Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview • Hacker News Board

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#121

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 10:26 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #116

dredmorbius wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm increasingly convinced that worldviews / mental models are not simply modeling devices, but information rejection tools. Borrowing from Clay Shirkey's "It's not information overload, it's filter failure", the world is a surprisingly information-rich space , and humans (or any other information-processing system, biological or otherwise) simply aren't equipped to deal with more than a minuscule fraction of it. We…

Heh, you've hit a point I thought of years ago. That is, the brain isn't so much of a learning device, but instead on of the most powerful filtering devices ever created.

Both, probably more.

It filters incoming information, but also determines relationships, matches patterns, and makes predictions.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#122

Post by dang » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 11:20 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #111

dang wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't use HN for political and ideological flamewar. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I apologize. I should refrain from responding to flamebait. But I waited hours before responding to: > Every group has their wingnuts, but I'm sure as heck am glad my liberal wingnuts aren't calling for the extermination of nonwhite/nonchristian/nonheteronormitive people. and it was still highly upvoted and had no mod response. I thought someone should respond.

"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#123

Post by joe_the_user » Sat, Feb 01, 2020, 11:57 PM UTC

austincheney wrote: post #101

joe_the_user wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is readily observable when you take a group of people who have never worked together and are generally unfamiliar with the outdoors and drop them into an outdoor military training exercise, such as college ROTC junior classmen. Thinking about it, the only way that this course of action is "not logical" is that it is not "deciding on a course of action and following it regardless of the approach of one's fellows"…

In a tactical environment the problem with clustering is that modern weapons will quickly take out everybody. There needs to be some space between people, maybe a couple meters. The problem with a lack of initiative is that it undermines security. If you don’t know what you should be doing then at least you can secure part of the group’s perimeter by seeking cover and looking outward until told otherwise.

Sure, but I don't think you're talking about "logic" as such. It is more a matter of thinking about the conditions of the environment.

IE, you're talking of specific skills and understanding as if they were a general thing, "logic". Not that I'd disagree with comment about what should be done.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#124

Post by tathougies » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 2:33 AM UTC

jffhn wrote: post #118

tathougies wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another frustrating aspect of human nature is that most people don't know how to be logical. Many human philosophies reject logic (Or any mechanical system of derivation) as a valid epistemological device. Logic in the west is heavily shaped by Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, and then Latin Catholicism's embrace of them in the medieval times (logic is not particularly important in the eastern churches…

>Many human philosophies reject logic (Or any mechanical system of derivation) as a valid epistemological device. People can reject what they want, but rejecting hammers doesn't make them less capable of hitting nails. >logic remains popular mainly due to the theological musings (...) It's a flourishing field, popular for its usefulness in formal proofs, etc., not a dead remains of the past.

Logic is not universally useful in formal proofs because logic as you conceive it is incomplete. This is a provable result in the basic logic one would learn in an introductory formal methods course.

Real formalization either does not admit very obvious axioms, like excluded middle, or cannot prove theorems we would consider obvious, like function equivalence.

In formal methods in computer science and math we as of yet do not even have a complete logic that can encapsulate all the things we want to prove (homotopy type theory is an attempt but there is no accepted computational interpretation). Stop pretending 'logic' is a thing that is self evidentiary.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#125

Post by jffhn » Sun, Feb 02, 2020, 8:21 AM UTC

tathougies wrote: post #124

jffhn wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many human philosophies reject logic (Or any mechanical system of derivation) as a valid epistemological device. People can reject what they want, but rejecting hammers doesn't make them less capable of hitting nails. >logic remains popular mainly due to the theological musings (...) It's a flourishing field, popular for its usefulness in formal proofs, etc., not a dead remains of the past.

Logic is not universally useful in formal proofs because logic as you conceive it is incomplete. This is a provable result in the basic logic one would learn in an introductory formal methods course. Real formalization either does not admit very obvious axioms, like excluded middle, or cannot prove theorems we would consider obvious, like function equivalence. In formal methods in computer science and math we as of y…

>logic as you conceive it is incomplete

Don't we all know that at least since Gödel.

>very obvious axioms, like excluded middle

I don't consider it something obvious. If you read Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamaka-Karik, you might even consider it something inappropriate.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#126

Post by tathougies » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 5:38 AM UTC

jffhn wrote: post #125

tathougies wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logic is not universally useful in formal proofs because logic as you conceive it is incomplete. This is a provable result in the basic logic one would learn in an introductory formal methods course. Real formalization either does not admit very obvious axioms, like excluded middle, or cannot prove theorems we would consider obvious, like function equivalence. In formal methods in computer science and math we as of y…

>logic as you conceive it is incomplete Don't we all know that at least since Gödel. >very obvious axioms, like excluded middle I don't consider it something obvious. If you read Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamaka-Karik, you might even consider it something inappropriate.

> I don't consider it something obvious.

