Saturday 29 April 2023, 1:30 to 3:30 pm
Any replies to the organizer
- thormay@yahoo.com
Venue: Zoom online
Note that this topic is also
running live on Wednesday 26 April 2023, 6:30 pm at The Elephant
British Pub, Adelaide CBD. In that venue it will be a topic for
Adelaide Shallow Thinkers (
https://www.meetup.com/adelaide-shallow-thinkers/ ).
Register separately for this. Shallow Thinkers topics are for
free conversation. They do not have talking points or a reading
list in the 'comments' section] .
Talking Points:
1. Reason is the process of
reducing randomness within a boundary. Think of reasons, then
think of boundaries, and suggest some situations where it all
goes wrong .. .
2. Reason, applied in certain controlled
ways called scientific method, has given us the industrial
revolution and the modern world. What exactly is scientific
method?
3. Extremists may often seem batshit crazy to
most of us, but their attitudes and actions are frequently
calculated with great precision according to their own logic.
What are some typical properties and causes of their mindset?
How would you try to 'reeducate' such a person if that effort is
worthwhile?
4. What parts of your life do you prefer to
be a bit 'irrational' about? When and why?
5. What are
some examples where there is profit or benefit in appearing to
be irrational? How would you yourself manage situations like
that?
6. Educational institutions at every level claim
that their priority is the successful education of students. If
that is true, the behaviour of these institutions, or at least
their leaders, frequently seems to be irrational. What is going
on with this? Explain some actual examples.
7. Money is
sometimes said to be evil. However when people believe in the
value of money it can unite them in a common cause which they
find entirely rational - e.g. an enterprise, a war, even a job.
When does this kind of rationality break down? Why?
8.
The followers of religions and ideologies may claim that a) the
religion or ideology itself is based on rational order, and/or
b) their own practice and/or belief in a religion or ideology is
perfectly rational. What are some of the arguments they use?
9. There is a rumour that love is 'blind' - that it takes no
account of reason. How often is that true? What's the evidence?
(I, Thor, have difficulty with this, having apparently been
immune to love).
10. Are generative AI programs like
Chat GPT just reasoning machines, or do they use something else
besides?
Extra Reading
Chad E. Brack (November
18, 2018) "Defining Rationality: Are Humans Irrational?". Chad E
Brack blog @
https://chadebrack.com/are-humans-rational-what-is-rationality/
[Quote: "I think we, as humans, are almost always rational. In
fact, we are overly rational; we just aren’t very good at
arriving at correct views most of the time. What I mean is that
we tend to rationalize nearly all of our beliefs, decisions,
etc. Even if we don’t understand what we’re doing or why we’re
doing something, we create reasons to sort of talk ourselves
into believing that we have good reasons or evidence for our
beliefs."]
Paul Broks (13 April 2023) "Are coincidences
real? - The rationalist in me knows that coincidences are
inevitable, mundane, meaningless. But I can’t deny there is
something strange and magical in them, too". The Guardian @
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/13/are-coincidences-real
[Thor, comment: This is a long article to read, but quite
interesting ]
Nick Earls (17 August 2021) "I
went looking for ordinary coincidence in the world, but what I
found was extraordinary - How many everyday wonders do we miss
because we’ve blinded ourselves to the inevitability of
chance?". The Guardian @
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/17/i-went-looking-for-ordinary-coincidence-in-the-world-but-what-i-found-was-extraordinary
Dan Kahan (July 15, 2014) ""Bounded rationality": the
Grigori Rasputin of explanations for public perceptions of
climate change risk - Is identity-protective cognition
irrational?
The idea that “disbelief” in global warming is
attributable to low “science literacy” is not the only
explanation for public conflict over climate change that fails
to survive an encounter with actual evidence. The same is true
for the proposition that such controversy is a consequence of
“bounded rationality.” Cultural Cognition blog @
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2014/7/15/bounded-rationality-the-grigori-rasputin-of-explanations-for.html
Michael Marshall (Wed 2 May 2018) "The universe is an
egg and the moon isn't real: notes from a Flat Earth conference.
Michael Marshall attended the UK’s annual gathering of people
who share the unshakeable belief that the Earth is flat." The
Guardian @
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2018/may/02/the-universe-is-an-egg-and-the-moon-isnt-real-notes-from-a-flat-earth-conference
Anonymous (May 2018) "The Pygmalion Effect: Proving Them
Right - The Pygmalion Effect is a powerful secret weapon.
Without even realizing it, we can nudge others towards success.
In this article, discover how expectations can influence
performance for better or worse". Farnam Street Media Inc. FS
blog @
https://www.fs.blog/2018/05/pygmalion-effect/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
Thor May (2015) "The peculiar interest of god(s) in
human morality - For the ungodly, even as they dodge being
stoned to death for apostasy or atheism, it is a perpetual
puzzle why any god, mere mountain spirit or kitchen god, or a
thundering master of the universe, would give a damn what humans
do". The Passionate Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/peculiargod.htm
Thor May (2014) "Does religion emerge as a product of
complex systems? - Why do people take up religions, persist with
them, and abandon them ? Whatever you think of religions
personally, or any particular religion, they seem to have been
around forever amongst (most) humans, and seem unlikely to go
away entirely amongst the species as a whole". The Passionate
Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/Religion.htm
Thor May (2014) "Some Uses and Misuses of Reason - When the sun
rises each morning we may say the reason is that the earth on
its elliptical orbit spins so that one point faces that star. Or
we may say that the Sun God has mounted his chariot. Or we may
say, after Ptolemy and the Christian elders until a few
centuries ago, that the sun is moving around the earth. Take
your pick. They have all seemed good reasons from reasonable men
in their time. Our acceptance of what passes for reasoned
argument has a great deal to do with the company we keep". The
Passionate Skeptic website @
http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/Reason.htm