Belief in god just a gut feeling
Thought this was interesting. Explains that answer you hear from theists alot "I don't know how I know I just know".
(mod edit: Link to original; formatting)
Belief in God Boils Down to a Gut Feeling
For many people, believing in God comes down to a gut feeling that a benevolent deity is out there. A study now finds that gut feelings may be very important in determining who goes to church every Sunday and who avoids the pews.
People who are generally more intuitive in the way they think and make decisions are more likely to believe in God than those who ruminate over their choices, the researchers found. The findings suggest that basic differences in thinking style can influence religious belief.
"Some say we believe in God because our intuitions about how and why things happen lead us to see a divine purpose behind ordinary events that don't have obvious human causes," study researcher Amitai Shenhav of Harvard University said in a statement. "This led us to ask whether the strength of an individual's beliefs is influenced by how much they trust their natural intuitions versus stopping to reflect on those first instincts."
Shenhav and his colleagues investigated that question in a series of studies. In the first, 882 American adults answered online surveys about their belief in God. Next, the participants took a three-question math test with questions such as, "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?"
The intuitive answer to that question is 10 cents, since most people's first impulse is to knock $1 off the total. But people who use "reflective" reasoning to question their first impulse are more likely to get the correct answer: 5 cents.
Sure enough, people who went with their intuition on the math test were found to be one-and-a-half times more likely to believe in God than those who got all the answers right. The results held even when taking factors such as education and income into account.
In a second study, 373 participants were told to write a paragraph about either successfully using their intuition or successfully reasoning their way to an answer. Those who wrote about the intuitive experience were more likely to say they were convinced of God's existence after the experiment, suggesting that triggering intuitive thinking boosts belief.
The researchers plan to investigate how genes and education influence thinking styles, but they're quick to note that neither intuition nor reflection is inherently superior.
"It's not that one way is better than the other," study researcher David Rand of Harvard said in a statement. "Intuitions are important and reflection is important, and you want some balance of the two. Where you are on that spectrum affects how you come out in terms of belief in God."
The research was published Sept. 19 online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you.
You see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
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Nope.
But what are his options, no matter what you choose? Is there a 'goat' door in his options? What percent of the time does he have a 'goat door' as a possibilty to 'reveal'?
He always has 1 'goat door' that you cannot possibly choose, not matter if you choose 1, 2 or 3.
You are asked to chose 1 door. You cannot choose 2 goat doors.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
I need that goat. Why do you guys keep acting like a goat is a booby prize? I'd be thrilled with someone giving me a goat. Uttterly thrilled.
And my dad gives me a fully processed heifer every year.
Giving me a goat would rock.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
natural, as a skeptic, I'm sure you don't mind if I ask you some questions about your position.
Now look at the MCI elements in the study
What new understanding does "Sobbing Seaweed" lead to? Where is the "AH AH!!" moment when thinking about a "Cursing Frog"?
Is that not a good test of MCI?
Once again, where does sobbing seaweed make sense? Where is the hill I must overcome?
I get this about not trying to jerk our chains, and likewise, it is why I thanked you for your explanation.
In the following, at the point where you come across the statement where you think I have gone wrong, please stop and comment so we can discuss and clarify that point. For this reason, I have tried to separate everything out, to pick up exactly where we diverge, so please do not read anything else into my slow pace through apparently minor points.
From your last two posts, Monty basically chucks out a door, which he can always do (I agree), and invites us to choose from two. Therefore, it is a 1/2 chance in your reading.
Assuming so far, so good, then it is no different from playing this game by Monty not putting us through the work of choosing a door in the first round. He could simply pick a door to exclude while we hung about on stage, then invite us to choose one of the remaining two. Further, I will agree that this would then give you a 1/2 chance. OK?
In that scenario, Monty himself could open any of the three doors provided only that it did not have a car in it. He could choose 1/2 but from which two, we do not know.
The difference is that you do, in fact, choose a door first, and this becomes a door which Monty can not open, regardless of whether it contains the car.
When you have made your choice, and Monty has to make his choice, 2/3 times he has no choice at all about which door he opens. Only on 1/3 occasions does Monty have a free choice of two other doors. In the latter case, he can toss a coin.
We have established in the proper MHP that on 1/3 occasions, Monty can open at random (1/2 doors) while on 2/3 occasions Monty is constrained to a 100% choice of a particular door. Notice that these options for Monty are more constrained than when we played the version where he excluded a door before we made any choice.
So, in a ratio of 2:1 Monty is constrained to a single door, 100%, because the car is behind the other apparently free door in that 2:1 ratio, 2/3 times.
There you have the 2/3 times that it is better to switch, because by choosing first, you cut Monty's options, constraining him to reveal useful information to you two times out of three.
Ok, I'm going to take another crack at explaining how I'm visualizing the MHP.
There are 3 doors to choose from.
Car, Goat, Goat
We have no knowledge what resides behind each door. All 3 doors are a question mark (?), so we see them as 3 question marks.
So, we see:
?-?-?
We are asked to choose 1 door. So we choose 1 door, and Monty eliminates door ? because it was a goat. We are left with:
?-?
Which of the 2 doors is 2/3 more likely to be the car?
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
We see ?-?-?, but the possible system states are three, C-g-g, g-C-g and g-g-C
I see what you are saying clearly enough. However, assuming we chose the first, so I will leave it constant, we see ?-?-X or ?-X-?, so 2:1 times the car is elsewhere.
