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Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

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Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#141

Post by Intermernet »

js8 wrote: post #126
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious: Why does art need to make anyone feel anything? Do you feel something if you see a landscape, portrait, or still life? Do you think they are still art? In a similar thread, if you stare at something abstract, if it draws you in to gaze on it because it is a cool design even if it brings forth no feeling, does it make it art or not? Do you understand hidden meanings from 200 years ago that would have bee…

I think art should make feel at least someone something in order to be considered as art. That is not the same as having a meaning, though. For example, Mandelbrot set makes me feel "it is wonderful", but it doesn't need to have any meaning (technically, it is a solution to some equation, so it has meaning, but you don't have to know the meaning in order to feel that something).

The problem with art is that it could be a stated goal of the art form to minimise "feeling" and still be considered valid. In this case, if you feel something, the art form has failed.

Art is tricksome. It is what it is justified as being, but it's also just what it is.

I've found it easier over the years to just say that I like / dislike something, but my opinion isn't worth anything, and can happily be different to yours.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#142

Post by Timpy »

duopixel wrote: post #19

A simple self-experiment if you haven't read the paper, find which of these sentences are bullshit. Answer in order without reading further ahead, and don't go back to change your answers (as to replicate experimental conditions). * 1. A river cuts through a rock, not because of its power but it's persistence. 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. 3. The future elucidates irrational facts for the seek…

I administered the self test and as I was checking my results I started patting myself on the back for doing so well, then I realized this is no different from giving yourself an online IQ test; I just wanted to affirm to myself how smart I think I am.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#143

Post by runesoerensen »

foldr wrote: post #139
runesoerensen wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it's a bit of a tangent, but related in the sense that I was hurt more, or less, based on my ability to imagine pain (which in my experience was easier after experiencing it). In any case, the sentence doesn't seem to require the imaginary pain to be equivalent (or even compared) to the pain experienced from whatever is causing the imaginary pain. I don't think that's even possible. It just requires that the pai…

>It just requires that the pain someone experience from imagining/actually being tortured hurts just as much, albeit likely differently, regardless of the nature or cause of the pain ("imagined"/"real"). Right, but imagining being tortured doesn't hurt just as much as being tortured. That is why the sentence strikes me as obviously false. >The pain still hurts the person experiencing though, regardless of whether som…

> Right, but imagining being tortured doesn't hurt just as much as being tortured. That is why the sentence strikes me as obviously false.

That might be the case, but it's probably not the relevant comparison. The relevant comparison, for the sentence to be true, would be between "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture" and "The pain experienced from thinking about torture".

Or to put it another way (in the same format as the sentence we're debating): "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture does not hurt less than the pain experienced from thinking about torture".

I think the profoundness here is more related to the word "imaginary" being unnecessary (and even harmful) as it relates to suffering. My sentence above might make it more obvious that "imaginary pain" is somewhat ridiculous in the first place, but it is however used to dismiss people who are hurting.

> Yes, people might disagree about whether or not someone is in pain. Similarly, they might disagree about whether or not someone is eating cake. That doesn't mean that "imaginary cake tastes just as good as real cake".

If a person is conscious and claim to be in pain, that person is in pain, and it doesn't matter if other people think differently.

Similarly, if someone is eating cake it's just weird for anyone else to disagree that they're eating cake, or even discuss the difference between the taste of cake and thinking about eating cake. People of course rarely question the reality and experiences associated with eating cake, but they do with people experiencing pain, which makes the sentence more insightful than you seem to believe.

In a sense this also kinda leads to the result of the study: I do see a point in the statement (and the other non-BS statements), and I think it's a lot more likely that I'll engage in prosocial behavior, such as relieving someone from pain others may describe and dismiss as "imaginary" - or for that matter giving someone the cake they want/need, whether that be real or imaginary ;)

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#144

Post by [deleted] »

duopixel wrote: post #19

A simple self-experiment if you haven't read the paper, find which of these sentences are bullshit. Answer in order without reading further ahead, and don't go back to change your answers (as to replicate experimental conditions). * 1. A river cuts through a rock, not because of its power but it's persistence. 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. 3. The future elucidates irrational facts for the seek…

[deleted]

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#145

Post by JdeBP »

foldr wrote: post #58
duopixel wrote: post #19

A simple self-experiment if you haven't read the paper, find which of these sentences are bullshit. Answer in order without reading further ahead, and don't go back to change your answers (as to replicate experimental conditions). * 1. A river cuts through a rock, not because of its power but it's persistence. 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. 3. The future elucidates irrational facts for the seek…

>11. Imagined pain does not hurt less because it is imagined. I guess I can see how this might be classed as "not bullshit", but I don't see how it's profound at all. It just seems false to me. I agreed with all the other classifications. edit : I know complaining about downvotes is verboten here, but seriously, that's just my take on it. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of what the profound meaning is that I…

There's a definition of bullshit given in the paper. It does not relate to whether the statement is true or false (indeed quite the converse, it relating to an absence of concern with truth) and it does relate to whether the statement consistently has an unambiguous meaning.

