Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Philosophy, in all its guises. => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on May 18, 2018, 09:53:11 AM
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Agree with a lot of this.
https://www.wired.com/story/sam-harris-and-the-myth-of-perfectly-rational-thought/
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Yes - there are some very good points in this article. I'd imagine that this is grist-to-the-mill for those who are wary of high profile atheists.
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Yes - there are some very good points in this article. I'd imagine that this is grist-to-the-mill for those who are wary of high profile atheists.
What would you say those good points are?
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What would you say those good points are?
I think the point about cognitive biases is an important one: nobody is free of those, and being insightful regarding personal susceptibility to biases is, I think, an important point.
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I think the point about cognitive biases is an important one: nobody is free of those, and being insightful regarding personal susceptibility to biases is, I think, an important point.
You mentioned points..........anything else?
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You mentioned points..........anything else?
I thought the cognitive bias aspect was very much highlighted in the article: would you agree?
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I thought the cognitive bias aspect was very much highlighted in the article: would you agree?
I didn't see this as a technical article On cognitive bias as such no.
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I didn't see this as a technical article On cognitive bias as such no.
Gordon didn't say it was. And that is a misrepresentation of the questuon. Perhaps you should read the question again.
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I didn't see this as a technical article On cognitive bias as such no.
I didn't say it was 'a technical article on cognitive bias': I simply noted that I thought its highlighting of cognitive bias was notable and I asked whether you agreed that it was. So, do you agree or not?
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I didn't say it was 'a technical article on cognitive bias': I simply noted that I thought its highlighting of cognitive bias was notable and I asked whether you agreed that it was. So, do you agree or not?
Cognitive bias was not in my view the highlight of the piece nor what the article wished that to be the highlight.
This is an account of the cognitive bias of the New atheists with emphasis on Sam Harris. A particularly appropriate focus given his scientific field.
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Cognitive bias was not in my view the highlight of the piece nor what the article wished that to be the highlight.
This is an account of the cognitive bias of the New atheists with emphasis on Sam Harris. A particularly appropriate focus given his scientific field.
You seem to be contradicting yourself: first you say 'Cognitive bias was not in my view the highlight of the piece' and then you go on to say 'This is an account of the cognitive bias of the New atheists with emphasis on Sam Harris'.
So, in your view, what is the primary theme of this article?
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You seem to be contradicting yourself: first you say 'Cognitive bias was not in my view the highlight of the piece' and then you go on to say 'This is an account of the cognitive bias of the New atheists with emphasis on Sam Harris'.
So, in your view, what is the primary theme of this article?
The cognitive bias of Sam Harris.
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The cognitive bias of Sam Harris.
And doesn't mention it as a general thing?
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The cognitive bias of Sam Harris.
To quote from the article:
Or, to put Harris’s fallacy in a form that he would definitely recognize: Religion can’t be a cause of terrorism, because the world is full of religious people who aren’t terrorists.
Would you say that was a fair point that can be extrapolated so that it might apply beyond the specific case of Sam Harris?
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And doesn't mention it as a general thing?
The author rightly explains cognitive bias in the.context of the main point of Harris calling the pot black. The theme is therefore Harris as humbug.
Any attempt to pass this off as an article about cognitive bias merely mentioning Harris and co in passing is committing a whitewash.
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To quote from the article:
Would you say that was a fair point that can be extrapolated so that it might apply beyond the specific case of Sam Harris?
And that is not an invitation from you to forget about Harris and move on exactly how?
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And that is not an invitation from you to forget about Harris and move on exactly how?
Well now: if we agree that to portray religion as being the cause of terrorism is problematic, because there are lots of religious people who aren't terrorists, do you think that principle might apply in other scenarios?
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Well now: if we agree that to portray being religion as the cause of terrorism is problematic, because there are lots of religious people who aren't terrorists, do you think that principle might apply in other scenarios?
Since I believe that detracts from the thread I shan't offer anything except my willingness to discuss this on another thread.
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Since I believe that detracts from the thread I shan't offer anything except my willingness to discuss this on another thread.
Since the OP of this thread is about this article, and since what we've been discussing flows from this article, why are you running away using such a feeble excuse?
Here is fine: and on topic too.
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The author rightly explains cognitive bias in the.context of the main point of Harris calling the pot black. The theme is therefore Harris as humbug.
