Why Some People Think Total Nonsense Is Really Deep (washingtonpost.com) 411
Earthquake Retrofit writes: The Washington Post has a story about Gordon Pennycook, a doctorate student at the University of Waterloo who studies why some people are more easily duped than others. "Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena" was one of many randomly generated sentences Pennycook, along with a team of researchers at the University of Waterloo, used in a new, four-part study (PDF) put together to gauge how receptive people are to nonsense.
Those more receptive to bull**** are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions [beliefs in things for which there is no empirical evidence (i.e. that prayers have the ability to heal)] and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.
Those more receptive to bull**** are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions [beliefs in things for which there is no empirical evidence (i.e. that prayers have the ability to heal)] and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.
I.e. versus e.g. (Score:4, Funny)
I think that someone who doesn't understand the difference between i.e. and e.g. has no business criticising others.
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Why do you think they don't? I've read the "i.e." as "that is" and it makes perfect sense.
Re:I.e. versus e.g. (Score:5, Informative)
No.
i.e. = 'id est' = 'that is' = a clarification or further expansion on meaning.
e.g. = 'exempli gratia' = 'for example' = an example or illustration of what is being discussed.
they are *not* interchangeable, they mean different things, and are being used incorrectly in the summary, regardless of whether it is a direct quote or not.
if you still can't figure it out, re-read the summary out loud twice, first replacing uses of 'i.e.' with 'that is' and then 'for example'.
if you still can't figure it out, it's aliens.
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Re:I.e. versus e.g. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, they are used correctly. The cognitive abilities the study used were verbal and fluid intelligence and numeracy. Thus, i.e. rightly denotes the complete list.
Actually, there's a further nuance to all this. The summary quotes the Washington Post:
Those more receptive to bull**** are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions [beliefs in things for which there is no empirical evidence (i.e. that prayers have the ability to heal)] and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.
The first "i.e." is actually in the original study, and as you point out, it is used correctly to reference the complete list of things they were studying.
The second "i.e." is, you will note, in brackets, because this is an explanation inserted by the Washington Post writer. The original sentence from the study reads:
Those more receptive to bull**** are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.
Hence, it's the WASHINGTON POST which doesn't know how to use "i.e." correctly. If you read the original study, it's clear that it has a LOT of "e.g" and "i.e." In fact, it probably has a little too much of them, but they appear to be used correctly.
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...probably has a little too much...
...probably has a little too many...
Since we're already picking on grammar. :-)
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Yes, of course you're right.
However, I will also say: I was writing quickly and informally referencing the idea of "too much." "Too much of them" is common in colloquial idiomatic English when referencing a mass of something (i.e., "too much of that sort of thing" even if multiple types of things fall into that category), rather than emphasizing the individual components.
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In fact, it probably has a little too much of them, but they appear to be used correctly.
More than one (you could even argue one) "i.e." is too many. Good writing should have no need for a shorthand construction for "that is to say". If you want to say something, then just say it, damn it.
Re:I.e. versus e.g. (Score:4, Insightful)
Man, when your journalists are worse at grammar even than scientists, it may be time to turn out the lights. It's not just that they picked the wrong Latin abbreviation. They should never have been trying to insert editorial marks into a quote that was already grammatically complicated.
The original sentence is a bit over-long, but not out of place in a scientific journal. It is much too long for a newspaper article, and adding multiple levels of parentheses to it makes it worse.
I've come to think of science journalists as generally worthless at the science, but I thought they were at least getting grammar lessons in j-school. Apparently the author's degree is in "applied mathematics and economics", according to his bio, but he doesn't seem to have worked as an academic. But his editor should have fixed that and given him some writing homework.
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Re:I.e. versus e.g. (Score:5, Funny)
e.g. this thread.
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Make that: "i.e. this thread" (this thead says it all, no?)
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Mod parent up!
A poster that backtracks on his own post: +1
A poster that backtracks his own post and find fault in it (instead of ignoring anything going agains his/her original argument): +1 again
A poster that actually posts again saying 'my mistake': priceless??
Horse ebooks versus I.e. versus e.g. (Score:3)
I think that someone who doesn't understand the difference between i.e. and e.g. has no business criticising others.
Good catch! ;-)
I call bullshit on Pennycook's characterization of randomly generated nonsense as B.S, which he uses as a pivot of his 'study'. Here we have a generalization and judgement, an i.e. if you will, of something that can only be evaluated on an e.g. basis.
