The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education

[Frank Wimberly-2]

Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s.  I am old.

Frank

http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

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[Nick Thompson]

Frank,

 

That is a splendid article,

http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

and I think you undersell it.  Even the worse philosophophobes on the list will be happy to read it, and take strength from it. 

 

NOT SO MY RESPONSE TO IT, which I copy in below.  Philosophophobes beware!

 

Nick

 

 

Begin philosophophobe free zone: 

---

 

The confusion about truth has its roots in the deep history of Pragmatism.  Peirce  famously said that the truth is that upon which we are fated to agree and the real is that which is the case, no matter what you, or I or any other person might believe.  Some pragmatists (James, perhaps?) took this to mean that the truth is whatever we happen to agree upon.  Peirce hated that interpretation because he was well aware that it may take millennia for the fated convergence of opinion to take place. He deplored literary criticism.  Dewey was rather on Peirce's side of this argument, and after WWII, and around the time of Dewey's death, this country basked in the glow of a Deweyan consensus until the Left Critics started to hack away at it, and the right wing took up the cry.  The author does not mention the role of the field of anthropology in all of this, which, I gather, almost destroyed itself as a field over this very issue, and almost took down social science with it. 

We probably won't get through this mess until we find a solution to the problem that the Pragmatists struggled over -- that the only measure of the truth or falsity, the reality or unreality, of our experiences is other experiences.   How, now, do we pick out from our experiences those upon which the community of inquiry is fated to agree, in the very long run? 

---

End of philosophophobe free zone

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 9:20 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education

 

Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s.  I am old.

Frank

http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Phone
[phone]

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[Russ Abbott]

Of course willful ignorance is bad. But I don't think it's primarily a matter of intellectual laziness or not respecting truth. It seems to me there are a couple of problems.

1. Economic. We all know that "'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'" There are many people in the energy business whose livelihood (and in many case wealth) depends on climate change not being true. Most of them are not intellectually lazy in the sense of not respecting truth. Most of them don't want the consequences of acknowledging the truth--and are willing to spend a great deal of money to plant as much doubt as possible.

2. Tribal. Many people will disagree with people from the "other" tribe just because they are from the other tribe. Again, it's not a matter of disrespecting truth. It's a matter of loyalty to one's worldview deepest beliefs.

I applaud McIntyre's appeal for reason, but I doubt it will have much of an effect on anything or anyone.

-- Russ

On Mon, Jun 8, 2015 at 7:39 PM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Frank,

 

That is a splendid article,

http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

and I think you undersell it.  Even the worse philosophophobes on the list will be happy to read it, and take strength from it. 

 

NOT SO MY RESPONSE TO IT, which I copy in below.  Philosophophobes beware!

 

Nick

 

 

Begin philosophophobe free zone: 

---

 

The confusion about truth has its roots in the deep history of Pragmatism.  Peirce  famously said that the truth is that upon which we are fated to agree and the real is that which is the case, no matter what you, or I or any other person might believe.  Some pragmatists (James, perhaps?) took this to mean that the truth is whatever we happen to agree upon.  Peirce hated that interpretation because he was well aware that it may take millennia for the fated convergence of opinion to take place. He deplored literary criticism.  Dewey was rather on Peirce's side of this argument, and after WWII, and around the time of Dewey's death, this country basked in the glow of a Deweyan consensus until the Left Critics started to hack away at it, and the right wing took up the cry.  The author does not mention the role of the field of anthropology in all of this, which, I gather, almost destroyed itself as a field over this very issue, and almost took down social science with it. 

We probably won't get through this mess until we find a solution to the problem that the Pragmatists struggled over -- that the only measure of the truth or falsity, the reality or unreality, of our experiences is other experiences.   How, now, do we pick out from our experiences those upon which the community of inquiry is fated to agree, in the very long run? 

---

End of philosophophobe free zone

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 9:20 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education

 

Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s.  I am old.

Frank

http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Phone
[phone]

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[Grant Holland]

Thanks, Frank. Great article.

This is reminiscent of the philosophical issue of the ontological vs the epistemological that has been all over quantum theory for some time now. This is the whole issue raised by the uncertainty principle. In quantum theory it seems to be framed by the question of "what exists?" (the "ontic") vs "what can be know?", or "what can we reliably measure" (the "epistemic"). This issue is address in QM by "the quantum theory of measurement", and is a basic topic in QM. There's a very good article on this by a philosopher of science investigator named Harald Atmanspacher, entitled "Determinism is Ontic, Determinability is Epistemic". It can be obtained here from the PhilSci Arhive web site.

