Mistaking what is compatible with reality for what is reality

[Koldo]

It often happens that all it takes for someone to accept the notion of something the case, of something being real, is for it to be compatible with what they know about the world. To make matters worse, when what we learn happens to resonate with our own bias we tend to be even more prone to believe in it. This is the classic example of 'God did it' being accepted as an explanation just because.

This happens in politics, religions, and even the news.

Have you observed the same? How can we foster a manner of thinking that drives us away from this pattern? Or shouldn't we even try?

 

[Left Coast]

It often happens that all it takes for someone to accept the notion of something the case, of something being real, is for it to be compatible with what they know about the world. To make matters worse, when what we learn happens to resonate with our own bias we tend to be even more prone to believe in it. This is the classic example of 'God did it' being accepted as an explanation just because.

This happens in politics, religions, and even the news.

Have you observed the same? How can we foster a manner of thinking that drives us away from this pattern? Or shouldn't we even try?

Falsifiability is really the only way out of this conundrum. If you espouse an unfalsifiable view, it will always fit the data you encounter, no matter what it is.

 

[Thief]

It often happens that all it takes for someone to accept the notion of something the case, of something being real, is for it to be compatible with what they know about the world. To make matters worse, when what we learn happens to resonate with our own bias we tend to be even more prone to believe in it. This is the classic example of 'God did it' being accepted as an explanation just because.

This happens in politics, religions, and even the news.

Have you observed the same? How can we foster a manner of thinking that drives us away from this pattern? Or shouldn't we even try?

I see
and just posted my own echo a moment ago....

eternal darkness is not a philosophical idea
it is physically real

I've been aware of this for decades
but I seem to be the only one who pushes the observation

I do push it
I have a bias

 

[Twilight Hue]

It's a pretty simple matter if your opinions or views don't match reality, then it is not valid.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Falsifiability is really the only way out of this conundrum. If you espouse an unfalsifiable view, it will always fit the data you encounter, no matter what it is.

What og the "data" you enter is wrong? What if science has reached it's Peak, and can no longer develop, because of humans that only think within the box? Even Einstein realized that religion was speaking the truth, but he had no way to "prove" within the limits of science "rules" ?

 

[Left Coast]

What og the "data" you enter is wrong? What if science has reached it's Peak, and can no longer develop, because of humans that only think within the box? Even Einstein realized that religion was speaking the truth, but he had no way to "prove" within the limits of science "rules" ?

How would you determine that your view is correct, if not by looking at the data on the question? And if you have a view that can be squared with any set of data, then how can you ever be confident that you're not fooling yourself?

 

[Spirit of Light]

How would you determine that your view is correct, if not by looking at the data on the question? And if you have a view that can be squared with any set of data, then how can you ever be confident that you're not fooling yourself?

Because spiritual Cultivation teaching go beyond science understanding that are only limited to this physical realm, and my "proof" is within the teaching i cultivate.
I know science believers not accepting spiritual understanding as "facts" so i know this discussion will be fruitless

In best senario you would call my understanding For sudo science

 

[Ponder This]

It often happens that all it takes for someone to accept the notion of something the case, of something being real, is for it to be compatible with what they know about the world. To make matters worse, when what we learn happens to resonate with our own bias we tend to be even more prone to believe in it. This is the classic example of 'God did it' being accepted as an explanation just because.

This happens in politics, religions, and even the news.

Have you observed the same? How can we foster a manner of thinking that drives us away from this pattern? Or shouldn't we even try?

I think everyone should try to learn science and learn how to analyze data, but the reality is that a lot of people are actually not so good at it.
So what is better? Bad Science and Bad Data? Yikes!
So the purpose of such studies shouldn't be to drive us away from notions such as "God did it".

What we really need is a way of living day to day that helps us deal with whatever happens.
And while science is helpful, the reality is that we often need something more than that. We need life skills. We need decision making skills.

 

[exchemist]

What og the "data" you enter is wrong? What if science has reached it's Peak, and can no longer develop, because of humans that only think within the box? Even Einstein realized that religion was speaking the truth, but he had no way to "prove" within the limits of science "rules" ?

No theory is ever "proved" in science, so that is not what Einstein was concerned with.

And there is no reason to think there will be a "peak", or limit, in scientific understanding, so long as there are observed phenomena without a scientific explanation and people willing to make further observations of nature.

The more interesting part of your post is to do with the data being "wrong". One has to ask what "wrong" means and how one would find out it is wrong. The way science approaches that is via the requirement that data be reproducible, in other words that the same or very similar results are obtained by more than one set of observers, using different tools. It is quite common for data not to be reproducible and for it to be discarded.