Identifying a scrap of apparent nonsense as profound is NOT a final judgement. It is a declaration that something is worthy to remember and consider, a state of unresolved investigation. We strive to find pattern and meaning and when we glimpse
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There's something called the Pre/Trans Fallacy. It says that because neither nonsense nor supersense are common sense, the two get easily confused.
So a brilliant intuition can be taken for rubbish, and rubbish can be taken for a brilliant intuition. But there is a real difference: the brilliant intuition can be looked at rationally and carefully, whereas the nonsense, on closer examination, remains rubbish.
So I don't know whether their study was looking at whether people can recognise supersense when they s
Quite. It smells like bullshit. (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a long list of cognitive biases to which ALL humans with biological brains and nervous systems are susceptible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Many of them come down to nonsense and noise appearing to make sense.
Because that is the primary function of our brains - making sense and information out of completely random stimuli generated by the world around us.
It's not a game.
It's a necessity for a crushable biological entity to quickly make sense of those vibrations it's sensors are picking up.
Is it thunder, wind or is something heavy coming down on it from above?
Quick! Milliseconds mean life or... too late.
We get pareidolia cause those who didn't recognize that bear-shaped object in the distance didn't make it through the evolutionary process.
Not cause we adapted to think that teddy bears are cute or so that we could interpret smileys and emoji.
And when we can't make sense of some stimuli - we start getting anxious and afraid. And that makes us stupid. And then we get hurt and then we die.
Which is why we'll jump on any quick and easy explanation like "ghosts" or "aliens" or conspiracy theories.
Cause they can provide easy and simple solutions to ANY unsolvable problem. And they provide it quickly.
Why am I poor? Because secret world government keeps me that way.
Why am I ugly? Because aliens made me so.
Why did I get an incurable disease when I'm really a nice person? Because chemtrails.
Why will I and everyone else I love eventually have to die? So we can live forever in a much better place.
Why did my tire blow out? Bad luck. Or gremlins.
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I find your nonsense deep and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
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I think you are a superficial moron that is unable to differentiate between important and unimportant things.
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Important and unimportant things vary wildly between people. I'm not going to tell you what I think of you because it is just unimportant to me.
So, today's college students? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ever look at a curriculum for a non-STEM degree?
"Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena" sounds like it belongs there.
But hey, we make them feel "safe".
Make them think? No so much.
Re:So, today's college students? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever look at a curriculum for a non-STEM degree?
"Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena" sounds like it belongs there.
But hey, we make them feel "safe".
Make them think? No so much.
Translation: I am an eighteen year old in the first year of a Computer Science degree and think that I am godlike.
Mind you, that applies to at least half the posts on slashdot.
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Just because it was generated randomly doesn't mean that it isn't in fact profound (and in fact may be).
An appeal to the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" maxim, huh? Finding profundity in nonsense is what our brains do; graphic art is a good example. Not everyone finds the art of Michael Cheval particularly profound. Equality with mathematical logic? That's a good one, a qualitative slight of hand. Nice. But nonsense.
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Just because it was generated randomly doesn't mean that it isn't in fact profound (and in fact may be).
An appeal to the "even a broken clock is right twice a day" maxim, huh?
Not really. Using real words in a grammatical form means that most of the randomness has been removed, and it's not surprising if some of the generated phrases do in fact make sense.
I don't think... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, remember, what exactly is considered profound is up to each person. For some people, they may not consider the statement itself to hold any wisdom, but the vagueness might prompt themselves into a philosophical state, and so they associate that with the phrase itself. And honestly, at the end of the day, this whole article is really talking about imagination, is it not? Look at children, for those of you who have any: they can go on adventures with nothing but a few sticks and a rock. Likewise, I am sure that for some people, their minds can evolve meaning even out of nonsensical words. I don't think having an active imagination is really all that much of a vice, as they tend to be people who can come up with some very creative solutions and answers that most would dismiss as impossible.
That being said, going with the article's thesis, I agree. I could totally see them being more likely to believe in a religion for precisely the reason stated above, to see a pattern out of unrelated events, and once you believe there's an all powerful god, it becomes much easier to believe in the others listed. Ultimately though, we all have our vices, and I don't think naivety is all that bad of one to have in the grand scheme.
Re:I don't think... (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem in religious belief is unconditional acceptance of dogma and a tendency not to question what one is told. Modern atheists often have their own dogmas, and all the same problems.