Good reading,
Grant

On 6/8/15 7:19 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:

Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s.  I am old.

Frank

http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Phone
[phone]

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[glen ropella]

I enjoyed both the article and others' reactions to it, especially Grant's distinction between determined vs. determinability.  My own reaction was one slightly tinged with nausea.  Yes, it is lamentable when one's ideas, one's ideology, allow(s) one to deny "truth" (new evidence).  But it is that very same thing that allows one to lament the denial of truth.

McIntyre seems to be just as willfully ignorant as those he accuses, by assuming

  a) there _exists_ a singe, One True Truth, and
  b) we (all of us or an in-group few of us) can approach that Truth.

The point has been made most clearly by Orgel's 2nd Rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgel%27s_rule .  Why is it that we think that what we think is better (or more real, or more effective, or more ... whatever) than what _is_?  Why is it that we think so intently about what we think?  We're like a bunch of navel-gazing drug addicts, thinking intently about our own thoughts while the world moves on around us.

There's a kind of circularity to McIntyre's lament (as well as other truthers who continually lament the "truthers" -- 9/11 or whatever, or the deniers that continually complain about the "deniers" -- climate change or whatever).  The most frustrating instance of this circularity is the escalation to absurdity exhibited by the ongoing co-evolution between "social justice warriors" and "political correctness freedom fighters" (for lack of a better term).  At some point, the frequency of the circular back and forth out paces the recovery time needed by my "outrage neurons".

At some point, all the finger-pointing, all the childish "yes it is" "no it's not" "yes it is" back and forth makes me wish people like McIntyre would soften their own rhetoric just enough to exhibit more self-doubt and less other-doubt.  it would have been more palatable if, e.g., he'd ended the article with "I do my best, but often fail respect the truth." ... or something of that sort, rather than ending with the implication that he's _always_ capable of respecting the truth and knows full well that he always infallibly does, especially right now in this article.

But, as Russ points out, other-doubt is profitable, while self-doubt is not.

-glen

On 06/08/2015 06:19 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s.  I am old.
>
> Frank
>
> http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
There's a chamber that should always be full


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[Russ Abbott]

Senator John Thune recently issued this tweet. 

You can argue that it's a denial of truth. But really, it's more like a tribal call. He is saying "I hate Obama," and he will be applauded by those who also "hate Obama." It's not a matter of truth.

Here's Krugman's post on it: http://goo.gl/6a4yue.

Here's my Google+ post: https://goo.gl/tt19Jz

-- Russ

On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 3:11 AM glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

I enjoyed both the article and others' reactions to it, especially Grant's distinction between determined vs. determinability.  My own reaction was one slightly tinged with nausea.  Yes, it is lamentable when one's ideas, one's ideology, allow(s) one to deny "truth" (new evidence).  But it is that very same thing that allows one to lament the denial of truth.

McIntyre seems to be just as willfully ignorant as those he accuses, by assuming

  a) there _exists_ a singe, One True Truth, and
  b) we (all of us or an in-group few of us) can approach that Truth.

The point has been made most clearly by Orgel's 2nd Rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgel%27s_rule .  Why is it that we think that what we think is better (or more real, or more effective, or more ... whatever) than what _is_?  Why is it that we think so intently about what we think?  We're like a bunch of navel-gazing drug addicts, thinking intently about our own thoughts while the world moves on around us.

There's a kind of circularity to McIntyre's lament (as well as other truthers who continually lament the "truthers" -- 9/11 or whatever, or the deniers that continually complain about the "deniers" -- climate change or whatever).  The most frustrating instance of this circularity is the escalation to absurdity exhibited by the ongoing co-evolution between "social justice warriors" and "political correctness freedom fighters" (for lack of a better term).  At some point, the frequency of the circular back and forth out paces the recovery time needed by my "outrage neurons".

At some point, all the finger-pointing, all the childish "yes it is" "no it's not" "yes it is" back and forth makes me wish people like McIntyre would soften their own rhetoric just enough to exhibit more self-doubt and less other-doubt.  it would have been more palatable if, e.g., he'd ended the article with "I do my best, but often fail respect the truth." ... or something of that sort, rather than ending with the implication that he's _always_ capable of respecting the truth and knows full well that he always infallibly does, especially right now in this article.

