You didn't answer the question, though. You didn't even postulate a testable hypothesis. "Water freezes" is a fundamental experiment to run, yes. "Prison sentences" is complex, certainly, but it doesn't touch on ideology. Jonah Lehrer devotes several chapters to this in How We Decide (and footnotes it, so the studies are legit, unlike that nasty Bob Dylan business). Simply put, we have evolved to focus on and pay attention to information that affirms our preconceptions, while we are evolved to tune out and ignore information that contradicts our preconceptions. We do not start as blank slates, we start as piles of hunches that, like a ball in a pachinko game, bounces off of facts on our way to the bottom… all the while avoiding things we know are going to hurt our brains. Play Rush Limbaugh to conservatives and give them a dial that adjusts the noise, they'll adjust it down. Play Rush Limbaugh to liberals and give them the same dial, they'll adjust it up. So the better example is, say, global warming. Or its liberal doppelgänger, vaccine skepticism. Show two people with two ideologies one study and both will find things that reassure them in their biases. It's only until there is a preponderance of unavoidable, painful evidence that you will shock people out of cognitive dissonance and into rationalization. Even now, with the autism link widely discredited, vaccine denialists are focusing on other vaccines because "there haven't been enough tests yet." And even now, with the overwhelming majority of information supporting anthropocentric global warming, the skeptics are picking holes in the model about how fast it's happening as evidence that "nobody knows anything." Sam Harris does a pretty good job of wrapping your head around it with "The Fireplace Delusion."
Given my position, it would be contradictory to attempt a testable hypothesis! :) Actually, unless I’ve missed something, what I have said is generally compatible with the positions you’ve offered. I will have to look at the Harris reference and get back with you. Short on time.
Okay, that might be me not really getting your point. It seems like your fundamental argument is this: I disagree with this statement. The argument I'm making is this: Elaborating on your argument, you dive into complexity and model-making, even throwing Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in there. Here's a good quote: My argument is that you are incorrect: It is not a matter of complexity that causes people to disagree. It is a matter of prejudice, and a matter of selection bias. As simply put as possible, the suitability of Sarah Palin for higher office is a pretty simple discussion. She was mayor of a tiny town in Alaska, she spent two years on Murkowski's coat tails, and she was inches away from a massive scandal when she got scooped up to tart up McCain's ticket. But if you're predisposed to see the "presidential" qualities of Sarah Palin, you're going to ignore and downplay all that in favor of intangibles like "charm" and "earthiness" because you've already decided she'd be a good vice president. Objectively it's not even a contest - consider the laughingstock that Dan Quayle was. Picking a fight with Murphy Brown! The horror! But look at Quayle's record before the VP spot. Do you think Sarah Palin would have survived if Republican selection bias didn't require Republicans to find her worthy? The complexity of the problem is inconsequential. We're in a "shoot first, ask questions later" mindset about pretty much everything, and any argument we engage in, we've picked sides before we've opened our mouths. Your argument is this: Except no. Take James Carville and Mary Matalin. She ran George Bush's campaign in 1992, worked for Reagan, etc. He ran Clinton's campaign in 1992, worked for Howard Dean, etc. They've been married since 1993 and are uncontested experts in politics. Yet they disagree completely as far as political ideology. By your argument, their far-more-perfect knowledge than the average schmo should lend itself towards a far-more-perfect agreement over the major points but it hasn't. In this case, and in all cases, understanding the situation better doesn't get you closer to the "truth" in complex problems, it makes your arguments more compelling and gives you more certainty over your correctness.Fundamentally, people disagree because most of their beliefs are supported by evidence that is at best fragmentary and at worst imaginary.
Simply put, we have evolved to focus on and pay attention to information that affirms our preconceptions, while we are evolved to tune out and ignore information that contradicts our preconceptions.
The difference between the freezing water proposition and the theft proposition is not one of kind, but one of complexity. Both really are just physics problems – dependent on the behavior of physical things that are subject of physical constraints.
We know little about politics, economics, sociology, etc – in the same sense that we know the rudiments of the physical sciences… Every historical event, in time, ceases to be a collision of physical causes and becomes an author’s narrative.
