If a jury believes an innocent person is guilty does that make that person guilty? I would have asked her that. And if that person is her, will she accept that decision.
@@HarryNicNicholas Thing is that asserting such a possibility would at best be a vacuous assertion, even if it were the case that for every item (i) in the set of things we have no good reason to conclude a possible there is some phenomena (p) that would make the statement i is possible as a result of p for all cases this would still be a baseless assertion to make now and does nothing to help us confirm any such speculations. New lines of scientific enquiry need a foundation even if that foundation will initially be a single repeatable observation that cannot be explained by existing theories but that fact is now a first piece of the puzzle which now gives you the information you need to begin to determine if there are some rudimentary nuggets of a potential hypothesis that could be pursued from the deranged wild speculation of an over-excited ape with a new toy without this we would probably just ramble on like a gibbering, mental patient ad infinitum and never get anywhere close to a testable claim and by extension, an actual hypothesis, seriously just listen to the ramblings of hairless apes that refuse to even try to find a grounding point for their ideas in actual reality this is how you end up sounding like a Flat Earther on drugs.
Anthony, I think many times people object to your questions about facts vs opinions because they confuse that with passing judgement on them or not allowing people to believe what they want. I think maybe if you made it clear you are not talking about whether a person is "allowed" to believe something, or if it's beneficial for him to believe it, but only on the question if that belief is true. So most answer to you "Yeah, people can believe whatever they want" as they don't want to force their opinions on others. I think you should make it clear you are asking about whether what they believe is "True" in the real world outside their mind, and not if it's "o.k" for them to believe it, or if it's "True" for them in their mind and view of the world. I think when you clear that up more people will be willing to admit others are "factually wrong", as opposed to "morally wrong".
very good point. i've said elsewhere that i'd approach SE from the point of view that "let's team up and try to work out the truth of the matter, together"
Julie is struggling mightily to justify her open-ended philosophy but fails miserably. She accepts the basic principles of logic but is willing to put those aside just because she doesn't think she should criticize someone else's beliefs. This could be a perfect example of Liberalism taken to the extreme. Willing to accept the ridiculous ideas of others just because "everyone is entitled to their own opinion or belief or cultural practice". Very true but everyone is not entitled to their own facts.
I don't think she's confused, I think she is trying to say there is both and they are equally valid which Anthony does a good job pointing out that they aren't. It's just a bit odd that she seems proud of declaring she's pragmatic and then goes on to prove how impractical she really is.
Is less about being "pragmatic" and more about appearing enlightened. How many times did we hear her say she was a researcher? She's trying to make the case that she's a learned person, which she most likely is, but knowing a lot isn't the same as knowing how to self-correct when your wrong. One just takes time but the other is a really humbling practice to get comfortable at--especially to a complete stranger you've already aggrandized yourself to. So she was basically caught between rationality and some personal ego, which I think clouded her vision while she was on the spot. It was actually interesting watching those two aspects struggle in some of her answers, but overall I think she's got all the mindset of a rational thinker, but just lacks the concrete tools that come with logic. If Julie sees these comments, I hope she'll see that she'll look at other SE videos. There's a line of questing Ant uses I like that goes basically, "While we would agree that anyone has a right to believe whatever they want, what I'm more concerned about is the method they used to arrive to that belief was reliable." This puts less pressure on the belief and more focus on the rationale. I think Julie's main hiccup was confusing the validity of a belief with the liberal right to bear the belief. Given time to think it over, and maybe just a helpful explanation, I don't think she'd make the same conclusions.
You right-wingers never fail to insert politics into any discussion. The GOP is the tool of Russian Intelligence, so you and your entire party are funded by the Russian government. If our country can still be saved, it will be liberals who save it.
If you're referring to my comment then you're not very bright. I am anti-right but I'm also anti-regressive left. And it's the bleeding heart liberals that have allowed for the most destructive ideas in this world to flourish...like religion. So, do us all a favor and don't attempt to save the country, just start paying attention to the real threats like ignorance....that is if you can get past your own.
I honestly don't know how people do things like she did at 5:30-6:30. She very clearly identifies that someone's thought on a subject can be mistaken when its about mints, but when you ask about a god, suddenly "whatever you think is true." How can both of these thoughts co-exist in the same mind and never have the person thinking them do anything to reconcile them?
Wow, she doubled back to talk to you. That's great! Julie's one of the sharpest people you've talked to so far. I really enjoyed your conversation together. She passed your Tic Tac test, but then seemed to fail later. However, after seeing the entire video I think there may have been some miscommunication about facts vs beliefs. Julie is a very nice person.
Great questions regarding “truth is relative.” One of the questions I wanted to ask her would be “If something is unknown to us, does that mean there is no fact of the matter yet?”
Can you see Anthony?Can you hear Anthony?Can you feel Anthony? Prove it. Can you smell what's around you? Prove it Anthony.You can't prove anything to yourself unless you find something to contrast it. So trying to prove other people's beliefs is neurologically impossible without faith.Faith isn't good or bad.Faith is a bridge constructed for the mind to achieve more knowledge.
Great talk Julie and Anthony. She reminded me of myself years ago that when religions concerned I held different standards to what people believe is true or not as opposed to physical things. I had about the same attitude as Julie stating it.
"It's the classic chicken and the egg, which came first?" The egg. Demonstrably true. This perceived paradox has been solved for a very long time. It's amazing how many people still use this as an example of some unknowable thing.
