On the propositon that 'knowing that you are confused is essential for learning' there is a structural equation model, tested empirically on 200+ subjects, that concludes that the ability of knowing-that-you-don't-understand is an essential prerequisite for learning, in the sense that people who have that ability learn much better than those who do not. Three other individual difference variables are also involved, but only come into play after the person realizes that they don't understand something. Its called 'Learning from instructional text: Test of ...
On the difference between moral judgements and factual beliefs, I find it helpful to think like this:
To give some plausibility to 'idealist' philosophies like Plato's, we can point to certain things which, while they certainly exist, would not exist if there were not minds, like humor.
In the same way, moral judgements certainly exist, but they would not exist if there were not minds. Moral judgements do not correspond to things in the outside world.
Facts, on the other hand, correspond to things outside minds, and factual beliefs are things inside minds th...
Richard, you say you do not know if there is or is not a way to settle this particular disagreement. I too believe there may be a way to settle it, but only if we are explicitly specific about what we mean, and only if we agree to agree about what we mean; then there may be a way to settle it to the satisfaction of both of us. But if we can't be explicitly specific etc. then we can't settle it. My view is quite a standard one; I don't claim it's original. I agree that disagreements that involve values are difficult to settle; I think we would have to a...
Richard and Robin: I wonder if it is possible to settle this disagreement between Richard and I. (I realize this is to change the subject from the disagreement itself to ways of settling it, but it does have some relevance to settling it.)
For it to be possible to settle it, we would have to both desire to settle it. Then we could take various routes.
The Scienceoid route would require us to formulate the question, definition of terms, etc, so that some set of operations could be agreed between us to settle it, and then we'd just have to do the operatio...
Robin, it's easy to see that of the two goals of maximizing either happiness or one's own ability to perceive reality correctly,
Anyone can easily imagine wanting to maximize perceiving reality correctly IN ORDER TO maximize one's happiness.
But one can't imagine wanting to maximize one's happiness IN ORDER TO maximize perceiving reality correctly.
The latter statement makes no sense, or if you force some sense upon it by scenario-making, it still makes a very limited kind of sense.
It seems to me that this proves that maximizing happiness is a higher goal than perceiving reality correctly.
Not one of my own, Aristotle's.
Eliezer:
I think that if you have a project of working through the cognitive biases for which we have evidence, considering each one separately, it is an excellent project, and likely to lead to cumulative effects on this blog, if anything is. I applaud what you are doing.