Re:I don't think... (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern atheists often have their own dogmas, and all the same problems.
falls either in the bullshit or in the dogma category.
First, most atheists I know are quite undogmatic. They just don't have a religion, and they don't miss it. They've grown up without every being challenged about their (non-)religiousness. Being without religion is just some kind of natural state for them, the same as for instance being 5'10" or born in 1972. There is just nothing to be questioned about it, it is to them as it is. (Full disclosure: I am neither 5'10" nor born in 1972).
Second, it might be different in an environment where the majority of the population is religious and thus the minority constantly has to explain that they aren't, and that to them it's fine, and there are valid reasons for not being religious. If you don't stop questioning people about why exactly they (don't) believe what they (don't) believe, sooner or later everyone will sound dogmatic to you, but all they really are is being angry at you for continuously bothering them and not knowing when to stop.
Re:I don't think... (Score:4, Funny)
The atheist reader who is 5'10" and was born in 1972 is probably looking over his shoulder thinking "how did he know... ?"
(Full disclosure: can't be me; I'm just over 5'11").
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The atheist reader who is 5'10" and was born in 1972 is probably looking over his shoulder thinking "how did he know... ?"
(Full disclosure: can't be me; I'm just over 5'11").
No, because atheists are good at separating coincidence from purpose. Someone who is religious or spiritual might think it is "spooky" and believe that the OP has ESP but the atheist will know that it is just happenstance. It isn't atheists that are being featured in news stories about being bilked out of thousands of dollars by psychics.
Re: I don't think... (Score:2)
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First, most atheists I know are quite undogmatic. They just don't have a religion, and they don't miss it. They've grown up without every being challenged about their (non-)religiousness.
Here let's test that;
now watch the dogma fly!
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Bingo, see there's the perfect example of dogmatic thinking.
Re:I don't think... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think there is a certain nature of movements.
Originally the pioneers are normally more 'consistent and true'.
However, as a movement becomes more general, it is going to get people belonging to it just as another other group.
For example, I left my faith of Islam. It's a huge deal. I was highly religious in my youth. It's not to my benefit in that sense. Loss of community support. Ostracized... But my brain is such that, once it sees it, it can't go back. It's been a real mental struggle fought with philosophy, identity, social belonging, truth, rationality...
Now, eventually, the agnostic/athiest movement will become the norm among Muslims, the same as it has in the West with Christianity (Bible Belt aside). And you will have people attaching itself to that agnostic/athiest label just because it is their team. They 'new athiests' will likely not be any less prone to irrationality/total nonsense than anyone else.
Let me give a little software example.
The originators of Agile were really well versed in Agile. They saw all the problems of Waterfall. Came up with a new ideology and set of practices. They probably used it to create some really good software.
But as it became a movement, a lot more people just joined into it. They don't get the intellectual aspects of Agile. They just attach onto it as a movement. It gets all the bad aspects that come with any movement. Scrum becomes the most important part. Just as say not eating pork becomes the main part of Islam. It becomes a sense of identity and belonging no different than anything else.
So while I think there are varying stages to movements and at certain times, a particular movement might be 'more true or consistent', I have a general belief that overtime, every movement becomes prone to non-sense as it becomes generally accepted.
Re:I don't think... (Score:5, Insightful)
actually I do think, and I liked this comment:
"Being without religion is just some kind of natural state for them..."
Which reminds me of a similar statement- 'a man without religion is like a fish who has lost his bicycle'. Is this a serious dilemma?
I, for one, am often the subject of well meaning concern from (mostly christian) religious people. They pray for my soul, of course, and gently try to convert me by quoting from their holy books. I would happily quote Nietzsche in return but that would create an interminable discussion which leads to no good end.
A blind person can be dependent upon his cane, a cripple on his crutches, and an emotionally confused individual on his god. But the first two don't try to encourage others to have the same dependence.
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I like the term nontheist.
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"Apatheist" is a real term.
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I like the term nontheist.
non- is a prefix meaning not/without/and similar thing.
a- is a prefix meaning not/without/and similar things.
Basically atheist and nontheist mean exactly the same thing.
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In the pages of dictionary, perhaps. In life, there are nontheists and atheists, just like there are men and Real Men. One means you have a particular characteristic, the other that you have a burning need to have others acknowledge it.