Consider that you understood the statement without complaint of ambiguity, enough to question the truth of the assertion and discuss that with other people without your having to impart your own meaning that you construct. And consider the gyrations and gymnastics that people are applying in this very discussion to impart their own meanings to the other statements that are without consistent unambiguous meaning.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#146

Post by foldr »

JdeBP wrote: post #145
foldr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>11. Imagined pain does not hurt less because it is imagined. I guess I can see how this might be classed as "not bullshit", but I don't see how it's profound at all. It just seems false to me. I agreed with all the other classifications. edit : I know complaining about downvotes is verboten here, but seriously, that's just my take on it. I'd be interested to hear an explanation of what the profound meaning is that I…

There's a definition of bullshit given in the paper. It does not relate to whether the statement is true or false (indeed quite the converse, it relating to an absence of concern with truth) and it does relate to whether the statement consistently has an unambiguous meaning. Consider that you understood the statement without complaint of ambiguity, enough to question the truth of the assertion and discuss that with o…

I said that I'm ok with calling it "not bullshit", so I'm not sure what you're getting at. I was questioning whether or not it could properly be called profound.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#147

Post by foldr »

runesoerensen wrote: post #143
foldr wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It just requires that the pain someone experience from imagining/actually being tortured hurts just as much, albeit likely differently, regardless of the nature or cause of the pain ("imagined"/"real"). Right, but imagining being tortured doesn't hurt just as much as being tortured. That is why the sentence strikes me as obviously false. >The pain still hurts the person experiencing though, regardless of whether som…

> Right, but imagining being tortured doesn't hurt just as much as being tortured. That is why the sentence strikes me as obviously false. That might be the case, but it's probably not the relevant comparison. The relevant comparison, for the sentence to be true, would be between "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture" and "The pain experienced from thinking about torture" . Or to put it another w…

>The relevant comparison, for the sentence to be true, would be between "The imagined pain experienced from thinking about torture" and "The pain experienced from thinking about torture".

I don't understand what the comparison is supposed to be there. You can't "experience" imagined pain. If you're saying that you can imagine being in lots of pain, and that imagining this scenario isn't itself painful, then of course everyone agrees with that. But this is a banal observation, and one that seems to contradict the original sentence.

>People of course rarely question the reality and experiences associated with eating cake, but they do with people experiencing pain, which makes the sentence more insightful than you seem to believe.

If you're saying "we should generally believe people when they say they're in pain", then sure, I agree with that. It's just not what the sentence we're discussing says.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#148

Post by kurthr »

scns wrote: post #87
peteretep wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Also: > 2. The hidden meaning transforms the abstract beauty. Describes reading the description of an artwork at a Modern Art gallery pretty well

IMO it is only Art if you feel something immediately. If you have to read some description to get the meaning, it is only pretentious and not Art for me.

If you read about it before you see it, will that destroy all art? How will you know? What about our societal social context and the art that came before it, or the artists creative arc?

I guess I know it when I see it.

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#149

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

js8 wrote: post #120
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #116

>> Bullshit-sensitivity is the ability to distinguish pseudo-profound bullshit sentences (e.g. “Your movement transforms universal observations”) from genuinely profound sentences (e.g. “The person who never made a mistake never tried something new”). Why is the second sentence "profound"? If I were to say it sounds like bullshit to me (it actually kind of does?) what would be the counter-argument, other than "we ask…

How it works for me: Try to find a more concrete example of the sentence. If you can't, then it's (likely) bullshit. I cannot give you example for the first sentence (because it is bullshit), but for the second sentence, I can imagine a person who tries a lot of new things and makes a lot of mistakes, presumably because they do not know how to do it. The way the sentence is phrased is just a reversed implication of t…

>> How it works for me: Try to find a more concrete example of the sentence. If you can't, then it's (likely) bullshit.

I think this is a bit like Kolmogorov complexity - just because you can't find a concrete example of a statement, doesn't mean that there isn't one, only that there isn't one that you know of.

It's also very hard to tell whether something is a concrete example of a natural language statement, especially when that statement is metaphorical.

Finally- I'm pretty sure I can think of statements that would map to concrete examples that could be identified as either bullshit or profound truths, depending on who you ask or who is making the statement. For instance, if I say that "Careful study leads one to hidden knowledge" - that could easily be applied to mystical knowledge (probably bullshit) and to scientific knowledge (probably not quite bullshit).

Re: Bullshit-sensitivity predicts prosocial behavior

#150

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

muzani wrote: post #128
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #116

>> Bullshit-sensitivity is the ability to distinguish pseudo-profound bullshit sentences (e.g. “Your movement transforms universal observations”) from genuinely profound sentences (e.g. “The person who never made a mistake never tried something new”). Why is the second sentence "profound"? If I were to say it sounds like bullshit to me (it actually kind of does?) what would be the counter-argument, other than "we ask…

I think the author meant that "profound" is something that takes a lot of thought to understand, whereas "bullshit" is something that has no meaning.If you find a profound meaning in it, you're "bullshit-insensitive". While the second sentence isn't very profound, it does have a meaning and it's used as an example because most people will understand it.

A statement can take a lot of thinking to understand because it's carrying some deep truth for which we lack natural insight- or, just because it has no meaning and therefore cannot be understood.

I've heard many different variations of the second sentence, from many different people but, again, popular opinion about what constitutes bullshit or not is not a very objective criterion.

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