This 2015 paper ought to provoke provoke an interesting discussion:
On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit
Abstract
Although bullshit is common in everyday life and has attracted attention from philosophers, its reception (critical or ingenuous) has not, to our knowledge, been subject to empirical investigation. Here we focus on pseudo-profound bullshit, which consists of seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous. We presented participants with bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge bullshit statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief). Parallel associations were less evident among profundity judgments for more conventionally profound (e.g., “A wet person does not fear the rain”) or mundane (e.g., “Newborn babies require constant attention”) statements. These results support the idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims. Our results also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity.
Just as you do with all of your claims you are unable to support. Presupposition seems to be indistinguishable from intellectual dishonesty.
You’re a living infinite regress, Bill
Are you kidding me?
You can’t properly understand a piece of true information till you know it’s true.
Even you should be able to understand that keiths
really? Do you still not understand what a presupposition is?
Hint It’s not a claim and you don’t support it.
and I only presuppose one thing by the way.
I presuppose The Christian God who is— ONE— and is– TRUTH—
peace
That’s only because you are starting from a helpless and hopeless position and you assume that anyone who is not handicapped in the same way must be cheating
😉
peace
Yes. I will elaborate.
If we don’t include all relevant evidence, his argument’s conclusion doesn’t change of course, in the way it would if we included the fact that life is made of cells, which are made of atoms and molecules. Keeping the argument as first stated, the conclusion doesn’t change. Rather, the strength of the inference changes.
Here’s why:
The reason the argument, as he first stated it, seems to have some strength, is because is draws from an unfalsified observation (IOW an observation without a counterexample). Life comes from life, we have never seen otherwise. In that simple statement is a lot of inductive “force“, because the observation is so strong and we know of no counterexample. We know of, by observation, trillions and trillions and trillions of examples of life coming about, from other life. We know of no single case, by observation, that it happened otherwise.
To the best of our empirical knowledge, all life which we have seen come about, came from other life. It is from this observation he wishes to make an inference. That is the “spirit” of the argument, that it is exceptionally empirically well supported. That’s (I assume) why he, and you, find it so appealing. Surely the atheist can’t argue against this, after all, all the evidence we have says life comes from life. Right? That’s the whole strength of the argument, the appeal to an unassailed empirical fact.
But that’s also the flaw in the argument, it’s deceptive simplicity. I don’t necessarily mean deceptive in the way of intentionally misleading. I believe, that he believes, that the argument is sound.
But it’s simplicity is it’s flaw. Only by keeping the empirical fact vague and undefined (life isn’t actually defined in the argument), by just calling it “life”, does the argument “work”. Which is the whole kicker. Remember that whole thing about how strong the empirical fact is, which makes the argument so forceful? That very same empirical fact, the exact same one, is what undermines it. By actually looking at the empirical fact in detail, the origin of all living organisms we know of, do we discover what is actually going on. They’re cells, made of atoms and molecules, that divide. This observation, which is actually the same observation as the one used in the argument, and therefore has the same colossal empirical support, completely undermines the argument. Now we’re no longer dealing with some vague idea we just call “life”, now we we’re dealing with a well defined material entity. The cell.
If he wishes to keep using the argument in it’s original form, by insisting life is more than just cells, he loses his empirical fact(because it isn’t an empirical fact that life is more, or something else, than just cells), and now his induction has no empirical data to draw from. In other words, he can’t make an inference with no data. So the argument completely fails. It merely becomes question-begging.
In both cases, the argument fails. It fails as a valid inductive argument by the fallacy of exclusion. And even if you ignore that, it fails to even be an inductive argument by question-begging the very data it’s supposed to draw all it’s inductive strength from.
It can’t be saved, the argument is a failure.
I think how she knows it is true is the point of the claim, you may have a point if he did not include ” when properly understood”, but there is a lot of gray area with that phrase.
If one believes truth is the divine essence then if a statement is true it contains that essence which contains all truth. Fifth might say you are missing the forest for the trees.
Only if you do not believe his version of God exists.
But you are correct on one thing , he could just be bullshitting.
You are just presupposing you aren’t in the same position,
Of course that is the point. There are only two options
It’s Christianity or absurdity.
If it turns out to be absurdity then we could never know it.
peace
you are back to being my favorite 😉
peace
Rumraket,
First, I thought your last argument cleaned up the straw-man issue well.
I think your assumption that based on us only observing that life always comes from life means that life must always have existed is open to debate. We all believe that there was an origin of life event. The only disagreement at this point is how or the actual cause.
The argument for an uncaused cause is strong because it takes away the infinite regress problem. Aquinas would argue that the uncaused cause is God.
I think J-Mac’s point was that we have only observed life coming from life which you agree is true.
If his point was life only comes from life as an absolute statement then I agree with your argument that his point has both strengths and weaknesses and you argued this successfully without invoking a straw-man.
newton,
I think he is defining what we have observed. If that is true then we can define life as a self replicating, self sustaining organism. The origin may be outside our current universe. So what we observe about life on earth and its ultimate origin may be separate issues.