Great chat Thought I was going to hear about some stiff ideology turns very open minded in places Nice interlocutor! Came back after seeing on the way in, then held off leaving to get a chance to talk.... She wanted to talk These are good things! Thanks Julie Thanks Anthony
Yeah, agreed. Something about the label pleases her and she has identified with that something, whatever that is, rather than examine the meaning of the word. It is a bit like people who identify with their astrological sign and then shape their perception of themselves to fit that sign.
Her saying that God is not a yes or no question, is an example of a major problem we have especially in the US. We have raised "Faith" and "Tolerance of another's Faith" to these levels of not being able to question it that we no longer look at the question from a scientific view. We accept "Personal Truth" to be truth, and that is just not a way to get to knowledge.
Hmm, there is a shift with Julie during the conversation where she appears to "only accept the facts" and then changes to more of a "there is/maybe nature and supernatural" talk. Interesting talk with a hybrid breed of skeptical supernatural female.
I never understood how different it is having SE dialogue in person than over the phone or online. After watching you on the AXP these last two times I can see now why you hold that position haha.
I heard that about 60% of communication is body language, and I believe it. 30% is how you talk, and 10% what you're actually saying. You miss out on a huge chunk of that when talking over the phone.
Not only that, but just like how Anthony points out the issues with attempting to talk with two people at once, it seems to be just as problematic (if not more) with two hosts (offering different approaches). It's a process, and every time Anthony would start the process with a caller, Traci would chime in and shift the conversation toward a more standard discussion style. Then Anthony would attempt to pick up where he left off before, which would require going back to where the topic was, or adapting his questions to where it ended up. And the call times are only so long, so that they can fit more callers in; he never got to follow through. It seems like each approach just made the other less effective.
Yes Anthony should of had certain calls to himself and then for some others they should of shared, but with the shared conversations Anthony could of just had a more conventional style of conversation since it would be nice to see that and he could help out Traci, who I do love indeedies. The method could certainly work over the phone.. it's just that the forum wasn't the best with the hosts and getting through calls.
She literally gave the same answer as the people saying there could both be an, odd number and an even number at the same time but in reference to Gods. Amazing.
To a lot of people it sometimes is a challenge to make that special pleading fence visible for them. That nasty dirty little word 'faith' has made it perfectly acceptable to just jump over than fence to your hearts content, just as long as you sustain a particular belief.
At 11:50 I would have asked, "is the number of grains of sand on a beach a finite number" assuming shes says yes I would have said "does our current inability to know whether it was an odd or even number of grains of sand make it any less of a finite number?"
Here's the point of the video in a nutshell: there's no good substitute for being taught critical thinking skills. And that's currently the most reliable way that we have to determine the validity of claims, and just knowing that isn't enough--it has to be practiced. You can be an ardent theist, a researcher--or the president. No matter who you are, critical thinking, like playing the guitar, is something that needs to be grasped and honed a skill (and it's never too late to start!). Or else you end up in the same state as Julie, who's a very open and well-educated person, a pragmatist, and thoughtful individual, who lacks the explicit technical skills needed to parse true beliefs from not true beliefs.
Until the number of mints are counted, there are both an even and an odd number in the case of mints. Like Schrödinger's cat, a cat is in a box with a flask of poison that is crushed when a Geiger counter detects radiation, at some point in time the cat is both dead and alive, which can only be determined by observation.
Has natural selection selected for some human brains with "modules" that are VERY cautious about criticizing the beliefs of other human brains? As long as those other beliefs "cause no harm", those modules would increase in-group cohesiveness, right? They would also enable an "outsider" to be more likely to join a group, further increasing the group's power. Because of the physical strength differences between the sexes, I also wonder if these modules would be more likely to be found in female brains, when compared with male brains(?) Thanks, Anthony, for showing us a very skilled example of SE.
One point you could have worked on is. Does our current ability to test a claim directly relate to how flexible the truth of that claim is. I.e. the more we can test a claim, the more likely we are to say there is an objective truth about it. The same applies to people's willingness to lie or cheat. If there is no way you can prove I am lying then I feel less guilt.
Not my favorite talk. I don't know if I've seen someone claim to be fact based while demonstrating so strongly that they aren't. Either that or she is a terrible communicator. I leave the slight possibility that she thinks certain things are unknowable but communicated this poorly.
I'm not in favor of losing the removable batteries either, because along with not being able to just carry more batteries the battery quality degrades over time. That being said, you can always get power banks to run your devices on.
It amazes me how people can be so perfectly happy and contented in life when they have such a tangle of noodle soup inside their minds. I know that I must hold some false beliefs or at least some faulty notions, but the thoughts which I ground my world-conception upon are the ones which I have scrutinized over and over and over. The notions which I haven't repeatedly scoured for inconsistencies, and the ones which I have failed to reconcile, are the ones which I have consigned to the fuzzy edges of my mind in boxes labelled "not sure".
Julie didn't seem to grasp the difference between facts, and our ability to know those facts. Additionally, when you asked her if it was reasonable for people to hold certain positions, she answered it as a question about freedom of choice, rather than as a question about the positions being logically justified.
I have run into people like this, they are largely grounded and pride themselves on discovering truth, but certain elements of this universe are so intangible they do not feel comfortable making assertions regarding truth. Relativism permeates our culture and stigmatizes any attempts at questioning people's beliefs, so as soon as demonstrable numbers go away one is left with someone like Julie. She is trying to be open minded and highly accepting, but to us it seems frustrating because: whether a god exists or even or odd number of tic-tacs is an identical question, one simply is easier to verify.
