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The past is not true

sive.rs

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Re: The past is not true

#81

Post by firebirdn99 »

abirch wrote: post #79
stared wrote: post #72

There is a common conception that we don't know the future, but we know the past. In our heads, we have models of the past and models of the future. Sure, there is an asymmetry between knowing the past and the future - due to thermodynamics. Still, in both cases, it is good to think of these as probabilistic models, far from any certainty.

The past also suffers from survivorship bias. Although there's a 1 in 8 chance of flipping 3 consecutive heads, in the future after flipping 3 consecutive heads you forget about the other possibilities. E.g., there was a 1 in 8 chance that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao could have all been born women before they were conceived.

> Although there's a 1 in 8 chance of flipping 3 consecutive heads, in the future after flipping 3 consecutive heads you forget about the other possibilities.

In other contexts, also known as the gambler's fallacy if I recall.

Re: The past is not true

#82

Post by javert »

thieving_magpie wrote: post #57
keepamovin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of: https://thedailyzen.org/2015/03/20/zen-story-maybe/ There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaime…

Complete tangent here. My favorite book to read my kids is Zen Shorts by Jon J Muth. It features a panda named Stillwater who tells this story (among others) in it.

I would highly recommend "The Parent's Tao Te Ching" by William Martin.

It's a retelling of the Tao Te Ching into plain English, using parent/child relationships to make the points.

I recommend this both to parents, and to children. Which is all of us. We never stop being children of our parents.

I don't have children, nor do I plan to, yet this is one of the most powerful books I've read.

Re: The past is not true

#83

Post by [deleted] »

narag wrote: post #52

I love HN but, let's be honest, we are often tone-deaf. Very much. When the author writes "the past is not true", he's not trying to make a Physics or Epistemology point of any kind. He's just telling that we torture and limit ourselves with things that no longer matter or, in this case, never happened. The anecdote might not be what you wanted to read or what would have fit the "message" best, but real world stories…

[deleted]

Re: The past is not true

#84

Post by anbende »

thenerdhead wrote: post #44

> The actual factual events are such a small part of the story. Everything else is interpretation. This is why it is important to forgive your parents. They interpret events differently and it usually isn’t until you become a parent yourself do you develop enough empathy to see how those interpretations came to be.

Oof, as a psychologist that deals a lot with people who were abused and mistreated, this is a pretty big generalization.

Yes, as we age we come to see things from a more experienced perspective and the perspectives of the adults we grew up with and change, but going all the way to "that is why it is important to forgive your parents" is a big big step.

It is typically a good idea to try to get to forgiveness, you're right, but there's a lot of very indefensible behavior out there.

Re: The past is not true

#85

Post by frankthedog »

athenot wrote: post #59

This touches on Narrative Therapy. Events happened, yes. Facts are immutable and can't be changed or wished away simply because they are inconvenient. Rather, how we make sense of them—and internalize them—affects our lives in significant ways, especially if the prevaling narrative we believe about ourselves prevents us from thriving. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapy-types/narrative-t...

Similar message, among many other valuable bits, in the book The Courage to be Disliked. Very good read, no fluff like a lot of psychology books. The title is misleading, there’s a strong element of being helpful to others rather than being disliked. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Re: The past is not true

#86

Post by qwnp »

stared wrote: post #72

There is a common conception that we don't know the future, but we know the past. In our heads, we have models of the past and models of the future. Sure, there is an asymmetry between knowing the past and the future - due to thermodynamics. Still, in both cases, it is good to think of these as probabilistic models, far from any certainty.

> there is an asymmetry between knowing the past and the future - due to thermodynamics

Would you please elaborate on this?

Re: The past is not true

#87

Post by simonh »

thenerdhead wrote: post #44

> The actual factual events are such a small part of the story. Everything else is interpretation. This is why it is important to forgive your parents. They interpret events differently and it usually isn’t until you become a parent yourself do you develop enough empathy to see how those interpretations came to be.

Yep, flaws I saw in how my parents brought me up definitely informed the way I approached bringing up my kids. But then I look at the childhoods my parents had, and honestly they did a heck of a lot better job than I could have had any right to expect. So I think overall I did pretty well, with lessons to learn for sure, but it's only fair to think of it as an iterative process.

Re: The past is not true

#88

Post by rob74 »

hef19898 wrote: post #70
rob74 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still leaves us with the second part - "...or negligent". I find it a bit hard to believe that in all those cases the cyclists were at fault? Unless you consider that they were already acting recklessly because they tried to use a bicycle on a public street (I know a lot of people subscribe to this opinion, but I don't).

You can have accidents, even deadly ones, without being negligent. Hard to swallow sometimes, but true.

I don't want to be too insistent, but: if you get hit by lightning or a falling rock while cycling or driving along, that's no-ones fault. But as long as two vehicles are involved, there is a set of well-defined rules that are designed to make sure that these vehicles don't collide, and if they do collide, in the overwhelming majority of cases one (or both) of the parties involved has failed to follow these rules, i.e. negligence.

Re: The past is not true

#89

Post by yakcyll »

qwnp wrote: post #86
stared wrote: post #72

There is a common conception that we don't know the future, but we know the past. In our heads, we have models of the past and models of the future. Sure, there is an asymmetry between knowing the past and the future - due to thermodynamics. Still, in both cases, it is good to think of these as probabilistic models, far from any certainty.

> there is an asymmetry between knowing the past and the future - due to thermodynamics Would you please elaborate on this?

I think this may refer to the second law of thermodynamics - entropy cannot decrease over time in an isolated system. One could argue the entire universe is one.

Re: The past is not true

#90

Post by simonh »

anbende wrote: post #84
thenerdhead wrote: post #44

> The actual factual events are such a small part of the story. Everything else is interpretation. This is why it is important to forgive your parents. They interpret events differently and it usually isn’t until you become a parent yourself do you develop enough empathy to see how those interpretations came to be.

Oof, as a psychologist that deals a lot with people who were abused and mistreated, this is a pretty big generalization. Yes, as we age we come to see things from a more experienced perspective and the perspectives of the adults we grew up with and change, but going all the way to "that is why it is important to forgive your parents" is a big big step. It is typically a good idea to try to get to forgiveness, you're…

I think it's fair to say it's something we should all strive for if we're able.
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