RE: Changing ones mind about a subject
November 20, 2017 at 3:48 pm
(This post was last modified: November 20, 2017 at 3:56 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
I guess it may be possible to change our mind on the spot about petty things.
But isn't that usually about being taught something obvious and trivial and shown we're wrong with Google or something like that?
Like, I knew a guy once who insisted that The Flash was Marvel and not D.C. So I showed him he was wrong with Google and literally the entirety of the internet disagreed with him. And he was like "Oh, you're right."
My initial response to the OP was to point out that people don't seem to change their mind during a debate about things. I've been elaborating further about my point since then.
I think people trust their own senses over logical argumentation. If I can show someone proof that they can see they might change their mind if there's only one possible interpretation of it (like The Flash), but even doing that won't change someone's mind if they're able to interpret the evidence differently. Like the creationists who are shown fossils and they just say that it's not enough because every possible gap must be filled, the whole irreducible complexity B.S., or God put the fossils there to test our faith, or Satan put the fossils there to fuck with us . . . IOW they misinterpret the evidence because of their own bad logic. People seem to start with their own conclusions which are their core beliefs and they interpret all evidence or argumentation with their own biases. Stuff like my example with The Flash are exceptions because there isn't really any non-psychotic way to rationalize out of that, I think. If he convinced himself that the entirety of the internet was conspiring against him he'd feel even more like an idiot than admitting he is wrong about something and I think that's why he had to bite the bullet in that case. People seem to only bite the bullet when they really have to. Even when we're consciously non-egotistical we still seem to be subconsciously egotistical. Although it might not be about the ego it may be more about self-protection or simply just be the way beliefs work. Breaking beliefs does seem to be similar to breaking habits.
But isn't that usually about being taught something obvious and trivial and shown we're wrong with Google or something like that?
Like, I knew a guy once who insisted that The Flash was Marvel and not D.C. So I showed him he was wrong with Google and literally the entirety of the internet disagreed with him. And he was like "Oh, you're right."
My initial response to the OP was to point out that people don't seem to change their mind during a debate about things. I've been elaborating further about my point since then.
I think people trust their own senses over logical argumentation. If I can show someone proof that they can see they might change their mind if there's only one possible interpretation of it (like The Flash), but even doing that won't change someone's mind if they're able to interpret the evidence differently. Like the creationists who are shown fossils and they just say that it's not enough because every possible gap must be filled, the whole irreducible complexity B.S., or God put the fossils there to test our faith, or Satan put the fossils there to fuck with us . . . IOW they misinterpret the evidence because of their own bad logic. People seem to start with their own conclusions which are their core beliefs and they interpret all evidence or argumentation with their own biases. Stuff like my example with The Flash are exceptions because there isn't really any non-psychotic way to rationalize out of that, I think. If he convinced himself that the entirety of the internet was conspiring against him he'd feel even more like an idiot than admitting he is wrong about something and I think that's why he had to bite the bullet in that case. People seem to only bite the bullet when they really have to. Even when we're consciously non-egotistical we still seem to be subconsciously egotistical. Although it might not be about the ego it may be more about self-protection or simply just be the way beliefs work. Breaking beliefs does seem to be similar to breaking habits.