 

[Spirit of Light]

No theory is ever "proved" in science, so that is not what Einstein was concerned with.

And there is no reason to think there will be a "peak", or limit, in scientific understanding, so long as there are observed phenomena without a scientific explanation and people willing to make further observations of nature.

The more interesting part of your post is to do with the data being "wrong". One has to ask what "wrong" means and how one would find out it is wrong. The way science approaches that is via the requirement that data be reproducible, in other words that the same or very similar results are obtained by more than one set of observers, using different tools. It is quite common for data not to be reproducible and for it to be discarded.

You answered your one question where in my understanding science is wrong is that they only rely on answers they can reproduce, that in my understanding is not a good way of meaning. But yes science do have much truth in it too, but can not develop if they do not stop rely only on the current model they use.
See my New OP for more understanding of my answers

 

[Sunstone]

Any good university in America has plenty of courses in both the sciences and the humanities that one can take which will help with disciplining one's mind to think straight more often than not. But there is no such thing as the perfect human thinker. No matter how good you get, you never get so good that you turn infallible.

That's why it is so important in life to know a few people who you can trust to provide you with an honest and insightful reality-check now and then.

I have six friends and two enemies in life I can trust to give me honest and insightful reality checks. The rest of my friends are too polite to often be honest, while the rest of my enemies are too challenged to often be insightful. But I am grateful to all eight of those people.

 

[Polymath257]

Having no contradictions is an important, but minimal condition for understanding. To actually get to real understanding, in my view, there has to be testability. It is simply too easy to spin consistent stories that are pure fantasy.

Beliefs must be honestly challenged. All attempts to *break* them must be pursued. Only *after* they remain unscathed can you have confidence that they will hold up.

 

[Nakosis]

It often happens that all it takes for someone to accept the notion of something the case, of something being real, is for it to be compatible with what they know about the world. To make matters worse, when what we learn happens to resonate with our own bias we tend to be even more prone to believe in it. This is the classic example of 'God did it' being accepted as an explanation just because.

This happens in politics, religions, and even the news.

Have you observed the same? How can we foster a manner of thinking that drives us away from this pattern? Or shouldn't we even try?

The way I look at it is we have a virtual reality that is our conscious interface to the world. Most of the time this works fine and provides a fairly accurate picture of reality. However, our subconscious mind has a lot more control over this interface than we give it credit for. It makes the reality we consciously experience more flexible than actuality.

We can imagine alternate realities and even confuse these alternate realities with actuality. If we have enough belief in these alternate realities they start to affect the actuality we perceive.

The internet/multimedia we developed into an extension of these alternate realities. When we watch the news, we don't get facts, we get an alternate reality of opinion. If this is compatible with the alternate reality that is already running in our head what we see hear from the alternate reality of the internet/multimedia it usually gets accepted without question.

Unfortunately, we are stuck with this subconscious interface to reality. There are benefits to it. It allows us to be creative. We can take abstract ideas and make them a reality, alter reality. It can also be detrimental as well if we confuse the virtual reality of our conscious experience with reality.

Me, I try to keep in mind that what I consciously perceive is not reality but something that has been constructed by my subconscious mind. So I can't trust it fully. Seeing is not believing or seeing is believing but believing is not necessarily fact.

I think we need to practice being here now in this moment. So we can learn to recognize a virtual experience is different from an actual experience. Virtual experiences are ok, they can be fun. Watching a movie or reading a book triggers a virtual experience for us. The internet/multimedia triggers a virtual experience. Just need to practice recognizing whether the source of the experience is virtual or actuality. When we don't we can often confuse the two.

 

[Thief]

The way I look at it is we have a virtual reality that is our conscious interface to the world. Most of the time this works fine and provides a fairly accurate picture of reality. However, our subconscious mind has a lot more control over this interface than we give it credit for. It makes the reality we consciously experience more flexible than actuality.

We can imagine alternate realities and even confuse these alternate realities with actuality. If we have enough belief in these alternate realities they start to affect the actuality we perceive.

The internet/multimedia we developed into an extension of these alternate realities. When we watch the news, we don't get facts, we get an alternate reality of opinion. If this is compatible with the alternate reality that is already running in our head what we see hear from the alternate reality of the internet/multimedia it usually gets accepted without question.

Unfortunately, we are stuck with this subconscious interface to reality. There are benefits to it. It allows us to be creative. We can take abstract ideas and make them a reality, alter reality. It can also be detrimental as well if we confuse the virtual reality of our conscious experience with reality.

Me, I try to keep in mind that what I consciously perceive is not reality but something that has been constructed by my subconscious mind. So I can't trust it fully. Seeing is not believing or seeing is believing but believing is not necessarily fact.

