720 réponses à ce sujet

[o Ventus]

He's Copernicus, he says.

 

Appeals to common sense are unlikely to sway him, he says. 

 

He doesn't think empathy is real, he says. 

 

I should have dropped it when I said I would the first time. 

 

It makes me cry that things like that are protected by the "don't be a d**k" rule of this site. I would LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE to make fun of it.

[In Exile]

It's science. Everyone is wrong once we falsify their ideas. But the scientific process keeps us moving toward knowledge.

Not necessarily. There's no reason and no basis to conclude we have any better understanding of the world. Our only basis for that inference is the fact our technology is better but that needn't be explained by greater knowledge (see anti-realism in the philosophy of science).

[Joseph Warrick]

I remember Flies_by_Handles made at least two black Shepards.
 
Nemain

 
Indra


So...

[Sylvius the Mad]

Have you read Hemingway? His work is incredibly straightforward and to-the-point, not much ambiguity.

If a character ever says, "Did I say that?" then there's ambiguity.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Not necessarily. There's no reason and no basis to conclude we have any better understanding of the world. Our only basis for that inference is the fact our technology is better but that needn't be explained by greater knowledge (see anti-realism in the philosophy of science).

When we falsify theories, we eliminate possible wrong answers. That's all I mean.

[Lady Artifice]

I'm glad you didn't.

Thank you for your time.

Same to you. I'm grateful to have a civil debate with someone who doesn't try to use condescension as a weapon.

[Jorji Costava]

This debate is still going on? Once more unto the breach, I guess. I'll put it in spoilers so it doesn't get too derail-y.

Spoiler

Until I can see the mechanism by which it functions, I won't concede that it's actually happening.

This demand is unreasonable. In general, it's not required for you to know something that you understand the exact mechanism by which you know it. You can know that there's a table in front of you even without knowing anything about the science of visual perception, you can understand people's words without having a theory of meaning, etc. .
 

A simpler explanation is that the listener infers this on his own, and relevantly similar listeners will infer the same thing, thus confirming their belief that they discerned something real. And if the speaker is also relevantly similar, then he may well expect that inference, and when it occurs he might think that he conveyed that information, even though that information wasn't actually included in his remarks.

 
I still don't understand the argument that "X's existence is inferred; therefore it is unreal." What about your explanation would imply that implication is unreal? I also think your explanation overlooks the normative dimension of implication: Conversation in general is a rule-governed activity, and implication consists partly in certain norms which connect explicit meanings with implicit ones. For instance, if I say "It will rain tomorrow," I am subject to criticism if it later turns out I have no evidence for all of this claim. This is so even though there is no logical contradiction between "It will rain tomorrow" and "I have no reason to believe it will rain tomorrow." A plausible explanation is that when I say "It is raining," I thereby imply that I believe it and that I have good evidence for believing it.
 

I don't think that's real, either.

 
 Why not? There's plenty of evidence that it exists.

[Lady Artifice]

It makes me cry that things like that are protected by the "don't be a d**k" rule of this site. I would LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE to make fun of it.

In general, I'm alright with the "don't be a dick" rule.

[Dieb]

It's definitely possible in DAI already. My avatar is my Inquisitor, and I dare say I personally wouldn't need any "better" options for facial features:

 

Spoiler

 

Generally, the DAI CC is amazing, except for the limited afro hairstyles - and beards. Which is part of your inquiry I'd fully support.

 

I tried giving my character some actual long hair, which sort of  works with Scout Harding's hairstyle, curiously:

 

 

...until that weird super-gloss-shader kicks in usually, that is, at which point even caucasian people look like they're wearing plastic helmets.

 

I think the real jarring thing is there's only two voice actors. One male, one female.

 

Different races, a lot of times, just have different voices.

 

I won't say it's absolutely unrelated, but I would never go as far as say that's even remotely a legitimate reason.

 

Don't mean to attack you or anything.

[o Ventus]

In general, I'm alright with the "don't be a dick" rule.

But there are just some things that deserved to be torn apart because of the sheer idiocy and lack of thought that went into them.

[o Ventus]

If a character ever says, "Did I say that?" then there's ambiguity.

 

Not if it is demonstrable and verifiable that a character did indeed say *that*.

[Sylvius the Mad]

This debate is still going on? Once more unto the breach, I guess. I'll put it in spoilers so it doesn't get too derail-y.

Good idea.

Spoiler

This demand is unreasonable. In general, it's not required for you to know something that you understand the exact mechanism by which you know it. You can know that there's a table in front of you even without knowing anything about the science of visual perception, you can understand people's words without having a theory of meaning, etc.

How else would you know that you know?  How can we be confident that we possess some piece of knowledge without at least examining the process by which we came to have it?

