Sushil's Share: Cierco's idea of probabilia

There’s a celibrated quote that goes something like “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

While it is tempting to treat any discussion as a debate with winners and losers, after retirement I’ve tried to use each discussion as a means of discovering something new that I did not know. Why do you think that? What are your sources? Why do you find them credible?

Love this piece and your comments Sushil and Barry. I was just talking about this this morning with India ( a fellow member). It is a real shift in perspective and attitude to enter a conversation from a place of curiosity (to learn and understand) vs. to convince. I often meet people and talk about what I want to create with Think & Think Again, and sometimes they assume that it's like a "debate club" of some sort, and I have to stop them and tell them "no, it's the opposite!". It's not about convincing, it's about thinking out loud together, and learning from one another. And growing intellectually (and as a person) from that exchange. So maybe that makes us more of a "conversation club"?! But anyway, This is definitely align with our spirit!

I think that the "to which Barry is referring comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-reliance". The paragraph involved reads:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with the shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words,
and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day.—"Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood."—Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to
be misunderstood.”

A free copy of Emersons essays can be found at: https://www.aliceandbooks.com/book/essays/ralph-waldo-emerson/980

Emerson's examples include both figures from science and the humanities. The two competing views of scientific discovery are those of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn. Their difference of view seem to unwittingly (In my view anyway) contradict the idea that science and the humanities are separate fields of endeavour. Let me attempt to justify this view.

Karl Popper initiated the school of thought called Critical Rationalism: The view that all human knowledge is hypothetical and can—and should—be rationally criticised and objectively tested rather than continually proven or verified. For instance; Newtons theories were held inviolate given that experiments gave results that seemed to confirm them. Such confirmation however only supported what were essentially Newtons hypotheses and did not make these theories any more likely to be true. Einstein then came along and demonstrated that they did not fit all the experimental evidence, he demonstrated that these theories were falsifiable. Popper proposed that for a theory to be considered scientific, it must be logically capable of being proven false through empirical observation. This was exactly what Einstein did, demonstrating that Newtons theories were not always compatible w.th experimental results. The system is termed that of conjectures (Hypotheses) and refutations (falsification using the objective evidence) and remains the model for experimental scientific advance

Finally, along came Thomas Kuhn who pointed out that hypotheses were usually generated subjectively (By an imaginative leap) rather than being generated mechanistically by observation. He coined the term "Paradigm shift" for this process. And now we have come full circle, scientific advances are not purely based on empiric (Observational..... new facts or evidence becoming available) but usually require, and are often guided by imaginative thinking to guide progress. Unfortunately such leaps of understanding are usually INCONSISTENT with received knowledge and generate MISUNDERSTANDING ..... For scientists, writers, painters and all other creatives..... And now we are back full circle to Emerson and his implied unity of science and art.

I do hope that this all makes sense and is of some interest. Every text generates individual trains of thought among readers.....

Thank you so much for introducing me to both Popper and Kuhn, Ricky! I knew a little about paradigm shifts, but hadn’t really thought about how imagination and creativity play such an important role in scientific progress!. I find that fascinating! And it seems obvious now that I think about it!
Also I particularly LOVED the idea of actively looking for evidence that might prove us wrong, rather than simply seeking confirmation of what we already believe. Much easier said than done!! But hopefully we can all challenge each other here to do just that! You’ve given me plenty to think about - MERCI!!

Having now had a little time to reflect on the article Barry posted from Aeon and given its pertinence to my own background I thought I would throw together some of my own thoughts thoughts for your consideration. I do hope you find them of a little interest. Cicero's principles are each followed by personal commentary.

Say how confident you are, not just what you think

From a scientific point of view, any currently accepted position is taken to be "the truth". This is on the understanding is that it is provisional and falsifiable. It is simply not possible to quantify a percentage certainty as there is no 100% certain gold standard against which it can be compared. One simply cannot know whether it will be superseded in the future.

From the point of view of opinion, for the same reason already mentioned and an additional slightly different reason; that one cannot quantify an opinion, especially in advance, it is probably best to use the term "my proposed current best option".