There was a lot of talking about people in the third person, so after a lot of polite vague banter beating around the bush I don't think Julie was willing to share a personally held belief.
Good insight, Paul C. She has this fear of being called out on an assertion or belief and being embarrassed, so she tentatively mentions vague opinions that she can back away from if challenged. "Is the sky blue?" Julie: "Well, some believe it is but others aren't so sure" "Julie, are you human?" Julie: "Well, it depends on how you define human."
Not sure if you've covered this in another video but: How would you approach someone with a belief which is not necessarily supernatural but in that persons mind is based entirely on "evidence"? e.g. free-energy machines, flat-earthers, homeopathy.. etc. Awesome videos by the way.
She's open minded to the extent she contradicts herself. Two people can not hold differing views about God's existence and they both be right. He either does or does not. As our current knowledge sits we literally don't know buts it's a fair assessment to say that the biblical or quranical god does not because of the falsified claims in those books.
There is no separation between chicken/bird and egg,they are one unitive process created by a past evolution where birds (egg layers) evolved from perhaps more "primitive"ancestry that led to the evolved function of birds that lay hard shelled eggs to protect the embryo.
Huh, there are circumstances in which what a person believes can make it true. Like the placebo effect. They have found that a placebo can have similar effects of actual medications. It of course can not cure anything long term, but it CAN have temporary similar effects. That fascinates me. Julie's comment reminded me of that. This was an excellent conversation. As always, great job Anthony. Your jury/courtroom analogy would have worked very well in that instance.
Cookie Nibz I was going to comment on her saying that. This seems to be a mistake. What the placebo effect shows is that the brain can act to alter biological activity in ways that we don't entirely understand currently. Whether it simply shuts off the sensation of pain, or actually works to remove an ailment, this is just a poorly understood process. However, that is distinct from the concept of something being TRUE or not, based on belief. Mental motivation seems to play some role in working to heal an ailment, but the brain is part of the biological system. That's not the same as saying a god exists if you believe it does, or does not if you believe one does not. Likewise, it's not the same as saying there are an odd number of tic tacs if you believe there are, or an even number if you believe that.
It's interesting how people some people seem to think that the supernatural realm operates on a different set of rules than the physical world since its existence can't be proven. It makes sense that she values fairness and not worrying about things that she has no control over and may not be her business. She has a strong sense of boundaries. Cool.
So she's a researcher. I wonder if it would have been helpful to ground the discussion in her own field. Like if she's a biologist, whether mammals give birth to living offspring, or if she's a chemist, whether hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table, or something like that. Maybe it would have been easier for her to see the difference between opinion and fact when it's framed in a setting that she does almost daily?
0:57 Researcher, research thyself. 2:56 Julie defines herself as, "extremely pragmatic." Less than 20 seconds later she's revealing her self-deception. 3:12 What does Julie mean when she says she's "very earth based"? 6:12 Define "heaven". 6:21 In order to increase the clarity during a Street Epistemology session, it is necessary for the interlocutor to define what they mean by "Deity" and "God". 6:39 If personal opinion carries relevance in truth claims, empirical evidence would be reduced to having limited importance. 7:16 The first "aha moment". I had hoped there would be more. 8:01 The placebo effect in medicine that Julie references is much more intricate and unpredictable than she presents it. 11:36 "It can't be demonstrated to be true or false." In such cases, the preponderance on the evidence is heavily relied upon. 12:26 I fail to see the correlation between permitting another person the freedom to express themselves and Julie's (purported) pragmatism. 13:49 Julie never answers the SE facilitator's question. 17:41 Julie sidesteps providing detailed metaphysical based claims during her "power of nature" spiel. She speaks in generalities, never indicating what specific mystical or supernatural power that nature has on humans. Later in the SE session Julie attempts to straddle the epistemological fence. Julie attempts to legitimize her subjective opinion. She recites the woo-woo, "...all of them are true because people's beliefs should be centered inside" and "a mental and physical re-centering". She switches to the other side of the fence when she claims she's interested in "just the facts". I found much of Julie's testimony to be self-contradicting and convoluted.
A statement is true if it accurately describes reality. A person can make a statement they believe to be true, and that would make it an "honest" statement. Honest statements are not always true. Saying, "I believe there are 9 socks in the top drawer" does not make it true.
basically Julie is saying that gods are made up in your mind and if you believe to be real them it is real in your mind. very interesting interview. I completely understand her position. but you hit on part of her flaw. my question would be, if a person believes in a god and another person disbelieves that same god does those beliefs cancel each other out? also avoid using words like shit.
Cancel out? Someone who believes something unfalsifiable is always as justified in their belief as someone else who believes something unfalsifiqble. And the null hypothesis of no position is the most valid, but when our existence is defined by ignorance, it seems limiting to operate on the null hypothesis for all unknowns. Like I am an atheist who recognizes that my position that no god exists is as much of a leap of faith as believing that a god exists.
you get to talk with some amazing people , not sure if it would work around here, if I tried asking friends or locals about beliefs it would ugly right away. People who know I am a Atheist will automatically say 'well your a unbeliever conversation over '
She is trying to create a *diplomatic* solution to any opinion or belief. But she is not *pragmatic* at all. She's actually the complete opposite. _"We just don't know, so we might as well accept everything"_ ... is both dangerous and haphazard
Always Great videos. at the start you mentioned the camera battery life problem.The solution for GoPro 4 external power lead connect to a 15000ma battery in your pocket lasts all day no problemJust remove the existing battery. I have three for hanggliding a 15000ma runs all three all day .I connect to the smart phone with GoPro app all cameras on standby switch on /off record any time and watch footage back immediately I normally plug the phone into the same battery as the wifi connection to the cameras drains the phone battery. Hope this helps No more battery changes!!!