On the Internet, "atheism" is just another banner crusaders gather under.
Re:I don't think... (Score:5, Insightful)
Atheism seems to have it's own type of religion.
And abstinence is a sexual position.
A cult with an agenda.
You've cracked the conspiracy! In the atheist world domination conspiracy, atheists:
get together in a building every week in (nowhere) on the atheist sabbath day (none) as prescribed in the book of (nothing) to pray to (no one) in order to (not) save their (non) eternal souls.
What you are doing is confusing the anger of some atheists as they are slowly being released from under the heels of the religious. And in getting confused, the religious - say for example the woman in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to gays - consider that an attack on them, rather than extension of basic rights to others.
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Atheism seems to have it's own type of religion. A cult with an agenda.
What the actual fuck?
From the dictionary:
Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
As an atheist myself, I do not believe in the existence of any superhuman controlling power, God or gods. Atheism is by definition not a religion.
From the dictionary:
Cult: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object
Once again, no religious veneration here at all. No rituals, no candles, no penitence, no cards, no inferring anything based on star positions at the time of birth .
I don't meet with a bunch of atheist to worship our supreme leader that will guide the world towards a god free society. I do not give a s
Re:I don't think... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not a lack of belief. It is a belief that there is no god. It's as much a dogma as those who do believe in a god. It is certainly a belief system.
Incorrect. It is the lack of belief. Saying atheism is a belief system is no less ridiculous than saying not collecting stamps is your favorite hobby.
Atheists certainly do hold belief systems. Some believe religion is harmful. Some believe killing animals is wrong. Some believe bacon is the best food ever. But being atheist is not a belief system by any sensible definition of the term.
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Saying atheism is a belief system is no less ridiculous than saying not collecting stamps is your favorite hobby.
atheism
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
So says dictionary.com.
Re:I don't think... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
What a terrible definition. God isn't a well defined concept. How do you know which one it's referring to? Without bigotry to mandate what "God" is, the "definition" doesn't definite anything. It can only makes sense to someone who's a theist. For example: "the doctrine or belief that there is no Invisible Pink Unicorn". It's absolute nonsense to anyone else.
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It's a singular belief, but it's not a "belief system".
However, accompanying that is likely to be the idea that believing in anything for which there is no evidence is magical thinking, and a corresponding rejection of things coming out of those magical beliefs.
Which means if someone came to me and said "the great sky weasel Arthur shat out the universe 5,000 years ago", and there is no evidence for any of this, and this belief requires pretending that we don't have evidence for things actually being millio
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It is not a lack of belief. It is a belief that there is no god. It's as much a dogma as those who do believe in a god. It is certainly a belief system.
Ultimately it all comes down (to me at least) to a matter of need. Does this universe need a deity to rule it and create it? Our current evidence says it doesn't. That's not a dogma per se. It's based on the current status of the observation of this we call reality. Maybe in the future the existence of said deity could be proved somehow. And then I'll just eat my words. But it's no dogma at all. It's called method. The scientific method, where everything is questionable.
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It is not a lack of belief. It is a belief that there is no god. It's as much a dogma as those who do believe in a god. It is certainly a belief system.
So a person who has never heard of god, thinks about not having heard of god? They believe that something they never think about doesn't exist?
This whole atheism is a religion business is lust an inability to comprehend. The only time I ever think about "godness" - I suppose you would call it, is when I'm having fun discussing it with people.
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There is some truth to both sides of this debate:
1 .The atheism of a person who has never heard of god is clearly not a belief system or even a religion.
2. But the atheism of someone who has heard of God and writes angry books on why believing in god is evil and why all kinds of theism should be destroyed, that can be a belief system and awfully close to a dogmatic religion.
Some people people say atheism is not a religion, just like not collecting stamps is not a hobby. However, there is no club of the amer
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http://www.examiner.com/articl... [examiner.com]
http://www.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
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Took like three seconds. Search for "atheist congregations."
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Disclaimer: I'm neither atheist nor theist. I believe that anyone who's honest with themselves admits that they don't know the truth of the matter.
That makes you an agnostic.
Is that so hard to do?
Tell me, are you prepared to admit that it's only "being honest with yourself" when you prevaricate over the existence of unicorns? Or do you happily state without equivocation that unicorns don't exist?
Unicorns are magical creatures, and don't usually live in this realm, so even a thorough search of this planet w
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The biggest problem in religious belief is unconditional acceptance of dogma and a tendency not to question what one is told. Modern atheists often have their own dogmas, and all the same problems.
