Joe was an average guy
He went out with his girlfriend Marie and her girlfriend, Joan. They went to dinner. Joan is a
God-fearing Republican who is married to a cardiologist. Later on, Mary was complaining to
Joe that Joan was all so certain about her belief in God and that she was going to heaven.
After all, Mary said, there is no God--it is all myth on top of myth. Joe agreed that there is no
God, but tried to point out to Mary that a belief in God is a good psychological crutch and
actually helps some people to keep a positive attitude toward life. A positive attitude helps
people to live longer and be sick less often. Ironically, a belief in Jesus may have saved more
people from illness after Jesus died than when he was alive and traveling around healing the
sick.
Marie folded her arms. Such talk made her uncomfortable. Actually Marie was very well
intentioned. She had never read How to Win Friends and Influence People, or if she had,
the information had not sunk in. Marie thought that Democrats were generally right and
Republicans were generally wrong. She often leaned toward Socialist ideas.
Joe took a break from the conversation to go home and read his books and magazines. He
knew what Marie thought and it was not going to change. People tend to believe evidence
that confirms their world view. 'Confirmation bias', it is called. Confirmation bias is a tendency
for people to prefer information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses,
independently of whether they are true. People can reinforce their existing attitudes by
selectively collecting new evidence, by interpreting evidence in a biased way or by selectively
recalling information from memory. Some psychologists use "confirmation bias" for any of
these three cognitive biases, while others restrict the term to selective collection of evidence,
using assimilation bias for biased interpretation.
Joe tried to fight his own human tendency toward confirmation bias by treating everything in a
skeptical attitude. He subscribed to the magazine Skeptical Enquirer. Problem is that the
magazine's editors were biased against religion because it was based on myth. Joe likened
that to physicians who wanted to discount homeopathy because "it was only the placebo
effect". Sure, Joe said, it may be only the placebo effect, but the placebo effect exists. In fact,
it is a scientific fact that people respond significantly to their beliefs. As a result, saying
something is a myth doesn't mean that you can simply toss it on the trash heap. Myths, sugar
pills and chiropractors can all help if you have faith. Joe tired of the whole discussion. His
main point was that one must try to avoid the common human traps if one is to rise above it all.
Joe explained it this way. He felt that the majority of people were binary in that they thought of
only two kinds of people and two kinds of ideas. There were the good and the bad. Once the
human mind determined something was in the "bad" category, the discussion would end in
their minds. Everyone considers their own selves to be in the good category, as pointed out
so eloquently by Dale Carnegie. So, thinking can go like the following. I am good. I believe in
God. So good people believe in God and the only other category is people who don't believe
in God and those people must be in the bad category according to the binary way of thinking.
Here is how the mind often works: Homeopathy is scientifically ridiculous because you are
diluting a poison and expecting it to cure something. The dilution is so extreme that there is
nothing but "spirit" left in the water that the patient imbibes. To the extent that you believe in
physicalism, you simply have to place homeopathy in the "bad" category. But the
homeopathic medicine might have a good placebo affect on the patient. Wouldn't that be
good? The conversation often turns to "is the dispenser of the homeopathic medication
making money?" If they are, then they are in the bad category along with their medication and
the placebo effect. Such binary thinking is very common with humans. It is an indication that
intelligence among humans is rare.
So Joe picked up the January-February edition of Robot magazine. Tom Atwood's Editorial
read as follows:
MACHINES SMARTER THAN US?
Early in 2009, a group of prestigious scientists and researchers met at the Asilomar
Conference Grounds in Monterey, California, to discuss the ramifications of the growing power
and reach of artificial intelligence (AI). The applications discussed were both robotic and
non-robotic, the latter including impersonation via speech synthesis (evoking images from the
movie "The Terminator") and data-mining that could facilitate identity theft. What impressed
us the most, thought, was the serious discussion of the possibility that robots may someday be
far smarter than humans.
The conference was organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
(AIII)--www.aiii.org---and held at the venue where, in 1975, leading scientists met to discuss
guidelines for DNA research that would help researchers avoid biohazards and best sort out
ethical issues. This meeting was just as serious and important as that earlier landmark
conference.
On the other hand, Joe thought. It doesn't make any sense to procreate anymore because
obviously the robots are coming on quickly. Nevertheless, I feel an urge to have sex with Mary
even though she is too old to have babies anymore. Sex was good for your heath, he had
read.
Karen across the street from Joe was discussing things in general with Joe. Joe was single
and Karen brought up the subject of girlfriends. He mentioned dating feminists a few times
and although he respected women's rights, he was not sure that he could live with a feminist.
Karen was shocked that he would ever consider dating a feminist. Karen herself came off as
an aggressive alpha-type woman so Joe wasn't sure what she meant. Joe found most people
hard to predict. He certainly didn't expect that response from her.
Joe had met a number of women who had been exposed to the feminist notion that boys and
girls were essentially born the same and only differed by socialization. Jenny B was taught
that in college and was surprised that she couldn't bring up her son to be like her daughter.
One day she passed her son a male doll, a Ronald McDonald doll. He immediately passed it
on to his sister. She was very surprised.
