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posted by martyb on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the We-could-keep-this-up-forever dept.

Aeon has an interesting article on bullshit:

We live in the age of information, which means that we also live in the age of misinformation. Indeed, you have likely come across more bullshit so far this week than a normal person living 1,000 years ago would in their entire lifetime. If we were to add up every word in every scholarly piece of work published prior to the Enlightenment, this number would still pale in comparison with the number of words used to promulgate bullshit on the internet in the 21st century alone.

If you find your head nodding, start shaking it. I’m bullshitting you.

Ha! I knew it!

How could I possibly know how much bullshit you have come across this week? What if you’re reading this on a Sunday? Who is a ‘normal’ person living 1,000 years ago? And how could I know how much bullshit they had to deal with?

It was very easy to construct this bullshit. Once I set out to impress rather than inform, a burden was lifted from my shoulders and placed onto yours. My opening statements could very well be true, but we have no way of knowing. Their truth or falsity were irrelevant to me, the bullshitter.

[...] In his book, On Bullshit (2005), Frankfurt noted that ‘most people are rather confident of their ability to recognise bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it’. However, more than 98 per cent of our participants rated at least one item in our bullshit receptivity scales to be at least somewhat profound. We are not nearly as good at detecting bullshit as we think.

So, how might you – the reader – vaccinate yourself against it? For a non-spiritualist, it might be relatively easy to recognise when Chopra or Oz are concerned less with the truth than selling books or entertaining viewers. But think back to my opening paragraph. Bullshit is much harder to detect when we want to agree with it. The first and most important step is to recognise the limits of our own cognition. We must be humble about our ability to justify our own beliefs. These are the keys to adopting a critical mindset – which is our only hope in a world so full of bullshit.


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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:56PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:56PM (#709642)

    Turn this site off then. The BS level is *very* high here.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by isostatic on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:09PM (4 children)

      by isostatic (365) on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:09PM (#709650) Journal

      It's all relative. I only trust MichaelDavidCrawford.

      • (Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:29PM (3 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:29PM (#709664)

        And jmorris is the avatar of the god of Objective Truth.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday July 20 2018, @02:02AM (2 children)

          by jmorris (4844) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:02AM (#709742)

          Well that should be everyone's goal, right? None can actually hit that goal, but the harder we strive for it the better. Figure out what the facts are and be unafraid to speak them. The rustled jimmies, outraged shrieks and "I just can't even" reactions are most useful; they are bright spotlights on people who are useless in debating that particular issue, showing who should be totally ignored (or trolled for lulz). Those who can face the facts (or even dispute them intelligently), debate the proper weight to assign to them, the logical consequences, etc. are where the actual debate is. "I'm offended" is not an argument.

          Screw your feelings. What are the facts, to how many decimal places have they been measured and where are the error bars and footnotes. Then lets see the methodology.

          2 + 2 = 4 for all values of 2 and 4*, for all identity groups and regardless of the level of privilege of the person working the problem.

          * Assuming base 10 or any base greater than 4 and the custom is to assume numbers are base 10 unless explicitly noted.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @02:09AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @02:09AM (#709744)

            Epic fail. jmorris wants his own integers! What bullshit.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @03:05AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @03:05AM (#709765)

            You calling for facts is making my brain kick my eyeballs from behind trying to get the eyelids to shut.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:21PM (8 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:21PM (#709655) Journal

      The BS level is *very* high here.

      Bullshit! How would you know?

      Turn this site off then.

      Why does a BS source need to be turned off?
      Or what you propose is only specific to this site?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:02AM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:02AM (#709683)

        (Different AC here, no BS). I agree, a well trained or perhaps a well fed bullshit detector is a shield against the malicious (and may yet protect the American democracy even, we'll see). In that sense a set of low quality (i.e. easily discernible) bullshit sources make for a great training ground. I *love* my bullshit detector, it has given me the heads-up in more perilous situations than I care to remember.

        For the uninitiated I will offer one beginner's tip, in the same vein as the TFS. In the information ago, plainly stated facts that are researchable, such as TFS' statement around the Enlightenment, are a quick checkpoint in a steady flow of non information - such as the rest of TFS. Amongst a bizarre set of circumstances and politics I was coerced into an NLP course (thats the piffle-founded "neuro linguistic programming" kind, not the computational discipline named "natural language processing" kind). I had never heard of it before, so no preconception or domain specific intuition to work with. In that audio book courseware was endless untestable emotion-lead drivel that was setting my bullshit detector off like I was being sold the worlds most used car, so I did a quick check on a handful of "facts" that were used to anchor the raving to "truth", to validate my suspicion. One statement asserted was something like .. " the brain is like my other muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets which is why Einstein's brain was so much heavier than everyone elses " .. hmm, how come I've never heard that before? 'cause it turned out IIRC (check my facts!) Einstein's brain had been measured three times after his death and found to be very fkn average in its physical proportions each time!

        Bullshit is dead. Long live Bullshit!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @01:40AM (6 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @01:40AM (#709738)

          orig ac here... The point was BS is impossible to detect. Except when you decide it is. I was just being a goof....

          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 20 2018, @03:34AM (1 child)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @03:34AM (#709777) Journal

            You and I must have two different definition for bullshit.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @09:56PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @09:56PM (#710127)

              I seriously doubt that. But I would bet cash you have bias's that make things 'slip by' and you would never know. Once you accept the fact that your brain lies to you to make you feel better about yourself and what happens to you the better off you can be about what others do. The difference between being malicious and incompetent can in many cases be impossible to tell.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 20 2018, @05:15AM (3 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @05:15AM (#709816) Journal

            The point was BS is impossible to detect.

            Ok, why do you think that? Phrases like "smells like bullshit" didn't come about because people thought bullshit was undetectable.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @09:52PM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @09:52PM (#710126)

              The point was BS is impossible to detect. Except when you decide it is.
              Ok, why do you think that? Phrases like "smells like bullshit" didn't come about because people thought bullshit was undetectable.

