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Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

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Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#151

Post by josh_cutler »

thadt wrote: post #25

> The medical establishment offers a shiny tempting solution. First, a total unwillingness to trust anything, no matter how plausible it sounds, until it’s gone through an endless cycle of studies and meta-analyses. Isn't this just... science? We learned from the ancient philosophers that really smart people can reason powerfully about a whole lot of things. But - if we want to know whether that reasoning holds up, i…

Yes, but not all "scientific" disciplines adhere to this the same way that medicine does. Take for example Psychology, Political Science, or some of Economics where unreplicable studies in prestigious journals almost immediately become cannon for new grad student seminars.

N.B. I have direct experience with this in Political Science, the other disciplines I have just anecdotes about so apologies if they are mischaracterized.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#152

Post by twelfthnight »

zaphar wrote: post #45
twelfthnight wrote: post #30

Why is it assumed that someone who is convinced by arguments is prone to wrong ideas? Wouldn't that type of person become iteratively closer to the truth every time they hear a new argument and compare to the others they've heard?

I think at some level for certain topics and areas there is a minimal level of knowledge and information you need to know in order to evaluate or even understand advanced arguments about the topic. In a sense you won't become closer to the truth until you reach that minimum level of understanding and before that you will just ping pong between positions without a real understanding of whether you are correct or not.…

> you won't become closer to the truth until you reach that minimum level of understanding

This might be my misunderstanding of the article. How do you gain knowledge at all without considering new arguments you hear?

> Doing the work to adequately evaluate an argument in every domain is probably not worth their time

Sure, but why not admit you just don't know then instead of "sticking to your prior" and believing something you have no evidence to believe?

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#153

Post by InSteady »

jodrellblank wrote: post #118

> " Like I mean that on most topics, I could demolish their position and make them look like an idiot. Reduce them to some form of “Look, everything you say fits together and I can’t explain why you’re wrong, I just know you are!” " That isn't making them look like an idiot, reducing them, or demolishing their position. That is completely failing to demolish their position! While also failing to convincingly explain…

>Maybe the correct action is to see that how the Early Bronze Age worked has so little effect on your life, no testable hypothesis to confirm one way or the other, that it doesn't matter which one you believe, or if you believe both (even if they are contradictory, that's a thing humans can do).

This is a great point, and I'd suggest it is worth taking even further. Even for things that have moderate or substantial impact on your life, holding space for the possibility that multiple competing/overlapping explanations could be true can be an extremely valuable (if cognitively expensive) skill.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#154

Post by growingkittens »

com2kid wrote: post #145
growingkittens wrote: post #142

> You could consider this a form of epistemic learned helplessness, where I know any attempt to evaluate the arguments is just going to be a bad idea so I don’t even try. Replace "the arguments" in this sentence with "complexity" for a more universal statement on human nature. Some people deal with complexity through science. This sounds great, until you realize that science is currently systematic (step by step) and…

> Some people deal with complexity through science. This sounds great, until you realize that science is currently systematic (step by step) and not systemic (whole picture). Reality is made of interconnected systems. A systematic approach leaves blind spots. The counter argument is that human minds are limited and very few people in history are able keep even a large % of the entire system in their head. A huge prob…

The problem we face is being a culture of many specialists, with few generalists. Generalists are capable of managing a wide range of information and have the ability to transfer skills and knowledge between domains.

You don't have to model an entire system in your head to understand the dynamics. That's a specialist, systematic point of view.

The technology will only help if we change the culture and change how we educate and incentivize the next generation of humans.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#155

Post by jodrellblank »

_armchair wrote: post #131
jodrellblank wrote: post #118

> " Like I mean that on most topics, I could demolish their position and make them look like an idiot. Reduce them to some form of “Look, everything you say fits together and I can’t explain why you’re wrong, I just know you are!” " That isn't making them look like an idiot, reducing them, or demolishing their position. That is completely failing to demolish their position! While also failing to convincingly explain…

> That isn't making them look like an idiot, reducing them, or demolishing their position. I think he's saying that he can reduce his opponent to those words - i.e., the author's argument fits together, the opponent says "it's just wrong" and gets frustrated.

I agree that's what he's saying, and I'm saying that is not demolishing the opponent's position. Scott is going up to a castle, talking to the walls until he thinks they should collapse, then when they don't collapse he's declaring victory by "making the walls look idiotic" and telling people he "demolished the castle walls".

If you haven't actually convinced your opponent, and you haven't changed their mind, and you haven't understood their true objections, and you haven't presented a convincing enough case for your position for them (arguing in good faith) to accept, you haven't won, there's an underwater-iceburg chunk still missing.

