[FRIAM] All hail confirmation bias!

[Nick Thompson]

Dave,

"All is illusion" is exactly the kind of partial draught that I am complaining about.  It clings to the very hope it mocks.  If skepticism is what you desire, then there is no warrant to speak of anything beyond experience, and experience is "of" nothing except  other experiences.  So the only question becomes, To what extent is experience organized.  Or is experience merely random.  If by "all is illusion" you mean there are no consistencies in experience, then, of course, you are welcome to that view, in the same way you are welcome to the view that all the molecules in the lovely Dutch beer sitting in front of you will instantaneously leap out of the glass,  roll across the table, and jump into your mouth without any assistance from your hands.   But I wouldn't bet on it.  If I wanted some of that beer, I would reach for it. 


Nick   
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2019 2:18 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] All hail confirmation bias!

Nick stated:

"I deplore a skepticism that drinks only 9/10ths of the potent, and then puts the glass down, burps, and walks away with a smug look on its face."

Excepting the mystic who recognizes that "ALL is illusion," has anyone drunk the full potent?

davew


On Sun, Jul 28, 2019, at 9:23 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> While we're getting rid of concepts, let's just get rid of this 
> foolish, unsubstantiated concept, "the world."  What sort of heuristic 
> is THAT?
> 
> N
> 
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University 
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Steven A 
> Smith
> Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2019 11:41 AM
> To: friam at redfish.com
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] All hail confirmation bias!
> 
> I KNEW that confirmation bias was a problem and NOW this confirms it!
> 
> I TOLEYA!
> 
> On 4/24/19 5:25 PM, uǝlƃ ☣ wrote:
> > Our World Isn't Organized into Levels 
> > https://philpapers.org/rec/POTOWI?ref=mail
> >
> >> In my view, our adherence to the levels concept in the face of the 
> >> systematic problems plaguing it amounts to a failure to recognize 
> >> structure we’re imposing on the world, to instead mistake this as 
> >> structure we are reading off the world. Attachment to the concept 
> >> of levels of organization has, I think, contributed to 
> >> underestimation of the complexity and variability of our world, 
> >> including the significance of causal interaction across scales. 
> >> This has also inhibited our ability to see limitations to our 
> >> heuristic and to imagine other contrasting heuristics, heuristics 
> >> that may bear more in common with what our world turns out to 
> >> actually be like. Let’s at least entertain the possibility that the invocation of levels can mislead scientific and philosophical investigations more than it informs them. I suggest that the onus is on advocates of levels of organization to demonstrate the well-foundedness and usefulness of this concept.
> 
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