But, as Russ points out, other-doubt is profitable, while self-doubt is not.

-glen

On 06/08/2015 06:19 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
> Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s.  I am old.
>
> Frank
>
> http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
There's a chamber that should always be full


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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[Grant Holland]

I agree with Glen. Simply look at a basic statistics course. There we
learn the idea of "confidence intervals". You don't really ever "prove"
anything in statistics. Rather you may be able to "gain confidence"
based on probabilities - along with your previously established
"tolerance for maybe being wrong". The whole scientific method
eventually comes down to "statistical inference". The best we can do is
"infer" - not "know".

Then consider the plight of deductive logic. There we are presented with
the laws of thought. But those laws can only be put to work once they
have been given a set of "assumptions" (axioms, hypotheses, etc.) to
work on. The whole edifice depends on having started with the "correct"
assumptions. But the laws of thought do not tell you how to select those.

"Jes sayin'"

Grant

On 6/9/15 4:10 AM, glen wrote:

> I enjoyed both the article and others' reactions to it, especially Grant's distinction between determined vs. determinability.  My own reaction was one slightly tinged with nausea.  Yes, it is lamentable when one's ideas, one's ideology, allow(s) one to deny "truth" (new evidence).  But it is that very same thing that allows one to lament the denial of truth.
>
> McIntyre seems to be just as willfully ignorant as those he accuses, by assuming
>
>    a) there _exists_ a singe, One True Truth, and
>    b) we (all of us or an in-group few of us) can approach that Truth.
>
> The point has been made most clearly by Orgel's 2nd Rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgel%27s_rule .  Why is it that we think that what we think is better (or more real, or more effective, or more ... whatever) than what _is_?  Why is it that we think so intently about what we think?  We're like a bunch of navel-gazing drug addicts, thinking intently about our own thoughts while the world moves on around us.
>
> There's a kind of circularity to McIntyre's lament (as well as other truthers who continually lament the "truthers" -- 9/11 or whatever, or the deniers that continually complain about the "deniers" -- climate change or whatever).  The most frustrating instance of this circularity is the escalation to absurdity exhibited by the ongoing co-evolution between "social justice warriors" and "political correctness freedom fighters" (for lack of a better term).  At some point, the frequency of the circular back and forth out paces the recovery time needed by my "outrage neurons".
>
> At some point, all the finger-pointing, all the childish "yes it is" "no it's not" "yes it is" back and forth makes me wish people like McIntyre would soften their own rhetoric just enough to exhibit more self-doubt and less other-doubt.  it would have been more palatable if, e.g., he'd ended the article with "I do my best, but often fail respect the truth." ... or something of that sort, rather than ending with the implication that he's _always_ capable of respecting the truth and knows full well that he always infallibly does, especially right now in this article.
>
> But, as Russ points out, other-doubt is profitable, while self-doubt is not.
>
> -glen
>
> On 06/08/2015 06:19 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>> Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s.  I am old.
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

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[Nick Thompson]

Correct.  Nothing is certain.  We've known that since Kant.  NOW what?  That
there are no certain facts does not imply that some facts are not more
enduring and useful than others.  We need to get beyond the sophomoric
revelation that "everything is relative."  

n

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 10:37 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; glen e. p. ropella;
Frank Wimberly
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education

I agree with Glen. Simply look at a basic statistics course. There we learn
the idea of "confidence intervals". You don't really ever "prove"
anything in statistics. Rather you may be able to "gain confidence"
based on probabilities - along with your previously established "tolerance
for maybe being wrong". The whole scientific method eventually comes down to
"statistical inference". The best we can do is "infer" - not "know".

Then consider the plight of deductive logic. There we are presented with the
laws of thought. But those laws can only be put to work once they have been
given a set of "assumptions" (axioms, hypotheses, etc.) to work on. The
whole edifice depends on having started with the "correct"
assumptions. But the laws of thought do not tell you how to select those.