Like, if I claim 2 is the largest possible number, and show you 1+1, and you say "1+1 is coherent and logical and fits together ... I can't place the flaw but something's not right and I still don't believe you", I can't go around reasonably telling people I demolished you with my proof that 2 is the biggest number and you look idiotic for not believing me.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#156

Post by danbruc »

I know nothing about that guy, but several commenters point out that debating here does not mean making correct arguments but only making convincing arguments. If that is the case, why would anybody care? I can imagine a few situations where this might be a useful skill, for example if you have some ideological predisposition and want to convince others no matter the truth, but that does not really sound like a good goal, it essentially amounts to manipulation.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#158

Post by voidhorse »

bluetomcat wrote: post #146
speak_plainly wrote: post #116

After spending many years studying philosophy I think that the right approach is that you don’t need to come to any conclusions about anything. Aristotle often started with common peoples’ viewpoints on any given topic, along with looking at what experts thought and built his own ideas from there, and of course was very successful with his methodology. Arguments are interesting and obviously some are more correct tha…

The epistemic standpoint of rationality (particularly Cartesianism) assumes a static arrangement of knowledge, where one uses analytic reason to gradually unveil bits of it like finding new territory on a map. It is rooted in analytic geometry. David Hume challenged this view. His main insight was that an object we call "A" in time T1 may not be the same object in time T2. We also need to distinguish between "A" as a…

Along similar lines, critiques of Cartesianism in epistemology have also pointed out the heavily social aspects of knowledge construction, see situated epistemologies etc. Even epistemologists in the analytic tradition have begun to move away from Cartesianism due to its limitations.

TBH, taking an epistemic stance that's primarily cartesian these days mostly just shows that you're (likely) ignorant to basically the entire history of development and research in epistemology after Descartes. Cartesianism is a very useful perspective and method for certain things, but as a general epistemology it's quite crusty.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#159

Post by pdonis »

digital-cygnet wrote: post #137
pdonis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scott specifically though, has an established history of thinking through arguments that I find much better than most He has an established history of writing down detailed articles about arguments, yes. Unfortunately, a significant number of his articles contain schoolboy errors that anyone who wants to claim they are better at thinking through arguments than the average person should never have made. I'll mention…

While Scott does make errors, I've found he works hard to avoid making them and forthright when he does (e.g., not everyone has a Mistakes page in the main navigation bar of their site[1]) What you're missing in your example is that, in context, the state-sponsored violence he's talking about is "against one's own people" (e.g., he also refers to it as a "reign of terror" a few times, like those of Robespierre, Stali…

> he works hard to avoid making them

He does so when he sees that there is a potential mistake to be made, yes. But he doesn't seem to me to work hard at all at questioning things that he appears to think are too obvious to need questioning. And yet those things are where he makes the egregious mistakes.

> forthright when he does

Yes, I agree with this: once he recognizes he's made a mistake, he's much better than most at acknowledging it.

> What you're missing in your example is that, in context, the state-sponsored violence he's talking about is "against one's own people"

I don't buy the hairsplitting distinction he's making there, but even leaving that aside, I already addressed this point in my post. The UK fought a war against its own people in the American Revolution. The US fought a war against its own people in the US Civil War. The US fought against Native Americans. The UK fought against Ireland. And so on.

> I think there's a difference of kind

I think this is even more of a hairsplitting distinction that I don't buy. But again, leaving that aside, if Scott wanted to make an argument for such a difference in kind, he should have made one. Just taking it as so obvious as not to need any argument is not justified. And the need for making such an argument doesn't even seem to be on Scott's radar. I find that either astoundingly obtuse, or astoundingly disingenuous.

Re: Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

#160

Post by pdonis »

digital-cygnet wrote: post #137
pdonis wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scott specifically though, has an established history of thinking through arguments that I find much better than most He has an established history of writing down detailed articles about arguments, yes. Unfortunately, a significant number of his articles contain schoolboy errors that anyone who wants to claim they are better at thinking through arguments than the average person should never have made. I'll mention…

While Scott does make errors, I've found he works hard to avoid making them and forthright when he does (e.g., not everyone has a Mistakes page in the main navigation bar of their site[1]) What you're missing in your example is that, in context, the state-sponsored violence he's talking about is "against one's own people" (e.g., he also refers to it as a "reign of terror" a few times, like those of Robespierre, Stali…

Btw, I noticed another egregious error: "France, where a reign of terror five years after the Bourbon monarchy is clearly contrasted with a hundred fifty terror-free years since it became democratic in 1870." Um, what? France is now on its Fifth republic, and the transitions haven't always been peaceful. Not to mention Indochina, Algeria (France's own leaders explicitly described what the French did to subdue Algeria as "terrorism"), etc. And many of the people who were terrorized in Algeria were French citizens.
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