Believing is seeing

Originally Posted by CBR

It could be. What is important IMO is that we are all aware of how a strength of our brain quickly can become a weakness, as we might all be hit by such pattern-thinking in various degree.

Mebbe. Social science abounds with such paradoxes. We can for instance try to render the scapegoat mechanism inoperative by raising kids to be aware of it. There is even an evolutionary basis for such tactics as well, in the sense that we have a genetic make-up that enables us to study our self-same genetic make-up and influence it.

What makes it so hard to 'switch off' such mechanisms is that they have served us so well. Like Papewaio said, even science thrives on it.

AII

Yes, as it is an essential way of how our brain works we will always struggle with the negative side of it.Some of the conspiracy nutters seem so far out that they seem just better "wired" for such thinking. So maybe some will always be a lost cause.Then it will all be about saving the grey majority from being persuaded by the nutters.

Originally Posted by Adrian II

What makes it so hard to 'switch off' such mechanisms is that they have served us so well. Like Papewaio said, even science thrives on it.

No, what makes it hard is the impossibility of it. If you cannot generalise, if you cannot infer, if you cannot apply patterns then you cannot function as a being. It's really quite simple: if you don't do patterns, you can't walk upright, if you don't do patterns you cannot read or talk, listen or see. None of your senses work without patterns. Your entire brain is one giant pattern matching machine, where the result of the computed action depends on the previously computed ones to the point that the only outcome is a pattern: they are self-reinforcing because the valid ones are repeated.

You don't ever see a face: you see light points, from which you infer some are shadows, from which you infer geometry and curves, from which you infer shape, from which you infer a face-like-shape, from which you infer a face.

It extends beyond the brain, throughout the nervous system, and even down to some of the complex chemical reactions in your cells: DNA repairing is error checking, is pattern matching.

Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

No, what makes it hard is the impossibility of it. If you cannot generalise, if you cannot infer, if you cannot apply patterns then you cannot function as a being.

You're right about such basic patterns.

But we can doubt certain patterns. Agency, for one. We can suspend judgment, force ourselves to consider alternatives, we can even experiment in order to test a perceived pattern.

AII

Originally Posted by Adrian II

You're right about such basic patterns.

But we can doubt certain patterns.

To a degree. The problem is not that you as an individual can exercise some higher brain functions and enforce a new pattern of behaviour to suppress others. But when these higher order brain functions or created patterns fall apart, the old ones emerge again. You cannot fundamentally change the assumption of agency, you can merely shrug it off until the time your brain is damaged and the higher order intelligence to shrug it off no longer functions -- then you will become your old paranoid self. Similarly, a learned helplessness and reliance on other members of the “group” to perform what would have been basic exercises of trial/error & reasoning during adulthood comes back the further away you go from the age span when the brain is still sufficiently receptive to outside stimuli.

If you are a 70 year old, intelligent adult with a good grasp of English and your 16 year old granddaughter is able to setup your cell phone where you give up this is simply your brain refusing to suppress old patterns and create new ones.

Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

You cannot fundamentally change the assumption of agency, you can merely shrug it off until the time your brain is damaged and the higher order intelligence to shrug it off no longer functions -- then you will become your old paranoid self.

I accept that a decrepit person's brain is likely to fall back on primordial patterns of just about everything: thought, behaviour, sensation. And memory lapse goes a along way toward explaining elderly peoples unwillingness to use modern gadgets.

But suspension of the assumption of agency should be within a normal adult's grasp. Take this example of a recent prank in the city of Delft.



Some muppet put up a puppet in a bell tower. Passers-by contacted the police saying there was a 'ghost' in the tower. Of course the callers didn't believe that at all, they just wanted to see some action. A policeman climbed up and confirmed it was a puppet. It was later taken down and confined to a police cell to 'cool off' for the night.

Maybe some people would have believed it was a ghost if the puppet had been battery-driven and had moved quasi-spontaneously and said 'booh' at irregular intervals, but I doubt it.

What do you think was lacking in the puppet so that it immediately disabled peoples' agency pattern?

AII

Originally Posted by Adrian II

I accept that a decrepit person's brain is likely to fall back on primordial patterns of just about everything: thought, behaviour, sensation. And memory lapse goes a along way toward explaining elderly peoples unwillingness to use modern gadgets.

No, it does not. If they went to the trouble of buying a cell phone in the first place, they're perfectly willing to use it. The trouble is they can't get their head around how these tools are supposed to “work” (more precisely: how they are supposed to be operated). The English have a very nice word to describe the frustration of the elderly with new phenomena (in particularly tools) for which their previous experience does not provide them with understanding of: “newfangled”.

It's not a lapse of memory: there's no memory of this device at all! Memory lapse is what explains why they thought that their granddaughter was 15 instead of 16, or why they get names wrong.

But suspension of the assumption of agency should be within a normal adult's grasp.

Suspension, or the reality check? The two are different things. When I say, “shrug off” I really do mean (applied to this example) that the brain sees some movement but based on previous patterns decides the moving cloth is just that. It is not a suspension of agency: you still assume that someone went to the trouble of affixing this cloth and that if you ring the police someone might turn up to check it.

Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

It's not a lapse of memory: there's no memory of this device at all!

Memory is more than a cupboard full of information. It's a complex system for retaining and retrieving information. What I mean is that in elderly people both retention and retrieval become less efficient, hence their unwillingness on incapacity to engage with new gadgets.

you still assume that someone went to the trouble of affixing this cloth and that if you ring the police someone might turn up to check it.

Five Interwebs to you sir!

I suspected that you would say: oh well, the cloth doesn't look convincing, or something to that effect.

Instead you nailed it: it's agency what reassured them, only agency of a different nature, or should I say level!

I am amazed that people are unable to switch to such higher level when it comes to, for instance, intricate world-wide conspiracies, alien or otherwise.

AII