I was sloppy at noon because I was in a hurry. I am now going to plead being sloppy because I am tired. I understand your point about bias. I am going to insist that I did not ignore this: "Of course, some beliefs aren’t justified with any obvious logic – not even merely inductive logic. If we believe that the theft proposition is true because it plainly makes intuitive sense, we are justifying the belief with a narrative. A narrative is essentially a coherent framework constructed from one’s own prior assumptions and imagination. It depends on the assumption that ideas that are easy to believe are probably true. We can, of course, believe all sorts of silly and erroneous things and still be coherent, because coherence (in the non-philosophical world) only demands we avoid intolerably obvious affronts to logic. Narrative arguments need little evidence; they only need an air of plausibility.3 When faced with problems that are beyond our full comprehension, we actually have no choice but to content ourselves with either oversimplifications or narrative conjectures. Since both of these alternatives are generally presented in the form of truths (typically as declarative statements) they carry more persuasive weight than they can rationally bear.4" This is, I believe, the same thing you are talking about. When people don't know any better, either because the issue is too complex to the data is inaccessible to them, they fall back on what they already think they know. I stand by my basic complexity claim too -- because I think, nasty and philosophical as it is, it is a fact. (I have a longish, picky, tedious epistemology essay I'll be posting here eventually. I am deeply shocked and delighted that people will actually read it. That is genuinely wonderful...) I won't be baited into defending Palin. I would not want her to be President, though my opinion of her is higher now then it was in '08. Not high -- just higher. It really wasn't my intention to have a fight over politics at this point. Epistemology is enough for one day... A good line of argument, by the way. I just don't think our views are mutually exclusive.
There's a causality issue that you're skirting, however. You keep coming back to "things are just too complex so we oversimplify and construct a narrative." Simply put, you're at "IF complexity THEN oversimplification." The evidence doesn't bear that out. So what you think is a fact matters less than what you can demonstrate as a testable hypothesis. That's why I linked to the Jonah Lehrer book - these hypotheses have been tested, and they have come up with the explanation for "rational disagreement" that I've put forth. So as "nasty and philosophical" as your claim may be, it's a guess. On the other hand, here's the abstract for an actual experiment that disproves your hypothesis. It's described on pp. 206. In the end, you're still coming back to "we just can't figure out the truth" when the actual mechanism is "we actively ignore the truth when we don't like it." Do you see the difference?
Consider the smoking example in your linked abstract. The assumption of the experimenter is that test subjects should assume the tape-recorded messages are factual. Why? Presumably because the experimenter considers them factual. In practice, most information is probabilistic. “Smoking-cancer link” does not mean everyone who smokes a cigarette gets cancer – it only means that more people than average do, and that’s assuming one has a reason to trust the source. The smoker might believe: “My friend Louis smoked a pack a day from age sixteen and died in a car accident at the age of ninety-five. Maybe I’ll get lucky too.” And, indeed, the smoker might be correct. Yes, such a presumption might be based on a predisposition to smoke, but it is only possible to entertain such a presumption because the counter claims are probabilistic and issue from a source whose reliability is not known. It would be different if the messages guaranteed a negative outcome. Tell your test subjects that the surgeon general has order cyanide added to all cigarettes sold in the US from this day forward – and they will push the button that turns down the static immediately. I’m not saying your phenomena isn’t prevalent – but I am saying it exists against a general background of uncertainty. People sometimes deliberately avoid hearing about things they feel truly certain about – but that the exception not the rule.
No, no, no. You're trying to triangulate to a corner of the world where your fundamental assertions are still unchallenged, but you can't get there. Here's the problem: Not in evidence, not tested for, not relevant to the discussion. The assumptions of the subjects is not under investigation, nor does it have any bearing on the outcome. The only question is whether the subjects want to hear the information or not - its veracity does not enter into the discussion. The experiment was published in August 1967. Cigarette packs had only had warnings on them since 1966 - even then, they were pretty ambivalent ("Caution: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health"). In 1965, 42% of adults smoked. It's entirely possible that the experiment was conducted before even that mealy-mouthed warning made it onto packs. So you can't just invalidate the experiment by presuming the experimenter presumes the subjects are taking the recordings as gospel truth. It isn't part of the experiment, there's no basis to make the assumption, and the facts on the ground indicate that it's a silly assumption to make in the first place. The only thing being tested is openness to information based on the content of that information.The assumption of the experimenter is that test subjects should assume the tape-recorded messages are factual.