Life is only one of many origin mysteries.
Wrong request, certainly when directed at me. Or at anyone, really. Your OP. You first.
Pretty sure there’s no such thing as “self sustaining” organisms according to Aquinas, so that’s a problem for you if you want to use that definition to derive an argument for the origin of life based on Aquinas’ 5 ways
dazz,
I think this is right. They are only self sustaining because we have the Sun as a constant source of energy that can be stored. Do you have any ideas how to improve the definition?
I just would like to inform you that due to blog-non-sense-epidemic and my family/relaxation time, I will not respond to any comments that are shit! I hate to use this word but it is second best to what I want to use. So, if you didn’t get your response from me, it means you don’t know what you are talking about, or you are a blind materialist, which is the same thing…
I think the most plausible hypothesis is that life “evolved” gradually from non-life, through some chemical processes. Just like drawing a line between species, drawing a line between life and no-life seems an extremely difficult task. Possibly an impossibly difficult one. I’m interested in knowing what happened and how it happened, more than quibbling about boundaries.
If you want to oversimplify stuff so that you can keep believing medieval arguments are the answer to everything, then I’m afraid I can’t help you
Erik,
I went first, remember?
Your turn, Erik.
Concerning fifth’s goofy statement…
…you wrote:
Please share your full-bodied definition of truth with us, by which fifth’s statement is transformed into something other than pseudo-profound bullshit.
Minor aside: Aquinas does not argue that the uncaused cause is God. He argues that there must be a necessary being, then says “and this is what everyone calls God”. There is no inference in Aquinas from the claim “there is a necessary being” to “this being is God”.
Erik,
I do think it’s nice that you have volunteered as our own local guinea pig — someone who is susceptible to pseudo-profound bullshit of the kind that fifth produces.
Surely you ‘ll be eager to share your concept of truth with us, by which fifth’s bullpie is transformed into a pearl of profound wisdom.
newton,
You seem pretty susceptible yourself, though at least you are keeping this in mind:
dazz,
You cannot define the objective (origin of life) yet you have a strong opinion how it happened. On what do you base your opinion?
dazz,
Aquinas arguments are based on Aristotle’s thesis on cause and effect which is the basis of the scientific method. Do you have any logical criticism of his arguments other then their age?
That fifth’s statement is bullshit is even more obvious when you examine the circumstances of the defecation.
In criticizing fifth’s “revelation” shtick, I had written:
Fifth’s response:
But of course revelation is piecemeal. When fifth revealed to Isabel that his Grandma wants a Metallica album for Christmas, that’s all he revealed. He did not reveal that Grandma babysat James Hetfield when he was a boy, and so Isabel does not know that.
Likewise, when God revealed that linen and wool should not be mixed together, he was not revealing that there was a roughly earth-sized planet orbiting Proxima Centauri.
Obviously.
Fifth got himself into a bind, and the bullshit was an attempt to get himself back out. Instead he just crapped up the place.
Kantian Naturalist,
Thanks for the clarification.
In case anyone is actually interested in where my understanding of truth comes from and don’t want to spend a lot of time with the bible
Here is a good introductory essay
http://www.proginosko.com/docs/Frame_Festschrift_Essay.pdf
peace
Can you?
No, I don’t. (Mega emphasis on “how it happened”) I think it makes sense it might have something to do with chemistry since all extant live works like that.
You posit some “supernatural” intervention and you obviously have a “strong” opinion about it, even though you haven’t got the slightest clue how supernatural beings go about creating chemicals.
dazz,
The objective is a self replicating organism that can turn direct or stored solar energy into work for mobility and other functions.
Humans have never produced something this complex, yet you claim it is unassisted chemicals self organizing.
The problem does not stop here. To get to man we need.
-a eukaryotic cell
-a multicellular organism
-vertebrates
-mammals
-man
All these steps require innovation as origin of life does.
I believe what we see in life is technical innovation with no identified innovator. I think the evidence supports a cause we don’t currently understand and may well be outside of the natural world we live in.
The evidence we have doesn’t seem to directly support a process that can only have occurred a small number of times in the very distant past. So currently, we can speculate about what sort of process that might have been, and attempt to reduce our speculations to experiments.
I would be more careful about the direct presumption that whatever we cannot exactly explain, might therefore be unexplainable (and anything outside our natural world is unexplainable). This is straight God-of-the-gaps, an approach with a poor track record (since all that HAS been explained, involves no gods).
The extraordinary intellectual breakthrough that the unexplained CAN be explained if we apply the appropriate method of investigation, has served us much better than “what is unknown can never be known, praise jeebus.”
It’s actually not true that existing scientific methods rely on Aristotle’s ways of thinking about causation. They do not, at all, in any way, depend on anything Aristotle or Aquinas said or didn’t say.
