[FRIAM] On the: RLY!? side

Wed Aug 25 11:31:23 EDT 2021

Pieter, 

People are always tasking me to find examples of where dualistic thinking leads us astray.  I think you have one, here.  The idea of self deception (or any deception, for that matter) implies that there is a Truth of the matter outside all experience, and knowing that Truth is adaptive.  But if there is no truth outside of experience, then the only truth we have is in the form of predictions that “come true”, if you see what I mean.  Now, predictions can come true in different time frames, long and short, and those time frames relate to the persistence of a type of organism depending on the life-span of the organism.   Coming true means something quite different to a mouse and an elephant.   Now my guy, Peirce, has defined Truth as that upon which belief will converge in the very long run.  Where there is no ultimate convergence of opinion, in Peirce’s word, there just is no  Truth.  But no organism is  around for that asymptote to be reached, so selection is insensitive to it.  So, Pragmatically (and pragmatically, as well) we are left with “truths”,  those consistencies in experience that endure long enough to have an effect on selection. 

Thanks, Pieter.  By god that was a New Thought!  Thanks for leading me to it. 

Nick 

Nick Thompson

 <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 Pieter Steenekamp
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2021 3:13 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On the: RLY!? side

Gillian,

My take on your question of how this thinking, of being an antivaxer, works?

For me, the key lies in understanding human behavior. I know I'm waltzing on very thin ice because there are others in this group who have already forgotten what I still have to learn about human behavior , so I'm prepared to be severely humbled.

This Friam group is excluded of course, but for the rest of humanity, humans make decisions subconsciously and then rationalise their decisions with logic. Their subconscious minds do not care about logic or whether it makes sense at all, it's just about emotions. 

One of the books I'm currently reading is Making Sense of World History by Rick Szostakt and I can't verbalise it better than the quote from the book:
"Humans have an incredible capacity for self-deception. Our subconscious thoughts can guide us to act in ways that are cowardly, malicious, or jealous even if we would consciously disdain cowardice, malice and jealousy. Why did a mental capacity for self-deception evolve in humans? One theory is that self-deception aids us in other-deception. Humans have been selected for cooperation, and therefore selected to give and observe cues regarding dishonesty. As discussed above, we will feel guilty for lying (that is, violating a cultural value favouring honesty), and display this guilt physically. Human cooperation would be difficult if we lacked any ability to discern when others were lying. While cooperation depends on some degree of confidence in the honesty of others, individual success can nethertheless rely on some ability to cheat. In the complex evolution of human beings, then, we can expect selection pressure for both (detection of) honesty and dishonesty. Difficulty in consciously lying would encourage the cooperation on which human societies depend. Ability to lie subconsciously would be individually advantageous, and the limits it imposes on human cooperation might not prevent collaboration in hunting or gathering or agreeing on group decisions."

I'm not condoning the antivaxers. Personally I consider vaccination technology one of humankind's greatest medical inventions ever, and I'm also super excited about the potential of mRNA vaccination technology in more effectively fighting future viruses. I'm merely trying to explain illogical behavior, that's what you asked, not so? 

Pieter

On Wed, 25 Aug 2021 at 03:39, Gillian Densmore <gil.densmore at gmail.com <mailto:gil.densmore at gmail.com> > wrote:

What can possibly poses people to have a GD tantrum about vaccines.  The cynical of me thinks it's basically a tantrum mixed with deranged and dangerous levels of trolling. While the "Jedi" side er the small part wanting to see the best of these GD raving lunatics. It's, frankly, baffled.

The powers that be say put a GD mask on, and thank antivaxers.  What is pissing me off and just straitup confusing the ever living *** me  is how does this thinking work? Rejecting a compound that'll keep you healthy? For me: I (literally) couldn't get in line fast enough! I think I broke my caregiver who, I wanted to drive me their just in case. Meen while the other extreme are these people having GD tantrum. It's like: here's something that'll help you not get this virus,its free and you just need to get in a line. The first thing they say is: omg! free? why that smacks of [something they read someplace]. And ma freedoms

Can some please help me get just WTF these people are on, or how the hell anything about how they think can possibly make any sense?

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