Then that puts you in the minority of those using 'logic' when arguing about non-mathematical things. By and large, most lines of reasoning engaged in those attempting to be 'rational' rests on excluded middle.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#127

Post by tabtab » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

kunglao wrote: post #71

tabtab wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: I have learned that objectivity...is astonishingly rare. As somebody who has been in many political debates, I have to agree. A good many are addicted to authority figures to tell them how to think. Another frustrating aspect of human nature is that most people don't know how to be logical . I strive to be logical as a personal goal, but it's often not valued in the work-place, or anywhere. Keep in mind "logical"…

The problem with trying to be "define any assumptions" and using "a clear chain of logic" is that, if you do this right, you will realise that there's really very few things you can actually say about anything at all. This is a problem when it comes to day to day dealings. On the one hand, average population do not agree on what can be construed as "self-evident". On the other hand, what seems self-evident within our…

First you find out what each side agrees on and what they don't. Part of the "logic" exercise is teasing out such info. Both sides may not agree in the end, but at least have a better idea of what assumptions (givens) each is using, and maybe test those once narrowed.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#128

Post by tabtab » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

johnsonjo wrote: post #94

tabtab wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: I have learned that objectivity...is astonishingly rare. As somebody who has been in many political debates, I have to agree. A good many are addicted to authority figures to tell them how to think. Another frustrating aspect of human nature is that most people don't know how to be logical . I strive to be logical as a personal goal, but it's often not valued in the work-place, or anywhere. Keep in mind "logical"…

> Another frustrating aspect of human nature is that most people don't know how to be logical. I strive to be logical as a personal goal, but it's often not valued in the work-place, or anywhere. Keep in mind "logical" is not necessarily the same as "being right", at least not my working definition. Being logical is being able to back up your viewpoint and claims using a clear chain of logic. I define any assumptions…

Re: but logic says nothing about whether your premises/givens are true this is the difference between sound and valid arguments.

As I mentioned nearby, finding each side's "givens" is part of the process of narrowing down the points of disagreements.

For example, after long debates with die-hard conservatives I've discovered that they are not necessarily against social safety nets, but rather they feel the more society relies on them the more powerful gov't gets in general, giving it more control over OTHER things, not just safety nets. They'd rather risk dying than let "the beast" grow. That's their personal choice. It's the "feeding the beast" theory. But they won't admit this up front, one has to tease it out of them.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#129

Post by tabtab » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #110

afiori wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree on the honesty part, but in many cases "because I think it is right" is a valid argument. It is wrong to pretend to have a logical reasoning behind your gut feeling where there is none, but there is nothing wrong in not wanting to work with a company because they give a 'bad feeling"

Yeah our gut/brain is like a machine learning tool. It will reach to a conclusion due to how experience has structured our brain to be however we always do not know the reason why. For simplistic and every day things it is very often right, but the more unusual and complex the scenario the more likely it is to misjudge. And it is also rather often that when we get that gut feeling we start to search for logical argum…

One should strive to avoid reliance on their "gut". First, guts are often biased; second, it's hard to communicate gut feelings. Consider it a bad habit that should be corrected or reduced for things that impact others.

Re: Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

#130

Post by johnsonjo » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 12:08 AM UTC

tabtab wrote: post #128

johnsonjo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another frustrating aspect of human nature is that most people don't know how to be logical. I strive to be logical as a personal goal, but it's often not valued in the work-place, or anywhere. Keep in mind "logical" is not necessarily the same as "being right", at least not my working definition. Being logical is being able to back up your viewpoint and claims using a clear chain of logic. I define any assumptions…

Re: but logic says nothing about whether your premises/givens are true this is the difference between sound and valid arguments. As I mentioned nearby, finding each side's "givens" is part of the process of narrowing down the points of disagreements. For example, after long debates with die-hard conservatives I've discovered that they are not necessarily against social safety nets, but rather they feel the more socie…

> As I mentioned nearby, finding each side's "givens" is part of the process of narrowing down the points of disagreements.

I think this is a very good way to look at it. If you can find each others givens you can know how you differ. But, not always is one given more correct than another, but instead sometimes just shows a different perspective. For example in euclidean geometry by changing certain axioms you can create other non-euclidean geometries. Neither is more correct than another only they're true under different circumstances.

> For example, after long debates with die-hard conservatives I've discovered that they are not necessarily against social safety nets, but rather they feel the more society relies on them the more powerful gov't gets in general, giving it more control over OTHER things, not just safety nets. They'd rather risk dying than let "the beast" grow. That's their personal choice. It's the "feeding the beast" theory. But they won't admit this up front, one has to tease it out of them.

I'm a pretty die-hard conservative myself and social safety nets are good for the down-trodden or those who are disabled or those who cannot work for whatever reason, but sometimes what I've heard is that they disincentivize work for those who are able this hurts not only those being taxed, but the economy, and likely the able bodied person collecting welfare. I think feeding the beast is another problem the government obviously needs to reduce spending and cutting an d reducing spending on government programs could help with that in my mind. Do economists really agree on these things though? Is the given that feeding the beast really that inherently bad? Feel free to educate me my mind is a pretty open book. I think the main problem with big government is it could lead to tyranny and less economic freedom.