I didn’t volunteer anything. I only said that your attack on one of his statements doesn’t work. Just like I said that the article you present here, generally nice as it is, includes an example of an epistemically suspect belief that is itself suspect. This doesn’t mean I volunteered for anything further than that. You are not even picking on my relevant comment, so you are being irrelevant.
In scholasticism there is the principle of sufficient reason which, according to some interpretations, entails that everything can be explained. This can be said to have kept scientific investigation alive all along, since antiquity. On the principle of sufficient reason, it should be possible to even figure out why something is unknown and whether it should remain so, i.e. whether something is unknown as a matter of principle or as a matter of accident.
LOL. Cool story bro.
Erik,
It’s amusing that your own attempt at bullshitting has failed:
You tried to bullshit me into thinking that you had some nuanced understanding of truth that could render fifth’s statement sensible, and you also pretended that you’d be able to “demonstrate wrong” my “flat” understanding of truth.
I sensed that you were bullshitting and called your bluff (twice already, and now for the third time).
Think about that, Erik. Your own attempt at bullshitting has fallen flat, plus you fell for pseudo-profound bullshit from fifthmonarchyman, of all people. Fifthmonarchyman.
There is an obvious lesson here. You will probably miss it entirely.
Walto wondered what kind of “mental health worker” J-Mac is.
My guess: An orderly, at best.
1. I adhere to the theory of two truths as in Eastern classical philosophy. Before you start misrepresenting it, I advise you that by doing so you will only confirm that you merit no response.
2. Regardless whether fifth adheres to the same theory of truth as me (likely not), my point works if he has any other theory of truth than you do. And he has.
3. My point works precisely the same way as with the point I made against the article itself. It is the same point, really, but you are consistently failing to address it, even though it is most topical.
4. The correspondence theory of truth is flat indeed, certainly in comparison to what I have on offer.
5. You are like Patrick in that you put the burden of proof on the other where it’s all yours. This bullshit doesn’t fly.
Erik,
Go on. Show us how the theory of two truths renders fifth’s statement correct.
Then “demonstrate wrong” my “flat” understanding of truth. Your bluff is being called for the fourth time.
I didn’t say it renders it correct. I said, “[fifth’s statement is] obviously wrong only given your flat understanding of truth, which can be itself demonstrated wrong as soon as you lay it out properly.” What I’m saying is that, on your reading, fifth’s statement could be “obviously wrong” but insofar as your reading of it comes from another background, you are not reading right. The statement is about truth, therefore the specific theory of truth is relevant here.
Done.
Erik,
Weaseling is not much of an improvement over bullshitting.
Okay, then. Show us how the theory of two truths renders fifth’s statement “not obviously wrong”.
Then “demonstrate wrong” my “flat” understanding of truth. Your bluff is now being called for the fifth time.
Take your time. I’m off to bed.
The task that I set for myself was far more modest: To demonstrate that you are judging fifth’s statement on false grounds. This has been accomplished. When you attribute further tasks to me, now that’s weaseling.
So you are not hearing. Or seeing. Or neither.
Here’s again what I said, “[your flat understanding of truth] can be itself demonstrated wrong as soon as you lay it out properly.” Thus far your understanding of truth has been manifest only in your attack on fifth’s statement. The attack has been shown false. As soon as you lay out your full theory, I will address your full theory. It’s your job to lay it out.
Just guessing: “poopies”? Or maybe you “medical workers” like “bowel movement” best?
Anyhow I understand and will just repeat to the other participants here: Whenever J-Mac doesn’t respond to a post of yours it’s because it’s false
You’re welcome, doctor.
I can’t wait for this one.
peace
Your evasions are boring, Erik.
It’s Logic 101.
You wrote:
If it’s obviously wrong only given my “flat” understanding of truth, then it follows that it’s not obviously wrong given your understanding of truth. You told us
Therefore, according to you, fifth’s statement is not obviously wrong given the theory of two truths. I would like to see you demonstrate that. Your reluctance to do so doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.
As for my own understanding of truth, I’ve already told you that I accept the correspondence theory. You wrote:
So go on and “demonstrate wrong” the “flat” correspondence theory of truth.
Please don’t bore everyone to death with yet another evasion.
Stephen Law on pseudo-profundity.
Profound.
Received and detected.
Glen Davidson
Stephen Law on one form of pseudo-profundity:
I found this beautiful example on Deepak Chopra’s Twitter feed:
Not going to happen before you *demonstrate* how the statement is *obviously* wrong on your theory. Thus far you have only asserted this and in reponse you deserve nothing but a counter-assertion.
As soon as you lay it out. But it’s already evident that this is not happening.
Stalemate.
Erik:
Not at all. I’ve shown that fifth’s statement is bullshit, and you’re afraid to present a counterargument.
You showed it somewhere in this thread? Then so did I. You link to your demonstration, I’ll link to mine. We can go on like this forever.
I linked to mine. You haven’t linked to yours. It doesn’t exist. Nowhere have you shown that fifth’s statement is correct or even “not obviously wrong”.
What a bore.