              You are making my exact point. You are also re-writing what I said by a lie of omission. Creating the air that you can detect BS. BS is impossible to detect correctly. Your cognitive biases will guide you. Especially if the statements play to your bias or directly oppose them.

              Still do not think so?

              Try this on for size. That happened to me just yesterday.

              You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. With these rights in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?

              Now having read that would you not assume that lawyer is free? Someone I know is going through the system right now. He said 'I do not want to use that lawyer they cost 150 bucks'. I thought he was 'full of shit', until yesterday. Then I went and read the law. He was right. In some states/counties/cities they charge you for the use of that court appointed lawyer. In my state if you get a not guilty the lawyer cost is on the state. If found guilty they can charge anywhere from 50-70 an hour. My weird point? BS is hard to actually detect but you think you are an expert at it, your brain told you so. My bias of watching too much TV had muddled what is real or fake. You can argue if what happens is right or wrong. But the fact remains that lawyer is not free to all defendants in all cases, just available. BS is all over the place. Set your sensors too high and you will be the one full of it.

              You do not even have to take my word for it. It is in the summary.
              Frankfurt noted that ‘most people are rather confident of their ability to recognise bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it’. However, more than 98 per cent of our participants rated at least one item in our bullshit receptivity scales to be at least somewhat profound. We are not nearly as good at detecting bullshit as we think

              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 20 2018, @11:22PM

                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @11:22PM (#710156) Journal

                The point was BS is impossible to detect.

                Hard to detect doesn't mean impossible to detect.

                --
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
              • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:44AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:44AM (#710265) Journal

                You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. With these rights in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?

                Now having read that would you not assume that lawyer is free? Someone I know is going through the system right now. He said 'I do not want to use that lawyer they cost 150 bucks'. I thought he was 'full of shit', until yesterday. Then I went and read the law. He was right. In some states/counties/cities they charge you for the use of that court appointed lawyer. In my state if you get a not guilty the lawyer cost is on the state. If found guilty they can charge anywhere from 50-70 an hour. My weird point? BS is hard to actually detect but you think you are an expert at it, your brain told you so. My bias of watching too much TV had muddled what is real or fake. You can argue if what happens is right or wrong. But the fact remains that lawyer is not free to all defendants in all cases, just available. BS is all over the place. Set your sensors too high and you will be the one full of it.

                That is incorrect. It's not the words that make that bullshit, but the context. And how much is the lawyer going to collect from a poor person in jail? It's not going to be $50-70 per hour.

                But now that we know both the words and the relevant context, welp, it's bullshit. Next.

    • (Score: 4, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 20 2018, @02:18PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:18PM (#709921) Journal

      Oh, just use the filters I use. If you see a post written in a weird font, skip. If you see anything longer than a paragraph, and a child is mentioned in it, skip. Anything written in gibberish, skip.

      There are a handful of others I file under 'skim,' but I don't want them to feel bad because sometimes they do try.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:57PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @10:57PM (#709643)

    However, more than 98 per cent of our participants rated at least one item in our bullshit receptivity scales to be at least somewhat profound.

    More than 98%? Can't bring themselves to say "nearly 100%"? I'm not saying it is 100%, but, it is 100%.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:23PM (2 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:23PM (#709658) Journal

      I'm not saying it is 100%, but, it is 100%.

      Everything needs to be clear cut, in black and white only?
      Do exceptions have no value?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:26PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:26PM (#709661)

        Fallacy of misleading precision. They should have said, "98.3%" Percentages with decimal points are always more convincing.

        • (Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday July 20 2018, @01:09AM

          by NewNic (6420) on Friday July 20 2018, @01:09AM (#709726) Journal

          They should have said, "98.3%" Percentages with decimal points are always more convincing.

          But 95.1% of all statistics are made up on the spot .....

          --
          lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
    • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday July 20 2018, @12:12AM (11 children)

      by MostCynical (2589) on Friday July 20 2018, @12:12AM (#709690) Journal

      If it were 198 out of 202, you get 98.02%
      "More than 98%" stops them having to use more significant figures.

      Womder what the minimum number of participants is to get "98%"
      59/60?

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:18AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:18AM (#709694)

        C'mon! It is a small department. Five participants, and one of those was a cat.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:34AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:34AM (#709804)

          Schrodinger's Cat??? You found it?

          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @01:41PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @01:41PM (#709891)

            Yes and no.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Friday July 20 2018, @12:29AM

        by Mykl (1112) on Friday July 20 2018, @12:29AM (#709701)

        40 people is the minimum you need. 39/40 is 97.5%, rounded to 98%.
        If you want to get over 98%, you'd need at least 51 (50/51 = 98.039%)

      • (Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Friday July 20 2018, @12:41AM (6 children)

        by SpockLogic (2762) on Friday July 20 2018, @12:41AM (#709707)

        73.6% Of All Statistics Are Made Up
        http://www.businessinsider.com/736-of-all-statistics-are-made-up-2010-2 [businessinsider.com]

        It has to be true, it's on the internet. ;-)

        --
        Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 20 2018, @01:10AM (2 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @01:10AM (#709728) Journal

          90% of statistics are crap.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday July 20 2018, @11:43PM (1 child)

            by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @11:43PM (#710162) Homepage Journal

            90% of everything is crap -- Sturgeon's law.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:34AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 21 2018, @08:34AM (#710322)

              Bingo, you got the reference.

        • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday July 20 2018, @02:47AM (2 children)

          by MostCynical (2589) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:47AM (#709761) Journal
          --
          "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by jelizondo on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:08PM (54 children)

    by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:08PM (#709648) Journal

    We believe bullshit because we do not question our ability to know things for sure in the absence of evidence. If it sounds right, we believe it to be true.

    Either Socrates [stanford.edu] or Descartes [stanford.edu] would be good guides to developing a critical view of the world that leads to independent thinking.

    We must start by questioning the very foundations of our knowledge of the world, taught to us while we were very young and quite incapable of critical thinking by our parents and early teachers. It does not mean disrespecting our elders, it means correcting anything that we may have learned which is actually wrong or no longer valid.

