The Dunning-Kruger effect, sound like someone you know?

@maxdancona,

I am of the opinion that the circles of technology that depend on inner circles begin with physics because it alone draws the basic truths of motion, all motion, then te next circle is math because it attempts to quantitate but never knows why.
Then comes chemistry with physical chemistry at the inner layer, next is biology and among the last is th earth sciences, which depend on all the inner theories and laws .

That is not me speaking. Its a very well respected scientist who worked as a faculty member in geology at Princeton.

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@farmerman,

I might put mathematics at the middle. They are often a couple of steps ahead of Physics even when they don't know what they are solving Wink

.

My career now is in Computer Science, of course another field that leans heavily on mathematics. I was astonished when I started learning about Machine Learning and found vector spaces (something Physicists are quite familiar with)... much of the mathematics in these two different fields is basically the same.

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xkcd

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@maxdancona,

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I might put mathematics at the middle.

It would depend upon which branch of mathematics.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Actually... to what point are you open minded LivingLava? You seem to close your mind awfully fast.

If someone who has studied a lot more mathematics than you tried to explain to you that mathematically speaking 2 + 2 is not always equal to 4... would you be open to the fact that there is a lot about mathematics that you don't understand, or would you close your mind and declare him an "idiot"?

I would listen to his reasoning and evaluate it using my own sensibilities.

No learning process is anything besides listening to and studying what someone else says/writes/explains in some way and seeing for yourself whether it makes sense or not.

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If you studied mathematics in college, you would get to a point where you would studied vector spaces and operations. If you ever get to this point you would understand why even this rant is nonsense. In order for you to learn more advanced mathematics, you need to open your mind and learn from people who know more than you do.

You are a sophist. You revel in the idea of using complexity of rhetoric to BS people into 'opening their minds' to things that are false.

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My education is in Physics. People who majored in mathematics know a lot more than I do about this. I have taken a couple of classes (it turns out to be useful in Physics) and there is a lot more to know about mathematics then you could even imagine.

Mathematics is language. There is a lot more about human language than I will ever know, but I know it is possible for people to BS in spoken languages as well as in symbolic mathematics.

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You are so sure you are right, and so sure that you know everything, that you have closed your mind to education. When someone who knows more than you says "hmmm.... there is more about that then you understand", you attack them rather than listening and maybe learning something. There are a couple of areas in which I can claim a fair amount of expertise... because I have spent time studying them. In any area, when I find someone who knows more than I do... I am happy to learn.

Learning is just applying reason to received information. If someone teaches you something wrong, you have to use reason to figure out that it's wrong. Otherwise you will just keep propagating false information until you or someone else finally thinks critically enough to question it and reason why/how it's wrong.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Trying to redeem yerself wh? Im sorry Ll, but youre just wallowing in denial about expertise , especially degreed or "license to practice"- based on degrees required , experiece and testing , as I said previously , these are merely minimum competence bios to land a job in some professional or technical field.

You are the one using expertise as a crutch for truth. You can't admit that experts can be wrong and truth can be spoken by fools. You are in denial about the fundamental independence of truth from its social context.

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I can guarantee that, with your lack of any of the above, coupled with your inane attitudes about"you dont need no educashun", you wont ever have to worry about landing such a job and begin a professional career path.

We're talking about two different things. You're talking about social-economic institutions and I'm talking about truth as something inherent in information regardless of its social-context.

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livinglava wrote:

I would listen to his reasoning and evaluate it using my own sensibilities.

No learning process is anything besides listening to and studying what someone else says/writes/explains in some way and seeing for yourself whether it makes sense or not.

This utterly false, and a sterling example why your maundering is such a load of crapola. There are so many things which seem to defy "common sense." That is why an in-depth education is necessary to understand complex subjects. A good deal of knowledge is arcane--not in any sense mysterious, but in the sense of known to "a few," in the sense of most people not knowing or not understanding a subject. There are so many examples of this. At mean sea level, hot water freezes faster than cold water. That seems to defy "common sense," but that's because "common sense" is the realm of the poorly educated or the uninformed. This has been known for more than 2000 years, Aristotle having first made a record of the effect. It also meets the experimental and falsifiability standard of science, because it has been seen again and again--both Francis Bacon and René Descartes noted and commented on the effect. It is now called the Mpemba effect, after Erasto Mpenba, a student in Tanzania who noted the effect in the early 1960s. He was looking at ice cream mix, which shows that the effect is not unique to water, but applies to a wider variety of compounds. You don't have to take my word for that, you can read about it here.

