From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Oct 01 2002 - 23:24:03 MDT
Peter asks
> Why do you think your disagreement with Robin rests on
> something other than values?
As I am not at all sure what you are asking about, I have
again read the sequence of posts because you say
> you seem to avoid analyzing why such a debate didn't
> get resolved
Okay, so I will (1) attempt to determine on what (if not
values) any disagreement I had with Robin rested, and (2)
why our debate allegedly never got resolved.
I originally wrote in
http://www.extropy.org/exi-lists/extropians.3Q01/3670.html
the following:
[Robin wrote]
>[Lee wrote]
>> So, now that we were free to *conjecture* a new belief,
>> guess what? We immediately seized upon the belief that
>> was the most emotionally compelling, to wit, the one that
>> favored our own candidate in a highly charged election.
>
> Once you realize that you are biased toward your candidate, you can correct
> your beliefs without elaborate use of reason. Just move your beliefs
> in the direction of beliefs favored by those who like the other candidate.
> If you realize you have this option, and choose not to use it, I think you must
> admit to yourself that you are not really truth-seeking in this area.
[Lee responded]
That would only work if you had some confidence or faith in those
who liked the other candidate. As an example, suppose that you
do not believe in God, but wish to be as truth-seeking as possible.
It does not follow that you should "move your beliefs in the direction
of beliefs favored" by those who are religious. You may have concluded
that they are simply out to lunch for some reason (explanation).
However, I am interested in any other brief tricks that you may know of
to assist one in being really truth-seeking.
[end Lee's quote]
Robin replied
> If you realize your position on recounts may be biased because you favor Gore,
> you can correct for that by moving your position on recounts in the other
> direction, even if you don't change your position on Gore at all.
Okay, Peter, so far I don't know exactly how you are thinking
that Robin and I disagree. I could entertain hypotheses, but
if it's anything in the above so far, please help me focus on
what it is.
Now Robin's next paragraph was
> Of course I also want to argue that you should be very cautious in assuming
> that people are out to lunch, and therefore hold uninformative opinions,
> simply on the basis that they disagree with you on a particular point. Such
> judgements, if made at all, should be based on a much wider consideration of
> evidence of their rationality etc, and a similar analysis of how rational
> you would look under such an analysis.
and perhaps it's *this* that you think I disagree with. You
are incorrect because I agree that one should be *very cautious*
in assuming that people are "out to lunch" simply on the basis
that they disagree with me about some key item.
However, you are *correct* in that I continue to hold that
one should have *confidence* in the people that disagree
with one if one is to properly utilize Robin's trick of
simply moving your judgment towards theirs. Such *anchoring*,
incidently, is a well-studied psychological phenomena as you
know. (It's possible that Robin and I would continue to
disagree about this to this very day.)
So if I'm already in possession of some explanation as to why
certain people hold certain opinions (e.g., they were red-diaper
babies and believe that Chomsky is infallible, or that they
have a deep commitment to a personal relationship with their
alleged Creator), then I consider Robin's trick inapplicable,
even if it's pretty good to keep it in mind for other times.
However, you continue
> The hypothesis that disagreements are caused by things like the
> desire to show that one's prior beliefs were wise seems to explain
> a much wider variety of phenomena than your hypothesis appears to.
That sounds like a plausible explanation; our explanations
need not be mutually exclusive. Some disagreements arise
out of people's loyalty to their past convictions (not an
irrational thing at all, incidentally). Some disagreements,
especially ideological ones, I contend, rest on differing
values. Some disagreements even rest on blatant errors by
one party or the other.
> It predicts disagreements such as the one between you and Robin.
Would you spell this out please? In some sentence like, "Lee
and Robin disagreed because they were being loyal to their
past beliefs". Or am I at the wrong level here, and you were
referring to why people disagreed (and disagree) about balloting
in Florida?
> It also explains results such as more than 50% of people
> believing they are above average. Whereas it isn't clear
> to me that your hypothesis makes any prediction about
> whether people will be objective.
Sorry, I don't understand the context or referents of
those remarks at all.
Well, this is the best I have time for right now
under the uncertain hypotheses of just what it is
that you are looking for.
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:23 MST