Learning From Partially False Perspectives - Thoughts

[Phyllis Wagner]

Really good blog post video! I have a question about it.

If you go read a Book with the mindset that is talked about - isn't this 100% self biased?

For example I was reading the book about intelligent design evolution on the book list. There the christian author was making the point that without the belief in a god people would start behaving immoral, making teaching about evolution dangerous to society or something. 

So if I am a fundamental christian I might read that and think "yeah this is the good stuff, we need christianity for society to work" and then when he talks about parts of evolution that align with Darwinism and I go "oh this is where the author is wrong, the earth is obviously not older than 10.000 years".

It could also be totally reverse, I could also judge both points as good and both as bad. 

These biases also determine which future books I select and which information I am going to seek out.

This problem is basically unsolvable right?

Edited February 27, 2021 by Phyllis Wagner

[Leo Gura]

The problem is solvable by using intelligence and consciousness to distinguish truth from falsehood.

You are a rat sniffing around for Truth.

There is no algorithm for distinguishing truth from falsehood. And what you think looks like yummy cheese might turn out to be a mousetrap and break your neck

So the game is to be a more clever rat than the human setting the trap.

[mmKay]

You are making an exceptionally valid point.

Very few people are epistemologically sharp and discernment can be a real issue. 

You can be extremely well read and still be a chump.The problem is allways lack of radical openmindedness and critical thinking / real skepticism. 

How do you know what's true or false?

You really don't. And when you really hold this position of " not knowing " as the starting point, ideology flies out the window. 

And then you can start hypothesizing. It's okay to be temporarily fooled, as long as you keep looking. 

Your goal is to lock down that very big picture and then the minutia falls into place. But this is already avery advanced step. 

It helps to have elevated your level of consciousness through some practice or psychedelics. If you want some serious intuition, that's where you get it from. 

Who knows, maybe one day you may be able to say say that you really are sure of something ??‍♂️

 

Tldr : the more openminded , contemplative an conscious you are, the better your BS detector is. 

Edited February 27, 2021 by mmKay

[blackchair]

3 minutes ago, mmKay said:

 

Tldr : the more openminded , contemplative an conscious you are, the better your BS detector is. 

yes but its hard 24/7 be all that. am i bitching again?

[mmKay]

At first when you pick up radical openmindedness it's an uphill battle.

Once your mental house of cards has painfully fallen and you have managed to re-build it , this time having openmindedness, critical thinking and awareness as your main pillars, it becomes efortless and you gain access to that intuition Leo talks about. 

Yup. That begging phase is certainly "hard" and emotionally taxing. 

You don't need to "be like this 24/7" Its okay to be temporarily fooled. Just remember what are you guiding yourself by. 

Again, past a certain point it's automatic and effortless. 

You don't have to do anything if you don't want to

[blackchair]

honestly im "scared" that its efortless for me too.....

[Superfluo]

@Leo Gura Leo, you could make a video on how to think critically. MBTI wise, you have a dominant Ti that could be of huge value to people.

[Gesundheit]

There's no problem to be solved. You're creating the problem by imagining it in your mind. In reality, the problem does not actually exist.

In other words, there are no set-in-stone rules for reality. And no amounts of intellectual work, intelligence, or consciousness will change that. Anything you think about reality is simply your thoughts, not reality. And this is always the case.

The same thing applies to what humans call "self-bias". There is no such thing in reality. It's just thoughts about an imaginary being, being biased towards itself.

Also, there's no such thing as partially true or partially false perspectives. This is rather a completely false & deluded perspective. There's only one perspective that is 100% true. The rest are all 100% false perspectives. It's black and white. There's no different degrees to truth. A thing is either 100% true, or it's 100% false. If you think something is 99% true, then it's 100% false. The absolute truth is 100% true at all times. And it's not a perspective.

[mmKay]

@Gesundheit you're conflating " Absolute Truth" with relative. The context of this post is this video :

https://www.actualized.org/insights/learning-from-partially-false-perspectives

[Gesundheit]

@mmKay I don't want to invest 1 hour in watching this particular video, cuz it seems kinda ideological. Can you summarize the main points he made?

[mmKay]

Watch it, it's good. Basically it's about what the title says. It's about the idea that there may be some value in each persective and how to cherrypick the good stuff. Just that he shares some resource it doesn't mean to blindly trust it 100% and still practice discernment. 

Just like in online forums , 90 % may be crappy but that 10% is really really worth it

[Phyllis Wagner]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The problem is solvable by using intelligence and consciousness to distinguish truth from falsehood.

Or by holding a statement in your mind and seeing if your finger muscles give resistance or not, right? We all know that is the only valid method in existence to distinguish truth vs falsehood. 

[Gesundheit]

18 minutes ago, mmKay said:

It's about the idea that there may be some value in each persective and how to cherrypick the good stuff.

I don't disagree with this idea per se, because obviously there's value in every thing that exists, but what do truth and falsehood have to do with generating value? I can generate value both from a truth and a lie. Why use this terminology in this context? It doesn't make sense. In fact, I'd argue that if you want to generate more value, then it's better to blur the lines between truth and falsehood. If you take a false perspective and believe that it's true, that's where you can generate the most value.

[mmKay]

Just watch the damn video ?

[Gesundheit]

3 hours ago, mmKay said:

Just watch the damn video ?

I will, and then I will crush your perspectives 

EDIT: I won't watch it.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Gesundheit

[mmKay]

Ok mayne

[Danioover9000]

   The video is basically that other perspectives are partial, and not to fully trust in one new one, or to double down on one.

   @Leo Gura    The A.I programs from Google are Alpha Go, for the Chinese Go game, and Alpha Zero, for the chess game.

[Gesundheit]

6 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

   The video is basically that other perspectives are partial, and not to fully trust in one new one, or to double down on one.

Thanks for the summary.