Why does atheism so often include skepticism ...

[Clinton Huxley]

I've told this anecdote before, I think, but is still pertinent. Some years ago I attended an Open University summer school as part of a course I was doing (Biology: Brain and Behaviour). There were, broadly, 2 types of people on the course - those studying biology and those studying psychology. We conducted some experiments (something to do with nerve stimulation as I recall) and then had to plot our results on a graph. An innocuous exercise, you would think.....

However, one of the psychology camp piped up "I don't know how to draw a graph...."

This told me all I ever needed to know about psychology....

Surely, you would at least acknowldege this is a gross over generalisation?

On the other hand this would make a better stand alone thread.

A gross over-generalisation revealing a kernel of truth, methinks.

[JimC]

I've told this anecdote before, I think, but is still pertinent. Some years ago I attended an Open University summer school as part of a course I was doing (Biology: Brain and Behaviour). There were, broadly, 2 types of people on the course - those studying biology and those studying psychology. We conducted some experiments (something to do with nerve stimulation as I recall) and then had to plot our results on a graph. An innocuous exercise, you would think.....

However, one of the psychology camp piped up "I don't know how to draw a graph...."

This told me all I ever needed to know about psychology....

Surely, you would at least acknowldege this is a gross over generalisation?

On the other hand this would make a better stand alone thread.

A gross over-generalisation revealing a kernel of truth, methinks.

Although funnily enough, at least in Australian Universities, statistics is considered a vital part of any psychology course. The graph-ignorant student would not do well here...

[floppit]

If you will write off all past and future enquiry into the human mind because one idiot attempted it badly - if that reflects your kernel of truth, then I would suggest it is a kernel sized truth in a universe sized reality and you pay it far too much heed.

[Rum]

Just to throw in my two cents here. I work closely with psychologists as an educationalist and they are driven by statistics and graphs and shit. Just sayin'

[Clinton Huxley]

If you will write off all past and future enquiry into the human mind because one idiot attempted it badly - if that reflects your kernel of truth, then I would suggest it is a kernel sized truth in a universe sized reality and you pay it far too much heed.

Where did I say I was writing off all future and past enquiry into the mind? Mind that Straw Man don't catch fire....

[floppit]

If you will write off all past and future enquiry into the human mind because one idiot attempted it badly - if that reflects your kernel of truth, then I would suggest it is a kernel sized truth in a universe sized reality and you pay it far too much heed.

Where did I say I was writing off all future and past enquiry into the mind? Mind that Straw Man don't catch fire....

Psychology is the name for enquiry into the human mind and here you said:

However, one of the psychology camp piped up "I don't know how to draw a graph...."

This told me all I ever needed to know about psychology....

Ok - I may have misunderstood, but if I have it was a genuine mistake because it certainly sounded to me as if that ended any interest you had in psychology - the study of the mind. So, if I've missed something would you explain?

[Clinton Huxley]

My remark was just a dig at psychologists.

If we are ever to find out how the mind works (big if....), the knowledge will come from mostly from neuroscience, IMO. (And not quantum physics! Leave it out, Penrose!).

[floppit]

I'll go with you on the Penrose bit! But I reckon you have dismissed the whole subject of psychology for little reason, there are replicable studies that have measured results and to suggests no enquiry into human behaviour will add to information about the mind is not only counter intuitive but also illogical unless one believes behaviour is driven from elsewhere.

[Clinton Huxley]

I'll go with you on the Penrose bit! But I reckon you have dismissed the whole subject of psychology for little reason, there are replicable studies that have measured results and to suggests no enquiry into human behaviour will add to information about the mind is not only counter intuitive but also illogical unless one believes behaviour is driven from elsewhere.

Oh, I'm not saying that observations of human behaviour cannot yield interesting information about the mind but to me there is an extra and confounding element of subjectivity involved.

[floppit]

Are you talking about psychoanalysis - in which case we probably agree or the more numbers driven work which has evidenced things such as confirmation bias?

[Clinton Huxley]

Are you talking about psychoanalysis - in which case we probably agree or the more numbers driven work which has evidenced things such as confirmation bias?

I'm taking largely off the top of my head.

Give me an example of the kind of thing you are thinking of.

[floppit]

Ok - I'm going to struggle a little because I'll need full articles and most of the best aren't free. This one is well cited and on a well known effect often referred to by those attempting rational thought (confirmation bias):

http://reference.kfupm.edu.sa/content/m ... _85674.pdf

It covers more than a few on the subject and gives a flavour of what goes on outside beyond pop psychology.

[FBM]

Sorry, but I haven't (and ain't gonna) read everything in this thread up to this point, but I'd like to say something about skepticism.

The skepticism that developed in the Middle Academy (Academic sketpticism) is negative sketpticsm. It's as dogmatic as the philosophies it opposed. As a result, it offered not much particular relief. The skepticism of Pyrrho seems to me to be a much more commonsense, balanced and realistic approach to addressing the unknown. That is, it classifies the unknown simply as 'the unknown', without taking the dogmatic leap to saying it's unknowable.

Sextus Empiricus classified phenomena into 4 classes. (I'm working from memory, can't be arsed to get up and find the book right now.) There is the apparent, which is undeniable. That's the moment-to-moment direct sensory experience we all live by. There is the temporarily nonevident, which includes the knowldge of the existence of Athens when you're not in the city proper. Then there's the absolutely nonevident, such as the number of grains of sand in this or that desert, or whether the number of stars is odd or even. Then there's the naturally nonevident. The naturally nonevident includes what the nature of things are that aren't perceptible by the human senses (including the technologies that extend the ranges of human senses), such as the soul, the existence of universes outside our own, and whether or not there is an afterlife.

