[FRIAM] alternative response

Wed Jun 17 15:15:03 EDT 2020

Gary, 

I assume you have your doubts about the “cherry tree” incident, even tho it was told to you on the authority of your 4th grade school marm.  How we make these distinctions is fascinating.  How “we” take vitamins, even though our doctors assure us that the only consequence is that we have “expensive pee”.  Quine, it think it is, following Peirce, in a way, argues that every belief is in enmeshed in a vast trodden-down midden of beliefs.  Given this, it’s a miracle that we ever change our minds about anything, without dynamiting the whole midden. 

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 1:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response

I can't speak for anyone else, but I suspect so. As an example of partially supported beliefs, I have no direct way of knowing that George Washington was the first president of the United States, or that he even existed. I choose to believe this, because I've heard and read about him, and I find it hard to believe that a conspiracy to instill a false assertion could have been pulled off. I could research further, which *might* reveal enough contradictions to invalidate my belief, but I choose not to. I take a similar approach to, for example, climate change.

On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 2:00 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> > wrote:

Gary, 

Is this what others meant earlier by “truncation”?

N

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Gary Schiltz
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 12:10 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] alternative response

If I am honest, which I at least usually try to be, most beliefs that I have are only supported by the amount of effort I'm willing to put into the endeavor of supporting them. I can rationalize this by saying that nobody's brain, not even Einstein's, has (or had) the capacity to calculate and keep track of all the assumptions necessary to support our beliefs. I do believe this is true, even though it is more the result of my simply getting tired of or bored with trying to do so. Maybe this has a lot to do with why people have "faith", they just get tired of trying to figure it all out, and it is so much easier to accept what a large group of your peers tells you. I think true wisdom starts when one realizes those limitations.

On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 12:44 PM Jon Zingale <jonzingale at gmail.com <mailto:jonzingale at gmail.com> > wrote:

Nick,

Spoiler alert, there is no *how best to think*. You say random, Gary says
determined. Until you investigate the consequences of each you can't even
know whether or not you are actually developing the same model ( like with
the Church-Turing thesis). At the end of the day, deciding whether or not
the universe is determined, indeterminate, random, etc.. is decidedly
uninteresting. I try to hold 50 conflicting ontological commitments before
breakfast. Alas, it appears that we have no interest in working with the
commitments others make. In an effort to contribute to the banality I
propose 2401 or perhaps whatever number you would construct the fifth time
you follow Cantor's diagonal argument!

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