Any attempt to pass this off as an article about cognitive bias merely mentioning Harris and co in passing is committing a whitewash.
And since no one has done that then your argument is entirely specious.
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And that is not an invitation from you to forget about Harris and move on exactly how?
Because it isn't. Stop making shit up.
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Because it isn't. Stop making shit up.
Look, there is a real conversation to be had here. You could argue that Harris and his Ilk have and are able to rise above cognitive bias and tribalism and present evidence from the annals of Harris and Krauss which demonstrates this.
Instead I strongly suspect the plan is:
1: Oh dear, the criticism of New Atheism is reaching the wider sphere.
2: Krauss' name was invoked
3: How do we get out of this
4: Oh yes cognitive bias is mentioned
5: Let's talk about cognitive bias other than in New Atheism
6: Yes, cognitive bias in religion always goes down a storm.
9: Back to normal, Panic over.
I'm wondering Sane if you are regretting putting this up?
That you didn't talk about what and why you agreed with was disappointing.
That there wasn't a great uptake of response was not surprising.
That Gordon IMHO seemed to attempt a wee Tu Quoque was depressing.
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Look, there is a real conversation to be had here. You could argue that Harris and his Ilk have and are able to rise above cognitive bias and tribalism and present evidence from the annals of Harris and Krauss which demonstrates this.
Instead I strongly suspect the plan is:
1: Oh dear, the criticism of New Atheism is reaching the wider sphere.
2: Krauss' name was invoked
3: How do we get out of this
4: Oh yes cognitive bias is mentioned
5: Let's talk about cognitive bias other than in New Atheism
6: Yes, cognitive bias in religion always goes down a storm.
9: Back to normal, Panic over.
I'm wondering Sane if you are regretting putting this up
Yes, indeed there is and your misrepresenting what people have said gets in the way of it. I have no regrets about putting this up because I agree with it.
So let's get on with discussing it rather than you posting tosh about what people haven't said.
It seems to me to point out that there is no way to know that you aren't indulging in biased thinking, and that those who argue that they do, in this case the Spiffy Sam, are demonstrating their error by the claim. The writer used the case of their reaction to the accusations to Krause to show that he cannot be sure of his own rationality even when questioning it.
Overall it addresses an attitude that some atheists show that they are somehow superior in their thinking simply by being atheists which I find to be laughable. It's all reminiscent of the 'Brights' pish.
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Yes, indeed there is and your misrepresenting what people have said gets in the way of it. I have no regrets about putting this up because I agree with it.
So let's get on with discussing it rather than you posting tosh about what people haven't said.
It seems to me to point out that there is no way to know that you aren't indulging in biased thinking, and that those who argue that they do, in this case the Spiffy Sam, are demonstrating their error by the claim. The writer used the case of their reaction to the accusations to Krause to show that he cannot be sure of his own rationality even when questioning it.
Overall it addresses an attitude that some atheists show that they are somehow superior in their thinking simply by being atheists which I find to be laughable. It's all reminiscent of the 'Brights' pish.
See....... that wasn't hard was it?
To serious matters, I think it is possible to touch on the truth even in the face of cognitive bias. I think the author summed this up as ''intellectual humility''.
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See....... that wasn't hard was it?
And again you don't discuss, you misrepresent. Your posting on this thread reads as if you want to avoid discussion of the topic. It's like you are a follower of Harris who wants to deflect from the obvious contradictions of his position.
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And again you don't discuss, you misrepresent. Your posting on this thread reads as if you want to avoid discussion of the topic. It's like you are a follower of Harris who wants to deflect from the obvious contradictions of his position.
My first reaction to it was that what the article represented was really a more refined and,I have to face it, better written example of what I have been banging on for years and which has been pooh poohed as obsession with New Atheists.
I thought then that you were actually very brave not only to reference it but express agreement of it. More power to your elbow and whether I like it or not criticism of New Atheism is always better coming from an atheist.
Posters who I believe would have flocked to pull your reference apart had I placed it seemed to have remained schtum and probably schquirming at the criticism here.
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to reference it
There is no such verb as "to reference". "Reference" is a noun. You mean "to refer to it".
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My first reaction to it was that what the article represented was really a more refined and,I have to face it, better written example of what I have been banging on for years and which has been pooh poohed as obsession with New Atheists.
I thought then that you were actually very brave not only to reference it but express agreement of it. More power to your elbow and whether I like it or not criticism of New Atheism is always better coming from an atheist.