If, while crossing a desert, I perceive a shimmering on the horizon, there's nothing 'wrong' with that perception. The eyes are receiving light properly according to their structure and function. The error only arises when I decide that the shimmering is an oasis (which is not directly perceived). Eventually, I have no choice but to conclude that it was a mirage. That's a new (mental) perception, and it doesn't invalidate the shimmering, only the unfounded conclusion that the shimmering = an oasis.

The belief in a divine creator is analogous to the unfounded decision to consider the shimmering to be an oasis. Pyrrhonian skepticism says that we should not take any step beyond witnessing the shimmering as a shimmering. Not denying the experience, not claiming it to be either accurate or a mirage, but simply a shimmering. As new experiences supplement the old, understanding becomes clearer. But humans seem to have a tendency to jump the gun and rush to preferred, comfortable conclusions that the direct experience doesn't actually imply. That's been a problem, historically, with theism, atheism, science, economics and pretty much every other human endeavor that involves abstracting from the evident.

Pyrrho's contribution was to stand against the negative skeptics of the Middle Academy who dogmatically asserted that the senses can't be trusted and, therefore, nothing is knowable. Instead, he said that direct, commonplace perception is the knowable. The problem comes when we make abstractions from direct perception and dogmatically assert them to be absolutely true, whether positive or negative. A consequence of abstaining from asserting abstractions as truths, he said, is a state of ataraxia, something like tranquility. IOW, when you accept that at least some things aren't known and may very well be unknowable, you can relax your feverish pursuit of absolute knowledge and certainty, and be happy with the way things are, viz., as yet undetermined. Keep your eyes open, yes, but don't stake your happiness on knowing anything beyond what is directly observed and commonsense inferences from that (smoke probably means fire, stepping out in front of a train probably means your shit splattered, etc.).

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Sorry, but I haven't (and ain't gonna) read everything in this thread up to this point, but I'd like to say something about skepticism.

The skepticism that developed in the Middle Academy (Academic sketpticism) is negative sketpticsm. It's as dogmatic as the philosophies it opposed. As a result, it offered not much particular relief. The skepticism of Pyrrho seems to me to be a much more commonsense, balanced and realistic approach to addressing the unknown. That is, it classifies the unknown simply as 'the unknown', without taking the dogmatic leap to saying it's unknowable.

Sextus Empiricus classified phenomena into 4 classes. (I'm working from memory, can't be arsed to get up and find the book right now.) There is the apparent, which is undeniable. That's the moment-to-moment direct sensory experience we all live by. There is the temporarily nonevident, which includes the knowldge of the existence of Athens when you're not in the city proper. Then there's the absolutely nonevident, such as the number of grains of sand in this or that desert, or whether the number of stars is odd or even. Then there's the naturally nonevident. The naturally nonevident includes what the nature of things are that aren't perceptible by the human senses (including the technologies that extend the ranges of human senses), such as the soul, the existence of universes outside our own, and whether or not there is an afterlife.

If, while crossing a desert, I perceive a shimmering on the horizon, there's nothing 'wrong' with that perception. The eyes are receiving light properly according to their structure and function. The error only arises when I decide that the shimmering is an oasis (which is not directly perceived). Eventually, I have no choice but to conclude that it was a mirage. That's a new (mental) perception, and it doesn't invalidate the shimmering, only the unfounded conclusion that the shimmering = an oasis.

The belief in a divine creator is analogous to the unfounded decision to consider the shimmering to be an oasis. Pyrrhonian skepticism says that we should not take any step beyond witnessing the shimmering as a shimmering. Not denying the experience, not claiming it to be either accurate or a mirage, but simply a shimmering. As new experiences supplement the old, understanding becomes clearer. But humans seem to have a tendency to jump the gun and rush to preferred, comfortable conclusions that the direct experience doesn't actually imply. That's been a problem, historically, with theism, atheism, science, economics and pretty much every other human endeavor that involves abstracting from the evident.

Pyrrho's contribution was to stand against the negative skeptics of the Middle Academy who dogmatically asserted that the senses can't be trusted and, therefore, nothing is knowable. Instead, he said that direct, commonplace perception is the knowable. The problem comes when we make abstractions from direct perception and dogmatically assert them to be absolutely true, whether positive or negative. A consequence of abstaining from asserting abstractions as truths, he said, is a state of ataraxia, something like tranquility. IOW, when you accept that at least some things aren't known and may very well be unknowable, you can relax your feverish pursuit of absolute knowledge and certainty, and be happy with the way things are, viz., as yet undetermined. Keep your eyes open, yes, but don't stake your happiness on knowing anything beyond what is directly observed and commonsense inferences from that (smoke probably means fire, stepping out in front of a train probably means your shit splattered, etc.).

Sounds very much like my own approach: doubt and question everything but take a pragmatic view of the everyday - ie. hold a working hypothesis of the universe based upon observed reality. It could turn out that everything I observe is false, but even if it is, there is fuck all I can do about it at the moment so I might as well act as though it is exactly how it appears to be, eat when I'm empty and shit when I'm full.

[FBM]

Sounds very much like my own approach: doubt and question everything but take a pragmatic view of the everyday - ie. hold a working hypothesis of the universe based upon observed reality. It could turn out that everything I observe is false, but even if it is, there is fuck all I can do about it at the moment so I might as well act as though it is exactly how it appears to be, eat when I'm empty and shit when I'm full.

RAmen!