kerspoon comments on I believe it's doublethink - Less Wrong

23 Post author: kerspoon 21 February 2012 10:30PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (32)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: kerspoon 22 February 2012 10:09:57AM 0 points [-]

I'm honestly curious. Think of a fact, and then ask yourself why you know it. Out of 5 attempts how many did you actually have no idea why that fact is there.

I would expect if I were to ask people why do you think daffodil flowers need lots of water they would at least say something like, oh I heard it somewhere (assuming that the do indeed believe this). From this I would choose to shift my belief only very very slightly.

Comment author: Giles 22 February 2012 12:43:35PM 1 point [-]

It's worth being cautious here: just because a brain can generate an answer to a question doesn't mean that it was actually storing that information. "I heard it somewhere" may just be the default response when no supporting evidence can be found.

But your examples here are valid - sometimes we really do remember X separately from the evidence in support of X. And if X is something important this is probably to be encouraged.