excessive thinking not good. Tends toward narcissism — ArielAssante

Um... This is a very extreme opinion. Some people who overthink actually have very low self esteem and aren't narcissistic at all...

But don't get me wrong, I actually agree that knowing yourself is the best thing you could do to be more critical, I just don't think naming biases and trying to detect it in yourself or others is going to help.

. It is a useful concept, I think, AND people can use it terribly. — Bylaw

Yeah sure but how do you prevent yourself from using it terribly? For guns you can have a license, also check if you're stable mentally, but what about cognitive bias? My point is you can never know for sure if you're biased, so I don't see the point trying to figure out if you are, it's nonsense, not falsifiable. Maybe in some cases it would help someone get some distance from themselves, because they would question their opinions, but I really don't think the detection of cognitive bias are the best questions to ask, I think they lead to a lot of confusion. And I also think it can quickly escalade to some kind of superiority.

How does anything of what you sent me answer any of my questions?
If you're implying it's excessive to push the bias theory as far as having bias in the process of mitigating other biases, why do you think it is excessive?

You showed the theory, that's great, but I'm saying it's impossible to apply it and be aware of cognitive biases. I didn't make this thread to know more about the theory, I made it to get an actual debate about its application.

Work to make the unconscious conscious. The few who attempt to do so find it is a long, painful process. — ArielAssante

What if you’re biased with another bias when you conclude you’re biased? What if you like the cognitive bias theory so much that it’s the confirmation bias to think you’re biased? How would you know which one is true? How can you be sure you consciously realised what was in your unconscious mind?

remediating it (by whatever amount) is better than not, don't you think? — Pantagruel

But how do you plan to do that if you can't even know for sure if it's there or not? At a given moment for a given opinion, we have no tools to detect it...