Gettier walks up to the counter. Before he can order, the Barrista confuses him for a regular and chirps “I know what you want.” By coincidence, Gettier ends up with exactly the drink he desired. (from Alvin Goldman, Epistemologist Extraordinaire)

The recent discussion on neo-reactionary-ism brought out some references to (intellectual hipsters and) meta-contrarianism linking to a 2010 posting by Yvain.

For some time I've been thinking about "narcissistic contrarians" -- those who make an art form of their exotically counterintuitive belief systems, who combine positions not normally met in the same person.  There can be good reasons for being a contrarian.  If you're looking for a scarce resource, it may help to not look where everyone else is looking, hence contrarian stock market investors may do very well, if they actually see something others don't; same with oil explorers.  Less creditably, I believe Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise made reference to the way a novice pundit or prognosticator may have nothing to gain by saying anything like what other people are saying, and much to gain, in taking some wild extravagant position or prediction if it happens to attract an audience others have ignored, or if the predictions happens to be right.

The Narcissistic Contrarian is much like the Intellectual Hipster, but more extreme.  The Intellectual Hipster usually stakes out a few unusual or incongruous positions, to create an identity that stands out from the crowd.  The Narcissistic Contrarian is constantly dazzling her fans.  Something written by Camille Paglia made me think of the idea in the first place.  Nicholas Taleb is another suspect although I think he started out with some good ideas.  If she/he manages to get a fan-base, they are apt to be pretty worshipful -- they can't imagine being able to come up with such a wild set of insights.  The contrarianism is for its own sake rather than an attempt to find and settle on some previously undiscovered thing, so it particularly likely to lead people astray, into unproductive avenues of thought.

Does anyone else think this is a real and useful distinction?

Since many LRers are fairly recent college graduates, it seems worthwhile to ask to what extent would people here agree with reports of rampant irrationalism such as this one: http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_4_racial-microaggression.html from a right-leaning journalist known for her book The Burden of Bad Ideas (which I'm certainly not promoting).

Some other sources like Massimo Pigliucci (see http://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/) who seem more alarmed by creationism or the idea that all climatology is one big conspiracy, are also quite bothered by extreme relativism in some camps of epistemology, and sociologists of technology and science.

To what extent, if any, do you think PC suppresses free speech or thinking?  While sociology and epistemological branches of philosophy have partisans who to me seem to advocate various kinds of muddled thinking (while others are doing admirable work), in your experience, is that the trend that is "taking over"?

To what extent if any do you think any of that is leaking into more practical or scientific fields?  If you've taken economics courses, where do you think they rank on a left to right spectrum?

Also, have you observed much in the way of push-back from conservative and/or libertarian sources endowing chairs or building counter-establishments like the Mercatus Center at George Mason University?  And I wonder the same about any movement strictly concerned with rationality, empiricism, or just clear thinking.

My mind is open on this -- so open that it's painful to be around all the hot tempers that it can stir up.

Thanks,  Hal

   I've been reading an anthology called Naturalizing Epistemology (1986) edited by Hilary Kornblith.

   "Naturalizing" epistemology has been heavily identified with W.V.O. Quine (author of the 2 first articles in _Naturalizing Epistemology).

   Others draw parallels between naturalized epistemology and the much earlier philosophy of pragmatism, or John Dewey in particular, as in Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall, 1996, "Dewey, Quine, and Pragmatic Naturalized Epistemology".  Or see Stich 1993 "Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for Pragmatism".  The title alludes to Herb Simon, who is no doubt better known to lesswrong.com than most philosophical epistemologists.  [For some good articles and quite a few broken links, see: http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu/~kak7409/EpistPapersBySubject.html] Naturalized epistemology, like many other intellectual approaches (to whatever) has a strong and a weak program, or position.  The strong might be represented by Quine's "Why not settle for psychology".

   Basically, I think general naturalized epistemology aims to ground epistemology in something solid and material like people, and their scientific study -- as opposed to reasoning with purely mental constructs.  Another tendency that claims to be "naturalizing" epistemology is to study how "good reasoners" arrive at what they think is the truth, and this may mean trying to rigorously define how scientists think.