There are really only a few ways intelligent disagreements can go.
One way is well illustrated by my discussion with waxoxygen (see above). After the resolution of a number of points of contention, we discover that we are in general agreement. Neither of us won the argument. The fact that waxoxygen agreed with my position eventually but did not agree initially could as easily be attributed to my poor initial explanation of my position as it could to the force of my subsequent arguments. I do not consider the discussion a waste of time (far from it!) because it gave us both the opportunity to examine and justify our views. My disagreement with you has also given us similar intellectual opportunities, but it is obvious that we are not going to arrive at an agreement. The discussion has now degenerated into a series of restatements of our own particular positions. It is just the sort of thing you see in formal debates with a long series of rebuttals. The first few exchanges are interesting, but after that both parties repeat themselves in astonished frustration that the other simply refuses to see the obvious. I think we have arrived at that point. I believe this is where we stand: You believe the Jonah Lehrer argument is both decisive and comprehensive. I believe that it is substantially correct, but insufficient to provide a comprehensive explanation for disagreement. I have reached the point where I am beginning to quietly speculate about your underlying assumptions and motivations – and I know all too well that that is not a good, fair, or reasonable place to be. You appear irritated, which doesn’t bode well either. I think it’s fair to say we leave each other unconvinced. I do not think that proves that either of us is, in general, irrational. I thank you for the discussion, and genuinely hope to hear from you again.
I love The Fireplace Delusion. Thank you for sharing. I wouldn't have a problem with us getting rid of wood fires at all - but my parents would. In the meantime, I'm going to warp it against its intended use and tell everyone that if they're okay with wood fires, then they can't give me shit about smoking. I don't think that's the article's intended purpose, though :)
FYI, this sentence doesn't make sense to me Doubling the length of jail sentences will substantially reduce the rate of criminal of theft.
-Is there one too many "of"'s in there?Given that we can only understand most subjects obliquely and incompletely, it shouldn’t be at all surprising that few of us have exactly the same beliefs. Each of us has a different set of incomplete and problematic data from which to wrest his or her tenuous conclusions. Watch any economics talk show on television and you will see any number of “experts” with any number of substantially different views. All that they make clear, collectively, is the chronically tentative state of their field. The same is true for politicians, psychologists, or anyone else who deals in the murky territory of human interaction.
-Let's say we get to a point as a species that we are fully integrated with one another in some sort of post singularity grid. We have access to all information and data at all times. Do you think this eliminates a sense of self? Will we all have the same conclusions? Eventually, will there be no more anomalies of thought because we are all sharing the same data with which to draw our conclusions? What do you think theadvancedapes?
One could perhaps call it a... global brain. MMmMmMMmmm... all the information in our brainssszzzz... I think higher types of consciousness will start to emerge. I still think you will have your own consciousness. But discussions between different collections of "people" will include mergers of "brain spaces", Ben Goertzel has called them "mindspheres". The best way to imagine this is by comparing your state of consciousness when you're alone to when you are a room full of people having a conversation. Your consciousness (or state of mind) is much different in these two situations... you might even say that there is a "feeling" in the room... a collection of the feelings/thoughts of all those taking part in the conversation. However, with digital minds that conversation could take place without language... we could actually subjectively feel each others thought patterns, or collection of thought patterns of multiple people. This would be a qualitatively different type of experience than the types of conversations we have today... just like explaining language to an australopithecine would be impossible... explaining this completely may be impossible. I highly doubt it (because I think information and knowledge are different things - and having the same information doesn't mean having the same opinion about that information), although I feel like our collective opinions will get closer and closer. You can imagine this with a simple thought experiment. Imagine we were to have four people from 1500 (say from Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia) magically teleported into the same room and forced to discuss their thoughts on the world. If they could eventually understand each other, their opinions on reality would undoubtedly be radical divergent. If we continually ran this experiment every century (i..e, 1600, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000, and so on) our global conversation would be becoming more and more coherent with more and more agreement and less and less disagreement. This would just be a function of globalization and the rate of cultural information transfer in the system. We should expect this to continue - but I doubt it will continue to the point where all agents in our collective global brain system agree on everything. I think we will largely have discarded with notions connected to our hunter-gatherer and agricultural past, but we will still disagree about bleeding edge scientific theory or perhaps even spirituality.Let's say we get to a point as a species that we are fully integrated with one another in some sort of post singularity grid.