Next
He went out with his girlfriend Marie and her girlfriend, Joan. They went to dinner. Joan is a
God-fearing Republican who is married to a cardiologist. Later on, Mary was complaining to
Joe that Joan was all so certain about her belief in God and that she was going to heaven.
After all, Mary said, there is no God--it is all myth on top of myth. Joe agreed that there is no
God, but tried to point out to Mary that a belief in God is a good psychological crutch and
actually helps some people to keep a positive attitude toward life. A positive attitude helps
people to live longer and be sick less often. Ironically, a belief in Jesus may have saved more
people from illness after Jesus died than when he was alive and traveling around healing the
sick.
Marie folded her arms. Such talk made her uncomfortable. Actually Marie was very well
intentioned. She had never read How to Win Friends and Influence People, or if she had,
the information had not sunk in. Marie thought that Democrats were generally right and
Republicans were generally wrong. She often leaned toward Socialist ideas.
Joe took a break from the conversation to go home and read his books and magazines. He
knew what Marie thought and it was not going to change. People tend to believe evidence
that confirms their world view. 'Confirmation bias', it is called. Confirmation bias is a tendency
for people to prefer information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses,
independently of whether they are true. People can reinforce their existing attitudes by
selectively collecting new evidence, by interpreting evidence in a biased way or by selectively
recalling information from memory. Some psychologists use "confirmation bias" for any of
these three cognitive biases, while others restrict the term to selective collection of evidence,
using assimilation bias for biased interpretation.
Joe tried to fight his own human tendency toward confirmation bias by treating everything in a
skeptical attitude. He subscribed to the magazine Skeptical Enquirer. Problem is that the
magazine's editors were biased against religion because it was based on myth. Joe likened
that to physicians who wanted to discount homeopathy because "it was only the placebo
effect". Sure, Joe said, it may be only the placebo effect, but the placebo effect exists. In fact,
it is a scientific fact that people respond significantly to their beliefs. As a result, saying
something is a myth doesn't mean that you can simply toss it on the trash heap. Myths, sugar
pills and chiropractors can all help if you have faith. Joe tired of the whole discussion. His
main point was that one must try to avoid the common human traps if one is to rise above it all.
Joe explained it this way. He felt that the majority of people were binary in that they thought of
only two kinds of people and two kinds of ideas. There were the good and the bad. Once the
human mind determined something was in the "bad" category, the discussion would end in
their minds. Everyone considers their own selves to be in the good category, as pointed out
so eloquently by Dale Carnegie. So, thinking can go like the following. I am good. I believe in
God. So good people believe in God and the only other category is people who don't believe
in God and those people must be in the bad category according to the binary way of thinking.
Here is how the mind often works: Homeopathy is scientifically ridiculous because you are
diluting a poison and expecting it to cure something. The dilution is so extreme that there is
nothing but "spirit" left in the water that the patient imbibes. To the extent that you believe in
physicalism, you simply have to place homeopathy in the "bad" category. But the
homeopathic medicine might have a good placebo affect on the patient. Wouldn't that be
good? The conversation often turns to "is the dispenser of the homeopathic medication
making money?" If they are, then they are in the bad category along with their medication and
the placebo effect. Such binary thinking is very common with humans. It is an indication that
intelligence among humans is rare.
So Joe picked up the January-February edition of Robot magazine. Tom Atwood's Editorial
read as follows:
MACHINES SMARTER THAN US?
Early in 2009, a group of prestigious scientists and researchers met at the Asilomar
Conference Grounds in Monterey, California, to discuss the ramifications of the growing power
and reach of artificial intelligence (AI). The applications discussed were both robotic and
non-robotic, the latter including impersonation via speech synthesis (evoking images from the
movie "The Terminator") and data-mining that could facilitate identity theft. What impressed
us the most, thought, was the serious discussion of the possibility that robots may someday be
far smarter than humans.
The conference was organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
(AIII)--www.aiii.org---and held at the venue where, in 1975, leading scientists met to discuss
guidelines for DNA research that would help researchers avoid biohazards and best sort out
ethical issues. This meeting was just as serious and important as that earlier landmark
conference.
On the other hand, Joe thought. It doesn't make any sense to procreate anymore because
obviously the robots are coming on quickly. Nevertheless, I feel an urge to have sex with Mary
even though she is too old to have babies anymore. Sex was good for your heath, he had
read.
Karen across the street from Joe was discussing things in general with Joe. Joe was single
and Karen brought up the subject of girlfriends. He mentioned dating feminists a few times
and although he respected women's rights, he was not sure that he could live with a feminist.
Karen was shocked that he would ever consider dating a feminist. Karen herself came off as
an aggressive alpha-type woman so Joe wasn't sure what she meant. Joe found most people
hard to predict. He certainly didn't expect that response from her.
Joe had met a number of women who had been exposed to the feminist notion that boys and
girls were essentially born the same and only differed by socialization. Jenny B was taught
that in college and was surprised that she couldn't bring up her son to be like her daughter.
One day she passed her son a male doll, a Ronald McDonald doll. He immediately passed it
on to his sister. She was very surprised.
Next
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