   "Why not settle for psychology" is to pass the buck or forward all questions to another department (e.g. psychology, sociology, history of science), as if the disciplinary traditions of philosophy have nothing to offer.  Do they really have nothing to offer?

   I think one way to not pass the buck is to focus on certain habits that seem to affect, or afflict, virtually all of philosophy when it deals with thoughts, truth, etc.  Namely to talk as if our subject is some "canonical knower", talking of what "is known" without reference to any particular knower, seeming to forget about the fact that I am in my mind and you are in yours.  Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum" might be more naturalistic if he had written "So you think maybe you don't exist?  But then aren't you experiencing something, an awareness of words and/or pictures that seem to be inside your body.  Call that your 'self' and you can't avoid thinking it exists in some form, whether as a disembodied spirit cohabiting with a body, or a biological process, or a computer simulation.  This only works for your existence.  It won't convince you that I (Descartes) -- in fact I might be long dead as you read this."

   The main move in "naturalizing" epistemology without passing the buck is, in my opinion to keep grounded in the realization that there is only me knowing, or you knowing, or either of us believing mistakenly, and there are the processes by which we came to know or believe.  And the canonical knower is a fiction, and declarations like "it is known" or "it is knowable" are just to unclear.  This grounds me in the realization that the vast bulk of what I think I know is due to having gotten it from some trusted source.  It used to be trendy to say that would make me an "authoritarianism", but if "authoritarianism" is a real thing to be avoided, it can't just be something we all do because there is no alternative.

   There may be a "right" way to establish a scientific fact, but in almost all cases, hardly one person in a million has actually witnessed it being established.  The vast majority "know" it because they read it in a book.

   So we are left mostly with the sources we have chosen to trust, and the question of what can justify that trust.  I expect most readers of LW believe they do a good job or determining who to trust, and we all know people who we thing don't do such a good job.  Alvin Goldman, the only other author besides Quine allotted 2 articles in Naturalizing Epistemology is now (some years after the book was published) the best known proponent of one of two conflicting schools of Social Epistemology.

   I want to suggest if you approach naturalized epistemology right, then social epistemology is a natural outcome. Goldman treats the question of "Who to Trust" seriously in "Experts: Which Ones should you Trust?" in the journal Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol 63, No. 2 (7/2001)

   [NOTE: many online papers by Goldman are generously provided at
        http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/goldman/Papers.htm]

   If one were to teach general principals of knowing who to trust in K-12, what would these principles look like?  The following examples involve social reasoning as well as the intentional stance beloved of evolutionists like Daniel Dennett.

   One principle might be "look in the back of a magazine to see if its ads are directed to really gullible people -- if so, suspect the rest of the magazine is directed to really gullible people.  I suspect a great deal of our ability to discriminate trustworthy sources is based on somewhat similar rules of thumb.  So if the magazine that advertises the "X-ray glasses" says we will all be flying around with jet packs in a couple of decades (a typical example from the 1960s), enable bullshit detector.

   You might move to a new location, and at a block party, ask around about who is a good plumber or mechanic (on in some areas, where is it safe/unsafe to walk at night).  Somehow, I think most of us can do a reasonable job of deciding who to take most seriously and who is perhaps a blowhard.  Could that be taught in school?  There are few more important life skills.

   If on some momentous controversial issue, an advocate of some position sends me article after article that makes me ask "Is that the best they can do?  Is an  85 year old retired atomic scientist the best they can do to impress me with the case against Global Warming?" and similar questions depending on the article, this leads me to conclude that the supposed case they have against Global Warming is ginned up, and until I start hearing more impressive arguments, I will continue to think so based on analysis of what they have to say for themselves -- not because somebody else tells me they're full of shit.

  My knowledge of the literature is uneven, and acquired all on my own motivated by a sense that something is breaking down in terms of people's common sense about what venues to trust, and wondering what has brought this about and what to do about it.  It is for the same reason that I'm interested in Lesswrong.com

I'd like to throw this out as a test project, in case there are any takers, or rather for now, mostly throw it out for comment and criticism to see if it can be taken any further.