    Saying please and thank you is a lesson worth keeping, but must one be a Dallas Cowboys fan only because dad was?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:33PM (7 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:33PM (#709666) Journal

      We believe bullshit because we do not question our ability to know things for sure in the absence of evidence. If it sounds right, we believe it to be true.

      Aaaand...?!

      E.g. why is the immediate reaction "I believe it because I have no evidence to the contrary"? What makes something to "sound right"?

      (my upbringing in that East European communist country - apologies to mention it again - taught me exactly the contrary. In the everyday life, the acceptance would have been a survival impediment. Even the secret police needed to play long term games to entrap someone and "justify" their existence)

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:09AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:09AM (#709688)

        Santa never brought you presents ..?

        • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday July 20 2018, @12:28AM

          by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @12:28AM (#709699) Journal

          He was a commie... commies don't get no presents.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Friday July 20 2018, @12:28AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @12:28AM (#709700) Journal

          Santa never brought you presents ..?

          He tried. Once.
          At 3-4 years age, I ran away crying scared of somebody with a large something white on his face and dressed in red, that my parents let inside the home.
          After that, only my parents brought me presents

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday July 20 2018, @05:24AM (3 children)

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday July 20 2018, @05:24AM (#709817) Homepage
        "Cognitive consonance" makes us accept it. Think of it like "cognitive dissonance", but in the opposite direction. And with such a same for it, the phrase "it rings true" suddenly makes sense.

        Incidentally, Sean Carroll, physics bod extrordinaire and skeptic, has just started an audio podcast where he chats with people mostly about fields he's only familiar with, rather than hardcore guru in. His first episode was about this very topic. Easy to find on youtube.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday July 20 2018, @05:06PM (2 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @05:06PM (#710018) Journal

          "Cognitive consonance" makes us accept it.

          If this would be the only way to accept bullshit, it wouldn't be that bad - after all, one should have enough control over oneself to apply corrections.

          But... what if is there something more? Something you, as an individual, can't control?

          A very hypothetical example... what if the trolls convince a lot of people that "objective reality does not exist, there's only narratives"? How do you think the individuals of a society structured like this will behave? I mean, look, isn't the "bullshit creation" the next "logical" step an individual that accepted "no reality, there's only narratives" will take?

          "You aren't bound by reality, you're free to choose which bullshit serves you better, here and now, accept it and start producing it. There's no global warming, it's only a narrative. Social protection doesn't have societal value, it's for weaklings; you are strong, you have the freedom to create your own narrative, the Constitution guarantees your right to narrate.
          Don't worry, if the narrative you chose doesn't serve you for long, you are free to change it later, remember? there's no reality."

          I wonder how long can a rational person can resist to a deluge of bullshit until it becomes impossible to discern the objective reality? (there is a point where quantity becomes a quality on its own)

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:36PM (1 child)

            by acid andy (1683) on Saturday July 21 2018, @05:36PM (#710494) Homepage Journal

            I wonder how long can a rational person can resist to a deluge of bullshit until it becomes impossible to discern the objective reality? (there is a point where quantity becomes a quality on its own)

            Any information obtained through human communication -- the written or spoken word or really any human produced audio or visual media can now be completely falsified, rewritten, hidden or destroyed, such that it would be impossible to determine its truth or falsehood unless there still exist other forms of evidence that can be examined.

            Barring some kind of nervous system implants or holographic projections, we'll still be able to go and see things first hand or perform our own science experiments to establish true facts. The trouble is, you could spend a lifetime trying to conduct such investigations on your own and hardly get anywhere. If the bullshit becomes so ubiquitous that there are no longer any trusted institutions, where do you find trustworthy scientists to cooperate with?

            --
            If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:44AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:44AM (#710629) Journal

              If the bullshit becomes so ubiquitous that there are no longer any trusted institutions, where do you find trustworthy scientists to cooperate with?

              Create new institutions and systems. It's not that hard. There's already a variety of systems that are resistant to trolls and other sorts of defection, fraud, etc.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:54PM (40 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:54PM (#709677)

      Is there really any better reason to be a fan of a particular sportsball team? I mean if you're going to subscribe to gratuitous tribalism at its most petty and banal, it may as well be for sentimental reasons.

      • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday July 20 2018, @12:48AM (36 children)

        by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @12:48AM (#709714) Journal

        It was an example. Other are: the invisible guy in the sky, the belief that one's particular sect holds Divine Truth, that guys with a darker skin are lazy or guys with hooked noses are cunning bastards.

        In some things we are indoctrinated (yep, that's the word), others we learn by listening/watching our elders and either way, we never question the received wisdom.

        I have learned to judge people only by their actions and nothing else, I have therefore found many good people amongst diverse groups and made some great friends; but that is not what I grew up believing.

        • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday July 20 2018, @02:35AM (34 children)

          by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:35AM (#709755)

          Belief in free will is another

          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 20 2018, @03:32AM (33 children)

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday July 20 2018, @03:32AM (#709773) Journal

            Eh, define "free will." I'm a compatibilist myself, but it's one of those questions you really can't answer from the inside, as it were.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday July 20 2018, @04:28AM (29 children)

              by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Friday July 20 2018, @04:28AM (#709800)

              Agency to choose. Standard definition.

              In the end it all comes down to magic.

              • (Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday July 20 2018, @04:31AM (28 children)

                by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Friday July 20 2018, @04:31AM (#709801)

                From psychologytoday,

                If we have free will, we can consciously make decisions that are not determined by the physics and biology of our brains. It's a philosophical and religious concept that has found no support in science

                • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday July 20 2018, @06:21AM (26 children)

                  by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @06:21AM (#709821) Journal

                  Lovely, one of those things that needs review (i.e. Descartes' doubt):

                  The results show empirically that human agency is incompatible with causal determinism, a question formerly accessible only by metaphysics [...] The answer is this: if humans have free will, then some physical events have no cause. [...] Quantum mechanics—and Bell tests in particular—blur the distinction between cause and effect [...]

