Are all internet discussion doomed?

[DJP]

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think

http://www.cracked.com/article_19468_5-logical-fallacies-that-make-you-wrong-more-than-you-think_p1.html#ixzz3JtiPcOxr

In short:

• We're Not Programmed to Seek "Truth," We're Programmed to "Win"
• Our Brains Don't Understand Probability
• We Think Everyone's Out to Get Us
• We're Hard Wired To Have a Double Standard
• Facts Don't Change Our Mind

So what do you think? Should be give up or just carry on knowing that our brains make us deluded egotists that like to form narratives with ourselves as the hero? (But perhaps that's from another book…) 

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

In short:We're Not Programmed to Seek "Truth," We're Programmed to "Win"Our Brains Don't Understand ProbabilityWe Think Everyone's Out to Get UsWe're Hard Wired To Have a Double StandardFacts Don't Change Our MindSo what do you think?

I think that this list is based on an ideology.

DJP wrote:

Should be give up or just carry on knowing that our brains make us deluded egotists that like to form narratives with ourselves as the hero?

The problem, DJP, is that you're following this line of thinking as if it's 'the objective, god's honest truth', rather than a non-Communist view of humans.For a start, it's a transhistorical statement, not one that locates 'us' in history and society, never mind that we live in class society, where a small minority, aided and abetted by their academic dupes, tell 'us' these things, all the time.Biological individuals who just want to 'win', isolated, paranoid, duplicitous and impervious to 'material conditions'…Who'd have an interest in 'us' all, not only believing that, but posting it on a Communist site?On a wider note, DJP, you seem to often give links to non-Communist sites and their thinking, without any apparent critical awareness that 'psychology' as a discipline is riven with ideological bias.Unless I'm missing some subtle point that you're making?

[DJP]

Well there's my point proved in one post 

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Well there's my point proved in one post 

I must admit that I'm still missing your point, DJP.Or are you saying that academic 'psychology' can't be challenged on ideological grounds?Or that bringing 'ideology' into discussions is impermissable, because there is a 'Truth' out there, and 'ideologists' like me are just spoiling perfectly decent objective discussions between non-ideological individuals?If I were to be a bit more critical in tone, I would argue that it's your own refusal to engage in ideological debate that is preventing discussion, not some universal, natural problem with humans and their inability to discuss honestly or seek the (or 'a') truth of their society.

[Anonymous]

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

I must admit that I'm still missing your point, DJP.

I'm partly playing devils advocate in the hope that it might start an interesting debate. This podcast might help make the point for me. The questions I am thinking of are "what does it take to change a belief?" and "how do we know when we're deceiving ourselves?"http://youarenotsosmart.com/2014/09/30/yanss-podcast-033-the-psychology-of-forming-keeping-and-sometimes-changing-our-beliefs/

LBird wrote:

Or are you saying that academic 'psychology' can't be challenged on ideological grounds?Or that bringing 'ideology' into discussions is impermissable, because there is a 'Truth' out there, and 'ideologists' like me are just spoiling perfectly decent objective discussions between non-ideological individuals?

No I'm not saying either of those things. It's only you that suggests that anyone does. Ad infinitum it would seem..

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

No I'm not saying either of those things. It's only you that suggests that anyone does. Ad infinitum it would seem..

Nothing to do with your 'method' of posting uncommented links, and no critical discussion, so that we have to guess what you 'are saying'.

DJP wrote:

The questions I am thinking of are "what does it take to change a belief?" and "how do we know when we're deceiving ourselves?

On 'physicalism'?As far as I can tell, nothing works.You won't even accept that it just might be an ideological belief, and that someone might have an interest in deceiving you.The first thing to ask is 'where do my beliefs come from'?I always expose my 'sources', my ideological mentors, but you (and others on this site) always seem to think that you're just 'stating the truth'. As objective individuals, of course, dealing with the real world…

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

You won't even accept that it just might be an ideological belief, and that someone might have an interest in deceiving you.

I've never said that I do not accept the possibility of being wrong…. Again I don't think anyone has.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

You won't even accept that it just might be an ideological belief, and that someone might have an interest in deceiving you.

I've never said that I do not accept the possibility of being wrong…. Again I don't think anyone has.

Your 'belief' in 'physicalism' might provide a good test case, then, of how and why 'beliefs' are so difficult to change, which seems to be the underlying purpose of this thread.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Your 'belief' in 'physicalism' might provide a good test case, then, of how and why 'beliefs' are so difficult to change, which seems to be the underlying purpose of this thread.

Possibly. Likewise your mistaken belief that Marx's method and Critical Realism are compatible.. But I think we're already doomed.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Your 'belief' in 'physicalism' might provide a good test case, then, of how and why 'beliefs' are so difficult to change, which seems to be the underlying purpose of this thread.

Possibly. Likewise your mistaken belief that Marx's method and Critical Realism are compatible.. But I think we're already doomed.

The difference is that I've continously tried to get a discussion going about Marx and CR, but first we have to identify both Marx and CR, which comrades seem reluctant to do, so we never get to make any comparison.I've given many examples of CR 'in action', and even shown how CR fits well with an explanation of Marx's concept of 'value', but I've just been met with religious devotion to 'materialism' (and Engels' version at that, not Marx's), rather than the adherents of 'materialism' giving similar examples of it 'in action', and going on to show how it explains 'value'.I've met this response on LibCom and the ICC site, too, so I'm quite prepared to think, with you, that the discussion is already doomed. It's always quotes from 'The Great Man', The Word (and that word is 'material'), rather than critical thinking. Tell me again, which of those two methods was Marx's?

[DJP]

Actually this topic is about cognitive biases and beliefs, it is not another thread about Critical Realism. If you want to discuss that again start another thread…

[Anonymous]

[DJP]

[SocialistPunk]

The most interesting thing about the 5 so called logical fallacies, is that they are not that interesting.Like LBird sys they are ideologically in favour of the prevailing socio economic system, as the emphasis of the "science" is that we are hard wired to behave the way we behave.The science:Modern society is the way it is today, because evolution wired us up, not to accept when we're wrong, to seek to dominate or win, to be untrusting towards others. So society and our present behaviour must be the way it is because of our early evolution.My favourite is the following:

Quote:

"'Reasoning doesn't have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and make better decisions,' said Hugo Mercier, who is a co-author of the journal article, with Dan Sperber. 'It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us.' Truth and accuracy were beside the point."

Notice the "it was" "it evolved" and "were" in relation to evolution, as if evolution for humans ended abruptly when we first left the trees, that it fixed our brain as well as our mental and social abilities as we know them today.  It's essentially "evolutionary psychology" in the vein of Pinker. That our brains and henceforth our social behaviour only evolved to deal with our primitive environment and that it can't adapt so well to modern society.But then I've just proven the idea behind the article, as I disagree with it.

[Author]

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