Hi pretty good job there Anthony but I have to notice for the last couple years you always have to do the Tic Tac otter even forget the people to say you know it either something is true or false and they always say people can have their own trues but what they're really saying if people can have their own reality
2:00 two things before i find i'm wrong, body language and tone of voice, a) on the defensive b) pretty self-assured (stubborn). okay, proceed. 17:30 oh well. but i bet if you pressed her...
I know many. I work with a DOE scientist who disregards climate change and another that believes in interdimensional aliens. Being smart just gives some people better tools to cloud their own judgement.
Tyrone Wells Hi Tyrone. You make an interesting point about using intelligence to over-rationalize irrational beliefs. It seems this behavior (over-rationalizing) is largely motivated by a sense of respect and fear of giving offense. I hate to say it, but it does seem like political correctness run amok.
Yes, many conspiracy theorists.. or other strange beliefs.. smart people often fall for things because they are smarter at coming up with rationalisations for bad ideas. Not saying this is the lady in the video per se.
Aron Ra recently interviewed an academic with theistic beliefs: th-cam.com/video/8wpC91zR8ek/w-d-xo.html (TLDR: randomness = hand of the Christian deity, "too much" consistency with evidence = conspiracy theory = untrustworthy, love = Truth) It is perplexing to see people, especially smart people, who claim that they are not using a known fallacy (eg god of the gaps) while presenting an argument that is a textbook example of the fallacy. For all their brain power, they seem unable to see a problem that is quite obvious from an external point of view. If even smart people can fall prey to their biases, is there anything that I can do to avoid the same fate? When I see that they are making a mistake, is it possible that I am actually deceiving myself? I find this frightening...
Great comment. I think the difference if how open to new information we are.. that's a separate category from how smart one is.. it's a quality or trait. If you are always mindful of that, or that's just the way you naturally operate.. then you're unlikely to fall for that kind of stuff. Which doesn't mean you will always be right in a situation due to plenty of reasons.. but you won't be using fallacies at least.. and more likely to admit potential holes in you argument, like ignorance on a part of the topic for example or that it's a subjective opinion. We all have biases of course.. and that is okay.. it's just if you're using fallacies or poor reasoning and not being honest or open to perspectives and having your mind changed, even a small bit. Not entirely sure if this comment is as accurate to what you were saying as it could be.. I kind of started typing without thinking too much lol. Edit: Ended up watching the whole thing.. I do like AronRa. It was an odd but interestingly perplexing conversation.
Opinions are value based. You can't have an opinion that "there is no God". Stating "There is no God" (whether true or false), is a statement of fact. To make an opinion, you would have to say something like, "I don't like God" or "I don't want to believe in a God".
I don’t think “does God exist” is the same kind of question as “is the number of tic tacs either even or odd”. God isn’t the same kind of thing as a physical object or fact. It’s a way of seeing the world. It’s like asking whether someone likes poetry or musicals, it’s pretty much a matter of taste and a way of looking at the world. It’s like a paradigm. A paradigm can be proven “wrong” in the sense that it doesn’t actually help you interpret the world in a useful way, but a paradigm can’t be “right” because we all know it’s a paradigm (or a model). It can be USEFUL, like Euclidean geometry or classical mechanics, but that doesn’t mean it’s “true” in the way that “the number of tic tacs is some positive integer” is true.
Care should be taken when explaining the candies truth test. "Would you agree that there is an even or odd total number of whole pieces of candy in the box?".
If a jury believes an innocent person is guilty does that make that person guilty? I would have asked her that. And if that person is her, will she accept that decision.
"Anything is possible."
Wrong!
possibly, peer review?
@@HarryNicNicholas Thing is that asserting such a possibility would at best be a vacuous assertion, even if it were the case that for every item (i) in the set of things we have no good reason to conclude a possible there is some phenomena (p) that would make the statement i is possible as a result of p for all cases this would still be a baseless assertion to make now and does nothing to help us confirm any such speculations. New lines of scientific enquiry need a foundation even if that foundation will initially be a single repeatable observation that cannot be explained by existing theories but that fact is now a first piece of the puzzle which now gives you the information you need to begin to determine if there are some rudimentary nuggets of a potential hypothesis that could be pursued from the deranged wild speculation of an over-excited ape with a new toy without this we would probably just ramble on like a gibbering, mental patient ad infinitum and never get anywhere close to a testable claim and by extension, an actual hypothesis, seriously just listen to the ramblings of hairless apes that refuse to even try to find a grounding point for their ideas in actual reality this is how you end up sounding like a Flat Earther on drugs.
Anthony, I think many times people object to your questions about facts vs opinions because they confuse that with passing judgement on them or not allowing people to believe what they want.
I think maybe if you made it clear you are not talking about whether a person is "allowed" to believe something, or if it's beneficial for him to believe it, but only on the question if that belief is true.
So most answer to you "Yeah, people can believe whatever they want" as they don't want to force their opinions on others. I think you should make it clear you are asking about whether what they believe is "True" in the real world outside their mind, and not if it's "o.k" for them to believe it, or if it's "True" for them in their mind and view of the world.