We have access to all information and data at all times.
Do you think this eliminates a sense of self?
Will we all have the same conclusions?
On average, your four people from 1500 would all be farmers or hunters and, apart from religion and customs, would probably understand one another’s lives. I’m not convinced we are coming to anything like a global consensus. While there is a sort of global pop culture and a common understanding of technology, individually we are more specialized than we have ever been. I would probably have an easier time talking to an aborigine than I would a hedge fund manager. Beyond that, it’s an interesting conjecture. My personal experience with internet conversations is that they are still prone to all sorts of misunderstandings, particularly emotional ones – bereft as they are of facial expressions, body language, etc. :) The “feeling in the room” is something I cannot know that other people have. I infer what you feel based on your words, my prejudices, and my inductions. If other people really feel one another’s qualia I have been left out. For clarity sake (because I think it’s necessary) I’m being playful here – not sarcastic. Thanks for the comment.
The fact that political questions are complex helps to explain disagreement, but I don't think it tells the whole story. There is little disagreement about ice, though water freezing is also a complex phenomenon. When complex questions are not political, people are often comfortable saying they simply don't know. You don't hear arguments about the Fourier transform at parties. (Or perhaps you do, and I go to the wrong parties.) I think that that the question is not "Why rational people disagree" but "Why People Are Irrational about Politics."
On a totally unrelated, yet totally awesome, matter, I had my first real life experience with supercooled water the other day. I had seen videos of water well below 0C not frozen, but hadn't ever witnessed it. Then last week I was in my lab preparing some reagents. I put a salt solution in the freezer to cool it, and when I came back a couple hours later it was still liquid. Confused, as it seemed really cold, I picked the container up to inspect its temp. Immediately upon touching the container (and thus disturbing the supercooled liquid within) it turned solid. Within probably one second this 500mL bottle of solution went from totally liquid to totally solid. It really was an amazing thing to see first hand when not expecting it (if you're a science nerd). But anyway, I guess my point (I don't really have one, but I'm going to make one just to be somewhat relevant here) is that even phase diagrams can be incorrect in the perfect circumstance.
I've heard people say "I don't know" about political questions. Another difference, which I thought I'd alluded too but perhaps didn't emphasize, is that the freezing point of water isn't alterable by argument. Political positions are alterable by argument, or at gunpoint for that matter. Thus, you can change the political (cultural, psychological, religious, etc.) landscape even from a position of ignorance.
Or, if someone has a political misapprehension and you change their mind with a good argument, how is that different from convincing them that "[Nearly pure] water freezes at [approximately] 32 degrees Fahrenheit [under conditions typical on the surface of the earth]" if they did not believe this was the case before?I've heard people say "I don't know" about political questions.
It's a good response. It is one of the few which is unlikely to be contradicted, even when it is false.Political positions are alterable by argument, or at gunpoint
You could get people to say that wealth inequality is okay by pointing a gun at them, but could you get them to believe it? A recent discussion questions whether a rational person actually decides what to believe, or is compelled toward inescapable conclusions.
I suppose that depends on how you convinced them. The difference, typically, is in how your interlocutor perceives the two assertions. Not only is the freezing water assertion testable, it's also a matter in which almost no one has an emotional stake. The difference between water freezing at 32 or 33 isn't going to alienate you from your family or friends. On either side of the political fence, beliefs will. We don't have narratives, or whole cultures, dependent on the freezing point of water. I have a vague sense I haven't really answered your question somehow. If I haven't, let me know. Thanks.
