What is skepticism?
Offline I am working on a speech, and I want to create a breakdown of the fundamentals of skeptical thought. Basically what I am looking for are bullet points regarding how one goes about thinking skeptically, and I need your help here is what I have so far. Please tell me what I am overlooking or what I need to add. Please remember that this is for a SPEECH. This means that I don’t need to go into deep philosophical discussions, I just need bullet points and easily digestible ideas. Basically a practical “how to” guide for skeptical thinking.
Skepticism - The discipline of determining what is true by applying reason to the evidence.
So here is what I have so far:
The word of an authority does not constitute evidence
If you are faced with two possible explanations for an event, assume that the MOST LIKELY one is the truth.
You can be fooled. Your brain is not only capable of processing input from your senses, it is also capable of generating sensory experience WITHOUT input from your senses. On top of this we have illusions, and other tricks of perception that can lead us to wrong conclusions.
When in doubt, check it out.
Uncertainty is the most valuable state of mind. It is the place where all learning starts. Because of this “I don’t know” is often the best possible answer to any question.
In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.
Evidence is not the same as proof. You can come to a reasonable conclusion without absolute certainty.
It’s OK to be wrong. Even if it hurts or it humiliates you, we are all wrong from time to time.
Disciplines:
Evidence based reasoning - the idea that you focus only on the set of information that has evidence to back it up.
Intellectual Honesty – the idea that you have to put aside what you would LIKE to be true and focus on what the evidence tells you is true.
The discipline of Uncertainty – When in doubt, stay in doubt. Don’t make up bullshit answers to cover your lack of knowledge.
Creativity – skeptical reasoning often means finding creative solutions to life’s problems, and new ways at looking at the information at hand. (this makes me think about all those new-age bullshit artists who say we create our own reality. This is true, but ONLY for the skeptic – the skeptic creates his new world view by looking at the facts – the credulous let SOMEONE ELSE create their reality for them!)
Any ideas I am missing? Any pearls of wisdom out there? Any well thought out ways of conceptualizing the discipline of skepticism without referring me to a philosophy book (I don't have that kind of time)? Also, how is my definition?
Thanks for your help.
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I hate it when my posts get reformatted into a single paragraph! I reposted so that I could at least use fonts to break it up a bit for easy reading. Also I just thought of two more:
Logical Positivism - The idea that if you have no evidence for a claim, the default assumption is that it is not true. This is the god killer. The correlary to this is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Falsifiability - Any proposition that is not falsifiable is not true.
If you're looking for inspiration, I'm partial to the introductory paragraph in wikipedia's Freethought article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought):
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of science and logic and should not be influenced by emotion, authority, tradition, or any dogma. The cognitive application of freethought is known as freethinking, and practitioners of freethought are known as freethinkers.
Good luck with your speech!
I've always ended up using some form of either a case structure or a nested if-than loop (see programming) as a mental organizational pattern when needing to conciously analyse a situation. This is particularly helpful in moral quandries.
You may need to reword this for a speech, but basically I think you should use all of your education, life experience and common sense as a filter. I call it my bullshit filter.
Isn't it funny how being skeptical has been made to sound bad? It is true that if you don't know for sure, then you don't know... but people think that that means you should just believe everything people tell you.
Zen-atheist wielding Occam's katana.
Jesus said, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." - Luke 12:51
Well, one of the common mistakes people make is they confuse skepticism with cynicism. I think that skepticism is taking a position of doubt. This doesn't mean that you never reach a conclusion, you simply reserve the right to say that you were wrong in your conclusion and to change your mind.
Cynicism is more of a position of non-belief. That is, that you can't know anything for certain so why bother trying? What I find interesting is that cynicism is OFTEN used by people to control and manipulate the credulous (that is people who believe what they are told). This is basically what the "evolution is just a theory" crowd do: They use the idea that you can't absolutely prove evolution as a reason do disbelieve it in order to defend their irrational belief in their invisible friend.
So often credulous and cynical thinking go together. Skepticism is the antidote for both.
OK, so this leads me to another axiom of skepticism: Sometimes you are wrong.
You could do a lot worse than reading Descartes Meditations. I know they're a proof of god, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water. He starts by explaining why he must begin with skepticism and what it means for him to be skeptic.