 

Knowledge is more than just a true belief.  It has to be, else whether you know something could be determined by luck, without you actually having done anything differently.

 

Regarding a theory of meaning, I think this would be necessary just to use language.  A person might not be aware of what his theory of meaning is, but he wouls have to be using one.

I still don't understand the argument that "X's existence is inferred; therefore it is unreal."

I don't think I made that argument.  I asserted that the inference isn't evidence that it is real.

What about your explanation would imply that implication is unreal?

It doesn't.

 

We're talking about implication here, something which we can't perceive directly, but from which we somehow extract information (supposedly reliably), while also being unaware of the mechanism by which we do that.

 

I'm saying that an explanation of inference that doesn't assume the existence of that monstrosity is simpler, and thus a better hypothesis.

 

Implication is an astoundingly complicated fabrication that does nothing other than absolve people of responsibility for their own inferences.

I also think your explanation overlooks the normative dimension of implication:

This is intentional.

Conversation in general is a rule-governed activity, and implication consists partly in certain norms which connect explicit meanings with implicit ones. For instance, if I say "It will rain tomorrow," I am subject to criticism if it later turns out I have no evidence for all of this claim. This is so even though there is no logical contradiction between "It will rain tomorrow" and "I have no reason to believe it will rain tomorrow." A plausible explanation is that when I say "It is raining," I thereby imply that I believe it and that I have good evidence for believing it.

Contradiction isn't the only reason to criticize a belief.  Baselessness is another.

 

First of all, if you say "It will rain tomorrow," you should be subject to criticism unless you can see the future.  As such, I don't think people interpret that claim to mean literally what it says (they should, but they don't).  Because that would be a dumb thing to say, they interpret it to mean "I believe it will rain tomorrow."  However, it is still the case that "I have no reason to believe it will rain tomorrow" and "I believe it will rain tomorrow" are not logically contradictory.  Moreover, I don't think it's commonly held that people need to have a good reason to believe something in order to believe it.  Just look at any online discussion about religion - believers sometimes stake out their positions based on nothing but faith, and only people who reject the very idea of faith would criticize them for it.  Additionally, I don't think you'd be subject to any criticism at all should it actually rain tomorrow, regardless of whether you had any evidence that it would.  People are happy to rationalize (a deplorable habit) to explain away uncomfortable truths.

 

And that's exactly what I think they're doing when they believe in implication.

Why not? There's plenty of evidence that it exists.

Is there, though?  My hypothesis is that people merely attempt to place themselves in the other's place and them imagine how they themselves would feel under those circumstances.  Then, they project those feelings onto the other, and think they're perceiving something.

 

The study you linked, I think, supports this hypothesis, in that the subjects were less able to describe the emotions of the other person if the subjects were experiencing a contrary sensation themselves.  That interfered with their ability to generate the expected emotion, and thus they were unable to project it into the other.

 

Also, it let the subjects know what the other person was experiencing.  Empathy, as I understand it, should allow people to identify what emotions other people are experiencing.  Letting the subjects know what was causing the emotional response gave them a shortcut (and as long as the two participants were relevantly similar, they should have been right pretty much all the time).

 

And that brings me to the second problem.  The study did consider the possibility that the subject - the one reporting on the other's emotions - was a psychopath, and allowed that psychopaths would be less good as describing their counterpart's emotions.  But what if we turn that around?  Are typicals able to perceive the emotions of psychopaths (people whose emotional responses are different)?  Are typicals able to perceive the emotions of autistic people (people whose emotional responses and emotional displays are different)?

 

The study concludes that typical people can accurately perceive emotions, but atypical people can't.  But what if typical people can only accurately perceive the emotions of typical people?  That would strongly support my projection theory.

 

As far as I can tell, no one has studied whether empathy still works when the subject is observing atypical emotional responses.

[dragonflight288]

It's science. Everyone is wrong once we falsify their ideas. But the scientific process keeps us moving toward knowledge.

 

The scientific method also means that we accept data as it comes in, even if it refutes our preconceptions or theories. 

 

Once the data is gathered, we change our theory to match the facts rather than try to twist the facts to match the evidence. 

 

Science is just as much about being wrong and learning why as it is about proving a point. 

 

Not disagreeing with you, but I've spoken with people who can't change their thinking despite the evidence gathered that contradicts their own thoughts or opinions.

 

Debated plenty of them in the dragon age forums. 

[dragonflight288]

When we falsify theories, we eliminate possible wrong answers. That's all I mean.

 

When we falsify theories or data, we are no longer in the realm of science.

[Sylvius the Mad]

When we falsify theories or data, we are no longer in the realm of science.

