There’s no doubt that emotional reactions play a big role in how we think, but I also think the wisest people are able to recognize their emotional bias and, with practice, become able to put it aside in favor of logic.
But Turtle, doesn’t logic also involve deeply felt emotion? A logical argument depends on its basic premise, doesn’t it? If I say A=B, I’m assuming you agree with me that A is A, but what if you don’t? If I say, for example, President Obama is an American because he was born in Hawaii and you firmly believe he was born in Kenya, no amount of logical argument is going to convince you. Logic is a format not a proof.
If you were a flat-earth believer and said you believed the earth was flat and I said it was round and that we had pictures from space that proved it was round, you could turn around and say, “All the pictures show is that the earth is a circle and the circle is flat, therefore the earth is flat!”
That’s my own example, but that’s basically what the article is about. Read it, it’s quite interesting.
How do memes come into existence and how do they grow and survive?
I don’t see what your example has to do with logic. Those are both just assertions, neither party in your example provided evidence or a logical argument. So, showing a conversation that completely lacks in logic doesn’t say anything about logic lol.
More to the point [in my opinion]: When can or cannot it be shown that emotional reactions are irrelevant to reasoning minds.
For example, there can be a discussion about the conflict in Libya in which reasoning minds can agree on particular sets of facts. But if the discussion shifts instead to whether this conflict constitutes a “just war”, you will never get past the emotions embedded in [all] value judgments.
Do you or do you not believe that logic is a construct and that construct is based on premises that flow mathematically from one to another. I could state the ‘argument’ as:
A=Hawaii is a state within the Unites States–irrefutable fact.
B=All people born in the US are citizens of the US–also irrefutable fact
C=President Obama was born in Hawaii
D=President Obama is a citizen of the US.
Is that logical or not?
If you were a birther, you’d stop my at C by saying, “Where’s the proof?” No matter how much proof I’d be able to supply, you still wouldn’t believe me.
That’s what always got me about Socrates and his catechism questions. He’d start with something his students could neither prove nor disprove but which they accepted as true because it came from their teacher and went on from there.
So, IMM, for a logical argument to ‘prove’ anything, everyone has to start out with something that cn be either proven or disproven and go on from there. using logical constructs.
I agree, iam, we’ll never get past the emotions. Many, IMO, of those emotions, and the ideas they generate, are too deeply imbedded to even be recognized. They’re simply what we believe and they’re based on the very primitive fear, fight or flight, emotion, imm.
Of this is what memes are made. The problem is, because memes are protean, they’ll continue to grow and evolve until they become so much a part of our culture and mind-set, we won’t know what’s true and what isn’t. Our memes will become our truths.
Perhaps logic and reasoning works the way cleanrooms work. You enter the outer layers of the lab, take off your muddy boots and raincoat, and proceed. In the next layer you change into professionally cleaned clothes. In the next layer you scrub up, put on a facemask and rubber gloves, and enter the innermost layer of the lab. The whole while, air locks and filtration systems work using pressure differences to keep even the smallest molecules of dirt out of the clean room. So as you proceed with improved reasoning abilities, the “dirt” of emotions is gradually abandoned. Good reasoning isn’t tainted with emotion and bias, while bad reasoning is driven by emotion and bias.
If reasoning works this way (not sure it does), it would be a good thing in some ways, and a bad thing in other ways. I’m not of the opinion that emotions should be suppressed. The suppression of emotions doesn’t increase the quality of one’s reasoning.
I appreciate your thoughts, Anon, although I don’t agree completely. Or those of us in this thread are simply having a problem with communicating. An ‘argument’ can be presented that’s completely logical in structure, yet totally invalid and ‘wrong’ because the opening premise isn’t considered to be true by the hearer. Logic isn’t always truth and truth isn’t always logical.
Truth is what a person believes to be true. That ‘truth’ is emotional and depends on many factors–how you were raised, how you react(ed) to your perception of the world around you, even what your friends believe to be true.
If you accept that the primary emotion from which all other emotions grow is fear, and there’s a lot in neuroscience that indicates this is true, then there’s nothing that precludes fear. But, you have to accept fear as the prime mover.
I’m not sure I agree completely either, Lizbethrose. But equating truth with belief seems a bit too radical, no?
The title of this thread - “The Science of Not Believing Science” - suggests that we can investigate, using reason, our biases and our misuse of reason. Perhaps you agree with me more than you think. Surely you quoted your source because it’s relatively reasonable and not merely irrational gibberish?
I kind of lost track of the argument now, but I do think it’s kind of ridiculous to tell me that if I believed something and you had evidence to the contrary, I would ignore it. How would you know I would do that? I don’t understand. That’s kind of insulting.
Both you and Turtle are evading the question: Is what we call a ‘logical’ argument ‘logical’ because it’s presented in a mathematically rational way? (A=B. B=C. therefore, A=C) What people tend to forget is that If A = B, the rest of the argument may be logical. It’s that little two letter conjunction that makes all the difference and it starts with the opening premise. One has to believe in the ‘truth’ of the opening premise.
What constitutes ‘truth’ other than ‘belief?’ for the majority of people? One could introduce the physic-al ‘laws’ of ‘nature’–but even physics can’t truly define them. What are people left with other than belief?
Sometimes that belief is so strong–so deeply embedded–that no amount of scientific ‘proof’ will change it.
What I’m saying is nothing new or radical. It’s the way people think.
Humpty, I said, “If you were a birther, you’d stop my at C by saying, “Where’s the proof?” No matter how much proof I’d be able to supply, you still wouldn’t believe me.”
You said, “really? i wouldnt? how the fuck do you know what i would believe?
I kind of lost track of the argument now, but I do think it’s kind of ridiculous to tell me that if I believed something and you had evidence to the contrary, I would ignore it. How would you know I would do that? I don’t understand. That’s kind of insulting.”
Please differentiate between the personal “you” and the universal “you.” I was using the ‘universal’ rather than the personal. I apologize if I wasn’t clear about that.
No, it doesn’t but it might give a clearer picture of what logic actually is.
Aside from that, the more logical person would have eventually gotten onto the internet to see where Obama WAS born. And then looked once or twice more just to be certain.
But then you would Still be doing the same thing he thought you were doing toward him - assuming/taking it for granted that you know how the majority or everyone would respond or react…and that closes the case for discussion right there. You can’t actually know that unless you’re given evidence of it.
Sorry, anon, I meant Humpty–there are so many of you here it’s hard to keep track, sometimes. It really makes no nevermind since you and who’sebob are evading the question.
