From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@ocean.com.au)
Date: Mon Jan 20 2003 - 22:20:25 MST
Lee Corbin writes:
> But strictly back to the subject:
>
> > > > This choice, either to pursue "point scoring" or to
> > > > pursue "deeper understanding" seems available to each
> > > > of us each time we post.
> > >
> > > I wish I had a dollar for every time on this forum this
> > > useless sentiment has been expressed.
> >
> > I see very little sentiment (useless or otherwise) in the
> > statements at all.
>
> Okay; I used the wrong word *again*. Jeez. I should have
> said "opinion". Gimme a break. Must I scrutinize *every*
> word I use? Could you try harder to get the drift?
I do try pretty hard to get your drift. But the sentence in the
form you wrote it made sense so I assumed that you had
said what you meant. I need to assume that for efficiency in
communication when your sentences seem clear. If I think
you are stuggling for a word or to say what you mean
(happens to us all) I will try really hard to 'give you a break'.
I'm interested in what you and others on this list 'think' language
is important but secondary.
As you ask, imo, it possibly would be quite useful if you
chose your words a bit more carefully sometimes, or, to say
you are speaking loosely, when you are, so that I know when
cutting slack is appropriate. To cut you slack sometimes would
be presumptious of me. Some of your stronger statements may
be insights and I don't want to presume that they are wrong I
will be interested to hear why you think them if they seem to
wildly differ from my own, especially, if the point seems
important enough.
Really I think its just about whatever helps communication.
>
> > I certainly wasn't looking to do anything so pointless as
> > express mere sentiment. I hoped to highlight a fundamental
> > choice that each poster gets to make each time they post -
> > to "pursue point scoring" or to "pursue deeper understanding".
> >
> > Do you think there is no such choice?
>
> No, I agree with you that there is often such a choice.
Hmm. If there is a time when one doesn't have a choice, that,
would be an interesting counterpoint. I think we do have a
choice in all cases but we forget we do sometimes. As other
things are on our minds.
> Yet what you consider to be mere point-scoring is in
> fact often constructive criticism.
No. By definition. See the word mere. You can't know
that what *I* consider to be "mere point-scoring" is "in fact"
often constructive criticism. Your guessing or assuming and
then you are imputing something to me.
I can let your assumptions go sometimes, and vice versa,
but it doesn't help us communicate if we leave incorrect
imputations go. That would be to ignore misunderstanding.
>If someone thinks that
> an idea someone else has contains a serious flaw, then
> he should attempt to shoot the idea down.
Pretty much true.
> Now, if
> that occurs, who among us isn't inclined to put another
> notch on his missile launcher?
Pretty much all of us I'd reckon.
>
> You may suppose that such inclinations smack of game-
> playing, and yes, such a component exists.
Yes.
> I might
> point out, however, that the whole adversarial process
> of law is based upon opportunistic exploitation of
> these human tendencies.
You might. But you haven't yet. Its an interesting thesis.
> I think that we should live
> with a balance between the utterly rigorous and detached
> (and sometimes boring), and the visceral.
Yes. But I come to the extropian list and communicate with
you and others at least partly because I *like* the
intellectual rigor especially when it is applied to the solving
of human problems. I can exercise my 'ol viscera anywhere.
>
> Nature will take its course so far as list dynamics go,
> just as in all other human affairs, and the prohibitionists
> eventually wise up and understand that suggesting tiny
> course corrections is one thing, and profitable, but
> revolutionary and radical programs are something else,
> and inevitably fail.
"Nature" may impose limits. Our freedoms rise to the
extent we can push back those limits. So I don't want
to just say "whatever will be, will be".
The thesis that revolutions and radical programs inevitably
fail seems a very bold one. I'm not inclined to agree with
it at this stage.
>
> > I think that if people are talking face to face either one to
> > one or in groups that a different set of dynamics apply than
> > apply on a list where posts are sequential. I think a list
> > structure favours the "point scoring" mindset as opposed to
> > the "seeking deep understanding" mindset more than face
> > to face does.
>
> Yes, I'll agree, at least to some extent. The phenomenon
> of flaming is greatly magnified by the presence of a large
> audience; witness the American newspapers of the 1790's
> which make most on-line flame wars paltry affairs in comparison.
I don't know about the American newspapers. Its interesting.
But I'm more concerned with *our* "flame wars" beause our
"flame wars" are "flame wars" between the good-guys and they
"burn" *us*. I think an enormous amount can be achieved thru
the willing cooperation of a few good minds and this list is
a gold mine for good minds.