Anyway, please go through my slow steps above to find the exact point where we diverge.
Ok, I'll go back, but I want to come back to this.
I think my point is getting clearer.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
OK
It is clearer to me.
Not that I have changed my analysis . We will see what emerges.
Ok, cool.
Ok, cool.
I'll do my best.
Ok, we are both seeing the same thing. However, I want to emphasize that Monty chucks out a goat, no matter what door we choose to mark with a (*).
Yes. We can choose between 2 doors. I want to emphasize that although 1 of those doors we marked with an (*), it doesn't add or detract any percentage of odds in comparison to the door that Monty 'left' for us to choose from.
This is the really important part. Monty opened 1 door and chucked it. The doors that Monty didn't open and chuck are both 'equal contenders'. We need to agree that the 2 untouched doors are equal contenders.
Yes.
When Monty chucked 1 door, all that did was confirm that we are left with 1 door that will win and 1 door that will lose.
Yes.
However, I'll just point out that in your wording when you said "He could simply pick a door to exclude while we hung about on stage", you aren't being explicit that he's picking a door that has to have a goat behind it.
Yes. But the way you worded it, it sounds a bit convoluted.
Again yes, but that's a confusing way of explaining it.
But why is the fact that you have limited his options to 2/3 have any bearing? 1 of that 2/3 will be a goat that he can chuck, leaving only 1 goat and 1 car (out of 2) for you to be able to choose from?
Agreed. But so what? He still will have a goat to chuck.
Agreed. But so what? He has 2 goats that he can chuck, but he will only chuck 1.
This is where I think there's the big disconnect, so let's slow down right here, and back up a wee bit and recap.
Step 1- You mark a door with an (*)
Step 2- Monty chucks a goat
Step 3- One door has remained idle (#)
Conclusion?
The conclusion is only that the 1 door that was chucked, was a goat.
The 2 remaining doors ( * and # ) are indistinguishable from each other (as far as the contestant can determine). Chucking the goat only tells you about 1 door with a goat.
The (*) on the door that you marked, did not reveal useful information about your door, or the door that Monty is leaving still on the stage after he chucked the goat.
Do you agree up to here?
Your (*) door may/may not be a car.
The idle door (#) may/may not be a car.
That leaves us with 2 may/may not be a car choices, and we can only pick 1
1/2
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
I think I agree we have found the disconnect.
Unfortunately, I have dinner guests arriving in five minutes so it will be tomoroow my time before I can write further. I am not precious about anyone else working on the same line in the meantime.
Ah, car pulled up already
I think we can sort it out.
Interesting video. Thanks. It is gonna to take awhile to work thru it all but the speaker describes a study where case individuals first are given question which lead them to think about their own death. Then they switch to a supposedly different study about whether people believe in god or not. He said there was a temporary bump upward in people's belief in god.
So it is for good reason Christians use hell as a primer to move people to convert. And it is temporary medicine as noted so it has to be continually administered to keep the victim attached. Christianity is called a death cult not without reason. Jesus' death is always a key topic. Death makes it work.
Separate topic: Hey Cpt_Pineapple - who is the woman in the green shirt and red hair that occasionally appears as your avatar? She is shrugging her shoulders.
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/
Slightly re-ordered:
This is not surprising to me. It used to be surprising to me. But I have studied the MHP several times in the past, and over the years I've seen so many smart people get fooled by it, including mathematicians and statisticians, that I am no longer surprised when this happens. That is the reason I consider the MHP the strongest intuitive (non-optical) illusion not connected to religion.
From Wikipedia, Monty Hall problem:
I was initially fooled by the MHP. I literally could not see how the explanations made any sense. I would read an explanation and go, "What?! Where are they getting 2/3 from? That makes no sense!"
But, having learned a lesson about my own fallible intuition from the Birthday problem which I encountered in high-school, I figured I was probably wrong again.
One of the ways that helped was to say to myself, "Okay, I'm not going to commit to an answer until I at least understand why people could give these explanations which I don't seem to see the reasoning of."
At the end of the day, it took the billion doors version for me to see it.
Also, I wrote my own MHP simulation, and played several online.
redneF, I would recommend actually reading through the Wikipedia page and the MHP.com page, if you haven't already.
I think I understand now where you're coming from, and you reminded me of when I was initially puzzled by this one, so possibly I might be able to help make it clearer.
You state that it really isn't about mathematical probabilities. I will show later why it really is. But for the moment, I'll take you at your word.
Leaving aside the idea of mathematical probabilities, then what does it 'mean' for something to have a general 'probability' of 1/2 or 1/3 or 2/3? Or, say, odds of 50:50 or 1000 to 1?
Imagine a horse race, and the betting odds of a horse winning a race are 2:1 for the horse. Translating 'odds' into 'probabilities', we would say this horse has a 2/3 chance of winning the race. What does that really mean in reality?
I'm guessing you're thinking along the lines of, "If the horse ran 3 races, we should expect that it would win 2 of them, on average." Right?
Just like equal, 50:50 odds translate to a probability of 1/2, and we would say that the horse would win an equal number of times as it loses, or that for every 2 races, it should win 1, on average. Right?
Of course, there will be random fluctuations, winning streaks, losing streaks, and that sort of thing. But over all, in the long run, the proportion of wins out of the total number of races will approach the proportion of 1/2 or 2/3, depending on the real, actual probability of the horse winning. Right?