Your inability to integrate the idea that knowledge cannot necessary simply be intuited dooms you to being very wrong most of the time, and almost always when you venture beyond the simplicities of everyday life. As far as this thread is concerned, you're the poster child for the D-K effect.

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@livinglava,

You are twisting the phrase "mathematics is a language". Part of the problem is that you don't know mathematics. It certainly isn't an anti-education phrase. If you want to understand science, you absolutely need to understand mathematics.

I started a new thread on this topic.

https://able2know.org/topic/546451-1#post-6972552

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

livinglava wrote:
I would listen to his reasoning and evaluate it using my own sensibilities.

No learning process is anything besides listening to and studying what someone else says/writes/explains in some way and seeing for yourself whether it makes sense or not.

This utterly false, and a sterling example why your maundering is such a load of crapola. There are so many things which seem to defy "common sense." That is why an in-depth education is necessary to understand complex subjects. A good deal of knowledge is arcane--not in any sense mysterious, but in the sense of known to "a few," in the sense of most people not knowing or not understanding a subject. There are so many examples of this. At mean sea level, hot water freezes faster than cold water. That seems to defy "common sense," but that's because "common sense" is the realm of the poorly educated or the uninformed. This has been known for more than 2000 years, Aristotle having first made a record of the effect. It also meets the experimental and falsifiability standard of science, because it has been seen again and again--both Francis Bacon and René Descartes noted and commented on the effect. It is now called the Mpemba effect, after Erasto Mpenba, a student in Tanzania who noted the effect in the early 1960s. He was looking at ice cream mix, which shows that the effect is not unique to water, but applies to a wider variety of compounds. You don't have to take my word for that, you can read about it here.

Now think about what a sane person does when they first learn about an example such as this: Common sense tells you it is a questionable claim, so you expect some kind of evidence to support it. Usually such evidence comes in the form of a demonstration of some sort; or you just take the word of the writer/speaker you are reading/listening to. If you decide that there's no sensible reason to trick you into believing it, you accept it as tentative truth. You know that it could ultimately turn out to be wrong if you haven't directly verified it by experiment or observation, but you take the chance to accept it and remember it as a fact until contradictory information comes along.

You don't have to go to school to learn such facts, though. You can read books outside of school, watch TV/videos, and utilize other media that provide information. Classroom instruction is just one medium for conveying information. The same teacher who can lecture in a classroom can also lecture on video/TV, write a book, or talk to you over lunch because you happen to be eating at the same place at the same time.

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Your inability to integrate the idea that knowledge cannot necessary simply be intuited dooms you to being very wrong most of the time, and almost always when you venture beyond the simplicities of everyday life. As far as this thread is concerned, you're the poster child for the D-K effect.

Your assumptions about my POV are based on something else besides my post. I never said anything about intuition being a conclusive filter for truth. Of course intuition plays a role in reason, as does logic, as does sincerity and clarity of mind, etc. etc. but I never said that you can just have a gut feeling about what's true and have it be right. If that was the case, all advertising would be true because it is designed to ring true intuitively. We have learned to reflexively distrust advertising for this very reason. If you think I am a person who believe you can trust advertising because it feels intuitively true, you haven't understood anything I've said about critical thinking, questioning, and rigorous reasoning.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are twisting the phrase "mathematics is a language". Part of the problem is that you don't know mathematics. It certainly isn't an anti-education phrase. If you want to understand science, you absolutely need to understand mathematics.

I started a new thread on this topic.

https://able2know.org/topic/546451-1#post-6972552

Like most if not all educated people, I am quite familiar with mathematics; but more importantly I have reflected critically on various math techniques I learned and realized how math is a language.

Simplification, for example, along with order of operations, etc. are good grammar and stylistic editing techniques that make expressions easier to read and evaluate in the same way that simplifying complex rhetoric into a more elegant form does.

It doesn't take that much review of mathematical claims being posted around the internet to see examples of how people use complex math to BS others. You yourself were ready to use math to trick me into thinking that 2+2 can equal something besides 4.