                  From "How the nature of cause and effect will determine the future of quantum technology" [technologyreview.com]

                  So maybe we do have free will because Quantum Mechanics says so. Forget Psycology Today, the answer lies in Physics.

                  • (Score: 3, Touché) by mhajicek on Friday July 20 2018, @03:44PM

                    by mhajicek (51) on Friday July 20 2018, @03:44PM (#709971)

                    Rolling dice I would not consider to be free will, but rather random will.

                    --
                    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
                  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday July 20 2018, @04:00PM (23 children)

                    by Immerman (3985) on Friday July 20 2018, @04:00PM (#709980)

                    Quantum mechanics introduces random noise into the operation of the brain, but randomness isn't what most people would consider free will - the trajectory of a single molecule within a steaming cup of coffee is similarly randomized by quantum effects - but we generally don't consider the molecule to have free will.

                    For quantum mechanics to enable free will, there would have to be a feedback system by which the mind influences the nature of the random noise - and we have no evidence of such a mechanism. Which doesn't necessarily means it doesn't exist, but neither is it extremely hopeful.

                    Alternately, the randomness might not actually be random at all - if there's a "soul" that shapes the noise, then the soul may exist outside the domain of our currently understood laws of physics and our bodies and minds are operated as a sort of remote telepresence device. Or, perhaps that molecule of coffee really *does* have a tiny fleck of free will, and what we perceive as randomness is actually the result of choices made by infinitesimal awarenesses - and just as "you" are the gestalt organism created by tens of billions of specialized single-celled organisms, your awareness might be a gestalt of the awareness of untold trillions of subatomic particles.

                    • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday July 20 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)

                      by acid andy (1683) on Friday July 20 2018, @07:16PM (#710076) Homepage Journal

                      Alternately, the randomness might not actually be random at all - if there's a "soul" that shapes the noise, then the soul may exist outside the domain of our currently understood laws of physics and our bodies and minds are operated as a sort of remote telepresence device.

                      Yes but presumably that would interfere with the probability distribution and be detectable.

                      --
                      If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
                      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:01AM

                        by Immerman (3985) on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:01AM (#710233)

                        In theory, yes. In practice - how would you detect a change in the probability distribution within a living brain? You wouldn't necessarily expect to see it anywhere else.

                        Especially since you would be talking about the probability distribution for single particles, or at least comparatively small populations (the molecules within a synapse?). It's easy to see shifts in probabilities over large populations - not so much for individual particles.

                    • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday July 20 2018, @07:28PM (2 children)

                      by acid andy (1683) on Friday July 20 2018, @07:28PM (#710085) Homepage Journal

                      Just to expand on my other reply a bit, if there's this low level injection of a tiny bit of free will into the brain's decision making mechanisms, and it's put there by some kind of metaphysical mind or "soul", how does that soul decide what information to input? For the free will to be meaningful rather than random, wouldn't that soul have to have some information processing decision making equipment of its own? If so, that's unnecessary redundancy (see Cartesian Dualism and also the Homunculus) because I can't see what it could be other than a duplication of the sort of neurological hardware the brain already has. This makes me suspicious about what precisely we gain from this kind of a free will. It seems superfluous and unnecessary, to me.

                      --
                      If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
                      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:07AM (1 child)

                        by Immerman (3985) on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:07AM (#710235)

                        Not necessarily - it could be a symbiotic relationship: you use the body to do your moving and interacting with the environment, you use the brain to do your thinking, and the soul provides the... "spark of awareness"?

                        How does a data-miner decide what parts of the data to delve into? The fully deterministic data-processing equipment does almost all the "thinking" sifting data as directed - the user just takes the output of that and applies intuition, pattern recognition, etc. to decide where to direct the much faster computer.

                        • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:34PM

                          by acid andy (1683) on Sunday July 22 2018, @08:34PM (#710876) Homepage Journal

                          Well we already have philosophical theories of qualia, the subjective phenomena accompanying the brain's experiences such as the first person experience of a color or an emotion. If physical brain states can give rise to these associated qualia then I suppose it's not too far a stretch to suppose that there could be a mechanism for some kind of subjective intuition or will influencing brain states slightly in the other direction. Perhaps it's a reaction to the character of the qualia. Personally, I'm not convinced, but it's certainly possible and it's fun to speculate sometimes.

                          --
                          If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
                    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Friday July 20 2018, @09:14PM (3 children)

                      by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @09:14PM (#710117) Journal

                      Thank you for the reply.

                      You are looking at QM from the physical side, while I’m considering the philosophical side. In Newtonian physics, everything is determined by the laws of physics, so there can’t be free will given that we are made of particles subject so such laws.

                      Now, QM tells us that in essence those particles are subject to randomness and therefore we can (at best) give a probabilistic outcome of their interactions; thus they are not predetermined, thus there is room for free will.

                      Whether or not free will actually exists, I do not know. I prefer to believe that I am responsible for my decisions and have actually made them, not simply acted out a predetermined script. The evidence for free will is slim in QM but there is none in the classical view.

                      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:03AM (2 children)

                        by Immerman (3985) on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:03AM (#710246)

                        Fair enough, and yes - you risk running afoul of the "God of the Gaps", but yes, there is room for free will. Assuming QM is non-deterministic.

                        That may be an assumption too far though - the Copenhagen interpretation is by far the most popular interpretation of the laws of QM, but far from the only one. Pilot Wave theory by contrast is completely deterministic and has been seeing a resurgence of popularity, and has been developed much further than its original creator did before abandoning it. An interesting presentation showing macroscopic analogues where bouncing oil droplets perform self-interference to recreate the double-slit experiment and many other QM oddities: https://youtu.be/WIyTZDHuarQ [youtu.be]

                        • (Score: 2) by jelizondo on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:25AM (1 child)

                          by jelizondo (653) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:25AM (#710253) Journal

                          Sorry but this morning I was in a hurry, trying to finish a project and help my daughter with a FOOBARed laptop so I totally forgot to finish the message.