Now, horses are living things, and you can't really do such repeated tests to determine the 'real' probability, because the horse will get tired, and its likelihood of winning the race will change over time.
But at least we can run the thought experiment, and still get an intuitive sense of that probability.
And, importantly, if our intuitive sense of probability is accurate, then we should expect that if we were to bet on several horse races, then over the long run we should see that our intuitive feeling of the probability of something should match, more or less, what really happens in reality, right?
In other words, we can test our intuitive sense of probability vs. real probability (i.e. the proportions of real events happening in reality), right?
And none of this requires any math except for counting events and finding proportions, right?
So, if we stuck to betting only on horses which we intuitively believed had probabilities of winning of 2/3, and we bet on say 1000 races, then if our intuition is accurate then we should expect that somewhere around 667 (maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less) of those races would be won by the horse we bet on, right? All this is saying is that our intuitions are right or wrong based on how good they are at predicting what actually happens in reality.
Let's say a friend of yours had a faulty intuition (not his fault, he was born that way; we all have faulty intuitions sometimes). For each horse that your intuition tells you will win 2/3 of the time, his intuition tells him it will win 1/2 of the time.
Let's say you are both competing, and after 1000 races, the chosen horse wins 611 times. Wow, that's quite a bit different than 667, right? But it could have just been a fluke of chance. After all, it's only 56 away from 667. On the other hand, it's 111 away from 500, which would be the number of wins expected for horses with probabilities of 1/2.
Do you think this would be a half-decent way to tell which intuitive predictor was the most accurate? You could always just race more horses, if you wanted a stronger test, right? Say, 10,000 races, and you find 6581 winners. Getting even closer to 2/3, right? In fact, you could give an exact number of 0.6581, compared to 0.6667 vs. 0.5. It's the proportion of wins that's important, not the total number, right?
Okay, I'm not going to ask you to use any more math than that one single division. Just counting 'wins', counting the total 'races' (both wins and losses), and dividing wins / races to get a single number, the proportion p, of wins/races.
Okay. Now, you won't have to do 1000 or 10,000 'races', but I'm going to give you a way to test the MHP on your own, and compare your intuitive sense of probability vs. the real probability of real events really happening in reality. Probably, you'll be able to see the pattern building as you get close to around 20 games, and the more you play, the stronger the pattern will emerge.
If you are correct, and your intuition is accurate, then you will find that the proportion p, of wins/races (or cars/games), will get closer and closer to 1/2 which equals 0.5, the more games you play.
If you are incorrect, then p will not get closer to 0.5, but to some other proportion. I'm predicting that p will get closer to 0.33333 if you play the 'stay' strategy, and p will get closer to 0.66667 if you play the 'switch' strategy.
It's very important that you pick one strategy and stick with it. This simplifies things so you only need to count number of wins and total number of games played.
3 Card Monty (Hall problem)
From a deck of cards, take out 3, and declare one of them the Car (perhaps an Ace or other distinct card), and the other two Goats.
Shuffle the cards so that you no longer know where the Car is.
Draw one card of the three and place it face-down on the table. This is your initial choice of a door (1/3 chance of being correct).
Look at the two remaining cards (you're Monty now, deciding which door to open).
You MUST discard a Goat card, playing it face up to one side of the table, as Monty reveals one door with a goat behind it. If both cards are Goats, discard one of them at random.
The second, non-discarded card remains in your hand.
Now, since your strategy (stay/switch) has already been chosen ahead of time, you already know if you've won or lost:
Use a pen and paper to tally the total number of Wins and total number of Games played.
At any point, you can calculate the current proportion p by dividing the total number of Wins by the total number of Games.
p = Wins / Games
Again, you need to pick the strategy 'switch' or 'stay' first (before playing any games) and stick with it to the end, so that the proportion p will converge to a single number.
Try at least 20 games. After 20, you will see the proportion of wins/games steadily begin to approach either 0.3333 or 0.5 or 0.6667, the more games you play, depending on which strategy you chose.
You should probably already see the underlying pattern by then, though. If not, just keep playing until p clearly approaches one number and does not fluctuate much.
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As a person with limited time, focus, and patience, I'm going to insist that you show me being contradicted by the study before I answer your additional questions. One thing at a time, please.
And, by the way, I do have good answers to the questions. But I do not think you have read my position carefully enough in the first place to notice what I'm not saying. And so I believe answering additional questions now would not improve your understanding of what I've already written. Please do your own homework. (edit: Freudian typo) Or not. Up to you. It's just that I'm not willing to do it for you.
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Okay, I've thought of a few other ways to illustrate the problem:
Raffle/lottery version
In this version, it's a friendly game, and it goes like this. A thousand folded slips of paper (tickets) are placed in a raffle bin. One has the word Car written on it, and 999 have the word Goat written on them.
The raffle bin is spun, randomizing the tickets.
You select one folded ticket from the bin, and put it in your pocket without looking at it (it's a friendly game, remember).
There is a 1 in a 1000 chance you've actually got the Car ticket in your pocket. Odds are you didn't actually pick the Car ticket, and it's still in the raffle bin. In fact, there's a 999/1000 chance the Car ticket is still in the raffle bin.
Monty was late to the raffle, and finally shows up to do his job.
Next, Monty must discard all the remaining tickets, except one.