You will probably start with a thermometer. Okay, the most expensive thermometer for sale on Amazon costs over a thousand dollars and is accurate to only ±2°C. So we will have to be very specific about equipment. And even if we get better tools, there will still be a limit to the accuracy of our measurement. Next, you will want to specify a very precise environment. Air pressure plays a role and the container makes a difference. And of course, you will want to obtain the purest water possible, but even the highest standards allow some contamination. Suppose we have a laboratory kept as close to 32 degrees Fahrenheit as possible. Into this lab we introduce a block of ice which is also at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (or just a little colder), and a beaker of water which is at 32 degrees Fahrenheit (or just a little warmer). What will happen? I don't know! If the water doesn't freeze, doesn't that disprove the assertion? In the end, I think the best you can hope for is a highly qualified claim like "Nearly pure water, when cooled from 34 degrees Fahrenheit to 30 degrees Fahrenheit, freezes at approximately 32 degrees under typical conditions" which adds to our understanding of the world but is not an elegant and universal truth statement. That kind of statement does not sound so different to me than a claim like "In modern democratic capitalist societies, minimum wage laws as typically drafted and enforced generate more benefit than harm to low-skilled workers." I am not even sure which would be easier to test; it all depends on your criteria.I have a vague sense I haven't really answered your question somehow.
You have done something better; you have given me things to think about. Thanks!Not only is the freezing water assertion testable,
I am going to risk being a bit obtuse and pedantic here and ask if you are sure. That is, can you establish that the statement "Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit" is true or false? Suppose I ask you to prove it to me?it's also a matter in which almost no one has an emotional stake.
This is highly significant, but of course has nothing to do with the truth value of the assertion, and everything to do with the irrational kind of shortcuts that helped our ancestors make babies instead of wasting time worrying about nucleation sites.
I'm inclined to say that since the state change itself involves an energy transfer that nothing would happen -- but I'm not sure either. I am confident though (yes, I know that my confidence proves nothing) that if you did the identical experiment under the identical conditions in a hundred different laboratories you would get identical results. If you did get variations, you would look for (and probably find) variables you hadn’t eliminated, including (as you point out) imprecision in your instruments. You would not conclude that water has variable properties. Now consider your sample assertion: “In modern democratic capitalist societies, minimum wage laws as typically drafted and enforced generate more benefit than harm to low-skilled workers.” What do “modern,” “democratic,” “capitalist,” “typically,” “benefit,” “harm,” and “low-skilled” mean? All of these terms are subject to endless interpretation. I am not saying that we should throw our hands up and give up on public policy altogether, but I am saying when people discuss such matters they are rarely, if ever, on the same page.
I have read your article again and am substantially in agreement. The Voltaire quote is great, too. But I feel that saying political issues are more complex than scientific issues and therefore people disagree about politics is too ... simple. There are plenty of scientific issues of deep complexity. Typical people who are willing to argue about nationalized health insurance despite a lack of expertise will not argue about protein folding, regardless of the complexity. Huemer argues that people are subject to bias when discussing politics, and they sometimes have good, rational reasons for their bias. I think this is an important factor, and one that should be included as part of the dizzying complexity that makes political questions contentious.
I agree with all of that. I picked the freezing point of water to use as an example, and not quantum theory, for a reason! Much of science is extremely complex -- but ALL of economics is. That's why laws in economics become less reliable as economists try to make them more precise. Great discussion. I hope to hear from you again.
Consider also Aumann's Agreement Theorem, which says that "two people acting rationally (in a certain precise sense) and with common knowledge of each other's beliefs cannot agree to disagree."
There is more to most discussions then simple facts. There is the assumption in the text that if we only understood the material world perfectly, we could all agree in the proven objective truth about anything. This simply ignores all of human emotion and the way that we live together in society. If we all could just be perfectly rational the world would be perfect without any conflict. But we are not. You simply ignore that humans have emotions and live in societies which live by certain morals and ethics. Those are not simply utilitarian. Even if a complex subject would become graspable in every little tiny facet and only facts remain, those facts have to be evaluated. The evaluations about the relevance of facts are subjective by definition.
Good point. Even in a universe in which everyone's values, emotions, motives, etc. were completely transparent there would still be conflict because what is in one person's interest isn't necessarily in another's. I have failed, at best, to define "disagreement."