"Jes sayin'"

Grant

On 6/9/15 4:10 AM, glen wrote:
> I enjoyed both the article and others' reactions to it, especially Grant's
distinction between determined vs. determinability.  My own reaction was one
slightly tinged with nausea.  Yes, it is lamentable when one's ideas, one's
ideology, allow(s) one to deny "truth" (new evidence).  But it is that very
same thing that allows one to lament the denial of truth.
>
> McIntyre seems to be just as willfully ignorant as those he accuses,
> by assuming
>
>    a) there _exists_ a singe, One True Truth, and
>    b) we (all of us or an in-group few of us) can approach that Truth.
>
> The point has been made most clearly by Orgel's 2nd Rule:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgel%27s_rule .  Why is it that we think that
what we think is better (or more real, or more effective, or more ...
whatever) than what _is_?  Why is it that we think so intently about what we
think?  We're like a bunch of navel-gazing drug addicts, thinking intently
about our own thoughts while the world moves on around us.
>
> There's a kind of circularity to McIntyre's lament (as well as other
truthers who continually lament the "truthers" -- 9/11 or whatever, or the
deniers that continually complain about the "deniers" -- climate change or
whatever).  The most frustrating instance of this circularity is the
escalation to absurdity exhibited by the ongoing co-evolution between
"social justice warriors" and "political correctness freedom fighters" (for
lack of a better term).  At some point, the frequency of the circular back
and forth out paces the recovery time needed by my "outrage neurons".
>
> At some point, all the finger-pointing, all the childish "yes it is" "no
it's not" "yes it is" back and forth makes me wish people like McIntyre
would soften their own rhetoric just enough to exhibit more self-doubt and
less other-doubt.  it would have been more palatable if, e.g., he'd ended
the article with "I do my best, but often fail respect the truth." ... or
something of that sort, rather than ending with the implication that he's
_always_ capable of respecting the truth and knows full well that he always
infallibly does, especially right now in this article.
>
> But, as Russ points out, other-doubt is profitable, while self-doubt is
not.
>
> -glen
>
> On 06/08/2015 06:19 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>> Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy
Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department
where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in
high school in the 1980s.  I am old.
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/


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[Grant Holland]

Nick,

Righto. So what we do is put a measure on "how much confidence" we have.
Statistics gives us some tools for that - namely the "moment
functionals" (mean, variance, skewness, etc.); and information theory
gives us some more general tools for that - entropy and the other
entropic funtionals. So maybe it's a mixture of the relative and the
absolute. Maybe we've moved up to the "junior" level?

Grant

On 6/9/15 9:14 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

> Correct.  Nothing is certain.  We've known that since Kant.  NOW what?  That
> there are no certain facts does not imply that some facts are not more
> enduring and useful than others.  We need to get beyond the sophomoric
> revelation that "everything is relative."
>
> n
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
> Clark University
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Grant Holland
> Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 10:37 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group; glen e. p. ropella;
> Frank Wimberly
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education
>
> I agree with Glen. Simply look at a basic statistics course. There we learn
> the idea of "confidence intervals". You don't really ever "prove"
> anything in statistics. Rather you may be able to "gain confidence"
> based on probabilities - along with your previously established "tolerance
> for maybe being wrong". The whole scientific method eventually comes down to
> "statistical inference". The best we can do is "infer" - not "know".
>
> Then consider the plight of deductive logic. There we are presented with the
> laws of thought. But those laws can only be put to work once they have been
> given a set of "assumptions" (axioms, hypotheses, etc.) to work on. The
> whole edifice depends on having started with the "correct"
> assumptions. But the laws of thought do not tell you how to select those.
>
> "Jes sayin'"
>
> Grant
>
> On 6/9/15 4:10 AM, glen wrote:
>> I enjoyed both the article and others' reactions to it, especially Grant's
> distinction between determined vs. determinability.  My own reaction was one
> slightly tinged with nausea.  Yes, it is lamentable when one's ideas, one's
> ideology, allow(s) one to deny "truth" (new evidence).  But it is that very
> same thing that allows one to lament the denial of truth.
>> McIntyre seems to be just as willfully ignorant as those he accuses,
>> by assuming
>>
>>     a) there _exists_ a singe, One True Truth, and
>>     b) we (all of us or an in-group few of us) can approach that Truth.
>>
>> The point has been made most clearly by Orgel's 2nd Rule:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orgel%27s_rule .  Why is it that we think that
> what we think is better (or more real, or more effective, or more ...
> whatever) than what _is_?  Why is it that we think so intently about what we
> think?  We're like a bunch of navel-gazing drug addicts, thinking intently
> about our own thoughts while the world moves on around us.
>> There's a kind of circularity to McIntyre's lament (as well as other
> truthers who continually lament the "truthers" -- 9/11 or whatever, or the
> deniers that continually complain about the "deniers" -- climate change or
> whatever).  The most frustrating instance of this circularity is the
> escalation to absurdity exhibited by the ongoing co-evolution between
> "social justice warriors" and "political correctness freedom fighters" (for
> lack of a better term).  At some point, the frequency of the circular back
> and forth out paces the recovery time needed by my "outrage neurons".
>> At some point, all the finger-pointing, all the childish "yes it is" "no
> it's not" "yes it is" back and forth makes me wish people like McIntyre
> would soften their own rhetoric just enough to exhibit more self-doubt and
> less other-doubt.  it would have been more palatable if, e.g., he'd ended
> the article with "I do my best, but often fail respect the truth." ... or
> something of that sort, rather than ending with the implication that he's
> _always_ capable of respecting the truth and knows full well that he always
> infallibly does, especially right now in this article.
>> But, as Russ points out, other-doubt is profitable, while self-doubt is
> not.
>> -glen
>>
>> On 06/08/2015 06:19 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
>>> Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy
> Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department
> where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in
> high school in the 1980s.  I am old.
>>> Frank
>>>
>>> http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/
>
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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
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>
>
> ============================================================
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[Steve Smith]