Monty is only allowed to discard Goat tickets, not the Car ticket.
He would like to try to fool you, by skipping a random ticket, to make it look like that might be the Car ticket.
But if he skipped a random ticket, and then later discovered the Car ticket in the raffle bin, he would also have to skip the Car ticket (since he's not allowed to discard the Car ticket).
But the rules say he can only skip one ticket (he must discard all but one), so that won't work unless he can be certain that the Car ticket won't show up later.
So, in order to give Monty a chance to fool you into switching, Monty needs to know if there's a Car ticket still in the raffle bin or not.
So, Monty is given the opportunity to examine all the 999 tickets in the bin.
If he spots the Car ticket in the raffle bin, he keeps this fact to himself, but now he knows that he cannot use the random ticket trick to fool you. He will have to discard all the tickets except the Car ticket.
If he doesn't spot the Car ticket in the raffle bin, he keeps this to himself also, but now he knows he should play the random ticket trick to try to fool you.
Case 1: The Car ticket is still in the raffle bin
Monty puts all 999 tickets back in the bin, and spins it to randomize the tickets again. You still have your first ticket in your pocket.
Monty pulls each ticket out of the bin, one by one. Let's say that the Car ticket just happens to be number 734 in this sequence of draws.
Case 2: The Car ticket is missing from the raffle bin
Monty puts all 999 tickets back in the bin, and spins it to randomize the tickets again. You still have your first ticket in your pocket.
Monty mentally picks a random number from 1 to 999. Let's say he just happened to choose 734.
Monty pulls each ticket out of the bin, one by one. When he gets to ticket 734, he pretends it's a Car ticket, even though it's a Goat ticket.
Is that a Goat in your pocket?
Now, at this point, you don't know whether it is Case 1 or Case 2.
But. What are the odds of each case? Notice that the 2 cases only depend on whether or not you have already chosen the Car ticket. The 2 cases only depend on what's in your pocket. And what's in your pocket does not change regardless of what Monty does from now on (actually, Monty wasn't even mentioned until after you had chosen your ticket). You've either got the Car ticket already, and it's missing from the raffle bin, or you have a Goat ticket in your pocket, and the Car ticket is still in the raffle bin.
Case 1 only happens when the Car ticket is still in the bin, which can only happen if you've got a Goat in your pocket (or are just happy to see Monty). The chance of you having a Goat are 999 out of 1000.
Case 2 can only happen if the raffle bin is full of Goats, because you've already chosen the Car ticket, and it's in your pocket. The chance of having the Car ticket is 1 out of 1000.
Monty reveals the Goats
You still don't know whether it's Case 1 or Case 2, but Monty proceeds with his charade:
One by one, Monty pulls out each ticket, examines it, and reveals that it is a Goat, and then discards it.
Except, for some reason when he gets to ticket number 734, he pulls out ticket 734, examines it, and puts it aside on a table, without revealing what's written on it.
He continues to pull out tickets, examines them, reveals they are Goats, and discards them.
There are only two unexamined tickets left.
Monty asks, "Do you want to keep the ticket in your pocket, which you chose randomly from a bin containing 999 Goats and 1 Car? Or do you want to switch to this other ticket, which I selected (never discarding the Car, only Goats) from a bin containing [998 Goats and 1 Car] 99.9% of the time or [999 Goats] 0.1% of the time?"
99.9% of the time, Monty was stuck finding a Car in the raffle bin (cuz you picked a Goat! lol), and so he was forced to discard 998 Goats and set the Car aside for you to switch to.
The other 0.1% of the time, Monty found that the bin had no Car, so he was able to try to trick you into thinking it's a 50/50 bet by fakely leaving 1 of the 999 goats in the bin aside as a fake 'Car' ticket. Or, like, a Car-Goat, or a Goat-Car, man.
So, Monty only gets to try to trick you depending on what you have already chosen. And only if you've chosen the rare Car ticket. Most of the time, he's stuck just revealing 998 Goat tickets for an hour or so, and putting the Car aside when it turns up in the sequence of draws. He's basically filtering out 998 Goat tickets to keep the only Car ticket. The kept ticket is not at all random in this case. It's forced to be the Car ticket.
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I just did. Your position is that there's an intial counter-intuative "hill" and once that hill is overcome [through an intuative solution], you are more likely to remember it because you get that payoff of overcoming that hill.
The study contradicts that, because there was no hill in the first place. They didn't need to take into account paradigm shifting[ overcoming the hill], because there wasn't a hill in the first place. In order for your idea to be consistent with the data, there had to be a hill to overcome.
The elements they presented are counter-intiative elements including folkbiology and folkpsychology in places they don't belong. Not something like a computer interface that seems counter-intuative at first until you overcome the learning curve.
The purpose of the questions was to get you to realize that. I see no hill whatsoever in the MCI elements presented in the study, ergo that contradicts your comments that your position is compadable with the data. It's not unless there was a hill to overcome. I don't see the "AH HA" moment that could possiblly come from thinking of a sobbing seaweed.
Yes, here is the study
http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/Manuscripts/morality%20salience.pdf
Kari Byron
No, you didn't. To show a contradiction, you must show a contradiction.
You quoted me, showed a picture of some word-pairs and then asked me to interpret them for you. Show the contradiction, not just the quotes.
You are arguing from incredulity. You cannot understand what I mean (I suspect because you haven't bothered to read my points very closely; though I could be wrong of course), and so your argument is that: I don't see it, therefore you are wrong and I'm right.