Many philologists point to Descartes as the first modern skeptic, it's just too bad he had to make the world work again by filling in the gaps with god like he was mental spackle.
Course, one of the first skeptics in western history was Plato (a favorite of mine). The Socratic method is a form of skepticism. And many greeks in the ancient world followed or assailed the precepts to varying degrees.
Another good place to look is the introduction Kant wrote for CPR. Most of that introduction is about knowledge, whether we can have it or not, and what it might mean. Good stuff for foundational work.
If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear. - JP Sartre
Reading Descartes is a lot like reading Darwin. They were both critical to the formation of their ideas, but both of them were as incomplete (and sometimes wrong) as you would expect from pioneers. That's what's so awesome about the self-correcting system of critical thought and scientific inquiry. If the fundamental idea is correct, the details get worked out through the work of successors.
Just as one would not claim to be an expert on evolution after reading Darwin, one shouldn't expect to be an expert on Philosophy from reading Descartes. However, to say that you are well educated on either subject, it's kind of a necessity.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I doubt that it's possible to create such a guide that we'd all agree on. We are by nature, well you know...
Kind of like trying to form an anarchist organization.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
True, but is this delusion or this this lying to oneself? Do we all tell ourselves lies often enought that they become truths.
Is the wrong: bad input data, improper processing of the data or deliberate lies? Do you need to make a distinction?
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Well the obvious answer is: all of the above. A practitioner of skepticism needs to be intellectually honest and open to criticism in order to uncover thinking errors as well as mistakes from bad input, but I don't think you need to write a book on all the ways you can be wrong. Rather, I think it's more useful to simply adopt an attitude of doubt and intellectual honesty, and simply trust that these mental disciplines will serve you well in the long run.
I liked the video. But as a believer who is cynical and skeptical there is a paradox of skepticism.
You mentioned that the word of an authority does not constitute evidence and we must strive for intellectual honesty. We dont have enough time in our life to learn enough to challenge many important irrational views. We settle for approximate truth. We naturally reinforce ideas we like and tend to disregard the ones we dont like. Therefore, its impossible to not appeal to authority at some point. I would have spend all my time trying to find counterexamples of everything I believe. The best we can do is appeal to trustworthy authorities. But authorities are only deemed trustworthy if we agree with them on other issues already. So how does one solve this paradox? If we embrace strong skepticism we tend to reject everything and would miss out on too much. Too weak a skepticism and we are too gullible and would never really learn anything. But at some point we have to suspend disbelief to get far enough into a theory we dont like and that we dont have time for, for it to develop meaning to us.
And you said if you are faced with two possible explanations for an event, assume that the MOST LIKELY one is the truth. What is one is simple and unlikely and the other is complex and likely. I dont like occams razor because in no cases are "all things being equal". (And people combine it with the rule of parsimony though they are different) And really complicated stuff happens all the time. And the best explanation would be the conjunction of all possible explanations with weights according to probability. And since assigning probability depends on what I already know, how will I find out what I dont know if I prune the tree too early. So I might say, assume the most likely but spend your time trying to prove the least likely.
I think you are approaching skepticism as a philosophy. I do not advocate this. Skepticism is a TOOL to use to figure your way through the world. Philosophies employ skeptical reasoning as part of their makeup, but I'm not philosopher, so I can't speak to that with any authority. I decide when to be skeptical based on how well I judge the practice will enrich my life, I try not to get bogged down in spinning my wheels.
Even when I am taking the word of an authority, I can still reference evidence-based reasoning in deciding which authorities to follow. For example, I know that my teachers in school had a culturally developed systems of credentials that both informed their lesson plans and permitted them to teach me. So there are checks and balances there that are part of the real world. On the other hand, the bible is a source of authority that has as a referent for it's authority the intuitions and insights of a bunch of bronze-aged priests who lived in a semi-literate culture that was rife with superstition. These bronze aged priests believed the world was flat. Who is a better authority in teaching me the shape of the earth? The bronze aged priest or the modern science teacher? Clearly there are real-world referents to hang skeptical reasoning on here.
