It begins with a passage attributed to John Maynard Keynes:
"When my information changes, I change my mind. What do you do sir?"
The columnist, Alex Lo, cites Hong Kong as an example where a society is so deeply polarized that neither side will allow nothing new to change their outlook. Isn't that what we're nervously watching occur in the States today, an impulsive tendency to reject information that contradicts dogmatic belief?
It’s a good rule for people to follow in life. Unfortunately, I don’t always – because it’s actually very hard to. Often, I just block out new or contrary information and points of view I don’t like or share, without even thinking about it.
But if more people at least try to follow Keynes’ rule, there may be much less fanaticism and dogmatism in the world, whether in religion or even in science and academia, perhaps especially in university today.
But in the end, we all live in our own Matrix or Plato’s cave. The sunlight of truth outside is just too bright for me. It’s far more comforting to stay in the shade inside.
Keynes’ rule has its equivalent in statistics. It’s called Bayes’ rule or theorem. Thomas Bayes, an 18th century philosopher and Presbyterian minister, thinks you can strengthen your belief in something – increasing your “epistemic confidence” – by updating new information to your initial probabilistic belief that something is true or has happened. As a good Christian, he might have been motivated to develop the idea to defend the truth of miracles based on Biblical testimony against David Hume.
“Epistemic confidence” – towards which Bayes’ rule is supposed to move you – is the opposite of what the contemporary philosopher Gillian Russell has called “epistemic viciousness”, our inclination to hold false beliefs, despite new evidence or updated information. The latter is a natural human tendency; the former, though, takes serious mental discipline.
Bayes and Keynes tell us how to update previous beliefs in light of new evidence and in terms of probability. But their rules – whether quantitatively or qualitatively – can’t tell us what such beliefs to hold.
Say, you are a national security official in Washington and your previous belief is that most cyberattacks are carried out by state actors like China and Russia. This hypothesis could be tested in terms of Bayes’ theorem with new evidence. But suppose you are really committed to the hypothesis, like those who believed in the existence of weapons of mass destruction before the US invasion of Iraq, nothing will ever change your mind.
Maybe it's time we all became a little more Keynesian in our outlook. I know, I know, them first. Of course.
9 comments:
Some try and hold onto reality by being open minded! and taking in different views.
It is difficult for me to listen to Rush Limbaugh or his many minions but to ,hopefully, retain a open mind I feel I have to.
like those who believed in the existence of weapons of mass destruction before the US invasion of Iraq, nothing will ever change your mind.
Perhaps so I know those that still believe in such things.
Truth is science , pure science is math.
At the end of the day one plus four is not seven!
Being unwilling to consider alternative views that could challenge your vote or , heaven forbid, your lifestyle has become ingrained in our Western civilisation.
A tough nut to crack when the world around you promotes a death cycle.
TB
The South China Morning Post is no longer the media outlet it used to be and i wouldn't even read it now. After seven years in Hong Kong (2010/2017) the paper was a bastion of free speech and a highly regarded voice. It had since become a government mouthpiece. Witnessing the last couple of years with press freedom becoming a real issue we only ned to look at the latest refusal of a visa to a reporter on the Hong Kong Free Press.
Zoombats this post isn't an endorsement of SCMP. This is an opinion piece that goes to the growing problem of conformational bias today.
I have touched on this in a few recent posts. Societies in many Western countries are becoming deeply divided to the point that, on nearly every issue, there must emerge a winner and a clear loser.
I remember an earlier time when we accepted that "no one has a monopoly on good ideas." Sometimes the other side had a better idea around which compromise could be fashioned. Today, in our "take no prisoners" politics, good ideas are too often rejected out of hand.
So many important problems become ensnarled in this gawddamned, neverending Culture War where resolution is blocked. We see this on display every damned day in Washington. Medical problems become political struggles. Economic problems, ditto. Environmental problems - truly existential challenges - are likewise reduced to left versus right.
You figure out which team you're on. Agreeing to disagree isn't enough. You wall yourself off from the other side. Suspicion and hostility flourish and, in that, lies the ruin of social cohesion. Both sides lose because a society deeply riven across numerous fault lines is a public weakened, too feeble to advance the interests of the many against the advantage of the few. You wind up with a large segment of society that instinctively, compulsively votes against its best interests so long as the other side is also weakened.
For many years I've written of my sense that the American people had been "groomed" to believe utter nonsense. That was the handiwork of Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, religious fundamentalists even members of Congress.
I think it was Columbia that published a study about Fox News viewers. Three years after George w. Bush went on air to say that he was wrong, Saddam had no WMDs, some 60 per cent of the Fox audience believed that such weapons had been found. That's grooming.
This practice of turning our back to the other side, refusing to hear them out, blindly assuming our superiority in all things is self-perpetuating. Ultimately, as we see in the United States, democracy dies and authoritarians take the reins.
"The South China Morning Post is no longer the media outlet it used to be"
Ya, just like the NYT, Wapo, G&M, Guardian etc etc (let alone FOX, Postmedia etc)
btw, Pravda journalists used to laugh at their western counterparts who they saw as dim-witted gov't stenographers.
They knew their job was to regurgitate gov't lies and followed their vocation to pack as much truth as they could 'between the lines.
Read widely (thanks to the web) and sift through the competing bs.
TB, I agree. We're in a spiral and it is going to be hard to pull up in time. I know I'm a Cassandra but the evidence is staring us in the face, every day.
There are some Liberal die-hards who will brook no criticism of Justin Trudeau because that is disloyal. Once you get into that mind frame everything comes down to a loyalty test. That sounds almost North Korean.
NPoV, my take on this is set out in my comment to Zoombats.
A very good way to help change ones mind a little is to work in s foreign country like an Asian country where I learned to be nonpartisan at least. A year won't help as experienced. However 11 years will help. I think I had a good Prof as we had to study Manard Keynes. Anyong
Polarised US politics and maybe others has come about with the growth of Evangelical/fundamental religion.
Where ever we see strife in this world we often see fundamentalists making their mark.
Fundamentalists offer no middle of the road solutions only total subjection.
To those that succumb it's an easy way out .
No thought required!!
TB
I do try to update my beliefs in the light of new evidence, but it's so hard to do when you're always right in the first place. ;)
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