                          I wrote Smolin in the subject, meaning to point you to "Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe" by Lee Smolin, which is not entirely about free will, but it does touch on it and throws doubts on everything from GR to QM, with good arguments and sometimes not so good, but always interesting.

                          I don't think (believe) the Copenhagen interpretation is valid, at any rate, we could never test it, so might as well believe in the Fairy in the Sky for which there is, at least, a lot of historical support. :-)

                          Lacking evidence either way, I choose to believe that I make my decisions exercising my free will. Of course, I (we) could be on some sort of Matrix-like universe (like Max Tegmark claims) and not be wiser about it.

                          Cheers

                          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 21 2018, @02:58PM

                            by Immerman (3985) on Saturday July 21 2018, @02:58PM (#710433)

                            I'll look into him - looks like he has several interesting-sounding talks on YouTube.

                            As for never being able to test the Copenhagen interpretation - that's rather presumptuous, is it not? I mean, in a lot of ways the gist of it is "we have no idea how to test it, or even if it's theoretically possible to do so, so lets just not worry about what the equations mean, and just focus on their implications"

                            If an alternate theory, such as Pilot waves, decoherence, etc. are correct, then there may eventually be corner cases discovered where their predictions would differ from Copenhagen. Heck, we might even come up with some way to detect the pilot waves directly, independent of the particle.

                            Not that I'm holding my breath - but any time I hear "we could never..." in any scientific context, my first reflex is to say - look back at how many "impossible" things we've already accomplished... and maybe add a few qualifiers to that statement. Like maybe "If our current understanding of physics is godlike in its perfection, we could never..."

                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:53AM (13 children)

                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 22 2018, @01:53AM (#710632) Journal

                      For quantum mechanics to enable free will, there would have to be a feedback system by which the mind influences the nature of the random noise - and we have no evidence of such a mechanism.

                      Sure, we do - making choices. It's worth noting here one of the models of free will merely has nondeterminism and the opportunity to make choices.

                      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday July 22 2018, @06:18AM (12 children)

                        by Immerman (3985) on Sunday July 22 2018, @06:18AM (#710679)

                        But where is your evidence that you actually made a choice - i.e. could have chosen differently, rather than the sensation of having made a choice being an illusion produced as a perspective-based side-effect of a fully deterministic process?

                        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 22 2018, @12:31PM (11 children)

                          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday July 22 2018, @12:31PM (#710736) Journal

                          But where is your evidence that you actually made a choice - i.e. could have chosen differently

                          Opportunity to make a choice is quite observable. Remember you presupposed the randomness so nondeterminism was already present. And there's a mechanism by which the human brain can amplify quantum randomness. There are a number of chaotic cycles in the human brain which would amplify any quantum effect to observable differences in a short period of time (one effect of a chaotic dynamic is that small differences exponentially increase over time, subject to the bound of the overall system.

                          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:32PM (10 children)

                            by Immerman (3985) on Sunday July 22 2018, @02:32PM (#710760)

                            No, only the apparent opportunity to make a choice is directly observable, an actual opportunity presupposes that a choice can in fact be made.

                            If you consider the particular outcome of randomness that occurs to be part of the ambient environment, then is there still a choice being made?

                            Let's take a simple chaotic system we can easily visualize as an example: A small stream winding it's way through rocky terrain, forking and rejoining with itself. That's our greatly over-simplified analogue for the world around us flowing through time.

                            Now take a bag full of identical styrofoam beads and start dropping them into the stream one at a time at exactly the same place. Each one will take a different path down the stream, some going left at a fork in the stream, and some going right, but there is no choice being made - they're simply deterministic objects responding to the minute differences present in a chaotic system.

                            Now drop in a water-strider instead - unlike the beads we presume the living bug is an active agent, and when it moves to direct itself down one path or another at a fork in the stream we attribute that action to choice.

                            If we had total information about the stream, including the eventual outcome of every QM interaction between water molecules, we could exactly predict the path of each of those styrofoam beads, because there is no choice being made - our inability to predict the path is a symptom of incomplete information, not free will.

                            But, if we also had total information about the internal state of the water strider, including the eventual outcomes of QM interactions, could we predict it's motions as well? If so, then is it really making a choice, or is it simply a deterministic mechanistic system as well, unpredictable only because of randomness in its inanimate components?

                            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 23 2018, @12:51AM (9 children)

                              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday July 23 2018, @12:51AM (#710975) Journal

                              No, only the apparent opportunity to make a choice is directly observable

                              And that's all I need.

                              an actual opportunity presupposes that a choice can in fact be made.

                              No, it doesn't.

                              Let's take a simple chaotic system we can easily visualize as an example: A small stream winding it's way through rocky terrain, forking and rejoining with itself. That's our greatly over-simplified analogue for the world around us flowing through time.

                              Now take a bag full of identical styrofoam beads and start dropping them into the stream one at a time at exactly the same place. Each one will take a different path down the stream, some going left at a fork in the stream, and some going right, but there is no choice being made - they're simply deterministic objects responding to the minute differences present in a chaotic system.

                              You're ignoring quantum randomness.

                              If we had total information about the stream

                              "If".

                              But, if we also had total information about the internal state of the water strider, including the eventual outcomes of QM interactions

                              Evidence so far is that you can't have that.

                              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday July 23 2018, @10:12PM (8 children)

                                by Immerman (3985) on Monday July 23 2018, @10:12PM (#711463)

                                Doesn't matter if we can actually have total information or not, all that changes is our ability to predict things ahead of time. So long as your actions are 100% dictated by mechanistic processes there can be no free will - all there is is deterministic processes influenced by random noise.

                                Besides which, there's no guarantee that there is any randomness in QM anyway. Pilot Wave theory is completely deterministic, though there may be no way to observe the pilot waves themselves, without which you get the same apparent results as under Copenhagen.