Are you familiar with the conflict between Sophism and Socratic philosophy? Sophism is more interested in using rhetoric artfully as a means of generating any conclusion that's desired, while Socrates was against such manipulative use of logic/rhetoric and had a truth ethic.

Math is a tool that can also be used for sophistry or honest representation. You have to realize, though, that part of sophistry involves insisting that math can't lie, because that is exactly how you get people to trust the BS you are feeding them by putting it mathematical terms.

Tricking people into putting aside their critical sensibilities to accept and trust whatever they're reading/hearing is the tactic of the magician/rhetorician; so if you can do some fancy math that the reader either can't or doesn't feel like examining critically, you can intimidate them into accepting your claim.

Basically, if they don't want to admit they don't understand the math, but they're afraid they'll look stupid if they admit they don't understand it, they will just pretend it makes sense and go along with whatever you're claiming in order to save face.

That is abuse of math to garner social cooperation in propagating BS.

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@livinglava,

You are closed minded.

You are saying that you are going to believe what you believe and no one can teach you anything (not even the TV). There is nothing I can do about that. You are hostile to anyone who tries to teach you anything new.

Your posts are brilliant as examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I must say, they are quite appropriate on this thread.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are closed minded.

You are saying that you are going to believe what you believe and no one can teach you anything (not even the TV). There is nothing I can do about that.

I will say that this is a thread about the Dunning-Kruger effect. Your posts are brilliant as examples of this effect.

'Closed-minded' is too broad a term. I listen to what people claim/explain, but I don't do so without thinking critically, or at least I try to not accept things uncritically, though I'm not perfect so I'm sure many things slip through my critical filter.

I think what you want is to play magic tricks with peoples' minds by goading them into being 'open-minded' enough to let you pass through their critical filters.

2+2=4 because you can count 1,2 and then count two more, i.e. 3,4; and the two sets of counting two numbers goes up to four. In other words, addition is subsequent counting along a number line. Likewise, you can multiply by adding the same number as many times as the multiplier specifies (e.g. 5X4 = 5+5+5+5). Then you can do the subsequent counting to check your answer.

If you try to convince me of some 'alternative math' that 'proves' 5X4=25 or some other divergent answer, I should not be open-minded enough to accept your BS uncritically, but I also shouldn't be so closed-minded that I am unable to critically review your BS and figure out where it is wrong.

Now, does that mean you should waste my time with BS to see if I can detect falsity? No, you should try to make truth claims and not work at intentionally tricking people and/or manipulating them into wasting time with BS.

When you go off on these tangents about 'closed-mindedness' being proof of stupidity, though, you're just deviating a long way from good reasoning. You should back away from trying to assess informational claims by evaluating the person making the claims.

A lie is a lie not because it is told by a liar, but rather a liar is a liar because a person intentionally lies. In short, the lie is what makes the person a liar and not vice versa. You are putting the cart before the horse when you keep insisting that there is some other basis for information being true besides evaluating the information itself directly.

BS works precisely because good credentials are assumed to lend authenticity to false claims.

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@livinglava,

When is the last time you have learned something from another human being, or expanded your mind, or open your mind to a new idea from someone else.

You seem to be extraordinarily resistant to any new ideas, even hostile.

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@livinglava,

If you took math classes from expert mathematicians, after you reach a certain level, they are going to introduce you to new vector spaces.

This math is interesting, and it is useful... I am paid well to work on machine learning, and we use vector spaces.

If you are stuck on 2 + 2 = 4, you will never be able to learn more advanced mathematics.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

When is the last time you have learned something from another human being, or expanded your mind, or open your mind to a new idea from someone else.

You seem to be extraordinarily resistant to any new ideas, even hostile.

I'm hostile toward BS, manipulation, and other attitudes that fail to exhibit right values.

When you and Farmerman put the social/institutional contexts of academia and other social-economic institutions over truth as an inherent aspect of information, it is disingenuous and supports the abuse of truth-semblance in the service of other interests besides truth.

Pretending like academic training, peer-review, etc. are all sufficient to guarantee truth is a recipe for protecting lies from critical scrutiny.

You treat critical thinking and independent reason like enemies when they are the most important companion anyone can and should have in academia, corporate life, politics, religion, or whatever other social institutional context they are dealing with.