I think we need to practice being here now in this moment. So we can learn to recognize a virtual experience is different from an actual experience. Virtual experiences are ok, they can be fun. Watching a movie or reading a book triggers a virtual experience for us. The internet/multimedia triggers a virtual experience. Just need to practice recognizing whether the source of the experience is virtual or actuality. When we don't we can often confuse the two.

one of the best posts I've read here at the Forum

now if I could just convince you....
my reality is better than your reality

 

[exchemist]

Falsifiability is really the only way out of this conundrum. If you espouse an unfalsifiable view, it will always fit the data you encounter, no matter what it is.

As a scientist I instinctively liked this reply, but having thought more about it I am less sure.

It seems to me quite normal, in the humanities, to develop reasoned arguments for a proposition, backed up with evidence, which are not falsifiable because the evidence may be capable of more than one alternative interpretation. However only a limited number of these alternative interpretations will be considered reasonable.

So there do remain constraints on what is sensible, even when Popper's test can't be applied.

 

[Left Coast]

As a scientist I instinctively liked this reply, but having thought more about it I am less sure.

It seems to me quite normal, in the humanities, to develop reasoned arguments for a proposition, backed up with evidence, which are not falsifiable because the evidence may be capable of more than one alternative interpretation. However only a limited number of these alternative interpretations will be considered reasonable.

So there do remain constraints on what is sensible, even when Popper's test can't be applied.

I agree that there are other criteria one should use to determine what makes ideas reasonable (they can't be self-contradictory, for example).

However, if the available evidence fits multiple possible explanations, then we're stuck saying that we don't really know which is correct among them until more evidence rolls in. If my explanation isn't testable, then my bias is just going to keep getting confirmed no matter what evidence I see.

 

[exchemist]

I agree that there are other criteria one should use to determine what makes ideas reasonable (they can't be self-contradictory, for example).

However, if the available evidence fits multiple possible explanations, then we're stuck saying that we don't really know which is correct among them until more evidence rolls in. If my explanation isn't testable, then my bias is just going to keep getting confirmed no matter what evidence I see.

I agree, apart from your last sentence.

My son, who is learning to be a historian (it's what he wants to study at university), makes me very aware that we often don't know for sure what really lay behind a lot of historical events. We can use the accounts that exist, and the patterns of other events, and the recorded behaviour and opinions of people at the time, to infer what could have been responsible. Sometimes there are conflicting views. So indeed, we don't really know. But that is not to say that historians, for example, merely spend their time confirming their own biases. That would make study of these subjects pointless. People make new arguments or hypotheses which can be persuasive. They can turn up new information which, usually not decisive in itself, nevertheless makes one school of thought seem more probable.

 

[Left Coast]

I agree, apart from your last sentence.

My son, who is learning to be a historian (it's what he wants to study at university), makes me very aware that we often don't know for sure what really lay behind a lot of historical events. We can use the accounts that exist, and the patterns of other events, and the recorded behaviour and opinions of people at the time, to infer what could have been responsible. Sometimes there are conflicting views. So indeed, we don't really know. But that is not to say that historians, for example, merely spend their time confirming their own biases. That would make study of these subjects pointless. People make new arguments or hypotheses which can be persuasive. They can turn up new information which, usually not decisive in itself, nevertheless makes one school of thought seem more probable.

Indeed. I don't mean to say all scientists do is confirm their biases all day long. In the case of your son and other historians, the competing hypotheses they put forward could at least be falsified by some new data (which, as diligent empiricists, they seek). If, however, they put forward some idea that it's never even possible to falsify, because it can be rationalized with any data set, that is a recipe for confirming one's own bias.

 

[exchemist]

Indeed. I don't mean to say all scientists do is confirm their biases all day long. In the case of your son and other historians, the competing hypotheses they put forward could at least be falsified by some new data (which, as diligent empiricists, they seek). If, however, they put forward some idea that it's never even possible to falsify, because it can be rationalized with any data set, that is a recipe for confirming one's own bias.

Well not quite. What I was trying to convey is that new historical data in general does not enable any hypothesis to be falsified. It is more likely that what it will do is lend support to one interpretation of events, without necessarily excluding others.

 

[Left Coast]

Well not quite. What I was trying to convey is that new historical data in general does not enable any hypothesis to be falsified. It is more likely that what it will do is lend support to one interpretation of events, without necessarily excluding others.

Sure, new data doesn't always outright falsify a hypothesis, it just lends support to one explanation vs. another, ie makes one more probable than another. Other times, of course, new data does just outright falsify an existing hypothesis.

The point I was making was, if you have a belief that can't even hypothetically ever be falsified, no matter what data you may ever discover, you are setting yourself up to keep confirming your bias.