                                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:53AM (7 children)

                                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:53AM (#711543) Journal

                                  So long as your actions are 100% dictated by mechanistic processes there can be no free will - all there is is deterministic processes influenced by random noise.

                                  What is "mechanistic"? You're begging the question again by assuming the existence of a nondeterministic process that somehow rules out free will.

                                  Besides which, there's no guarantee that there is any randomness in QM anyway.

                                  And yet we have obvious counterexamples that can't be predicted, much less predicted from the modest information contained in the QM system.

                                  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:43PM (6 children)

                                    by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday July 24 2018, @12:43PM (#711682)

                                    No, I'm just saying that, if everything is deterministic (after factoring in the inputs of quantum randomness), then there is no room for free will, unless it exists as something that controls the randomness.

                                    As for QM randomness - again, no. We see *apparent* randomness. The Copenhagen interpretation says that the randomness is real. Pilot wave theory says it only *appears* random because we can't observe the waves that are guiding the particles, and that if we could, then the particle's seemingly random behavior would be completely predictable. As a macroscopic analogue, we can recreate double-slit experiments, probability distributions of an electron in a faraday trap, etc. using oil droplets bouncing on a liquid surface: https://youtu.be/WIyTZDHuarQ [youtu.be]

                                    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:09PM (5 children)

                                      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 24 2018, @02:09PM (#711728) Journal

                                      if everything is deterministic (after factoring in the inputs of quantum randomness)

                                      Of course, if you ignore the nondeterminism, you will find no room for free will, which depends on said nondeterminism, in the little you have left. But there's no point to that exercise.

                                      As for QM randomness - again, no. We see *apparent* randomness.

                                      I disagree. Very simple experimental setups with considerable isolation from the rest of the universe show this behavior. You would need a considerable quantity of "hidden information" to account for it.

                                      Pilot wave theory says it only *appears* random because we can't observe the waves that are guiding the particles, and that if we could, then the particle's seemingly random behavior would be completely predictable.

                                      Now observe an observer who can observe said pilot waves.

                                      As a macroscopic analogue, we can recreate double-slit experiments, probability distributions of an electron in a faraday trap, etc. using oil droplets bouncing on a liquid surface:

                                      So?

                                      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:25PM (4 children)

                                        by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday July 24 2018, @03:25PM (#711749)

                                        So, you believe deterministic behavior from non-deterministic inputs is sufficient for free will?

                                        No, again - those experiments only show apparent randomness - without being able to see the mechanisms behind it (if there is such a mechanism) we can't draw any conclusions beyond that it *looks*random from out limited perspective. And yes, pilot waves would certainly contain a considerable amount of hidden information - most of the information of the quantum wave function in concrete, fully deterministic form. From what I've read it's not clear whether it would be inherently hidden information, or just information don't know how to see. Even if we never glimpse it though, it doesn't change the fact that it would mean that every QM interaction since the beginning of the universe has been completely deterministic, with no randomness whatsoever.

                                        As for the macroscopic model - the fact that we can effectively model quantum behavior, including self-interference, tunneling, etc. with a fully deterministic physical system lends some credence to the theory, as well as providing a convenient visualization aid for understanding it. Other quirks hint at just how much hidden information might actually be present in the system - for example another video, that I can't find at the moment, demonstrates a slight phase shifting of the driving system to cause the droplet to land on the back slope of its pilot wave rather than the front - which causes it to reverse direction and retrace its chaotic path, implying that a considerable amount of its history is "recorded" within the pilot wave.

                                        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:07PM (3 children)

                                          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 24 2018, @04:07PM (#711763) Journal

                                          So, you believe deterministic behavior from non-deterministic inputs is sufficient for free will?

                                          What's deterministic about the behavior?

                                          And yes, pilot waves would certainly contain a considerable amount of hidden information - most of the information of the quantum wave function in concrete, fully deterministic form.

                                          What are the physical characteristics of something you can't observe?

                                          As for the macroscopic model - the fact that we can effectively model quantum behavior, including self-interference, tunneling, etc. with a fully deterministic physical system lends some credence to the theory, as well as providing a convenient visualization aid for understanding it.

                                          We observe the information contained in the macroscopic model, which is a lot more than is contained in the quantum model.

                                          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:22PM (2 children)

                                            by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday July 24 2018, @07:22PM (#711842)

                                            >What's deterministic about the behavior?
                                            Given your current state and the random (now known) quantum noise as inputs everything you do. Falling back on quantum randomness for free will makes about as much sense as saying a purely deterministic AI drawing input from a sufficiently large array of dice-rolling machines would have free will.

                                            >What are the physical characteristics of something you can't observe?
                                            We don't know - that's kind of the point, is it not? Just because we can't observe something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. What are the physical qualities of Dark Matter and Dark Energy? Assuming our understanding of physics is basically correct, the overwhelming majority of the universe is unobservable - possibly even in principle.

                                            >We observe the information contained in the macroscopic model, which is a lot more than is contained in the quantum model.
                                            Where's your evidence? If pilot wave theory is correct, every quantum particle's wave may contain its entire history, as well as information about everywhere it could go in the future.

                                            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:30AM

                                              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:30AM (#712147) Journal

                                              Falling back on quantum randomness for free will makes about as much sense as saying a purely deterministic AI drawing input from a sufficiently large array of dice-rolling machines would have free will.

                                              Except that if quantum randomness is nondeterministic, then you've made the only sense that matters.

                                              We don't know - that's kind of the point, is it not?

                                              No, that just means that it doesn't exist in the physical sense. Here's a related discussion [soylentnews.org] from a few months back. A few posts in to a discussion on whether materialism is , I propose a similar, crude model to that of these pilot waves (though no assumptions about any sort of parameter structure have been made).

                                              Basically, a minimum number of states are entangled with that of a physical observer so that we convert the system from the time sensitive viewpoint of the observer to a reversible quantum model (which would be deterministic in both future and past time directions, a stronger condition than determinism). Changes of entropy then become the measure of the creation or destruction of information from the viewpoint of the observer. But from the viewpoint of the reversible model, changes of entropy are merely the movement of information in and out of the scope of the observer.