I think when you clear that up more people will be willing to admit others are "factually wrong", as opposed to "morally wrong".
very good point. i've said elsewhere that i'd approach SE from the point of view that "let's team up and try to work out the truth of the matter, together"
@@HarryNicNicholas Truth is a hard taskmaster/it cannot be changed by sentimentality
Julie is struggling mightily to justify her open-ended philosophy but fails miserably.
She accepts the basic principles of logic but is willing to put those aside just because she doesn't think she should criticize someone else's beliefs.
This could be a perfect example of Liberalism taken to the extreme.
Willing to accept the ridiculous ideas of others just because "everyone is entitled to their own opinion or belief or cultural practice".
Very true but everyone is not entitled to their own facts.
She recognizes this at 10:34 though. She's just confused about objective reality vs subjective reality.
I don't think she's confused, I think she is trying to say there is both and they are equally valid which Anthony does a good job pointing out that they aren't.
It's just a bit odd that she seems proud of declaring she's pragmatic and then goes on to prove how impractical she really is.
Is less about being "pragmatic" and more about appearing enlightened. How many times did we hear her say she was a researcher? She's trying to make the case that she's a learned person, which she most likely is, but knowing a lot isn't the same as knowing how to self-correct when your wrong. One just takes time but the other is a really humbling practice to get comfortable at--especially to a complete stranger you've already aggrandized yourself to. So she was basically caught between rationality and some personal ego, which I think clouded her vision while she was on the spot. It was actually interesting watching those two aspects struggle in some of her answers, but overall I think she's got all the mindset of a rational thinker, but just lacks the concrete tools that come with logic. If Julie sees these comments, I hope she'll see that she'll look at other SE videos. There's a line of questing Ant uses I like that goes basically, "While we would agree that anyone has a right to believe whatever they want, what I'm more concerned about is the method they used to arrive to that belief was reliable." This puts less pressure on the belief and more focus on the rationale. I think Julie's main hiccup was confusing the validity of a belief with the liberal right to bear the belief. Given time to think it over, and maybe just a helpful explanation, I don't think she'd make the same conclusions.
You right-wingers never fail to insert politics into any discussion. The GOP is the tool of Russian Intelligence, so you and your entire party are funded by the Russian government. If our country can still be saved, it will be liberals who save it.
If you're referring to my comment then you're not very bright. I am anti-right but I'm also anti-regressive left. And it's the bleeding heart liberals that have allowed for the most destructive ideas in this world to flourish...like religion.
So, do us all a favor and don't attempt to save the country, just start paying attention to the real threats like ignorance....that is if you can get past your own.
I honestly don't know how people do things like she did at 5:30-6:30. She very clearly identifies that someone's thought on a subject can be mistaken when its about mints, but when you ask about a god, suddenly "whatever you think is true." How can both of these thoughts co-exist in the same mind and never have the person thinking them do anything to reconcile them?
Cognitive dissonance 🤟
i would love so much if you talked to a zen buddhist or an actual buddhist monk. that would be so amazing
Wow, she doubled back to talk to you. That's great! Julie's one of the sharpest people you've talked to so far. I really enjoyed your conversation together. She passed your Tic Tac test, but then seemed to fail later. However, after seeing the entire video I think there may have been some miscommunication about facts vs beliefs. Julie is a very nice person.
Great questions regarding “truth is relative.” One of the questions I wanted to ask her would be “If something is unknown to us, does that mean there is no fact of the matter yet?”
8:13
"The power of mind over matter."
If you lack a rational mind, reason won't matter.
Yes! Two videos in a row asking, "Do you want to believe things that are actually true?" Love it.
I think this should be a more common question in his arsenal
Can you see Anthony?Can you hear Anthony?Can you feel Anthony? Prove it. Can you smell what's around you? Prove it Anthony.You can't prove anything to yourself unless you find something to contrast it. So trying to prove other people's beliefs is neurologically impossible without faith.Faith isn't good or bad.Faith is a bridge constructed for the mind to achieve more knowledge.
Great talk Julie and Anthony.
She reminded me of myself years ago that when religions concerned I held different standards to what people believe is true or not as opposed to physical things. I had about the same attitude as Julie stating it.
"It's the classic chicken and the egg, which came first?"
The egg. Demonstrably true. This perceived paradox has been solved for a very long time. It's amazing how many people still use this as an example of some unknowable thing.
Technically yes, eggs did exist (from other creatures) before chickens existed.. but I think that misses the point lol
@@Elrog3 well if the point is to propose an unanswerable question, then they chose a poor example because this one is very easy to answer.
Great chat
Thought I was going to hear about some stiff ideology
turns very open minded in places
Nice interlocutor!
Came back after seeing on the way in, then held off leaving to get a chance to talk....
She wanted to talk
These are good things!
Thanks Julie
Thanks Anthony
I don't think she knows what pragmatism is.
My thoughts exactly
Yeah, agreed. Something about the label pleases her and she has identified with that something, whatever that is, rather than examine the meaning of the word. It is a bit like people who identify with their astrological sign and then shape their perception of themselves to fit that sign.
Her saying that God is not a yes or no question, is an example of a major problem we have especially in the US. We have raised "Faith" and "Tolerance of another's Faith" to these levels of not being able to question it that we no longer look at the question from a scientific view. We accept "Personal Truth" to be truth, and that is just not a way to get to knowledge.