Is this a clever rephrasing of the old "Atheism is a religion" chestnut?
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Profound has a meaning... (Score:4, Insightful)
Its supposed to be something that gives you a deep insight into some area of knowledge that you didn't possess before. Its NOT supposed to be anything that you don't really understand but is grammatically correct and uses a lot of impressive multisyllable new age/religious buzzwords and phrases.
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Its supposed to be something that gives you a deep insight into some area of knowledge that you didn't possess before.
Actually, I think this misses some nuance in the use of the English word "profound" and the source of "profundity."
What makes something "profound" is often the same kind of thing that makes a mathematical proof "elegant": a certain kind of generalization combined with terseness or compactness. Often the problem with "elegant" proofs and with "profound" statements is that they don't explain their complexity explicitly. An elegant proof can therefore be rather non-intuitive, or even if it makes sense, it'
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Well, remember, what exactly is considered profound is up to each person. For some people, they may not consider the statement itself to hold any wisdom, but the vagueness might prompt themselves into a philosophical state, and so they associate that with the phrase itself. And honestly, at the end of the day, this whole article is really talking about imagination, is it not? Look at children, for those of you who have any: they can go on adventures with nothing but a few sticks and a rock. Likewise, I am sure that for some people, their minds can evolve meaning even out of nonsensical words. I don't think having an active imagination is really all that much of a vice, as they tend to be people who can come up with some very creative solutions and answers that most would dismiss as impossible.
That being said, going with the article's thesis, I agree. I could totally see them being more likely to believe in a religion for precisely the reason stated above, to see a pattern out of unrelated events, and once you believe there's an all powerful god, it becomes much easier to believe in the others listed. Ultimately though, we all have our vices, and I don't think naivety is all that bad of one to have in the grand scheme.
That is so deep.
I believe you completely.
looking up spiritual bankruptcy on alphabet.com (Score:2, Insightful)
means our insides are overlooked? wmd on credit zionic nazi psychopath religious abuse training leaves participants both suicidal & homocidal at once...? truth + mercy = justice unchallenged universal spiritual axioms,,, in the moms we trust... ask ed snowden your questions here on /. continues........ give until it stops hurting... see you there....
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People who enjoy killing gays, maybe?
What's the metric equivalent of a short plank? (Score:4, Funny)
Thick people are less intelligent, claims report. Film at 11.
Purple monkey dishwasher (Score:2)
That is all.
Deepak Chopra's Twitter Stream (Score:3, Insightful)
n/t
Chopra generator (Score:3)
Emperor's shiny new clothes (Score:5, Interesting)
From The not-very-proFound Article:
The precise reasons that people see profundity in vague buzzwords or syntactic but completely random sentences are unknown.
I think a large reason for the phenomenon (accepting the premise of around a quarter uncritical test subjects uncritically for the sake of the argument) is for the same reason that a whole city, save one child, all said how nice the emperor's new clothes are (despite all seeing his imperial nakedness): not wanting to look foolish/out-of-fashion/contrary to society in the eyes of their peers.
In other words: I read a random phrase that is touted as being (at least mildly, score 1) profound. It contains some multi-syllable words. I don't really understand it, but I guess it must be somewhat profound - philosophy have for ages given new meanings to existing words and fixed combinations thereof (heck, the media does so every day these days), so maybe this is another example where those words mean something that I haven't encountered yet in my academically undistinguished career - so just to be safe and not the laughing stock of all those ivory tower dwellers, I give it a score of 3 or 4.
And voilà!
Duds will be duped, film at 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
Open YouTube. Search for "Flat Earth". Wonder how some people can breathe without aid.
The world is a vastly complex place. Too complex to grasp for even the most learned and intelligent people on our planet, how much more overwhelming does it have to be for someone with, let's put it kindly, limited mental resources? It's dwarfing and people don't like that. So what they are looking for is easy answers for complex problems. And of course they will get them. Usually such answers involve some scapegoat, some big and nebulous enemy and a huge conspiracy around it all.
Fuck, I'm in the wrong business. I should start writing books for those idiots and get rich off them, too.
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In that case, I strongly advise you not to do any searches on "chemtrails".