It's the data that falsifies the theories.  All scientific theories need to be falsifiable.

[dragonflight288]

It's the data that falsifies the theories.  All scientific theories need to be falsifiable.

 

Fair enough, but there are people who simply refuse to give up their ideas and theories no matter the data gathered, and in turn would rather alter the data or twist it to fit what they think should be.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Fair enough, but there are people who simply refuse to give up their ideas and theories no matter the data gathered, and in turn would rather alter the data or twist it to fit what they think should be.

Those people aren't doing science.

[Decepticon Leader Sully]

Fair enough, but there are people who simply refuse to give up their ideas and theories no matter the data gathered, and in turn would rather alter the data or twist it to fit what they think should be.

[Jorji Costava]

@Sylvius the Mad:

Not sure if I'll have the time to keep this exchange going for much longer, but it's been fun while it lasted.

Spoiler

How else would you know that you know?  How can we be confident that we possess some piece of knowledge without at least examining the process by which we came to have it?
 
Knowledge is more than just a true belief.  It has to be, else whether you know something could be determined by luck, without you actually having done anything differently.

 
Seems like you're relying on a version of the KK principle here (i.e. "In order to know p, one must know that one knows p.") Briefly, it has its defenders, but it's mostly regarded as a relic among contemporary thinkers. Most notably, Timothy Williamson has subjected it to withering criticism in his Knowledge and Its Limits, although unfortunately I do not have the space to rehash his arguments here.
 

We're talking about implication here, something which we can't perceive directly, but from which we somehow extract information (supposedly reliably), while also being unaware of the mechanism by which we do that.
 
I'm saying that an explanation of inference that doesn't assume the existence of that monstrosity is simpler, and thus a better hypothesis.
 
Implication is an astoundingly complicated fabrication that does nothing other than absolve people of responsibility for their own inferences.

 
I tried to explain the mechanism in my previous post, but it was admittedly rather quick. Roughly, conversation is a rule-governed activity, and most speakers have at least a tacit grasp of these rules. Generally, they assume that other speakers are following these rules, because usually, they do. By connecting speakers' utterances with the rules, we're able to draw inferences about what was implied (example below). In other words, implication consists in little more than me following the rules, and you recognizing that I am. I don't see anything particularly spooky going on here.

Implication doesn't absolve people of responsibility for their own inferences; it simply suggests that those inferences are frequently justified.
 

First of all, if you say "It will rain tomorrow," you should be subject to criticism unless you can see the future.  As such, I don't think people interpret that claim to mean literally what it says (they should, but they don't).  Because that would be a dumb thing to say, they interpret it to mean "I believe it will rain tomorrow."  However, it is still the case that "I have no reason to believe it will rain tomorrow" and "I believe it will rain tomorrow" are not logically contradictory.  Moreover, I don't think it's commonly held that people need to have a good reason to believe something in order to believe it.  Just look at any online discussion about religion - believers sometimes stake out their positions based on nothing but faith, and only people who reject the very idea of faith would criticize them for it.  Additionally, I don't think you'd be subject to any criticism at all should it actually rain tomorrow, regardless of whether you had any evidence that it would.  People are happy to rationalize (a deplorable habit) to explain away uncomfortable truths.

 
I think your response is too wedded to my (admittedly infelicitous) choice of example. Here's a different example: Suppose someone asks me, "Are John's children asleep?" and after investigating, I respond "Some of them are." If others later find out that they are all asleep, then my previous statement would be regarded as misleading even though it is true. This is plausibly because there is a generally observed conversational rule to the effect that one make the most informative assertion possible. Connecting this rule with my statement, their reasonable conclusion is I implied that some of John's children were not asleep.

Looking at the original example itself, I'm unfortunately not convinced by what you say about it. My hypothesis is that typically when deeply religious people take their doctrines as articles of faith, it's because they are treating these doctrines as a 'protected class' of propositions exempt from the normal rules of evidence. For instance, a fideist whose doctor told him that he is gravely ill would probably still demand evidence for this proposition. As far as me not being criticized for my assertion if it does rain tomorrow, this is hard to assess, because people may take the truth of my belief as some indirect evidence that I must have had good reason for believing it after all. We're not generally all that great at assessing the state of another person's evidence.
 
I'm not denying that people frequently hold irrational beliefs, but I would argue that usually this is because they take themselves to have good evidence when they don't, rather than because they don't think they need evidence for their belief at all.
 

Is there, though?  My hypothesis is that people merely attempt to place themselves in the other's place and them imagine how they themselves would feel under those circumstances.  Then, they project those feelings onto the other, and think they're perceiving something.