Well, I'm sorry you don't see it. But you not seeing it is not an argument against it.
If you want to make a rock-solid argument against my interpretation, then quote them, quote me, and show how the two quotes are contradictory.
If there was no hill, then how did they measure 'counter-intuitiveness'? You can't measure something if it isn't there. If there is no counter-intuitiveness to measure, then how are they deciding what is 'counter-intuitive'?
In order for something to actually be counter-intuitive, it must require extra effort, beyond intuition alone, to understand it. That is the hill.
How do they know (empirically) they don't belong? What measure of counter-intuitiveness are they using?
Fallacy: Incredulity. I do not see it (I can't believe it), therefore it isn't there.
You will see the hill in the exact moment you show me how they measured counter-intuitiveness.
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Example of disproof by contradiction:
Showing the contradiction:
By 'it', both natural and the scientific study are referring to the same thing X, as shown by these examples: ...
Natural says it is a rock. The scientific study says it is not a rock. It cannot be both a rock and not a rock, since that would be a contradiction.
Therefore, the scientific study contradicts natural's interpretation of it.
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You quoted me, showed a picture of some word-pairs and then asked me to interpret them for you.
wrote:
Is this MY idea or YOURS? Of course I asked you to explain them within your view. It's not my idea it's yours, it's up to YOU to explain them in your view, not my job.
The reason I asked the questions is TO understand your view. I have re-read your posts several times.
Here's how they measured it.
emphasis mine
Here's table 1
From Folkbiology and Folkpsychology. Atrributing psychological elements [feelings/beliefs etc..] in places it shouldn't be.
But wait!
Have you ever seen a plant know the multiplication table? Or express emotion? They don't belong because plants don't have cognition. They can't feel emotions. So attributing an emotion to a plant is counter intuative. We know a seaweed can't feel happy. Or a tree can't be concerned about the stock market.
For example a "sobbing seaweed" is folkpsychology. Seaweeds don't feel emotions, or have phsycial charactistics to express them. That is why a sobbing seaweed is counter intuative. You don't expect a seaweed to sob, and display emotion, because they don't have it
That is what they mean by counter intuative.
I said it wasn't there because I don't see it, I asked you to show it to me so I can see it.
basic skeptisism, I with hold belief until I see evidence.
Cpn,
That 'MCI' study does not contradict natural's position, precisely because it lacks a religious/political/etc context to provide the hill, ie something evoking or challenging ideas basic to the individual's world-view.
The 'hill' natural is describing will mainly arise when the 'counter-intuitiveness' involves deeply held attitudes and beliefs, not the sort of statements used in the test.
At least, AFAICS.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
On the contrary Bob, it contradicts natural's position for the exact reason it lacks a context to provide the hill.
The reason being is that natural's opinion is that it's overcoming the hill that boosts the spreading/memory of the idea, not the MCI by itself.
A way to test that is to take away the hill. That is if there is no hill, then MCI would have the same recall properties as non-MCI. It would degrade at the same rate, or even faster than others.
But it doesn't....Even without that hill.
If I say it's X is the key element to Y, and then you do Y without X, you proved me wrong. If X[the hill] is the key element to Y[recall/spread of an idea], and then I get Y[recall/spread of the idea], without X[the hill], then X[the hill] isn't why Y[recall/spread of an idea] happens. Right?
Logically, it goes like this:
Let R be the case that, "It is a Rock."
P1: (A Says X) ^ (B Says Y) ^ ~(X ^ Y) => (B Contradicts A)
"When A and B say things that cannot both be true, then it is the case that B contradicts A."
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natural says that it's "overcoming the hill, not MCI itself that leads to recall/low degration"
The study shows that no hill is required as none of the MCI elements in the study had a hill in the first place. As per natural's prediciton, the MCI has no surviabiablity because it lacks the key element of "overcoming the hill". [It would be up to natural to point out the hill in the study's MCI elements, if it exists.]
The study shows that MCI had surviability without the hill
Therefore the study contradicts natural.
natural will then insist I don't understand his position because I don't see the hill, and continue to refuse to explain it to me as per his bias. He will also ignore my questions to understand his position, and then just tell me to understand it for him.
You have not accurately described what I mean by 'the hill'. The hill is a metaphor for the level of counter-intuitiveness. Wherever the study points to 'counter-intuitiveness', it is pointing to the hill.
That is why I asked you to show that "Both natural and the study mean the same thing by X, as shown in these examples: ..."
Since 'the hill' represents counter-intuitiveness in the first place, your characterization of the study is unsound.
To support your characterization, you must produce a quote to the effect that: "There is no counter-intuitiveness involved in MCI elements."
Mischaracterization. Do you have a quote of me making that prediction? Can you logically show that anything I've said entails that prediction?
No. Because I explicitly describe MCI elements as involving a counter-intuitive 'hill', based on the study's own categorization of 'counter-intuitive'.
I already did. Which is why I want you to show a contradiction, rather than just assume there is one.
No, it does not, because the study itself depends on the notion of counter-intuitiveness, which is what the hill is a metaphor for.
Therefore you need to do more homework.
When have I refused to explain it to you? I've refused to do your homework to show a contradiction. I've given plenty of examples of the hill, and you still don't understand it. Why don't you go back to my descriptions and quote the ones you don't get, and ask me about those. That's what I've been asking you to do from the beginning of your critique.