Take a small town, say about 4000 pop., where people generally know each other, and can nearly all agree that the way we run elections is very dysfunctional compared to a normal hiring process.  This would have to be a very unusual town for such a conversation to take place; maybe it would be a very small suburb of Redmond Washington.  Liberals, libertarians, and conservatives would hold a town hall type conversation and almost all agree that the current prototype of an election is dysfunctional.  They might then agree to tell the candidates "Save your money, no ads, signs, etc.  We're providing a different forum for you to represent yourselves, and whoever ignores this will forfeit our respect for sabotaging the experiment we want to carry out." 

Townspeople would spend a period of time, with face to face meetings and online debating forums figuring out what questions they'd want answered.  Maybe a few of the sort of people who would normally become activists for one or the other party would supply the drive, looking into what was done by the town under the last mayor.  Discoveries would be made like "Oh, here's one thing the mayor does that I never thought of, hiring concrete contractors; I wonder how he/she would decide which one to use."

Then candidates are interviewed one at a time in a town hall type setting with web and/or local cable broadcast.  Each candidate will be called individually on one or more evenings partly to avoid time-wasting put-downs of the other candidates.

I think this would get national news attention and provoke discussion.  There are plenty of stories of unusual situations in small town elections just because a man and his ex-wife are running against each other, or the (male) mayor goes trans-gender and has large breast implants (and to warm our hearts, the town chases off out of town demonstrators against such an "abomination" -- this one I actually heard about recently).

I realize the "normal hiring process" analogy has to be stretched and squeezed to fit the very different situation, but I think it's worth an experiment, at least, to see if we could capture some of the virtues of a process that has worked (and been thought out and rethought, and books written on it) that has worked well enough for private business.

What we currently do is as much like a normal hiring process as if the hirer couldn't even get the candidates into their office, but must watch them out the window performing circus-like theatrics; they don't get to ask questions, but the candidates shout out whatever they think is relevant over a bullhorn.

How much AI technique could it possibly take for google (or something better) to do a decent job with

speechby:obama   attitude:positive   "Saul Alinsky".

I.e. "speechby:" and "attitude:" don't exist, but could, I believe be implemented pretty accurately, to see in this case if we can find any instances of Obama praising Saul Alinsky.

An article: "Bill Ayers and Obama Both Quote Alinsky" claims such quotes exist, but their one attempt to demonstrate it is laughable -- something vaguely like a paraphrase of an Alinsky statement, but which has, in fact the reverse sense of what the supposed "original" meant.  Yet I think most of the world, and not just conservatives, if they have any idea who Alinsky is, will tend not to question Obama's "debt" to Alinski -- just for the sheer number of times it's been said or implied.  For the other shoe dropping, false quotes that help demonize Alinsky, see tinyurl.com/qa6fglk.

The point isn't to defend Obama.  It is that I think the world would work better if the ratio of

         ability to find verifiable facts pertinent to political discussion

          supply of highly opinionated and slanted "news". 

could be raised by, say, an order of magnitude.

So many assertions are made that are likely not true, but are incredibly difficult for the average person to disprove.  In this Internet era, the personal cost to write some almost free associative screed about a political point is very low, while the personal cost of finding quite a lot of pertinent facts is awfully high.

This is not to say the "average person" will look for facts to confirm or contradict what they read, but much of what they read is written by bloggers some of whom are sincere and would become users of such resources, and I do believe the emotional rewards of finding a nugget of truth versus the current pain of often fruitless search would have an effect on people's thinking habits -- maybe small at first but growing over time.

The particular proposal merely illustrates one of many sorts of resource that are missing or hard to find.  Ideas for other such resources would be welcome.

Some time ago, I was following a conversation about Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/), an attempt to implement a sort of general purpose question answerer, something people have dreamed about computers doing for decades.  Despite the theoretical availability to find out virtually anything from the Internet, we seem pretty far from any plausible approximation of this dream (at least for general consumption).  My first attempt was:

Q: "who was the first ruler of russia?"