You should never expect people to submit to authority against their better judgment, or expect them to put aside critical questioning in favor of just accepting what authority says because of credentials/status/etc.

Freedom of speech/religion etc. are enshrined in the constitution for a reason, and the reason is to protect individuals against authoritarianism. When individuals fail to take the responsibility to question and pursue independent submission to reason instead of submitting to unquestioned external authority, whether in academia or elsewhere, they are supporting authoritarian culture.

Should I not be hostile toward authoritarian culture? Should people just make peace with authoritarianism and accept it, iyo?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

If you took math classes from expert mathematicians, after you reach a certain level, they are going to introduce you to new vector spaces.

This math is interesting, and it is useful... I am paid well to work on machine learning, and we use vector spaces.

If you are stuck on 2 + 2 = 4, you will never be able to learn more advanced mathematics.

If I want to discuss mathematics, I will participate in threads about mathematics.

If you want to discuss mathematics, start some threads on math topics and see if you can get some people to participate.

Don't make everything else about mathematics, though. Science is more than just a justification for doing math.

Math is a tool for analysis and reasoning but it isn't and shouldn't be taken as the ultimate language for understanding physical mechanics or anything else; and it most certainly shouldn't be assumed to be superior to other languages, because it is just as susceptible to logical fallacies or even more so, because of representational incompatibility between various quantitative assumptions and reality.

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@livinglava,

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When you and Farmerman put the social/institutional contexts of academia and other social-economic institutions over truth

Dregged that riout of your copious ass ?? YOU were the one that stated that you dont need degrees to know that 2+2=4. Max and I both agreed .

I stated that when we hire folks as EXPERTS. we assume that skills learned in grade school (like addition and subtractions) arent dwelt upon a skills but as given abilities necessary for daily life, not ability to be a chemist, physicist or biologist.

Max stated quite clearly that expertise is an earned series of skills in a field, its not something that you get through reading websites.

So far, most of your bleatings that touched in my field have started off by you getting them totally as a load of crap. It wasnt till you slowly started to circle around and claim that youve been asserting what I said all along.

I dislike your mendacity , its easily seen through.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Quote:

When you and Farmerman put the social/institutional contexts of academia and other social-economic institutions over truth
Dregged that riout of your copious ass ?? YOU were the one that stated that you dont need degrees to know that 2+2=4. Max and I both agreed .

That was an example to illustrate that truth stands independently of social context.

I could have also said 2+2 would still equal 4 if there weren't a being alive in the universe with the capacity to count.

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I stated that when we hire folks as EXPERTS. we assume that skills learned in grade school (like addition and subtractions) arent dwelt upon a skills but as given abilities necessary for daily life, not ability to be a chemist, physicist or biologist.

These are social-institutional issues. They don't affect what is true and what isn't.

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Max stated quite clearly that expertise is an earned series of skills in a field, its not something that you get through reading websites.

If read 2+2=4 on a website that says the moon is made of cheese, 2+2=4 is still true.

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So far, most of your bleatings that touched in my field have started off by you getting them totally as a load of crap. It wasnt till you slowly started to circle around and claim that youve been asserting what I said all along.

Why can't you just acknowledge that I am right that truth is true independent of social/institutional context?

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I dislike your mendacity , its easily seen through.

Your opinion is irrelevant to my true claim that truth is true independent of social-institutional contingencies.

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@livinglava,

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These are social-institutional issues. They don't affect what is true and what isn't.

More caeser salad from Ll. "Institutions" have ruls of order and codes of ethics. You seem to avoid such considerations. Not that "Institutions" dont have ethical problems, but they do seek to correct them . What have you got to say on your behalf.
When it comes to a handshake or a contract---Ill take the contract

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That was an example to illustrate that truth stands independently of social context.

Do you carry one of those little Erwin Correy phrase maker books that create seemingly rational phrases that are comedic bullshit? PS, we really arent discussing TRUTH, were discussing FACTS and EXPERTISE

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@livinglava,

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Your opinion is irrelevant to my true claim that truth is true independent of social-institutional contingencies.

Or said another way
"I deny your statement and assert that my truth is truly true."

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The Dunning-Kruger effect, sound like someone you know?

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