As a died-in-the-wool PhilosoPHILE, I really appreciate the article and Nick's commentary here.

Pierce's pragmatic distinction between Truth(tm) and Real(ity) is precisely what I believe Philosophy to prove it's value to *all of us*.   To some this distinction may be subtle but I contend, critical.  Also the distinction between long-time-scale converging opinions vs "criticism"... key stuff.

- Steve

Frank,

 

That is a splendid article,

http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

and I think you undersell it.  Even the worse philosophophobes on the list will be happy to read it, and take strength from it. 

 

NOT SO MY RESPONSE TO IT, which I copy in below.  Philosophophobes beware!

 

Nick

 

 

Begin philosophophobe free zone: 

---

 

The confusion about truth has its roots in the deep history of Pragmatism.  Peirce  famously said that the truth is that upon which we are fated to agree and the real is that which is the case, no matter what you, or I or any other person might believe.  Some pragmatists (James, perhaps?) took this to mean that the truth is whatever we happen to agree upon.  Peirce hated that interpretation because he was well aware that it may take millennia for the fated convergence of opinion to take place. He deplored literary criticism.  Dewey was rather on Peirce's side of this argument, and after WWII, and around the time of Dewey's death, this country basked in the glow of a Deweyan consensus until the Left Critics started to hack away at it, and the right wing took up the cry.  The author does not mention the role of the field of anthropology in all of this, which, I gather, almost destroyed itself as a field over this very issue, and almost took down social science with it. 

We probably won't get through this mess until we find a solution to the problem that the Pragmatists struggled over -- that the only measure of the truth or falsity, the reality or unreality, of our experiences is other experiences.   How, now, do we pick out from our experiences those upon which the community of inquiry is fated to agree, in the very long run? 

---

End of philosophophobe free zone

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Frank Wimberly
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 9:20 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: [FRIAM] The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education

 

Philosophy haters do not read the linked article.  It mentions Andy Norman.  He is a member of the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, in the department where I used to work.  My daughter was a friend of his when they were in high school in the 1980s.  I am old.

Frank

http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Attack-on-Truth/230631/

Sent from my Verizon 4G LTE Phone
[phone]

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[glen ropella]

Statistics is one tool.  I'm not sure it's the most powerful tool, though.  I tend to think the best tool is ... well, it goes by many names.  One name is "active listening" ... "empathy" ... etc.  The technique is well known to all of us (well unless we're autistic or psychopathic).  When you hear someone say something that just sounds wrong, there are 2 basic steps:

1) find out why you think they're wrong (including the statistics that surround any of the facts involved), and
2) try to figure out what the speaker _really_ means by whatever nonsense they're spouting.

Since I don't believe our thoughts are very accurate at all, I have no problems empathizing with someone who spouts (apparent) nonsense.  I do it myself on a regular basis.  I try not to.  But it's difficult.  In fact, the reason I find purposeful nonsense (including climate denial or chemtrails, but more like chatbots) so cool is because of the accidental nonsense in which we bathe.