Why I don't explain where the 'hill' is in the word-pairs: Because you haven't yet shown me you even understand what I've already written!
Why would I bother to explain myself over and over and over and over?
If you cannot/willnot take the time to find common ground in the first place, why should I pursue your moving goal posts all over the landscape? Show me that you understand me first. Ask me about what I've already written, rather than bringing something new to the table.
It's like talking with a creationist who never responds to any of your points, but just brings up more examples of 'problems' with evolution. Stick to one thing at a time. I'm not willing to chase you all over Misunderstanding Land.
You mean, like how you continually ignore all the stuff I've already written? I write twenty paragraphs, you respond with a one-liner. Been there, done that. Nobody else seems to have a problem understanding it but you. I think you need to look in the mirror.
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Hi, Bob, no, that's not quite how I mean. The 'hill' can be a very small hill. It can be any size. The bigger the hill, the bigger the downslope on the other side, though. Small hills correspond to small counter-intuitive ideas, and depending on the downslope on the other side, it can also be a small 'Ah Ha' moment.
Consider a question in a math textbook. It's not difficult, and you're pretty sure you got it right, but you're not certain. You check the answer in the back of the book, and "Got it right. Good." That little feeling there is a very small "Ah ha", small enough that we don't even go "Ah ha", just "That's what I thought it might be. Good."
I'm going to do a few images to give you guys a visual to work with. It's quite simple once you see it. Think of reaction potential energy curves in chemistry, and the difference between an exothermic reaction and an endothermic one.
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Thanks for that further clarification. I was already beginning to 'get' that after reading and considering your later responses.
From Dennett's 'Breaking the Spell':
He goes on to see this as an origin of ideas that fit the concept of 'memes', so to avoid offending Cpn's sensibilities any further, I will stop there....
I actually manually typed that from my copy of the book, so another reason for looking for a place to stop. I found that passage after a fairly short search, and I now realize it would be worth re-reading the book - I came across many passages that I had almost forgotten, and that I really wanted to look at again.
That passage conveys much of what I have associated with 'counter-intuitive', which takes a slightlly different perspective on it from what you have been discussing here, natural. There is more to it than that, of course, and I will try to go through the book some more to refresh my impressions of how Dennett saw it contributing to the origin, spread, and persistence of various non-rational ideas.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
natural, what I get you mean is that you go over a hill on an intially counter intiative idea then you get in intiative AH HA moment and then it starts to make sense.
That is you see the counter intuitiveness as a barrier that is it seems counter intuitive and first then you get an "AH HA" moment and it makes sense.
That is the paradigm shift does the work
and your way to test the MCI
Which is what the study did and why I asked how sobbing seaweed leads to a new understanding.
Care to explain now how it does? Where is the paradigm shift in thinking about sobbing seaweed?
That's why I think the study contradicts your view. The ideas presented DIDN'T lead to a new understanding, they were just counter intuitive. There was no paradigm shift.
I probably got "hill" confused with paradigm shift.
The study offered no such paradigm shift. So without it, according to your hypothesis, they should have no survivial value over anything else. But the study shows that they do hence contradicting your opinion.
Now will you please answer my question about the paradigm shift of sobbing seaweed?
In other words natural, replace "hill" with "paradigm shift" in my comment and it'll make more sense.
We know Monty is going to open a goat door, so he hardly needs bother to do that.
In fact, let us say that either you win the car or another contestant, Fred does. Fred does not have to do anything to win. It all depends on you.
You choose one door of three. We have agreed that this will pick the car 1/3 times.
No doors are opened. All other doors are automatically assigned to Fred, so there is a 2/3 chance (or 9/10 etc) the car is behind one of his doors. Fred has no constraints and will be allowed to open all doors until he finds the car, except in the 1/3 case you already have it.
You are simply asked, "Would you like to trade places with Fred, to have his two doors while he gets the one door you picked?"
Of course, you answer yes, because Fred has a 2/3 chance of winning because he is allowed open all of the other doors until he finds a car or runs out of doors (excluding yours).
Despite this, you decide to sit on the 1/3 door you have. It does not matter to Fred because he is allowed to keep going until he has exhausted all of the other doors.
At this point, Monty opens both other doors at once. One third of the time you have the car, one third Fred has it behind door B and one third Fred has it behind door C. Fred had a 2/3 chance of winning and this is shown up. He has B or C to your A. It is simply a matter of whether the car is already behind one of Fred's two doors.
Now, Monty closes one of Fred's two doors leaving a goat exposed in the other one (C or B, or either if they are both goats). You are now in the position where Monty exposes a goat without having told you where the car was first. Of course, we have already told you where the car is but notice that we arrived at this point via a 2/3 chance that Fred will win the car, not you. The odds did not change when Monty closed door B or door C. Fred had already won 2/3 of occasions. No more do they change if instead he opens only one, door B or door C. Fred will win 2/3 occasions.
In the normal game, Monty opening a door to reveal a goat does not change the above facts, because Monty can open one of two doors, not just one. The question you need to ask yourself without being distracted by Monty's plans is, would you first change places with the virtual Fred? If you would change places before Monty opens a door then we know that Monty will expose a goat 100% of the time so this makes zero difference to your prior decision. Monty may as well do a fandango for all that it matters.