Part of the point of that video is that I wanted to introduce the idea that we DECIDE how we are going to determine the truth. I am very much emphasizing personal responsibility here.
Since you are identifying yourself as "a believer", you have decided to be credulous. By definition, you are choosing to decide what is true based on what other people have told you about the truth of propositions that not only have not been proven, but by definition they CANNOT be proven. This is your choice and I would not take it away from you if I could.
HOWEVER, you have identified yourself as a skeptic and a cynic. Why have you left out the fact that you have decided to be credulous? Are you in denial? As a believer you ARE credulous, so isn't it at least intellectually honest to admit this up front, as in: "I believe in God, but I know that I have no evidence to support this belief?"
Notice that if you practice this intellectual honesty, you tend to both have less motive and less credibility to proselytize. Personally I believe this to be a very good thing.
I think that we are all credulous, skeptical and cynical at verious times in our lives and about various things. What I want to do is get people thinking about how they are thinking about what they decide is true. I believe this will lead people to insights about two things:
1) That they are often choosing to believe things for no reason other than that their culture has taught them that it's true.
2) Doubt is good, and faith is bad.
Bump. Hey me, read this thread when sober, thanks Susac , got any more videos you made ?
Atheism Books.
Yes, yes, and yes again.
Even though I'm relatively well versed in philosophy, I generally eschew it as a real world solution to any particular problem. Philosophy is a way of creating perspectives from which to view reality. In the same way that morality cannot be boiled down to a single universal perspective, neither can philosophy. However, skepticism as a tool is a method, much like science, by which we can learn true empirical facts about reality. Unlike philosophical ideas, empirical facts can be boiled down to a single unit of binary information -- true or false.
I suppose sticklers for semantics could say that my philosophy is rational materialism, and I would agree with that, if only to move on to more interesting topics. When I speak of philosophical solutions to real problems, I mean that there must always be a link between a philosophy and reality, and the true facts of objective reality necessitate skepticism.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
FTA is for atheists only. Thanks.
-HD
Um, JAB?
You're on the wrong side of the tracks.
JustAnotherBeliever, this one section of the forums is reserved for atheists only. Please do not post in here again or I will begin deleting your posts.
Please feel free to post in any other section than Freethinking Anonymous however.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
I think the solution to this problem is to simply make it clear that it's not a definitive guide, it's more like a tool-box.
For example, your other post asked about different types of mistakes we make that lead us to wrong conclusions. Obviously we all do all of them, and probably one or two more you didn't mention. I don't think that it's helpful to try to list all the possible permutations of philosophical solutions to addressing life's problems. Such a treatise would be too long, too boring and too cumbersome to be use full.
My goal in this project is to do two things:
1) Create a reference document that we can use when discussing ideas with theists - This is what the thinking 101 video is for: You can tell a faith-head "hey check out this video, I want to discuss some of the ideas in it" and then you can say "OK, from where I'm sitting you are clearly being credulous in your thinking - I mean, how else can you arrive at the conclusion that the bible is the word of god?"
2) To create a simple and easy to use primer on rational thought. I know there are a lot of smart people out there, many of whom are smarter than me, and I know that many of them have deep philosophical arguments for their positions. But here is the rub - They don't matter. They don't matter a whit, because their deep arguments are so complex that no one with an IQ under 120 is going to bother to try to understand them.
My goal is to change the world. I want to create a society in which rational thought is the default position of your man-on-the-street. I want to create a society where people are too embarrassed to proselytize. In order to do this, I believe that we need to craft a message that your average person can understand and feel emotionally invested in getting behind. We need to craft a message that Oprah would be proud to put on her TV show.
For this reason, we need a simple guidebook on rational thought. Not an "atlas shrugged" type book that only college educated "elitists" can get behind, but rather a "you might be a redneck" type approach that the bubba's-with-guns of the world can digest and think about.
Please note that I do not believe the solution is to "dumb down" our approach to finding knowledge. I do not believe that at all. Rather, I would like to follow the example of Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins in their ability to take complex ideas and express them so clearly that your average person has no problem understanding them. It's not about "dumbing down" at all. It's much harder than that.
I know, it's an ambitious project, but I'm a fat, happy, middle-aged father. What else am I going to do with my free time?