Comments on: Favored Mistakes: Skepticism and the Science of Failure http://gralienreport.com/science-and-technology/favored-mistakes-skepticism-and-the-science-of-failure/ The Gralien Report: Weird News Updates from Beyond the Fringe Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:42:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: ENKI-][ http://gralienreport.com/science-and-technology/favored-mistakes-skepticism-and-the-science-of-failure/comment-page-1/#comment-411 ENKI-][ Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:46:37 +0000 http://gralienreport.com/?p=598#comment-411 'What the thinker thinks, the prover proves', as RAW said it. This isn't a new idea, particularly -- just one that has been (amusingly) ignored. To work it into the framework of memetics, those ideas riding us who have the most control fear other ideas who may wrench away their control -- and, of course, the idea that we ourselves may be subject to confirmation bias is in of itself counter to those biases which wish to be confirmed. If we do not use our beliefs as tools, our beliefs use us as tools -- and then, as John Keel once said, 'belief is the enemy'. We tend to see what we believe, not the other way around, and although it is easier to see what we believe when it jives with what everyone around us believes (when it is credible), we can still see that which we believe when it would (in the socially and perhaps empirically accepted framework of reality) be impossible. Beliefs don't give a damn about reality, just as reality doesn't give a damn about beliefs. PKD's aphorism comes in handy here. How do you know whether or not something is really there? See if it changes form (or disappears entirely) when you wholeheartedly adopt a belief system that denies it. Bigfeet become bears and escaped gorillas, and if we as observers can change their nature easily by changing our beliefs, then the reality of the situation is unclear. If we change our belief system and discover that this thing is not a bear by any stretch of the imagination in a bigfeet-are-bears reality tunnel and is likewise not a gorilla, then perhaps we have seen a real one. ‘What the thinker thinks, the prover proves’, as RAW said it. This isn’t a new idea, particularly — just one that has been (amusingly) ignored. To work it into the framework of memetics, those ideas riding us who have the most control fear other ideas who may wrench away their control — and, of course, the idea that we ourselves may be subject to confirmation bias is in of itself counter to those biases which wish to be confirmed.

If we do not use our beliefs as tools, our beliefs use us as tools — and then, as John Keel once said, ‘belief is the enemy’. We tend to see what we believe, not the other way around, and although it is easier to see what we believe when it jives with what everyone around us believes (when it is credible), we can still see that which we believe when it would (in the socially and perhaps empirically accepted framework of reality) be impossible. Beliefs don’t give a damn about reality, just as reality doesn’t give a damn about beliefs.

PKD’s aphorism comes in handy here. How do you know whether or not something is really there? See if it changes form (or disappears entirely) when you wholeheartedly adopt a belief system that denies it. Bigfeet become bears and escaped gorillas, and if we as observers can change their nature easily by changing our beliefs, then the reality of the situation is unclear. If we change our belief system and discover that this thing is not a bear by any stretch of the imagination in a bigfeet-are-bears reality tunnel and is likewise not a gorilla, then perhaps we have seen a real one.

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