                                              We observe the information contained in the macroscopic model, which is a lot more than is contained in the quantum model.

                                              Where's your evidence? If pilot wave theory is correct, every quantum particle's wave may contain its entire history, as well as information about everywhere it could go in the future.

                                              Extraction of heat contains the evidence. If one cools the macrosystem, they will extract a lot more energy (by many orders of magnitude) from the oil droplet system than from a few atomic or subatomic particles that would be pushed through the two slit experiment. That heat is crudely proportional to the information content of the system.

                                            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:44AM

                                              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:44AM (#712155) Journal

                                              Just because we can't observe something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

                                              Depends on why we can't observe? If observation is physically impossible, then it doesn't matter if it exists or not.

                                              What are the physical qualities of Dark Matter and Dark Energy?

                                              Dark matter is merely matter that has a low cross-section area for its mass. Dark energy is merely negative curvature of space.

                                              Assuming our understanding of physics is basically correct, the overwhelming majority of the universe is unobservable

                                              Then how do you know it exists?

                  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:26PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:26PM (#709992)

                    If we filter out wishful thinking, freedom and free will boils down to "I like what I think and I don't care if that was externally induced as long as none can claim the credit for it and taunt me as unworthy unauthentic automaton".

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 21 2018, @12:15PM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 21 2018, @12:15PM (#710382) Journal

                  If we have free will, we can consciously make decisions that are not determined by the physics and biology of our brains.

                  Like high frequency stock trading? Next.

                  I'll note also that isn't a definition of free will.

            • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday July 20 2018, @02:39PM (1 child)

              by acid andy (1683) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:39PM (#709934) Homepage Journal

              I lean towards compatibilism myself. khallow doesn't though. [soylentnews.org]

              I think it's almost totally a matter of definition. It has to be really, because whatever side of the fence you are, your theory has to fit with the perceived sense of free will people have in everyday life.

              --
              If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
              • (Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:31AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday July 21 2018, @04:31AM (#710256) Journal

                your theory has to fit with the perceived sense of free will people have in everyday life.

                I'll note that presence of genuine, moderately nondeterministic free will fits with the "perceived sense". I even gave a straightforward physical mechanism for how it happens. The problem with Compatabilism is that it's a giant begging of the question with even definitions warped to fit.

                Given the great deal of nondeterministic physics we see, it's not even necessary to consider.

            • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:18PM

              by Immerman (3985) on Saturday July 21 2018, @03:18PM (#710443)

              How about: "You could have chosen differently"?

              If there's only one possible outcome of a situation, then there really is no choice at all, and any perception of having made a choice is only a perceptual illusion.

              Which of course is absolutely irrelevant to the person who just experienced the illusion of making a choice, except in an abstract philosophical context.

              And then there's the fun bit that, if you do lack free will, your belief that you have the ability to choose your actions is still part of the initial conditions that predetermined your actions, and without that belief your predetermined actions might have been different.

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 20 2018, @02:02PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:02PM (#709909) Journal

          You're still talking about sports, right?

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 20 2018, @12:55AM

        Or to piss off your parents. Don't want those progressives rebelling against all things American to feel left out. Change nation as applicable.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 20 2018, @02:07PM (1 child)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:07PM (#709914) Journal

        The trouble with sports is that they're not gratuitously tribal enough. The Mayans had it right [wikipedia.org]; You lose, you're the human sacrifice. In modern terms, if your city loses, your citizens pay a surtax that goes to the citizens of the winning city.

        Then, and only then, would sports be worth caring about.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday July 20 2018, @04:22PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Friday July 20 2018, @04:22PM (#709988)

          Well, that would certainly make the *outcome* of the game worth caring about - but the game itself may be worth caring about on its own merits. Consider - there are many games where the outcome is decided very rapidly - maybe your team wins, but it's by such a landslide that it wasn't worth watching. Other times a game may be very close, with both teams performing incredibly well, giving a great game even if "your" team loses.

          I mean, there's plenty of other things we watch without caring much about the outcome - music, dance, theater, none of those really have an "outcome" in the way that games do - the journey is the destination. There's even plenty of (non-sports) games that don't really have winners or losers.

          Of course, not caring about the outcome may reduce your emotional investment in watching a game, in which case the quality of the performance becomes much more important. But that's really only relevant to spectator commercialization - which I personally think is generally one of worst things that can happen to a game.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday July 20 2018, @02:11AM (3 children)

      by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:11AM (#709745)

      I only fully trust numbers and am always at least doing back of the envelope calculations for everything I read (like solar powered cars or cows cause xyz to happen).

      Given that most people are innumerate combined with the war on critical thinking, many societal problems are only going to get worse.

      http://wolframalpha.com/ [wolframalpha.com] is your friend.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeracy/ [wikipedia.org]
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_literacy/ [wikipedia.org]

      • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 20 2018, @03:45AM (2 children)

        by Reziac (2489) on Friday July 20 2018, @03:45AM (#709783) Homepage

        My Node of Perversity pipes up with, "But can we trust the guy who took the measurements??"

        --
        And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday July 20 2018, @04:12AM

          by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Friday July 20 2018, @04:12AM (#709796)

          Never. Wait, always double check your sources and a little critical thinking can go a long way.

          --------------------------------------------------------------------
          There are more stars in the sky than atoms in the universe.

        • (Score: 4, Informative) by captain normal on Friday July 20 2018, @04:42AM

          by captain normal (2205) on Friday July 20 2018, @04:42AM (#709807)

          Trust....but verify.

          --
          When life isn't going right, go left.
    • (Score: 2) by dak664 on Friday July 20 2018, @03:09PM

      by dak664 (2433) on Friday July 20 2018, @03:09PM (#709955)

      Richard Weaver's 1948 book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_Have_Consequences [wikipedia.org] posits that Western media is "The Great Stereoptican" that separates the population from their humanity via "the commodification of truth". To avoid inevitable social decay we must avoid the distraction of "facts" in favor of rediscovering our common fundamental truths.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:25PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:25PM (#709660)

    Janirock, Takyon and the rest of the editors shield us from being subjected to overwhelming bullshit on this site. Isn't that right aristarchus?