Though watching it is a bit like watching the movie Gettysburg
(the one with Martin Sheen as General Lee). I like that movie
because neither side is caricatured as villains, both sides show
essentially decent folk struggling heroically but tragically. Just
a real darn shame the enemies we choose are so often each
other. Its not like heroism is meaningless. Or our human
propensity to fight cannot be redirected sometimes at least to
good effect. Hell let's fight death - the ancestral enemy. Let's
collectively kick it's butt around the block for a couple of
millenia or longer at least.
>
> But we are talking here about one's adversarial nature
> or opinionated nature, which is simply set differently
> in different people.
Yes people vary along that dimension I think.
> Get a crowd around a couple of the
> usual Extropian wranglers at someone's house after an
> Extro conference, and I predict you'll see I'm right.
Ok. I don't know.
>
> Why, I've often had many quite heated and totally
> argumentative discussions alone with a close friend.
:-)
> To take my former
> example, fire and ice, (i.e., Mike Lorrey and Anders Sandberg),
> it would be quite interesting to find out if Mike would lower
> Anders' boiling point, or Anders would raise Mike's, in a
> face to face discussion, though probably not as interesting
> as attending to what they were actually saying.
Well maybe. But I can think of better 'engagements' for the likes
of folk of the calibre of both these guys than for them to amuse
you or I by having at each other.
Your use of the word "probably" is a bit of a worry ;-) Your
not one of those morbid 'road accident' 'vultures' I hope. :-)
>
> > It is easier to tell in the more context rich face to face
> > environment if people are serious, interested, in the middle
> > of a conversation that matters to them or merely shooting
> > the breeze, and so in a face to face circumstances I think the
> > "point scoring" debater mindset would stand out more
> > blatantly as rude and damaging and that people would
> > therefore do it less as a consequence of the richer feedback
> > that they'd get.
>
> Well, that doesn't match my experience very well.
Ok.
> The people
> that I know (at work, for example) usually are tending towards
> what you'd call the "point-scoring" end of the continuum, (what
> I'd call the adversarial mode), when, say political matters
> come up.
Ok
> What are your experiences with people, both as an
> observer and participant?
Well they vary I guess. I'm a pretty analytical specimen and I'm
quite interested in psychology and politics, so I've learnt a bit
about them. I think there are some things I learnt in social psych
at uni that were not at all the same sort of insights that I imaging
*necessarily* come to people who are *only* drawing on
reasonably good intelligence and common sense. Sometimes two
explanations provided by common sense can be in conflict.
Eg. Which is more true the aphorism that "opposites attract" or
that "birds of a feather flock together"?R.
Obviously, to a certain extent it depends, but studying social psych
in a formal way helped me, I think, understand better, on *what* it
depends.
>
> > > Consider the exchange between Anders and Mike:
> > >
> > > > [Anders wrote]
> > > >> One prerequisite for having a constructive discussion
> > > > > about a powerful topic is to be able to handle it on a
> > > > > high level of abstraction. When you know enough about
> > > > > a topic you can start to look at it from different sides.
> > > > > You can be abstract enough about it so that you become
> > > > > dispassionate.
> > >
> > > Mike replied
> > >
> > > > On the contrary, the more you know about a topic, when
> > > > that topic turns on Objective Truth, the more likely you are
> > > > to be very passionate for the side which you are able to
> > > > objectively, quantitatively, and qualitatively determine is in
> > > > the right. The opposition begins, more and more, to look
> > > > not just wrong, but foolish, naive, stubbornly obstinate in
> > > > their willful ignorance, and willing to believe anything
> > > > that agrees with their prejudices.
> > >
> > > It's quite clear that the more someone learns about an
> > > issue, the less affected is his or her basic personality
> > > disposition!
> >
> > Not to me.
> >
> > I'm not sure what your saying. It seems that, your saying
> > that, as the amount of knowledge one has on a subject
> > increases one's personality (or) personal disposition, is
> > less (e)ffected by each further unit increment.
>
> Sorry, it was a joke, or at least was rather ironical, to
> phrase it just that way. It misfired (my fault).
Ok
> I meant
> to say that their basic personality dispositions are hardly
> affected at all by how much they learn about a matter
Well this is an interesting thesis.
But note: affected and effected are *both* valid in your
sentence but mean different things. I think you probably
meant effected.
But its still a thesis that whilst interesting wants for support
to validate it.