Hmm, there is a shift with Julie during the conversation where she appears to "only accept the facts" and then changes to more of a "there is/maybe nature and supernatural" talk. Interesting talk with a hybrid breed of skeptical supernatural female.
I never understood how different it is having SE dialogue in person than over the phone or online. After watching you on the AXP these last two times I can see now why you hold that position haha.
I heard that about 60% of communication is body language, and I believe it. 30% is how you talk, and 10% what you're actually saying. You miss out on a huge chunk of that when talking over the phone.
What is the overall accuracy of body language?
Not only that, but just like how Anthony points out the issues with attempting to talk with two people at once, it seems to be just as problematic (if not more) with two hosts (offering different approaches). It's a process, and every time Anthony would start the process with a caller, Traci would chime in and shift the conversation toward a more standard discussion style. Then Anthony would attempt to pick up where he left off before, which would require going back to where the topic was, or adapting his questions to where it ended up. And the call times are only so long, so that they can fit more callers in; he never got to follow through. It seems like each approach just made the other less effective.
Yes Anthony should of had certain calls to himself and then for some others they should of shared, but with the shared conversations Anthony could of just had a more conventional style of conversation since it would be nice to see that and he could help out Traci, who I do love indeedies.
The method could certainly work over the phone.. it's just that the forum wasn't the best with the hosts and getting through calls.
I think the best approach here is to start by asking Julie to define pragmatic.
She literally gave the same answer as the people saying there could both be an, odd number and an even number at the same time but in reference to Gods. Amazing.
To a lot of people it sometimes is a challenge to make that special pleading fence visible for them.
That nasty dirty little word 'faith' has made it perfectly acceptable to just jump over than fence to your hearts content, just as long as you sustain a particular belief.
At 11:50 I would have asked, "is the number of grains of sand on a beach a finite number" assuming shes says yes I would have said "does our current inability to know whether it was an odd or even number of grains of sand make it any less of a finite number?"
Here's the point of the video in a nutshell: there's no good substitute for being taught critical thinking skills. And that's currently the most reliable way that we have to determine the validity of claims, and just knowing that isn't enough--it has to be practiced. You can be an ardent theist, a researcher--or the president. No matter who you are, critical thinking, like playing the guitar, is something that needs to be grasped and honed a skill (and it's never too late to start!). Or else you end up in the same state as Julie, who's a very open and well-educated person, a pragmatist, and thoughtful individual, who lacks the explicit technical skills needed to parse true beliefs from not true beliefs.
Until the number of mints are counted, there are both an even and an odd number in the case of mints. Like Schrödinger's cat, a cat is in a box with a flask of poison that is crushed when a Geiger counter detects radiation, at some point in time the cat is both dead and alive, which can only be determined by observation.
When I think he just did make a huge mistake... Next second can you show me how wrong I was... He's so amazing
Has natural selection selected for some human brains with "modules" that are VERY cautious about criticizing the beliefs of other human brains? As long as those other beliefs "cause no harm", those modules would increase in-group cohesiveness, right? They would also enable an "outsider" to be more likely to join a group, further increasing the group's power. Because of the physical strength differences between the sexes, I also wonder if these modules would be more likely to be found in female brains, when compared with male brains(?) Thanks, Anthony, for showing us a very skilled example of SE.
One point you could have worked on is. Does our current ability to test a claim directly relate to how flexible the truth of that claim is.
I.e. the more we can test a claim, the more likely we are to say there is an objective truth about it.
The same applies to people's willingness to lie or cheat. If there is no way you can prove I am lying then I feel less guilt.
Not my favorite talk. I don't know if I've seen someone claim to be fact based while demonstrating so strongly that they aren't. Either that or she is a terrible communicator. I leave the slight possibility that she thinks certain things are unknowable but communicated this poorly.
She's a bullshitter. You could see thru her and Anthony can't wait to dispatch her pronto.
I'm not in favor of losing the removable batteries either, because along with not being able to just carry more batteries the battery quality degrades over time. That being said, you can always get power banks to run your devices on.
It amazes me how people can be so perfectly happy and contented in life when they have such a tangle of noodle soup inside their minds.
I know that I must hold some false beliefs or at least some faulty notions, but the thoughts which I ground my world-conception upon are the ones which I have scrutinized over and over and over.
The notions which I haven't repeatedly scoured for inconsistencies, and the ones which I have failed to reconcile, are the ones which I have consigned to the fuzzy edges of my mind in boxes labelled "not sure".
Julie didn't seem to grasp the difference between facts, and our ability to know those facts. Additionally, when you asked her if it was reasonable for people to hold certain positions, she answered it as a question about freedom of choice, rather than as a question about the positions being logically justified.
I have run into people like this, they are largely grounded and pride themselves on discovering truth, but certain elements of this universe are so intangible they do not feel comfortable making assertions regarding truth. Relativism permeates our culture and stigmatizes any attempts at questioning people's beliefs, so as soon as demonstrable numbers go away one is left with someone like Julie. She is trying to be open minded and highly accepting, but to us it seems frustrating because: whether a god exists or even or odd number of tic-tacs is an identical question, one simply is easier to verify.
"People can believe whatever they want, I don't care. I'm very pragmatic." I don't think that's what it means to be pragmatic.
There was a lot of talking about people in the third person, so after a lot of polite vague banter beating around the bush I don't think Julie was willing to share a personally held belief.