A: Vladimir Putin

It's a problematic question that depends on questions like "When did Russia become Russia", or "What do we count, historically as Russia", or even what one means by "Ruler", and a reasonably satisfactory answer would have had to be fairly complicated -- either that, or the question would have to be reworded to be so precise that one name could serve as the answer.

On another problematic question I thought it did rather well:

Q: what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen african swallow?

What occurred to me though, is that computer science could do something quite useful intermediate between "general purpose question answerer" and the old database paradigm of terms ANDed or ORed together.  (Note that what Google does is neither of these, nor should it be placed on a straight line between the two -- but discussion of Google would take me far off topic).

A simple example of what I'd really like is a search engine that matches *concepts*.  Does anyone know of such a thing?  If it exists, I should possibly read about it and shut up, but let me at least try to be sure I'm making the idea clear:

E.g., I'd like to enter <<rulers of russia>>, and get a list of highly relevant articles.

Or, I'd like to enter <<repair of transmission of "1957 Ford Fairlane">> and get few if any useless advertisements, and something much better than all articles containing the words "repair" "transmission" and "1957 Ford Fairlane" -- e.g., *not* an article on roof repair that happened to mention that "My manual transmission Toyota truck rear-ended a 1957 Ford Fairlane".

It seems to me mere implementation of a few useful connectives like "of", and maybe the recognition of an adjective-noun phrase, and some heuristics like expanding words to *OR*ed lists of synonyms (ruler ==> (president OR king OR dictator ...)) would yield quite an improvement over the search engines I'm familiar with.

This level of simple grammatical understanding is orders of magnitude simpler than the global analysis and knowledge of unlimited sets of information sources, such as a general purpose question answerer would require.

I'd like to know if anyone else finds this interesting, or knows of any leads for exploring anything related to these possibilities.

By the way, when I entered "rulers of russia" into Wolfram-Alpha, the answer was still Putin, with brief mention of others going back to 1993, so "Russia" seems to be implicitly defined as the entity that has existed since 1993, and there is an attempt at making it an *answer to the (assumed) question* rather than a good list of articles that could shed light on various reasonable interpretations of the phrase.

"Realism" in the philosophical sense has to be relative to something - Plato's essences, "collective imagination", society, truth are among the subjects that evoke comments that this person is a realist (considers the "something" to be real), and that one isn't.

A philosophical realist w.r.t. fairies is one who believes Fairies are real, while the non-realist says talk of fairies is due to overactive agency detectors or some such thing.  It will tend to seem like the opposite of everyday use of the word "realism" -- at least if the subject is one non-philosophers would ever talk about.

I mention this only because I found it a bit difficult to get, and I think I've now "got" it.  Correct me if you think I'm wrong.

It was nice to be with some new people, and you seem like some interesting seekers after truth.  I'm Hal, the guy who could be grandfather to at least some of you.

I have a web site at therealtruthproject.blogspot.com.

Looking for the best thinking about

• discovering,
• propagating,
• recognizing, and
• living life guided by

the truth, whatever it may turn out to be, and by effective ongoing practices that reveal more of the truth as needed.

That's an attempt to sum up what "Practical Epistemology" means to me.  I approached LW because I thought I'd find some encouragement among people who seem concerned about rational thinking, albeit I don't think it's enough.

It will take changing the way the world looks to the vast majority of people who never think of  joining groups to ponder the "methods of rationality" to make the world more safe, rational, and happy; that's why the phrase "Truth Project" came into my head several years ago, even if the "project" is nothing more than one guy reading and reading (and learning about social epistemology, memetics, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, chimpanzees vs bonobos, Why Nations Fail, The Idea of Justice. positive interventions in the economies of Bangladesh, etc.) and wondering how in the hell to make such a thing work.  It may sound arrogantly audacious, or crack-pot-ish just to state it, but other people buy lottery tickets.

If nothing else, this could be a starting point for more conversation, if not with me, with the other person who sat next to you.

Is there a name for the (I claim) extremely common practice of blithely and unconsciously always looking at your own view (political especially) in terms of its best possible outcomes, while always characterizing an opposing point of view by its worst possibilities?

If not, I think there should be.  It seems like a major major source of unfruitful argumentation.