Ontological Confusions (Score:4, Interesting)
It makes sense that people who don't require empirical evidence would be more likely to believe in dogmas/supernatural/paranormal/gods, and alternative medicine. However I object to the term 'ontological confusions', some people's philosophies aren't founded on logic; if logic is cast aside, then internal/external consistency aren't necessarily valid ways to judge a philosophy's validity. As a metaphor, someone might say "I do not recognize the validity of this court."
If confronted with facts contradictory to your beliefs, you might believe that the facts were fabricated as part of a conspiracy to suppress The Truth. If given supporting facts, then the conspiracy must be even larger. This proves your beliefs must be true, and is the source of True Believer Syndrome.
Understanding of the psychological root of religiosity is worth pursuing, particularly to priests. If it turns out to be dimwittedness and cognitive disorders, they can just say that their flock has been "blessed by god to see the truth." Most people suffer from several minor cognitive distortions; I wonder what would happen if all the sub-clinical cases were cured...
Re:Ontological Confusions (Score:5, Interesting)
if logic is cast aside, then internal/external consistency aren't necessarily valid ways to judge a philosophy's validity.
As a philosopher and logician, I fail to see why someone's "philosophy" shouldn't be judged on the basis of consistency like everything else, just because that person refuses validity, consistency, etc for him- or herself. Surely you must try to understand someone else's position first, but that cannot mean that you can only evaluate that position by adopting it - that would make no sense. Besides, it is my experience after 20 years of doing philosophy that people who refuse logic and mathematical method in general really just do so out of laziness, fear, and sometimes even hatred against things they believe they can't understand. Their criticisms are practically always insubstantial and uninteresting, and have been discussed within the discipline extensively before.
Anti-logical attitudes are particularly amusing and depressing at the same time, because for most purported criticisms of logic there is already a logic as a remedy. (A valid criticism may be that there are too many logics, but you rarely hear that one from non-logicians.)
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Giving them credit for attempting to also test blind cynicism by adding actual commonly accepted profound statements, I think the conclusion identifies the quarter who accepted BS but doesn't similarly characterise the percentage of cynical idiots who fail to recognize the profound.
Would you rather be with someone who accidentally positively scored 50% more statements as profound, or someone who marked 50% of the actual profound statements as non-profound? And how interesting would you expect the "revers
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I could imagine an intelligent defense of the wholeness quiets infinite phenomena phrase... and the person able to find meaning in it would score lower than the cynic who finds fewer statements profound.
Right. Wholeness does quiet infinite phenomena, namely, the phenomena associated with incompleteness. An audience as technical as Slashdot users surely has plenty of experience with those phenomena. There's a lot of them.
Like the man says, colorless green dreams sleep furiously.
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However I object to the term 'ontological confusions', some people's philosophies aren't founded on logic
I object to your obvious confusion about the terms you're using. Why would anyone believe ontology has anything whatsoever to do with logic??! FYI, the things religious people believe has everything to do with metaphysics. Otherwise, nice massive Strawman fallacy of a post there!! And then more ridiculous people mod parent insightful? I know you think you're deep, alright, but you should stay in the shallow end.
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INFIDEL!... you make some good points.
There is no psychological root of religiosity. (Score:3)
There IS a biological root for FAITH.
Or as call it when not talking about magical creatures and forces - instinct.
When we "feel" something is a certain way but can't quite put our finger onto why we think it is so.
When we have faith that something is a certain way.
Some stimuli has triggered something somewhere in our evolutionary and personal memories and our brain is telling us that... just not in precise terms.
Will the rope hold? It feels like it might. Will it rain? It feels like it might. Will this hurt
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However I object to the term 'ontological confusions', some people's philosophies aren't founded on logic; if logic is cast aside, then internal/external consistency aren't necessarily valid ways to judge a philosophy's validity. As a metaphor, someone might say "I do not recognize the validity of this court."
Hogwash.
A person who's philosophy does not recognize the validity of gravity is still subject to it. Whether a person believes a thing to be true or not does not change objective fact.
Really ? (Score:2)
Fake it till you make it
Synergize the opportunities
Agile paradigm shift
Synthesize community norms and mores
Postmodern science
Wow this is really quite a good bit of fun, It gives me a whole new way to laugh at people who are busy looking down their noses at others.
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Laugh up but cry down.
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May be relevant to your interests.
(I think Weird Al is relevant to many people's interests, but I may be biased.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Doctorate? (Score:4, Funny)
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Million monkeys on a million typewriters? (Score:2)
Niels said it (Score:2)
Too cheap to meter (Score:2)
As likely as lightning striking in the same place twice
Walk away safe.