Grade your beliefs by how hard they have been tested

From a scientific perspective this is irrational given that one cannot add to the truth of a currently acceptied scientific fact by demonstrating that it is true. Scientific facts are scientific because they are falsifiable and if falsified a new theory needs to be developed that is commensurate with and encompasses the new finding which the old theory does not. It will then become the new excepted fact / theory/ Paradigm.

Opinions are best tested under extremely high stakes contexts, this test is of a trial of the opinions' practical application. The standard against which it is measured is whether it results in the expected outcome. Recall that beliefs are not facts and they may be held in opposition to established evidence. A good example of this is represented by politicians who deny a meaningful human contribution toclimate change. The question then is whether someone who holds a belief can be motivated to change it and the best way to do this is to show that to the application of the belief failed in a high-stakes environment. Without the demonstration of a highly negative personal outcome of its application the likelihood of changing a strongly held belief is proportional to the rhetorical skill (how conversationally persuasive) of the person trying to convince the belief holder.

Separate your values from your empirical beliefs.

The previous discussion has direct bearing on this statement; although we are descending into semantics here. I would suggest the beliefs are value driven and not created by empirical evidence. Of course values are predominantly driven by emotional responses to a sensory input rather than by objective measurement

State in advance what would change your mind

In scientific terms this is a simple answer, any scientific fact must be falsifiable and so the response is by definition "that it's predictions do not accord with experimental outcomes"

In the case of an opinion I would suggest that there would be a large number of unknown inputs that would potentially result in change, it follows that making any attempt to give an answer would necessarily be incomplete.

Argue the other side properly

From a scientific point of view you are not scientific if you argue against empirical evidence and so there is no other side to argue.

In the case of an opinion the weighing up of available evidence is almost universally an internal process in response to a sifting of the available evidence. In my experience it is rare that such an evaluation will occur from a clean slate as most humans have a relatively well fixed value system within which they function and in terms of which they reach opinions.

As an aside; in my view the best way to modify opinion is with a genuine friendly and non-adversarial conversation built on trust and agreement to exclude value-based input. Again, in my experience the best way to do this is for both parties to engage in Socratic questioning. My opinion on ideal government stems from these principles and I follow Habermas in believing that deliberative democracy would be an advance in human functioning.

Act anyway

The requirement for action would of course be built not on the assumed veracity of the opinion as to the best methodology but on the consequences of not acting. Please see the practical example I have given below to illustrate many of the issues discussed here.

Treat being wrong as data rather than disgrace

The concept of being wrong is, at root, based on the unfortunate human fear of the other. Personally, I have never been wrong..... I am either right or I learn from my interlocutor. The same holds for competition (another human construct). I have never lost, I either win or I learn. And now we are back to the initial quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson.

A brief example:

Medical diagnosis is built on focusing your entire attention on the soul in front of you (Simone Weil and Montaigne exhorted us to quieten the mind by ruthless focus, missing or failing to recall a small detail can adversely affect your interpretation of information) in order to collate the assemblage of understanding from the conversation with your patient, the examination and the use of appropriate special investigations. The aim of this process is to increase the probability of the diagnosis considered most likely and reduce the likelihood of the alternative possibilities. The technical term, accepting that one is dealing with probabilities, is to confirm the working diagnosis and refute the differential diagnoses. When I ask the students what the next diagnostic step after laboratory and radiological investigations is I am often met with puzzled silence......

The next diagnostic step is, of course, assessment of a trial of treatment. If the patient concerned is very sick then one may have to act without having all the pertinent information available and often under a significant degree of uncertainty, hence the vital importance of assessing response (usually in the middle of the night after the patient is admitted and before going home for three or four hours sleep before having to wake up to get to the ward round and attempt coherence the next morning). This is of vital importance as in ill patients the time to administering the correct treatment has a major effect on the expected survival..... and here we have an enforced example of Emerson's dictum and Barry's modification of it.

Of course the urgency to begin administering treatment depends on how sick the patient is. In the clinic setting one usually has a good deal of time to garner all of the required information as well as engage in collegial discussion if necessary (collegiality is the best solution to medical uncertainty)

The consequences of tolerating Emersons hobgoblins of foolish consistency in medicine is demonstrated by an image; It's title is "The nightmare" by Henry Fuseli, which can be used to good effect in focusing the minds of one's future medical colleagues. It can be easily found online.

And on that cautionary note I wish you well......