Good insight, Paul C. She has this fear of being called out on an assertion or belief and being embarrassed, so she tentatively mentions vague opinions that she can back away from if challenged. "Is the sky blue?" Julie: "Well, some believe it is but others aren't so sure" "Julie, are you human?" Julie: "Well, it depends on how you define human."
Not sure if you've covered this in another video but: How would you approach someone with a belief which is not necessarily supernatural but in that persons mind is based entirely on "evidence"? e.g. free-energy machines, flat-earthers, homeopathy.. etc.
Awesome videos by the way.
AGB That question comes up near the end of my talk to Chicago atheist society. That video is on my channel. Thanks for watching.
not my favorite video, but 12:45 was an amazing moment as a pastafarian.
She's open minded to the extent she contradicts herself. Two people can not hold differing views about God's existence and they both be right. He either does or does not. As our current knowledge sits we literally don't know buts it's a fair assessment to say that the biblical or quranical god does not because of the falsified claims in those books.
There is no separation between chicken/bird and egg,they are one unitive process created by a past evolution where birds (egg layers) evolved from perhaps more "primitive"ancestry that led to the evolved function of birds that lay hard shelled eggs to protect the embryo.
Huh, there are circumstances in which what a person believes can make it true. Like the placebo effect. They have found that a placebo can have similar effects of actual medications. It of course can not cure anything long term, but it CAN have temporary similar effects. That fascinates me. Julie's comment reminded me of that. This was an excellent conversation. As always, great job Anthony. Your jury/courtroom analogy would have worked very well in that instance.
Cookie Nibz I was going to comment on her saying that. This seems to be a mistake. What the placebo effect shows is that the brain can act to alter biological activity in ways that we don't entirely understand currently. Whether it simply shuts off the sensation of pain, or actually works to remove an ailment, this is just a poorly understood process. However, that is distinct from the concept of something being TRUE or not, based on belief. Mental motivation seems to play some role in working to heal an ailment, but the brain is part of the biological system. That's not the same as saying a god exists if you believe it does, or does not if you believe one does not. Likewise, it's not the same as saying there are an odd number of tic tacs if you believe there are, or an even number if you believe that.
In her case, pragmatic seems to mean, the ability to tap dance through answering a question... :(
It's interesting how people some people seem to think that the supernatural realm operates on a different set of rules than the physical world since its existence can't be proven. It makes sense that she values fairness and not worrying about things that she has no control over and may not be her business. She has a strong sense of boundaries. Cool.
So she's a researcher. I wonder if it would have been helpful to ground the discussion in her own field. Like if she's a biologist, whether mammals give birth to living offspring, or if she's a chemist, whether hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table, or something like that. Maybe it would have been easier for her to see the difference between opinion and fact when it's framed in a setting that she does almost daily?
btw awesome show with Tracie
If a tree falls down in the forest and there is noone there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Xenu kept popping into my mind listening to this.
Very nice person.
Julie started so tollerantly about beliefs and then she demanded facts in the end
0:57
Researcher, research thyself.
2:56
Julie defines herself as, "extremely pragmatic." Less than 20 seconds later she's revealing her self-deception.
3:12
What does Julie mean when she says she's "very earth based"?
6:12
Define "heaven".
6:21
In order to increase the clarity during a Street Epistemology session, it is necessary for the interlocutor to define what they mean by "Deity" and "God".
6:39
If personal opinion carries relevance in truth claims, empirical evidence would be reduced to having limited importance.
7:16
The first "aha moment". I had hoped there would be more.
8:01
The placebo effect in medicine that Julie references is much more intricate and unpredictable than she presents it.
11:36
"It can't be demonstrated to be true or false."
In such cases, the preponderance on the evidence is heavily relied upon.
12:26
I fail to see the correlation between permitting another person the freedom to express themselves and Julie's (purported) pragmatism.
13:49
Julie never answers the SE facilitator's question.
17:41
Julie sidesteps providing detailed metaphysical based claims during her "power of nature" spiel. She speaks in generalities, never indicating what specific mystical or supernatural power that nature has on humans. Later in the SE session Julie attempts to straddle the epistemological fence. Julie attempts to legitimize her subjective opinion. She recites the woo-woo, "...all of them are true because people's beliefs should be centered inside" and "a mental and physical re-centering". She switches to the other side of the fence when she claims she's interested in "just the facts". I found much of Julie's testimony to be self-contradicting and convoluted.
A statement is true if it accurately describes reality. A person can make a statement they believe to be true, and that would make it an "honest" statement. Honest statements are not always true. Saying, "I believe there are 9 socks in the top drawer" does not make it true.
basically Julie is saying that gods are made up in your mind and if you believe to be real them it is real in your mind.
very interesting interview. I completely understand her position. but you hit on part of her flaw. my question would be, if a person believes in a god and another person disbelieves that same god does those beliefs cancel each other out?
also avoid using words like shit.