On 06/09/2015 08:36 AM, Grant Holland wrote:
> Righto. So what we do is put a measure on "how much confidence" we have. Statistics gives us some tools for that - namely the "moment functionals" (mean, variance, skewness, etc.); and information theory gives us some more general tools for that - entropy and the other entropic funtionals. So maybe it's a mixture of the relative and the absolute. Maybe we've moved up to the "junior" level?
>
> Grant
>
> On 6/9/15 9:14 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>> Correct.  Nothing is certain.  We've known that since Kant.  NOW what?  That
>> there are no certain facts does not imply that some facts are not more
>> enduring and useful than others.  We need to get beyond the sophomoric
>> revelation that "everything is relative."

--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
Float away from those horizons


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[gepr]

CONTENTS DELETED

The author has deleted this message.

[Roger Critchlow-2]

Of course the really fun thing about statistics is the ongoing discussion about the "willful ignorance" of scientists submitting papers with technically correct but wholly dubious claims of statistical significance, because -- rather, becorrelate -- their salaries depend on getting published.  Funny that the language naturally inserts a causal claim into that observation, where I would rather put the cause on the system than the individuals, and I have to invent a word to back off 

I'm tending to see this issue theologically.  The technical name for "we're all imperfect and we've always been so" is original sin.  Feeling a bit of impostor syndrome?  That's how the personal experience of original sin manifests.  Disgusted that cops aren't fair, that rich people get privileges, that politicians repay rich people with more privileges, that FIFA is corrupt, that Australia outsources immigrant detention camps to Nauru, that Nauru denies visas to Australian civil rights lawyers seeking to defend immigrant rights, and so on?  Yeah, well, be disgusted, but try not to get too righteous about it and spare us the expressions of shocked outrage.  If you're shocked at this, then you haven't been paying attention.

So, are there any entirely good or entirely bad persons?  Or are they entirely figments of our imaginations?

-- rec --

On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 10:10 AM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote:

Statistics is one tool.  I'm not sure it's the most powerful tool, though.  I tend to think the best tool is ... well, it goes by many names.  One name is "active listening" ... "empathy" ... etc.  The technique is well known to all of us (well unless we're autistic or psychopathic).  When you hear someone say something that just sounds wrong, there are 2 basic steps:

1) find out why you think they're wrong (including the statistics that surround any of the facts involved), and
2) try to figure out what the speaker _really_ means by whatever nonsense they're spouting.

Since I don't believe our thoughts are very accurate at all, I have no problems empathizing with someone who spouts (apparent) nonsense.  I do it myself on a regular basis.  I try not to.  But it's difficult.  In fact, the reason I find purposeful nonsense (including climate denial or chemtrails, but more like chatbots) so cool is because of the accidental nonsense in which we bathe.



On 06/09/2015 08:36 AM, Grant Holland wrote:
> Righto. So what we do is put a measure on "how much confidence" we have. Statistics gives us some tools for that - namely the "moment functionals" (mean, variance, skewness, etc.); and information theory gives us some more general tools for that - entropy and the other entropic funtionals. So maybe it's a mixture of the relative and the absolute. Maybe we've moved up to the "junior" level?
>
> Grant
>
> On 6/9/15 9:14 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>> Correct.  Nothing is certain.  We've known that since Kant.  NOW what?  That
>> there are no certain facts does not imply that some facts are not more
>> enduring and useful than others.  We need to get beyond the sophomoric
>> revelation that "everything is relative."

--
⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella
Float away from those horizons

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[gepr]

CONTENTS DELETED

The author has deleted this message.

[Marcus G. Daniels]

“Yeah, well, be disgusted, but try not to get too righteous about it and spare us the expressions of shocked outrage.”

 

As we are coming up on the Tour de France, I’m reminded of the outrage over cheating.   What exactly is the question being asked by that competition?  Is it to find the genetically most gifted person?   The person that trains the hardest?   The best use of barely-legal training techniques?   The best team tactics?  The most advanced alloys and aerodynamics?  Isn’t it unfair that a genetically gifted person would have to compete against a less gifted person?   My take on all that is all of the cyclists put themselves through a hell that is just unimaginable to most people, but there is no level playing field, just various definitions of one.   What would anyone do in that situation -- faced with a short 10 year career -- but try to win at all costs?    So many useless spectators.

 

Marcus

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[Steve Smith]

Two great gems from this thread!
> On 06/09/2015 10:36 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
>> So, are there any entirely good or entirely bad persons?  Or are they
>> entirely figments of our imaginations?
absolutely!