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday July 20 2018, @12:16AM (5 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Friday July 20 2018, @12:16AM (#709692) Journal

      Irony meter broke again! But the point of the Fine Article, at least in part, is that you cannot fight bullshit with more or different bullshit.

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:33AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @12:33AM (#709704)

        Irony meter broke again! But the point of the Fine Article, at least in part, is that you cannot fight bullshit with more or different bullshit.

        You absolutely can, that's how politics works.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday July 20 2018, @01:02AM (1 child)

          by bob_super (1357) on Friday July 20 2018, @01:02AM (#709721)

          Recently, the fashion is to fight bullshit by drowning it in mountains of bullshit, then dig the mountain to fight the original bullshit, polish it, present it to the public in a way that seems to make it explode worse than the first time, rebury it in a mix of ancient and improved fresh bullshit, and move on to the next day's bullshit, correctly guessing that the public will just follow.

          • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:44AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 20 2018, @04:44AM (#709808)

            Gee? You have a PHD too?

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday July 20 2018, @02:46AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @02:46AM (#709759) Journal

          Irony meter broke again! But the point of the Fine Article, at least in part, is that you cannot fight bullshit with more or different bullshit and win

          You absolutely can, that's how politics works.

          And look were fighting bullshit with bullshit lands us all. Everybody loses.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 20 2018, @02:54AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 20 2018, @02:54AM (#709763) Journal

        While you actually can, there's that minor nagging detail about the reasons and result of such a fight.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Friday July 20 2018, @12:45AM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday July 20 2018, @12:45AM (#709712) Journal

      The 9% acceptance rate from starchy is a bit too high.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 20 2018, @02:15AM (2 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:15AM (#709747) Journal

        And the 98% acceptance rate for takyon submissions seems a bit too low. Not suggesting that there might be collusion, or a common funding source with the Brexit and Trump campaigns. I mean, why would there be?

        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 20 2018, @02:10PM (1 child)

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 20 2018, @02:10PM (#709916) Journal

          Answer: They're Young Turks, and you're an old Greek. I mean, seriously, how do you not know this?

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 20 2018, @11:07PM

            by aristarchus (2645) on Friday July 20 2018, @11:07PM (#710152) Journal

            I mean, seriously, how do you not know this?

            What makes you believe I do not? Age gives one patience, and endurance; we can just wear out the young whipper-snappers.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:28PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 19 2018, @11:28PM (#709662)

    From an otherwise boring blog, https://mysteriousflow.com/2014/03/05/why-i-write/ [mysteriousflow.com]

    Chicken-Shit, Bull-Shit, & Elephant-Shit

    Fritz Perls (1893-1970) was a flamboyant psychologist who perfected a popular form of therapy called Gestalt Therapy. His honesty about the present moment and his matter-of-fact attitude earned him quite a reputation among his peers and clients. When people talk about present moment and share their experience honestly, Perls considered this genuine communication. This style of communication is very rare, however, and even trained professionals struggle to stay in the present moment all the time. In contrast, he came up with three types of shit that people use when they talk to people: chicken-shit, bull-shit, and elephant-shit.

    The easiest way people avoid any kind of emotional contact is by talking about chicken-shit. Chicken-shit is the small talk about the weather, sports, or any other cliched conversation. Talking about chicken-shit serves a rather important purpose for me since it keeps me safe. I don’t have to risk being vulnerable when talking about chicken-shit.

    Another way to avoid emotional contact is by talking about bull-shit. Bull-shit is the intentional lies I tell for three reasons: I lie to hide the truth and wrong-doing, I lie to protect myself or someone else, and I lie to gain something (like prestige, power, money, sex, etc). Talking about bull-shit also keeps me safe since I don’t have to be vulnerable while talking about bull-shit.

    I’ve heard two explanations for elephant-shit and I like them both. First, elephant-shit is when I talk about everyone else’s chicken-shit and bull-shit. Elephant-shit is when I get together with my friends or family and talk about other people’s drama. Or, more popularly known as gossip. As long as you and I have our neighbor’s chicken-shit and bull-shit to talk about, we never have to be real with one another and talk about what is truly happening between us. The second explanation I heard for elephant-shit refers to the grandiose plans I come up with so I never have to face reality or take responsibility. In other words, I talk about what I’ll do once I win the lottery but I won’t even buy a ticket. Either explanation works for me since they both give another example of how we avoid true connection.

    My memory (from long ago and far away) is that Perls defined elephant shit as talking about gestalt therapy (which he invented)... Possibly in his fun book, "In and out the garbage pail".

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday July 20 2018, @09:46AM (1 child)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday July 20 2018, @09:46AM (#709849)

      Sounds like bullshit to me.

      > Talking about chicken-shit serves a rather important purpose for me since it keeps me safe.

      No, talking about the weather, football, etc lets me engage with someone, especially someone I don't know. Everyone experiences the weather, everyone can enter into a conversation about the weather. I might be able to stage up to a talk about them, like what they are doing on the weekend or how the rain affected their drive home last night. Trying to tie it into some bullshit about "keeping safe" is just crap.

      > As long as you and I have our neighbor’s chicken-shit and bull-shit to talk about, we never have to be real with one another and talk about what is truly happening between us

      No, talking about our neighbours shit is interesting. It has nothing to do with avoiding true connection. WTF is true connection anyway?

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday July 20 2018, @04:35PM

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday July 20 2018, @04:35PM (#709997)

        A line I've always liked:
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

        I mean, when you get right down to it people are boring - it's almost all the just the same handful of stories told over and over and over again with minor variations. Events at least have some real impact on the world, but they're all past-tense - your thoughts and discussion is largely irrelevant.

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