Psi: How Open Minded are You Really?

[Faith No More]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

You've given us absolutley zero reason to watch the video. Your responses have given no indication that you have any interest in discussing the topic at all, and the fact that this was your only response to all of what's been put forth to you makes me even less likely to watch that video than your arrogant, half-assed OP.

I would hate to do this based on the fact that I actually enjoy your presence here much of the time, but I have this deep urge right now to tell you to fuck off.

[watchamadoodle]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

You've given us absolutley zero reason to watch the video. Your responses have given no indication that you have any interest in discussing the topic at all, and the fact that this was your only response to all of what's been put forth to you makes me even less likely to watch that video than your arrogant, half-assed OP.

He expects you to read his mind.

[Cyberman]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

Apparently you are more interested in discussing everyone else than the information presented in the video.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Apparently you are all more interested in discussing me than the information presented in the video.

It's a long video and a short google search gave me reason to doubt the speaker had anything of value to say. So, if you give me a synopsis, I might spend the time.

"A pile of arse"

[Angrboda]

I don't think of myself as closed-minded, but I do believe in the two-process model of cognition. We use slow, rational, critical thinking on evidences that are incongruent to our worldview, whereas we use a much faster and less critical process when encountering evidence that is congruent to our worldview. I notice this in myself. Is there something wrong with being skeptical and critical? I don't think so, but I do think we employ a double standard. We might just as well ask the reverse: Psi: Are you too open-minded?

[robvalue]

We have two choices, if we intend to be at all rational and consistent:

1) Don't accept any claim as likely true until we have sufficient evidence. (This may not take long of course, simple confidence in the source may be enough for mundane claims.)

2) Accept every claim as true until it is proved likely false.

I will stick with choice number 1. Or else I have to believe everything anyone ever says unless it is directly contradicted by my current surroundings and knowledge. And I will have to believe unfalsiable claims forever. Can you imagine how quickly that would get out of control?

But of course, "open minded" people act just like definition 1 almost all of the time, until there's something they really want to be true but have little/no evidence for. Then they switch to 2 temporarily and insult others for not being as inconsistent as them.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I have a jelly doughnut. You cannot prove me wrong.

I have a magic ring which not only makes me invisible, it allows me to command every evil being in the world and make them do my bidding. You can't prove me wrong.

There's a difference in there, Chad. Would you like to hazard a guess as to its nature?

[watchamadoodle]

BTW, Mezmo/ChadWooters, I watched that video in its entirety a year or so ago when I was more interested in woo, so I know what Dean Radin claims. Unfoturnately, I don't know enough about statistics to understand the issues, but apparently Radin's statistics have problems.

[bennyboy]

I don't think of myself as closed-minded, but I do believe in the two-process model of cognition. We use slow, rational, critical thinking on evidences that are incongruent to our worldview, whereas we use a much faster and less critical process when encountering evidence that is congruent to our worldview. I notice this in myself. Is there something wrong with being skeptical and critical? I don't think so, but I do think we employ a double standard. We might just as well ask the reverse: Psi: Are you too open-minded?

I think you're missing something: the heavy use of superstitious half-beliefs as motivators for action. AFAIK, all smart animals use "hunch" behaviors, rather than non-action, when they notice any correlation among multiple events but cannot discern a causal relationship. I suppose this means that those animals accept as candidate realities things which are not real, and allow them to function as parts of their worldview. So NEW information might get considered carefully, as you suggest, but false or incomplete information will still get a free pass, since until it is actively disproven, it will stand as a candidate belief-- in particular when the behavior will not negatively affect chances of getting a desirable result in a particular set of circumstances.

It seems to me that inaction is usually more dangerous than superstitious action: the former involves a chance of death at the hand of misunderstood forces, and the latter a chance of inefficient use of energy. Therefore, and this is admittedly speculative, it seems to me that all highly evolved creatures are likely to hold, and act on, superstitious beliefs. The next question, then, is this: are we advanced enough that we should respond to mysterious circumstances with inaction, rather than superstitious action? Or is an aversion to superstition potentially dangerous to our survival if (for example) we colonize Mars, or encounter space aliens?

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't know that we'd have to refer to selective pressure, perhaps our minds are simply incapable of "null" -regardless-...they cannot help but to suggest action? It's a minor mismatch of subjects, truth be told, between "acting on something superstitious" and "doing nothing". Neither really excludes the other, no decision between the two needs be made. If you ask me, superstitious acts -are "doing nothing"?

(it would be immensely difficult, in any case, to determine that superstition was any more or less harmful than doing nothing - as a general operating principle, in any case...if only for the propenderance of creatures whose first survival instinct is precisely that, -do nothing...don't move, don't twitch, cut out that breathing shit to a minimum-...I just can't see it as some obviously poor strategy relative to any other hrugs:....perhaps, if you could point to some particular superstition that is either more or less harmful than doing nothing, and what sort of situation that this may be true in context of? Then, of course, "nothing" is a strange word..look at how it expands and contracts when we use it, as I did in the example of survival instincts above, eh?)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDK9rhWBUlg