And Glen wrote:
> Thank God I'm agnostic.

Absolutely!


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[Steve Smith]

On 6/9/15 12:16 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:

So many useless spectators.

And this one too!
    Absolutely!




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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Abductively!

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 1:40 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Attack on Truth - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Two great gems from this thread!
> On 06/09/2015 10:36 AM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
>> So, are there any entirely good or entirely bad persons?  Or are they
>> entirely figments of our imaginations?
absolutely!

And Glen wrote:
> Thank God I'm agnostic.

Absolutely!


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[Grant Holland]

Glen,

I like it. Very well put.

Grant

On 6/9/15 9:56 AM, glen wrote:

> Statistics is one tool.  I'm not sure it's the most powerful tool, though.  I tend to think the best tool is ... well, it goes by many names.  One name is "active listening" ... "empathy" ... etc.  The technique is well known to all of us (well unless we're autistic or psychopathic).  When you hear someone say something that just sounds wrong, there are 2 basic steps:
>
> 1) find out why you think they're wrong (including the statistics that surround any of the facts involved), and
> 2) try to figure out what the speaker _really_ means by whatever nonsense they're spouting.
>
> Since I don't believe our thoughts are very accurate at all, I have no problems empathizing with someone who spouts (apparent) nonsense.  I do it myself on a regular basis.  I try not to.  But it's difficult.  In fact, the reason I find purposeful nonsense (including climate denial or chemtrails, but more like chatbots) so cool is because of the accidental nonsense in which we bathe.
>
>
>
> On 06/09/2015 08:36 AM, Grant Holland wrote:
>> Righto. So what we do is put a measure on "how much confidence" we have. Statistics gives us some tools for that - namely the "moment functionals" (mean, variance, skewness, etc.); and information theory gives us some more general tools for that - entropy and the other entropic funtionals. So maybe it's a mixture of the relative and the absolute. Maybe we've moved up to the "junior" level?
>>
>> Grant
>>
>> On 6/9/15 9:14 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>>> Correct.  Nothing is certain.  We've known that since Kant.  NOW what?  That
>>> there are no certain facts does not imply that some facts are not more
>>> enduring and useful than others.  We need to get beyond the sophomoric
>>> revelation that "everything is relative."

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[Roger Critchlow-2]

This tweet turned up in a search for the #wcsj2015 hashtag -- a conference of science journalists going on in South Korea where a Nobel biologist has made such a sexist ass of himself that the Royal Society decided to publicly distance itself (https://royalsociety.org/news/2015/06/tim-hunt-comments/) from him -- but the subtitle of the book featured in the tweet bears on this discussion:

https://twitter.com/AskAstroAlex/status/608419170821246976

-- rec --

On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 3:59 PM, Grant Holland <[hidden email]> wrote:

Glen,

I like it. Very well put.

Grant

On 6/9/15 9:56 AM, glen wrote:

Statistics is one tool.  I'm not sure it's the most powerful tool, though.  I tend to think the best tool is ... well, it goes by many names.  One name is "active listening" ... "empathy" ... etc.  The technique is well known to all of us (well unless we're autistic or psychopathic).  When you hear someone say something that just sounds wrong, there are 2 basic steps:

1) find out why you think they're wrong (including the statistics that surround any of the facts involved), and
2) try to figure out what the speaker _really_ means by whatever nonsense they're spouting.

Since I don't believe our thoughts are very accurate at all, I have no problems empathizing with someone who spouts (apparent) nonsense.  I do it myself on a regular basis.  I try not to.  But it's difficult.  In fact, the reason I find purposeful nonsense (including climate denial or chemtrails, but more like chatbots) so cool is because of the accidental nonsense in which we bathe.



On 06/09/2015 08:36 AM, Grant Holland wrote:

Righto. So what we do is put a measure on "how much confidence" we have. Statistics gives us some tools for that - namely the "moment functionals" (mean, variance, skewness, etc.); and information theory gives us some more general tools for that - entropy and the other entropic funtionals. So maybe it's a mixture of the relative and the absolute. Maybe we've moved up to the "junior" level?

Grant

On 6/9/15 9:14 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Correct.  Nothing is certain.  We've known that since Kant.  NOW what?  That
there are no certain facts does not imply that some facts are not more
enduring and useful than others.  We need to get beyond the sophomoric
revelation that "everything is relative."

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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