Re: Changing ones mind

From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Thu Apr 03 2003 - 17:05:53 MST

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    --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
    > Can anyone currently subscribed to the ExI list cite
    > an actual example where due to the list discussion
    > they
    > "changed" their mind?

    Yes. Granted, it is almost always in contexts where
    new information brings different values to the same
    system of deductions, rather than where the system of
    deductions was itself changed, but it has happened.
    For example, I had been thinking cryonics was horribly
    expensive, doomed to remain accessible only to the
    idle rich; the facts, I have learned, are otherwise.

    The emotional debates tend to be unproductive, yes.
    Stick to the facts, and you may convince people.
    Stick to emotions, and you mainly preach to the choir.
    (Unless of course the facts in question do involve
    your emotions, such as when trying to convince someone
    that something really is that valuable to you.)

    This gets muddied by the fact that many of the
    professional opinion changers in our society place
    much
    faith in debating by emotion. This, however, belies
    the fact that they are often hired when the facts
    alone
    are not too convincing - and it also ignores the
    specific techniques they use to manipulate emotions,
    which tend to have higher success rates than merely
    any
    random appeal to emotion. (Analogy: striking rocks to
    strike a fire over a large area, vs. over a carefully
    gathered, dried, and prepared bundle of kindling. The
    former may work; the latter works more often.)



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