Capacity Factor.
Clean, cheap, efficient.
Yes, I can see how certain people fall for this bullshit.
Free Society (Score:2)
Democracy for all.
Freedom of speech.
Freedom of association.
Right to protest.
The free world.
Left and Right wing politics
Elected Representative.
Your vote matters.
Not the only reasons for people not calling BS (Score:2)
Spam Haikus (Score:2)
Actually, yes sometimes there is wisdom in "total nonsense". That's why we loved Yogi Berra. Wisdom, like art, is what you take out of something, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what the person put into it.
Case in point are Spam Haikus. Once a lot of people started using Baysean filters on their incoming email, spammers started trying to fool them by just inserting random text that had nothing to do with the ad. Some of these were passages lifted straight from books, but a large amount se
Obvious (Score:2)
Stupid people are made obvious by their stupidities, as has been known since forever. The real problem is that there are so fucking many of them.
Free press (Score:2)
Timely and accurate reporting.
Fair and balanced.
The people have a right to know.
An educated and informed populous.
Unbiased reporting.
It's the Turbo Encabulator (Score:2)
When you work in a corporate environment, you see evidence of this at the highest levels. Examples are people who insist on using flowery words to describe something to make themselves sound more intelligent when simple words are sufficient. Also, people who insist on creating acronyms for every project.
Girlfriends (Score:2)
Total nonsense (Score:2)
Amen, brothers!
For your amusement (Score:2)
A New Age Bullshit Generator
http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/ [sebpearce.com]
Quoting Agent Kay: (Score:4)
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet.
Cynical, but undeniably true. In my opinion, the day that the vast majority of human beings alive on Earth look at things like religion and superstitions and say "That doesn't make any sense!", will be the day that the Human race will start truly becoming what I consider to be 'sentient' and 'civilized'.
Inspiration can come from noise (Score:4)
I don’t know about some people, but I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas from bullshit. Yeah, I know what I’m reading is poppycock, but for bullshit to be believable by ANYONE, it has to have some plausibility. So if you run with some of the plausible parts, you can come up with a wholly different idea that isn’t bullshit. Some people feel that their creativity is enhanced when they listen to white noise or the sounds of the ocean or rain. With bullshit, there is not just meaningless noise but some actual information content, even if it’s mostly wrong.
When I was in grad school, I was not smarter than my classmates. But having industry experience, I could code rings around them. My secret to success was not that I could come up with better ideas. In fact, they were mostly worse. However, I could implement and fully rule out the bad ideas a lot faster, and what was left over were ideas that were not only good but already provably good with some of the experimentation already done. So in this case, I was my own bullshit generator, and I used empirical analysis as the bullshit filter, and I had tiger blood and won.
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Reminds me of the software that automatically churns out randomly-generated research papers and gets them published in sketchy scientific journals.
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Scientists who have any grain of self-awareness get this too: is there any sillier proposition than, "everything originated in a Bang?"
While the "Big Bang" theory is what it it, I've never heard an actual scientist refer to it as everything started in a Bang". Indeed many of them are busy working on what came before the event, so no beginning yet even found.
Or this one: "space was made and is perpetuated by quantum entanglement." Once you get this, you realize what a vast difference there is between nonsense and bullshit.
I've been searching all over for your quotes - I mean they must be referenced somewhere..
But while everyone is subject to some amount of belief in bullshit, there is a difference.
While we can accumulate evidence that our universe came about through an event long ago, we can't prove
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College campuses are full of these "because I feel it's so."
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Haha, you fell for ickleberry's obvious bullshit test!
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It's not nonsense, it's deep. Seriously deep.
Seriously deep bullshit.
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It didn't pretend you were a clueless moron (Score:2, Insightful)
Unlike most of the movies (see the second Mission Impossible and compare it to the first), it doesn't assume it has to PANDER to you and assume the lowest common denominator because you're too dumb or lazy to understand anything that isn't kindergarden level explained.
Even those whose capacity or instinct is insufficient to make them a target demographic of "high brow" entertainment can manage to stretch their goals and the stretch, like any exercise, is both healthy and enjoyable, and like actual exercise
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That's an improper way of inferring correlation, let alone proper causation. For one, you're not controlling for the presence of comparable miraculous healings of non-christians or in the absence of prayers.