Posters who I believe would have flocked to pull your reference apart had I placed it seemed to have remained schtum and probably schquirming at the criticism here.
Why would I be brave to post something that is a point of view that I have continually written about in here? What bravery does one need to post something?
I don't criticise 'New Atheism' because I don't think it is an actual thing. It's a brand that was originally applied as a criticism. I criticise people's thinking or people themselves as individuals and the tribalism that is covered in the article is anathema to me. At that level, I think you need to look at your posting on this thread where you misrepresented what was being posted and consider if that is an example of the very tribalism and cognitive bias covered in the article.
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There is no such verb as "to reference". "Reference" is a noun. You mean "to refer to it".
You can find it in dictionaries as a verb, though I suspect here You are arguing that it is not correct for the dictionaries to have it in as a verb. To relate it back to the articke, I think that there is an element of tribalism when we post such Canute like proclamations about language use. We use the language 'property's whereas the barbarians abuse it. Given that Vkad's use of it makes clear what is meant, and that is not a thing I often write about his pists, then I have no problem with it. I think I have up worrying about such stuff when 'literally ' became defined as not literally.
Stuff like language use seems to me to link the idea of tribalism to the Flat Earth thread I have just started. We take our sides on opposite banks of the epistemology war and argue for rigour and rules against intuition and iconoclasm. And yet we do often do it for things that are not, imo, imporatant, precisely because they are not important.
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You seem to be contradicting yourself: first you say 'Cognitive bias was not in my view the highlight of the piece' and then you go on to say 'This is an account of the cognitive bias of the New atheists with emphasis on Sam Harris'.
So, in your view, what is the primary theme of this article?
Oh come on Gordon. Think about it. It's a piece with the thesis that we all engage in tribalistic thinking and it uses Sam Harris as an example. Of course the highlight for Vlad is that it disses a so called New Atheist. What the article is really about doesn't matter: Sam Harris gets a pasting and that's all that counts in Vladworld.
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Why would I be brave to post something that is a point of view that I have continually written about in here? What bravery does one need to post something?
I don't criticise 'New Atheism' because I don't think it is an actual thing. It's a brand that was originally applied as a criticism. I criticise people's thinking or people themselves as individuals and the tribalism that is covered in the article is anathema to me. At that level, I think you need to look at your posting on this thread where you misrepresented what was being posted and consider if that is an example of the very tribalism and cognitive bias covered in the article.
The author img adequately defined who and what he meant by NewAtheist. I think they themselves objected to being labelled and categorised........Something else they were quite happy to do to others.
I think they preferred the term Brights which to me was a rather unsubtle piece of cheeky wee schemie-ism.
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Oh come on Gordon. Think about it. It's a piece with the thesis that we all engage in tribalistic thinking and it uses Sam Harris as an example. Of course the highlight for Vlad is that it disses a so called New Atheist. What the article is really about doesn't matter: Sam Harris gets a pasting and that's all that counts in Vladworld.
Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnyes.
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The author img adequately defined who and what he meant by NewAtheist. I think they themselves objected to being labelled and categorised........Something else they were quite happy to do to others.
I think they preferred the term Brights which to me was a rather unsubtle piece of cheeky wee schemie-ism.
That's nice but I don't see that just because something is defined that it makes sense to use it. It's a generalisation and by its nature simplistic. I'd rather engage with the individual. As I have already covered I found the whole Brights nonsense worthy merely of an eye roll.
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That's nice but I don't see that just because something is defined that it makes sense to use it. It's a generalisation and by its nature simplistic. I'd rather engage with the individual. As I have already covered I found the whole Brights nonsense worthy merely of an eye roll.
I appreciate your disdain at the brights thing. There was also the macho epithet "Fourhorseman" which I believe they were happy to be associated with.
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I appreciate your disdain at the brights thing. There was also the macho epithet "Fourhorseman" which I believe they were happy to be associated with.
You use 'they' like cheap scent. And it's about as attractive.
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I appreciate your disdain at the brights thing. There was also the macho epithet "Fourhorseman" which I believe they were happy to be associated with.
Were they? Can you show any evidence where any of the so called four horsemen endorsed the label?
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Were they? Can you show any evidence where any of the so called four horsemen endorsed the label?
Oh yes, I most certainly can....
https://www.richarddawkins.net/2013/10/the-four-horsemen-dvd-19-95/