That's a really great way to 'frame' it from the 2/3rds perspective, Pacioli. And actually, I'll write one up from the way I see the problem framed, and at the very least, you'll understand more clearly what I may not have been able to make as clear as I'd like to.
But, I can't right now. Too much on my plate today and tomorrow, so stay tuned.
Note to natural: Thanks for really putting in some great posts on examples to illustrate the 2/3rds perspective. And I'd like to discuss a few things in particular with what you wrote.
I'll follow up soon, guys.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Bingo, Bob. Nice find, and I appreciate you taking the time to type that out. That's awesome!
I should have known Dennett would have already written about this. I read Breaking the Spell when it first came out, but like you, I've forgotten much of what was in there.
I wouldn't be surprised if Dennett influenced my thinking without me realizing it.
He even covers the concept of bias, which is how I intended to explain the MCI counter-intuitiveness 'hill' to Cpt. So, I was much closer to his description than I've made out so far.
The only thing I really add to that is a kind of spatial/relational model, similar to chemical reaction potentials, which purports to explain why some ideas may be more intuitive/counter-intuitive than others, and can also explain deceptions, as well as genuine scientific Eureka! moments of true understanding of reality.
Still working on the images....
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Thanks, natural.
Least I could do after all the effort you put in here with those long posts.
In my copy, that was from the fourth page of the chapter titled "Religion, the Early Days", in case you want to follow it up. I looked in the index for references to 'mystery'.
In glancing through it, I had forgotten he had so thoroughly gone into 'memes', I have come to associate them more with Blackmore and Dawkins.
Pity I didn't come across a link to some "peer-reviewed research" for Cpn...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Basically right, but with the important point that it might make sense, or it might not. And if it makes some sense, it might make a lot of sense, or it might make only a little sense. And it might not even make enough sense to pay off more than the initial height of the counter-intuitive barrier. Depending on the payoff, which is the downward part of the hill, over the hump, that is what determines the overall attractiveness of the idea, not the initial upward climb of the hill (although this indirectly influences the downward distance also, which I'll illustrate in the images I'm doing).
Well, not quite. The paradigm shift provides the payoff. The initial work to get over the hump requires effort/interest on the part of the person.
See that? Right there. That's an assertion of your own opinion.
I don't believe you. I don't believe the study did that. Specifically, I don't believe the study investigated the nature of the down-slope at all, and that is exactly why it is unable to contradict my interpretation, because they simply did not do the right kinds of tests that would have made the right distinctions.
It would be like standing at point X, and looking in the distance at three hills, A, B, and C.
They measured the heights of A, B, and C from their perspective of the upslope from X to the tops of A, B, and C. This is the counter-intuitiveness.
Then they noticed that people who made it to the top of B with their bicycles and went down the far side ended up going faster (in the distance) than those who made it up A or C. And so they have this notion of minimal counter-intuitiveness.
But they failed to measure the height of the downslope on the far side of each hill.
Dennett's explanation is your best bet right now, until I finish the images. The key is that we have in-born and/or cultural and/or developmental intuitive biases. For example, we have a part of the brain that is hard-wired to recognize faces. And so, when it spots a cloud that kinda-sorta looks like a face, it goes bling-bling-bling! and gives you a little a little bit deeper downslope, and hence a greater payoff, than some bit of cloud that doesn't match the face-recognition pattern.
Unfortunately, the study you're referring to does not take this possibility into account, and instead uses a standard of 'folk' psychology and 'folk' biology. Duh! That's a freaking intuitive standard!
How do they measure counter-intuitiveness? You said it goes by infrequency. "Have you ever seen seaweed that sobs?"
Well, no. But I've never seen sea-weed that opens either. And yet they would categorize one of these as differently intuitive than the other. On what basis? By what justification?
It is not, in fact, infrequency that they are using to categorize these things. In fact, they are using a standard that is already based on intuition: Inert, vegetative, animal, person, etc.
Everybody knows that a pig is an animal. We know it intuitively. Information about pigs is stored differently in the human brain than information about people or inanimate objects. That's just a fact. We already have innate intuitive biases in how we categorize different words.
These different biases will affect the intuitive/counter-intuitive hill. But my point is that it is the hill itself, the up and down slopes, that determines the overall tendency to remember/believe something.
And the study simply did not perform the proper controls in order to differentiate between my interpretation and theirs. The data simply isn't there. It's not detailed enough, and they didn't make the right kinds of comparisons.
For example, why didn't they test for things that have absolutely no obvious relationship with each other? Like banana algebra silicate? Or transform red three?
Why didn't they use a numerically reproducible measure of intuitiveness/counter-intuitiveness?
There are many other problems with the study. The biggest, most major problem, however, is that they simply don't have a very good model of intuition, nor counter-intuition, and so they had no framework of ideas to help them design a better study.
