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A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

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Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#71

Post by schoen »

theoh wrote: post #50
schoen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Richard Stallman is another example of someone who gives the same handful of speeches over and over (many times in almost exactly the same words). I've heard him describe over and over again the wastefulness of not being able to write software to interact with a university printer because the printer manufacturer choose to keep the necessary details secret.

I've never seen Stallman speak, but that sounds like a similar situation to this anecdote from Nottingham in the 80s: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XvwNKpDUkiE It's a somewhat tedious story but it's all about the freedom to control your own hardware.

Stallman's version is described in http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch01.html

or with Stallman's edits (I'm not sure if he's modified this chapter) in

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Free_as_in_Freedom_2.0/Chapte...

Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#72

Post by CurtMonash »

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried/ As he landed his crew with care/ Supporting each man on the top of the tide/ By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice/ That alone should encourage the crew/ Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice/ What I tell you three times is true."

Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#73

Post by dwaltrip »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #58

What makes some people more vulnerable to accepting things uncritically? Why is it so hard to admit when they or someone they support makes a mistake? I have an ego, I don't like being wrong, and I think I'm right a lot. Ok, so far I get it. But to constantly ignore or avoid objective evidence? How do people not become ill at the thought? 1) Clinical narcissism or sociopathy? It's all an intentional means to an end.…

It's not some people. It's most people. Investigating claims rigorously is very difficult, even for highly skilled individuals. And it usually has very minimal direct impact on the mundane aspects of day-to-day to life. For many, there isn't an easy answer to the question: "Why should I bother, given everything else going on in my life?"

Honestly, it's pretty great how many people are willing to spend time and effort that doesn't directly benefit them (on a base material level) to care about this stuff.

It's also harder than one may think to do this well. You have be fairly skeptical 24/7, even of yourself and your own thoughts. I think that doing it halfway likely leads to lots of seemingly well-rationalized ideologies.

I like to think I'm getting better at being generally skeptical and slowly layering together a coherent, mutually supportive set of usefully accurate mental models of how the world works, but I find it very tough to know to what extent I'm fooling myself or not. One simple maxim I've found useful is to try to avoid allowing any idea from becoming "sacred" and above questioning. While not practical for daily life, I think it's a great fundamental background orientation for our thoughts and perception of the world.

Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#74

Post by gizmo »

theoh wrote: post #69
gizmo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the model is wrong, because it presumes people are rational agents that change their mind either through careful evaluation of the arguments or by outsourcing this rational evaluation to a trustworthy person. This model doesn't take repetition at all into consideration, so I don't think it holds up empirically. Back in Aristotle's day it was about Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. I don't think that model has stood t…

Ok, I didn't mean to beg the question by simply claiming that people can rationally evaluate statements. The things people learn are not noise. They have structure, they have hidden consistencies. Whatever you think of the rationality or otherwise of thought, surely you will agree that trying to learn inconsistent facts is going to be more trouble than learning consistent facts which support each other in a cumulativ…

I guess we look at the world very differently, because:

> They are unlikely to ever agree with/be persuaded by complete inconsistent nonsense, however often it is repeated. Like, I mean nonsense that doesn't even have linguistic structure or maybe any meaning.

If the US election hasn't persuaded you that complete gibberish can be persuasive when repeated endlessly, there's nothing I can say that will.

Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#75

Post by makomk »

return0 wrote: post #63

Why does the article not mention the russia-hysteria as another prime example of baseless repetitive untruth of the current news cycle? It's also surprisingly light on its facts and logic: in the american left-right debate is there really excessive repetition from one side more than the other? Is it really a matter of repetition or a matter of trust? Does it matter that fact-checkers point out the errors in trumps tw…

Indeed. It's astounding how many of the Trump-Russia claims simply fell apart: the supposed lifting of sanctions on selling IT equipment to the FSB that in fact specifically forbade that, the secret communications link with Russia that turned out to be a sub-sub-subcontractor sending marketing emails for Trump hotels, the fake Clinton email that Trump could only have got from Russian outlet Sputnik... or from the Trump supporter on Twitter whose misreading of a real email went viral and lead to that article, the supposed pro-Russian change to Republican foreign policy that left almost all the anti-Russian parts intact but matched up neatly with Trump's long-stated foreign policy views, and so on ad nauseam. Despite this, the endless repetition turned it into something that everyone simply knows is true.

Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#76

Post by pavlov »

furyofantares wrote: post #52
wwweston wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet they didn't single out a specific figure, nor did the poster above. As you say, there may well be more than one party someone might apply this description to. Apparently a specific comparison formed in your mind, though, for some mysterious reason. Probably just "constructed media narrative du jour," right? Certainly not because the person might actually be a quintessential example that stands out from everyo…

> Apparently a specific comparison formed in your mind, though, for some mysterious reason. Doesn't seem mysterious. The claim you are responding to is that, intentional or not, the author described Trump but said they were describing Hitler. That Trump came to mind is unsurprising. Trump is commanding an absurd proportion of the media and social media's attention. Readers and authors are overprepared to see Trump ev…

It's worth reading this article by Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/normalization-lesson-mun...

He agrees that "to compare Trump’s feckless racism and compulsive lying was inevitably to trivialize Hitler’s crime and the victims of genocide", but also explains in substantial detail how Trump's playbook closely follows Hitler's.

Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#78

Post by spynxic »

metaobject wrote: post #64
CoryG89 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take your point, but I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say that all persuasion happens through repetition. Maybe I'm a bit full of myself, but I like to think that with sound enough logic, I could be persuaded from my position by hearing an argument only once. That would probably be the distinction I would draw between persuasion in general and indoctrination / brainwashing. Of course, generally indoctrinat…

I've read geometric/mathematical proofs that have convinced me immediately. Just seeing the logical steps flow from step to step was enough to prove the assertion was true.

I consider this as an object of argument as well, however, axioms seem to be the underlying structure of repetition for all proofs [as far as I understand mathematics].

Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#79

Post by yarou »

I'm reminded of the initial "processing" scene in The Master between Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix.

Hoffman's character repeatedly asks questions to Phoenix's character, inducing a hypnotic state. Repetition can also be used as a form of mind control.

Re: A glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth

#80

Post by glitcher »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #58

What makes some people more vulnerable to accepting things uncritically? Why is it so hard to admit when they or someone they support makes a mistake? I have an ego, I don't like being wrong, and I think I'm right a lot. Ok, so far I get it. But to constantly ignore or avoid objective evidence? How do people not become ill at the thought? 1) Clinical narcissism or sociopathy? It's all an intentional means to an end.…

> But to constantly ignore or avoid objective evidence? How do people not become ill at the thought?

Information bubbles. Too many people only consume information that aligns with their beliefs. To many, they don't feel that they are ignoring or avoiding objective evidence because they easily dismiss it as lies without any evidence.

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