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What if I’m wrong? (2023)

behavioralscientist.org

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Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#161

Post by jibalt »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #17
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #14

I actually got a little suckered in, and thought this might be Dennett opening up to being wrong and giving some new account of what he might now think is correct. Especially after all the debates on free will with Sapolsky. Instead it ended up being backhanded self complement, more like, "a lot of other great people agree with me, so maybe I'm wrong, but probably not". "Descartes’s theory of everything is, even in h…

I had an interesting email exchange with Dennett in the 90s. He had just brought out his book "Consciousness Explained". I read it and emailed him a short note saying that I thought the book was mistitled - the contents were an explanation of what we were conscious of not how we could be conscious. I expected him to write back with some eloquent or witty or pithy defense of the link between the title and the contents…

Dan was toying with you ... his thesis was on the distinction between consciousness and the contents of consciousness, and he more than anyone was familiar with the point you were making (erroneously).

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#162

Post by jibalt »

svat wrote: post #16

What is his life's work / major insight that he's referring to here? > I had found— and partly invented— a prodigious explanation- device that reliably devoured difficulties, day after day. The insights (if that is what they were) that I had struggled so hard to capture in my dissertation and my first book have matured and multiplied, generating answers to questions, solutions to problems, rebuttals to objections, an…

You can find numerous discussions of his dissertation and first book on line.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#163

Post by jibalt »

JonChesterfield wrote: post #26
svat wrote: post #16

What is his life's work / major insight that he's referring to here? > I had found— and partly invented— a prodigious explanation- device that reliably devoured difficulties, day after day. The insights (if that is what they were) that I had struggled so hard to capture in my dissertation and my first book have matured and multiplied, generating answers to questions, solutions to problems, rebuttals to objections, an…

Plausibly that described in the previous paragraph under distributed understanding, where he takes the consensus of some nominally informed group to be truth. See "Reddit as reality" for the failure mode of that strategy.

Have you considered the possibility that you're wrong? Because that's definitely not it. Consider that, as you acknowledged, you don't even know who he is, so you certainly aren't familiar with his work.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#165

Post by paganel »

helloplanets wrote: post #155
paganel wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to apply falsifiable theory to Freud (or to psychoanalysis) is wrong in itself, as a matter of fact thinking about Freud and psychoanalysis in the realm of scientifically right or wrong is, well, scientifically wrong.

In that case, how should we think about it? Genuinely curious.

He (Freud) had some very good insights, almost genius-like, for example the part with Eros and Thanatos. With that said, I don't think there's a best way to approach his works, I do know though that treating them as science would do no-one any good.

As for psychoanalysis as a whole, it's definitely not my preferred cup of tea but I do believe those people that say that it has genuinely helped them, in which case all the power to them and to psychoanalysis. Maybe treat it through a functionalist prism? (just an idea) Similar to meditation, let's say (similar as in there's no scientific "basis" behind it but I also do believe that meditation helps some people, similar to psychoanalysis).

Of course, that would not solve the issue with "what should we do with the psychoanalysis crooks?", the same issue that probably gets asked when it comes to meditation crooks, meaning grifters trying to live off psychoanalysis/meditation/any similar movement. I don't know what the best answer for that would be, maybe some sort of community-based validation/word of mouth thingie?

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#166

Post by jibalt »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #78

I live by a life philosophy that tells me to own my defects and shortcomings, and promptly admit them. I remember being told once, "Congratulations! It's your fault!". The thinking is that, if it's some[one|thing] else's fault, there's nothing I can do to change it, but if it's my fault, then I have the power to amend the situation. In every conflict in my life; even when I am clearly in the right, and the other part…

Having spent months trying to track down bugs that turned out to be due to occasional timing errors in esoteric mechanical devices, it is indeed a relief when I discover that a bug is due to something I did wrong and am able to fix.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#167

Post by jibalt »

CornCobs wrote: post #63

> They will eventually discover that they’re wrong, and we will have yet further examples of evolution’s devious paths. In my terminology, their dogged search for skyhooks will uncover heretofore unimagined cranes. And precisely because their conclusions will be the opposite of what they hoped to discover, we will take them seriously. An important part of being able to truly ask oneself if they are wrong is the humil…

"An important part of being able to truly ask oneself if they are wrong is the humility to seriously consider an alternative."

Which he did, at length.

"The author's treating of ID research as a foregone conclusion"

No, it's a consequence of massive amounts of evidence, not just of evolution, but of the character of the sort of people who work at the Discovery Institute.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#168

Post by jibalt »

gwd wrote: post #79

I think the more important question is, "How would I know if I were wrong?" As a thinking Christian, and I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong; I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong.

"I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong"

I don't believe this.

"I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong."

Perhaps the reason you aren't aware that he has addressed this at length is that you don't have have his name right.

Also, as Chris Hitchens noted, religion poisons everything, including this thread.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#169

Post by jibalt »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #119
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And crucially, lots of things like the ones you mentioned are often not better approximated by an ellipse than a circle(I realise circles are just a subset of ellipses).

>I realise circles are just a subset of ellipses Ah, but in a circle the circumference is always equidistant to the centre, which is never true of an ellipse. I suppose there is only one circle in the world.

> Ah, but in a circle the circumference is always equidistant to the centre, which is never true of an ellipse.

It's never true of an ellipse that isn't a circle. i.e., this is a--ahem--circular argument.

Re: What if I’m wrong? (2023)

#170

Post by jibalt »

DiscourseFan wrote: post #118
Jensson wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, there are no circles in the world, empirically Only if you have an overly strict definition of circle. I don't think it is wrong to call the outline of a ball a circle, or the shape you do if you take an Y shaped object and rotate it along one of those branches, it isn't a perfect circle but it is still a circle.

There is only one definition of a circle, and its universal. Anything else is not a circle.

There is not only one definition of a circle. There are many definitions, all of which are consistent with each other.
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