> (with
> some notable exceptions in some people and on some
> topics--- I have noticed that I shut up, or at least become
> much more conciliatory after someone has made me
> realize an error that I had been making).
Ok. I'm *sure* you actually do change your behavior
based on how you perceive things.
But probably we are all both a bit more interested in
ourselves and intimately acquainted with ourselves so perhaps
we don't always give others the credit we give to ourselves.
In fact there is a social pysch phenomenon, at least one,
called the "fundamental attribution error" that is based on this
theme.
Social psych's found by experiment, that we tend to see our
own behaviours as more likely to be determined by the
situation in which we find ourselves (ie. we see ourselves as
sensitive, adapting and reactive in a good way), whereas we
tend to see others in the same situation where the observable
behavior is the same as having acted the way they did more
out of personal disposition and less out of a response to the
particular situation in which the person finds themselves.
Simple example if one stumble's in a crowd, one might be
more likely to think one was pushed, whereas if I one see
someone else stumble in a crowd one is more likely to think
they are clumsy and tripped.
In a variety of circumstance this simple "fundamental
attribution error" is exercised in real life. I see behavior as
others do. But sometimes for reasons that are to do with
my interest or my education I may see things differently or
with some extra context because I have a framework in which
I can interpret social behvior which is a least a bit based on
a formal study of it.
So I do think that you or anyone else should automatically
assume that I am right and they are wrong if our i
interpretations of a situation differ? Hell no! I can and do
stuff up frequently and I know it.
>
> > > Those who start by being quite opinionated
> > > remain that way, and those who tend to reserve
> > > judgment, have "working hypotheses", be indecisive,
> > > and so on, tend to remain their way.
> >
> > I can't agree with the view that having a working
> > hypothesis and indecision amount to the same thing,
> > which seems to be what you are saying.
>
> Yes, the wrong word again. Replace "indecisive" with
> "less decisive". I only mean the opposite of "quite
> opinionated" which maybe you should have picked up on.
>
> > > And neither speaker here is distinguishing
> > > between ordinary discussions of near-fact,
> > > and discussions laced with ideology.
> >
> > I'm not sure I could hold someone to blame for not
> > distinguishing "near-fact" from anything. What is a
> > near-fact? How near?
>
> By "near-fact" I was trying to connote troublesome examples
> that should be matters of fact, but which are, for various
> reasons, [are ] not, e.g., historical accounts. We probably are
> best off to view the difference between facts and opinions
> as also on a continuum, though with the two ends more
> prominent than in many other continuums.
Well I'd have a preference for keeping a perfectly good
word like fact as it is and using likelihood or something myself
but it doesn't matter much for present purposes.
>
> As an example of what I was talking about, suppose that a
> scientific discussion of "entropy" was in progress, and
> suppose that there aren't any strong ideological movements
> separating people's views about entropy.
Ok.
> What Anders and
> Mike said, while entirely correct IMO for discussions like
> that, was not correct when considering ideological debates.
Ok.
> Anders had written
>
> When you know enough about a topic you can start to
> look at it from different sides. You can be abstract
> enough about it so that you become dispassionate.
>
> which is true enough, if you are talking about entropy.
Agreed.
> But it fails spectacularly if you (most people) are
> talking about the Vietnam War.
Yes it's perhaps not as true in this case as it is in the
case of entropy, but I think I still agree with Anders
contention even on a point like the Vietnam War even
given that it does have a lot of additional dimensions about
it and "truth" is not so clear cut or demonstrable.
>
> > > It is *extremely* difficult not to have a
> > > somewhat biased perspective on the latter
> > > [ideological] issues, and only a fool has
I agree its generally extremely difficult for people
to be retain a dispassionate perspective about
ideology. I think some may do it better than
others but probably all of us do it less well than
we think we do.
> > > such prejudices about matters of fact!
> >
> > But now you seem to be moving near-fact into fact.
>
> Yes. It would be hasty to call someone a fool for
> being prejudicial about matters in which opinion or
> ideology was even a tiny component. Not that that
> stops a lot of people.
>
Sorry for the long-windedness in this post Lee, (and
any readers). I found myself thinking this
thread was becoming a bit too introspective and getting
of topic.
Stuff above me personally is only that. I don't
assume that its interesting to people (or not).
I wanted to respond to open questions openly.
Brett
[Aside: I reckon there is more merit in developing the
thread on who "decides myself", but that's just
me. Please feel free to prune this post ruthlessly for
relevance or otherwise to the subject header].
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