My question about your argument is this: What is the something that would have to be perceived in order for empathy to count as real? I suspect you may be relying on a highly idiosyncratic definition of empathy. Your alternative explanation "People imagine themselves in another's position and imagine what they would feel" doesn't seem all that different from the generally accepted understanding of what empathy actually is. There's a reason "Putting yourself in another's shoes" is a common expression, after all.

[Sylvius the Mad]

@Sylvius the Mad:

Not sure if I'll have the time to keep this exchange going for much longer, but it's been fun while it lasted.

I'll try to be brief, then.

Spoiler

Seems like you're relying on a version of the KK principle here (i.e. "In order to know p, one must know that one knows p.") Briefly, it has its defenders, but it's mostly regarded as a relic among contemporary thinkers. Most notably, Timothy Williamson has subjected it to withering criticism in his Knowledge and Its Limits, although unfortunately I do not have the space to rehash his arguments here.

Thanks for the reference, though. I'll look it up.

I tried to explain the mechanism in my previous post, but it was admittedly rather quick. Roughly, conversation is a rule-governed activity, and most speakers have at least a tacit grasp of these rules. Generally, they assume that other speakers are following these rules, because usually, they do. By connecting speakers' utterances with the rules, we're able to draw inferences about what was implied (example below). In other words, implication consists in little more than me following the rules, and you recognizing that I am. I don't see anything particularly spooky going on here.

That might help if I were able to discern the rules.

Implication doesn't absolve people of responsibility for their own inferences; it simply suggests that those inferences are frequently justified.

That would be good enough for me. I don't want to be blamed for things people incorrectly think I implied.

My understanding of implication is that it is intended. The hidden meaning is supposed to be there. As such, the speaker should always know with certainty whether something was implied.

If that's the case, then I'm safe from accidentally offending people.

I think your response is too wedded to my (admittedly infelicitous) choice of example.

I had considered that, and actually rewrote my response multiple times trying to avoid that.

Apparently I failed.

Here's a different example: Suppose someone asks me, "Are John's children asleep?" and after investigating, I respond "Some of them are." If others later find out that they are all asleep, then my previous statement would be regarded as misleading even though it is true. This is plausibly because there is a generally observed conversational rule to the effect that one make the most informative assertion possible. Connecting this rule with my statement, their reasonable conclusion is I implied that some of John's children were not asleep.

This is a great example (I'm not usually one for examples; I'd rather discuss underlying principles), because I straight up disagree with you.

If I were answering that question, I would give that response if some of the children being asleep were some sort of relevant threshold. If we were only going to do some other thing once some of the children were asleep, now does meet that standard.

Also, I would give that answer if I had only determined the sleep status of some of the children, and those children were asleep. The sleep status of the other children is unknown to me, so I simply don't address their sleep status. But for some children, the children are asleep.

I might use predicate logic in everyday speech more than most people do.

But if someone were to conclude from my response that some of the children were awake, I think that would be crazy.

Looking at the original example itself, I'm unfortunately not convinced by what you say about it. My hypothesis is that typically when deeply religious people take their doctrines as articles of faith, it's because they are treating these doctrines as a 'protected class' of propositions exempt from the normal rules of evidence. For instance, a fideist whose doctor told him that he is gravely ill would probably still demand evidence for this proposition. As far as me not being criticized for my assertion if it does rain tomorrow, this is hard to assess, because people may take the truth of my belief as some indirect evidence that I must have had good reason for believing it after all. We're not generally all that great at assessing the state of another person's evidence.

I'm not denying that people frequently hold irrational beliefs, but I would argue that usually this is because they take themselves to have good evidence when they don't, rather than because they don't think they need evidence for their belief at all.

When their evidence is challenged, particularly online, I find that people often retreat to "I believe what I believe" ot something similar, which is why I equated belief generally with religious faith (neither of which I understand).

My question about your argument is this: What is the something that would have to be perceived in order for empathy to count as real?

At the very least, I would like the two people's accounts of the emotions involved to match reliably, even when the person with the emotions isn't typical.

I suspect you may be relying on a highly idiosyncratic definition of empathy. Your alternative explanation "People imagine themselves in another's position and imagine what they would feel" doesn't seem all that different from the generally accepted understanding of what empathy actually is. There's a reason "Putting yourself in another's shoes" is a common expression, after all.

I thought that expression was being used to describe something else. Determining how you would feel in someone's place should be different from determining how that person actually does feel, because people aren't all relevantly similar in terms of how they experience or express emotions.

Speaking personally, people misread my emotional state all the freaking time. I'd like some description of the process that will accurately predict those errors so we can maybe fix them.

[Spectr61]

They all moved to Tumblr.
 
That's why the BSN is ded now, just like PC gaming.

Uhh, no.

Check this;

http://www.forbes.co...-keep-fighting/