Cancel out? Someone who believes something unfalsifiable is always as justified in their belief as someone else who believes something unfalsifiqble. And the null hypothesis of no position is the most valid, but when our existence is defined by ignorance, it seems limiting to operate on the null hypothesis for all unknowns. Like I am an atheist who recognizes that my position that no god exists is as much of a leap of faith as believing that a god exists.
you get to talk with some amazing people , not sure if it would work around here, if I tried asking friends or locals about beliefs it would ugly right away. People who know I am a Atheist will automatically say 'well your a unbeliever conversation over '
She is trying to create a *diplomatic* solution to any opinion or belief. But she is not *pragmatic* at all. She's actually the complete opposite. _"We just don't know, so we might as well accept everything"_ ... is both dangerous and haphazard
Always Great videos. at the start you mentioned the camera battery life problem.The solution for GoPro 4 external power lead connect to a 15000ma battery in your pocket lasts all day no problemJust remove the existing battery. I have three for hanggliding a 15000ma runs all three all day .I connect to the smart phone with GoPro app all cameras on standby switch on /off record any time and watch footage back immediately I normally plug the phone into the same battery as the wifi connection to the cameras drains the phone battery. Hope this helps No more battery changes!!!
I don't think she knows what a placebo is or what it means in terms of medical research.
Hi pretty good job there Anthony but I have to notice for the last couple years you always have to do the Tic Tac otter even forget the people to say you know it either something is true or false and they always say people can have their own trues but what they're really saying if people can have their own reality
2:00 two things before i find i'm wrong, body language and tone of voice, a) on the defensive b) pretty self-assured (stubborn). okay, proceed.
17:30 oh well. but i bet if you pressed her...
That was good, I do like her.
22 isn’t objectively an even number, why should we think that?
I'm an academic. I can't tell you how many academics think this way.
I know many. I work with a DOE scientist who disregards climate change and another that believes in interdimensional aliens. Being smart just gives some people better tools to cloud their own judgement.
Tyrone Wells Hi Tyrone. You make an interesting point about using intelligence to over-rationalize irrational beliefs. It seems this behavior (over-rationalizing) is largely motivated by a sense of respect and fear of giving offense. I hate to say it, but it does seem like political correctness run amok.
Yes, many conspiracy theorists.. or other strange beliefs.. smart people often fall for things because they are smarter at coming up with rationalisations for bad ideas.
Not saying this is the lady in the video per se.
Aron Ra recently interviewed an academic with theistic beliefs: th-cam.com/video/8wpC91zR8ek/w-d-xo.html
(TLDR: randomness = hand of the Christian deity, "too much" consistency with evidence = conspiracy theory = untrustworthy, love = Truth)
It is perplexing to see people, especially smart people, who claim that they are not using a known fallacy (eg god of the gaps) while presenting an argument that is a textbook example of the fallacy. For all their brain power, they seem unable to see a problem that is quite obvious from an external point of view.
If even smart people can fall prey to their biases, is there anything that I can do to avoid the same fate? When I see that they are making a mistake, is it possible that I am actually deceiving myself? I find this frightening...
Great comment. I think the difference if how open to new information we are.. that's a separate category from how smart one is.. it's a quality or trait. If you are always mindful of that, or that's just the way you naturally operate.. then you're unlikely to fall for that kind of stuff. Which doesn't mean you will always be right in a situation due to plenty of reasons.. but you won't be using fallacies at least.. and more likely to admit potential holes in you argument, like ignorance on a part of the topic for example or that it's a subjective opinion.
We all have biases of course.. and that is okay.. it's just if you're using fallacies or poor reasoning and not being honest or open to perspectives and having your mind changed, even a small bit.
Not entirely sure if this comment is as accurate to what you were saying as it could be.. I kind of started typing without thinking too much lol.
Edit: Ended up watching the whole thing.. I do like AronRa. It was an odd but interestingly perplexing conversation.
Opinions are value based. You can't have an opinion that "there is no God". Stating "There is no God" (whether true or false), is a statement of fact. To make an opinion, you would have to say something like, "I don't like God" or "I don't want to believe in a God".
Ah. The famous scientist William Shakespeare!
Julie...compartmentalization does not suit you. You do seem pretty sharp, but...you're not as pragmatic as you seem to think you are.
Awww... I'm sad, I was hoping she'd be picking moral relativism/error theory/moral anti-realism or something like that.
Depending on definitions they may differ in just semantics.. I'd be happy to step in on behalf of nihilism :D.
I wonder if she thinks beliefs are a choice?
She seems to use beliefs, facts, and opinions interchangeably. Maybe she could get a job with the Trump administration.
You used the word "warranted" a few times. Perhaps a better term could be 'justified'.
I don’t think “does God exist” is the same kind of question as “is the number of tic tacs either even or odd”. God isn’t the same kind of thing as a physical object or fact. It’s a way of seeing the world. It’s like asking whether someone likes poetry or musicals, it’s pretty much a matter of taste and a way of looking at the world. It’s like a paradigm. A paradigm can be proven “wrong” in the sense that it doesn’t actually help you interpret the world in a useful way, but a paradigm can’t be “right” because we all know it’s a paradigm (or a model). It can be USEFUL, like Euclidean geometry or classical mechanics, but that doesn’t mean it’s “true” in the way that “the number of tic tacs is some positive integer” is true.
lol no no no no no
3:13 perfect timing right there :-D
Yeah it cracked me up 😂 now back to the interview!
3:12 big lol
I'm not sure she knows what pragmatic means
You should have grabbed hold of her separation of powers...man vs nature. My humble opinion
she's almost talking in circles
The left side of the clipboard looks like it says "BITCH" in graffiti style letters.
What if there was half a tic tac?
Care should be taken when explaining the candies truth test. "Would you agree that there is an even or odd total number of whole pieces of candy in the box?".
@@magnabosco210 Oh, I missed that you asked that. Sorry.
Painful to listen to her nonsense.
Whoa......the mental illness of spirituality.