Let's see. The next one is 'sobbing seaweed'. Huh. That's weird. (up slope) Never heard of sobbing seaweed before. What would that be like? <Imagines seaweed, imagines someone sobbing, tries to imagine the seaweed sobbing> (reaching top of hill) <intuitive social/emotional/empathic biases kick in, intuitive 'vegetative life' biases kick in> Okay I can kind of imagine that. It kinda-sorta makes a kind of sense. It's a seaweed that has emotions and it's really sad, so it's sobbing. (starting downslope) Aww! Poor little sea weed! It's okay, we'll get you back to the ocean soon. There, there. (fully downslope now)
Compare with:
Let's see. The next one is 'opening seaweed'. Huh. That's weird. (up slope) Never heard of opening seaweed before. What would that be like? <Imagines seaweed, imagines a door opening, tries to imagine the seaweed opening> (reaching top of hill) <intuitive 'vegetative life' biases kick in, no real built-in intuitive biases for 'things that open'> Hmm, maybe you're swimming and the seaweed sorta 'opens' ... I guess. <trying to construct an intuitive metaphorical association, but the concepts are only very weakly associated, so not much success here> Hmmm, not really seeing it. (Stuck at the top of the hill, there's no downslope, it's just kind of a ledge you can climb up to, but not get over to the other side, cuz there is no other side really. It just doesn't make much intuitive sense.) <tries to memorize it by rote repetition, manages some success, but it's not as strong a connection as if it were intuitive on the downslope>
Thinking a contradiction and showing a contradiction are two very different things. Unfortunately (?), I can't see inside your head. You have to show me using stuff I can see. Like quotes.
See that? Right there. That's an assertion of your own opinion.
I don't believe you. I don't believe the study did that. Specifically, I don't believe the study investigated the nature of the down-slope at all, and that is exactly why it is unable to contradict my interpretation, because they simply did not do the right kinds of tests that would have made the right distinctions.
Two more assertions.
This is actually true, but in an ironic way. You're right, the study offered no paradigm shifting, because they did not even think to study that. The study does not show anything about paradigm shifting either way, pro or con, because they didn't design the study well enough to make that kind of distinction.
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Oh, crap. I totally forgot to mention this hilarious (I thought) metaphor I came up with earlier today when I figured I should make some images to illustrate.
Basically, I realized that in trying to explain this idea to you, that you guys are actually undergoing exactly the process I'm talking about (but with a much bigger 'hill' than the simple word-pairs in the study), and I'm like that motorized chain that pulls the rollercoaster up the very first hill. Well, I can't take all the credit, of course. You guys are also pushing your carts uphill, like the 'cars' in the Flintstones. But it's just a metaphor, so for simplicity...
We have been climbing the hill, and it's been rough going. Cpt went on the totally wrong track and we had to work the track switches to get her back onto the pull chain. She's sitting backwards, and still doesn't even think the rollercoaster ride even exists. Meanwhile, Bob latched on to the cable of a nearby Dennett (tm) crane, and used its intuition pump to give him a boost to the top of the hill (and probably already on the downslope).
As Cpt reaches the top, and struggles to turn herself and sit the right way around, I'm still working on the sign at the top of the hill, which so far just has two stick figures in a crooked rectangle on a bump, saying, "You Are Here". Maybe she'll get over the top before I finish (time for bed right now), but I'm going to keep at it just in case, and also for anyone else who wants to ride now or later.
The chain motor is pretty weak right now, but I've got my engineers working on it to make the pull up the hill more smooth, and faster. They say they'll have the new version up, "Real soon now."
Pretty soon, or maybe already, Bob is going to be facing the steep slope downwards, and say "Oh, I get it now-wwhoah-aaaahhhhhh!!!!"
It's a pretty big drop.
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The paradigm shift is NOT the hill. The hill is a measure of the degree of CI.
The paradigm shift is what certain kinds of CI propositions may trigger.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
I read "Breaking the Spell" years ago, I may have to re-read it, but I do recall he encompasses some of Atran's work, but IIRC, the divergence is on "memes"
Anyway.
This isn't the kind of thing up for opinion. Either the study did or it didn't. I want to know which. What colour pants look good on you is an opinion. Whether or not it's MCI or pardigmn shift isn't.
I'm going to wait for your graphs before I comment on the slope thing.
I thought you didn't read the study.
It's called "MINIMALLY counter intuitive" not "flat out bat-shit insane"
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that a psychologist and cognitive anthropologist would know a framework of intuition. I already quoted where they do. Refer to table 1
I looked this up in Atran's book In Gods We Trust where he mentions the study:
Emphasis [bold/underline] mine
The study cited, is the study in question now.
But anyway natural, say Atran calls you right now, and asks you to design an experiment to distinguish between MCI and your opinion.
How would you design it? HOW are you going to test it?
I recently listened to an interview on "Point of Enquiry" podcast with Scott Atran.
Initially I was impressed, based on his early comments, but as it went on I became less and less impressed with his approach and assumptions. If he used the word 'transcendent' one more time I would have screamed. The topic was "Violent Extremism and Sacre Values".
I'm sorry, Cpt, he is definitely, IMHO at least, one of those individuals whose style (speech and tone of voice, in this case) is far more impressive than the substance of what he said.
He is not in remotely in the same intellectual class as Dennett.
BTW, another person who I think has more style than substance is Christopher Hitchens, in case you think I am basing my assessment too much on whether or not I have some sympathy with their outlook.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Atran does have a habit of blabbing on and on [even in his books], but I found In Gods We Trust to be more geared towards a scientific audience than an average one.
That's one of my pet peeves with him, I wish he could be more clear and just get to the point.
Just a gut feeling? I wouldn't say that. it is certainly so in many cases, maybe even most-- but what you forget is that God is not just an easy explanation that helps the hopeful theist sleep at night but also a philosophical conclusion.
Which still amounts to much the same thing.
'Philosophical' conclusions are typically just opinions or 'gut feelings' expressed in, 'justified by', fancier language.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology