Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

[Sharky]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

i prefer doubt to dogma, and flexible analysis to rigid belief. certainty is comforting, i know, but unfortunately it is usually wrong.

Certainty is usually wrong? I am certain that I am typing on a keyboard. I am certain that I am alive. I am certain that I am breathing. There is very little in my world that I am uncertain about -- and for those things, I am confident in my ability to become certain if I put in enough time and effort.

2. how many neuroscience courses have you taken, sharky? how many papers have you published in relevant fields? why should we accept your view of what shapes behavior? you are welcome to whatever belief system you wish to hold, but i think you are foolish to assert its validity quite so dogmatically. i have been impressed over the years that those who know and understand the most are quite aware of the limits of their knowledge.

Arguing from authority is weak; my background should be of no import. You should only accept my view if it makes sense to you.

The things I'm saying are readily provable to anyone willing to put in the time and effort to understand them, with no reliance on authority or faith.

Oh, my view is that the questions we are discussing here have nothing to do with neuroscience. They are issues that more reasonably fall in the area of epistemology, or perhaps the subfield of psycho-epistemology: the areas of study that address how we know things.

if you want to say that what you are asserting constitutes a religion or ideology, then of course it cannot be questioned. but face it, that's what you are propounding.

What I'm doing is arguing from a certain philosophical perspective -- it's the same thing that everyone does, although not always explicitly. Perhaps I'm more confident in my beliefs than others because I've taken the time to understand them and to prove them to myself.

[Sharky]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

If your language has no word for blue, you can't say or see it.

From the link you posted:

Can we see something for which we have no word? Yes. The Greeks were able to distinguish shades of blue just as vividly as we can now, despite lacking a specific vocabulary for them.

Is then your inability to see or say blue a 'willful' act?

There are many colors that we don't have words for, yet I can both see them and describe them. There is no "inability," just a lack of desire to conceptualize -- which is a willful act.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...-guy-deutscher

The author of the article has confused cause and effect. Words and language are a reflection of concepts, not the other way around. The people he writes about who don't have words for right and left don't need those words because of their ability to determine compass directions. The words don't drive their ability to navigate; their ability to navigate drives the words.

What about the numerous example of subconscious bias I've posted? The research which shows that many people - including scientists - are influenced by their belief systems despite a clear agenda to seek the truth?

Is this also willful?

Take a step back. How do people adopt a belief system in the first place? It's not forced on them; they aren't born with it. It's a matter of choice.

So yes, I agree that a belief system can influence people. However, since the adoption of belief systems is willful, so is the resulting influence.

The problem with your dichotomy is that it is backwards: you assume that just because the optimal course wasn't taken, that the only proximate cause is lack of will - and you engage in all sorts of twisty rationalization to prove it.

I'm saying that each decision we face is subject to choice, and therefore free will.

The Calvinist doctrine of predestination has much the same dogma - and much the same responses. Only the Calvinists are buttressed by their dogma that God is omnipotent and omniscient, therefore there cannot be free will - whereas you believe choice is omnipotent and omniscient, therefore there can only be free will.

Are you denying free will? Or do you think that we are free to make some choices and not others? If the latter, which choices are we not free to make?

[jk]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

sharky, you espouse an ideology- a consistent belief system which does not admit of disproof. thus it fails popper's criterion for a scientific hypothesis. since i prefer science to ideology, and since i find ideological argument disturbing and distracting, i will cease replying.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

There are many colors that we don't have words for, yet I can both see them and describe them. There is no "inability," just a lack of desire to conceptualize -- which is a willful act.

In fact, if you deal directly with cultures that lack the same description, these people cannot in fact distinguish blue from green.

So you can say they 'see' blue, but in fact what they see is something different than what you think.

The author of the article has confused cause and effect. Words and language are a reflection of concepts, not the other way around. The people he writes about who don't have words for right and left don't need those words because of their ability to determine compass directions. The words don't drive their ability to navigate; their ability to navigate drives the words.

The author of the article seeks to illustrate a point, but the argument you use in effect assumes that concepts are identical everywhere.

In fact, this is untrue.

You again are assuming that your world view is identical to everyone else's. When I lived on Guam, there were many Guamanians who could not navigate in the street number/name sense, but could describe in great detail the landmarks of paths through the undergrowth. Clearly their concept of navigation is radically different than yours, and works better in their own context.

Take a step back. How do people adopt a belief system in the first place? It's not forced on them; they aren't born with it. It's a matter of choice.

So yes, I agree that a belief system can influence people. However, since the adoption of belief systems is willful, so is the resulting influence.

Wrong again.

You are exactly born into most of your beliefs.

The beliefs your parents have, for example, form the single largest influence on any person.

Even those who are rebels or contrarian, are oppositional to specific modes of belief, as opposed to truly original.

Or are you going to try and tell me that you were formed fully rational and educated even as a child?

It is exactly these types of bedrock belief systems which build the most insidious and pervasive biases.

I'm saying that each decision we face is subject to choice, and therefore free will.

And so, the anti-Calvinist known as the modern rationalist again exercises dogma in the face of countervailing evidence.

And again, you insist all activities are choice, when in reality most people don't even see the full menu.

Are you denying free will? Or do you think that we are free to make some choices and not others? If the latter, which choices are we not free to make?

Free will exists.

But it is far rarer and unusual than you would like to think.

The choices we fail to make can be due to fear of non-conformity. It can be due to bias. It can be due to inability to conceive. It can be due to poverty.

There are myriad reasons why choices are rarely free.

[Sharky]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

sharky, you espouse an ideology- a consistent belief system which does not admit of disproof. thus it fails popper's criterion for a scientific hypothesis. since i prefer science to ideology, and since i find ideological argument disturbing and distracting, i will cease replying.

It's curious to me that so many scientists tend to reject "ideology," while silently adapting an ideology of their own. It's also surprising since philosophical areas of study such as epistemology are so central to the work they do (really "we"; I'm a scientist too). In science, how can you ever know that you truly know something, without a solid philosophical base?

Limiting yourself to falsifiable hypotheses (Popper's criterion) strikes me as a very narrow view of science and the world. Much of what we know comes from induction, which is not falsifiable. Given that ideology, though, I can see how you prefer skepticism and uncertainty.

OK, I'm done here now, too.

(no reply required)

[vinoveri]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Free will exists.

But it is far rarer and unusual than you would like to think.

The choices we fail to make can be due to fear of non-conformity. It can be due to bias. It can be due to inability to conceive. It can be due to poverty.

There are myriad reasons why choices are rarely free.

Free will exists.

Agreed that the exercise of it is subject to bias and pressure that calls into question innate, spontaneous and unhibited volition.

But that one can control one's own will is a fundamental truth. And it is this truth that is at the core of ethics/morality, responsibility or not, even collectivism vs individualism.

I believe it was the stoic philosophers who said that the only thing that an individual has control over is what they do, i.e., their will.

To me, life would have little meaning and be a bore w/o this freedom; we would be mere cattle.

The people we remember, famous and infamous, tend to be individuals of strong wills. Socrates, Thomas More, and every other martyr; Hitler and every other tryant.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

But that one can control one's own will is a fundamental truth. And it is this truth that is at the core of ethics/morality, responsibility or not, even collectivism vs individualism.

You'll note that I've never said you cannot control your own will.

What I've said is that most people do not.

The reasons why can be physical, it can be subconscious, it can be ignorance of other choices, bias, etc etc.

If you don't have full awareness of choices as well as knowledge of the consequences of your actions, is this then free will?

Having the capability is vastly different than exercising it.

We can all run 6 minute miles in potential, but the ones who actually are able to do it are the ones who have exercised themselves towards that capability.

If we recognize these physical limitations, why then can we not recognize the mental equivalent?

[Ghent12]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

You'll note that I've never said you cannot control your own will.

What I've said is that most people do not.

The choice to "go with the flow" or to "go along to get along" is still a choice. Choosing inaction is still a choice. Making a choice in ignorance is still making a choice.

[c1ue]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

The choice to "go with the flow" or to "go along to get along" is still a choice. Choosing inaction is still a choice. Making a choice in ignorance is still making a choice.

So making a choice - even when you don't know you had a choice - is a decision?

I agree that inaction in certain circumstances is also an action, but to say that all actions or inactions are choices immediately removes the possibility that all choices are made to an individual's best interest.

The biggest criticism of any centralized government is that the government must make all decisions. This simply isn't possible - and gets worse if the government is a tyrant.

Conversely, however, it is equally impossible for an individual to make correct decisions on everything. There are simply too many to make - both long and short term.

That's why individuals look to their friends, family, trusted figures, society, etc for guidance on many issues - without actually thinking about said issues.

[cjppjc]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Free will is an illusion. If we make a decision can it be attributed to free will. If so then I'm wrong.

[EJ]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Free will is an illusion. If we make a decision can it be attributed to free will. If so then I'm wrong.

It's most interesting to consort with people from the East. In the West one might say, for example, to a spouse with whom one is arguing, "You made me so angry!" The idea makes no sense in the philosophy of my Eastern friends. They think, "I have allowed myself to react to this other person in a way that does not benefit me." The first thing you learn in acting school is that acting is not about pretending to be a character, but the art of reacting to others in the story and to the story itself in a way that is psychologically plausible. Free will is a very Western idea, as naive as the West is young. We are a collection of our emotional reactions to the outside world. It defines our inside world. An adult is self-aware, and understands how he or she is reacting in the moment and remains in control of the process. Children simply react without thinking. Most people are somewhere in between.

[Jay]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Engaging in behavior that is knowingly negative doesn't happen because of a lack of free will.

The primary cause is a willful suspension of one's consciousness; the refusal to think. It's a form of evasion; not blindness, but a refusal to see. It's not automatic, or imposed; it's a conscious choice.

The motivation is wanting to have your cake and eat it too -- to want things that are contradictory, such as smoking and health, or overeating and being skinny, etc. Since it's impossible to deny reality, people evade it instead; if they don't think about something they don't like, then they can pretend it's not real. If they do this enough, it can appear automatic (although it isn't), but that doesn't change the fact that the behavior is ultimately there by choice.

If I bang on your patella tendon and you are healthy, you will straighten your leg, whether you want to or not. A healthy newborn will turn its head towards a brushed cheek. As a conscious adult you may choose to run or seek out food. The dichotomy between reflex and volition is not as stark as you wish to make it.

[Ghent12]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

So making a choice - even when you don't know you had a choice - is a decision?

I agree that inaction in certain circumstances is also an action, but to say that all actions or inactions are choices immediately removes the possibility that all choices are made to an individual's best interest.

The biggest criticism of any centralized government is that the government must make all decisions. This simply isn't possible - and gets worse if the government is a tyrant.

Conversely, however, it is equally impossible for an individual to make correct decisions on everything. There are simply too many to make - both long and short term.

That's why individuals look to their friends, family, trusted figures, society, etc for guidance on many issues - without actually thinking about said issues.

What you say is correct, but you must be careful when equating "acting in one's own best interest" to "making a decision from one's own will." People do not necessarily will something that will be in their own best interest by any given metric ("one's own best interest" is subject to multiple criteria and varies based upon the subjectivity of the analysis). People will what they will--that is, in a general sense, people will what they want or what they perceive to be best for them utilizing their own, unique (and impressionable) decision calculus which includes all the various criteria they care to consider.

"One's own best interest" is not some universal standard, nor is it applicable to free will except as one small aspect. I think this is where the confusion comes from.

[ST]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

It's most interesting to consort with people from the East. In the West one might say, for example, to a spouse with whom one is arguing, "You made me so angry!" The idea makes no sense in the philosophy of my Eastern friends. They think, "I have allowed myself to react to this other person in a way that does not benefit me." The first thing you learn in acting school is that acting is not about pretending to be a character, but the art of reacting to others in the story and to the story itself in a way that is psychologically plausible. Free will is a very Western idea, as naive as the West is young. We are a collection of our emotional reactions to the outside world. It defines our inside world. An adult is self-aware, and understands how he or she is reacting in the moment and remains in control of the process. Children simply react without thinking. Most people are somewhere in between.

This is precisely the thing I most admired in those I met during my travels throughout China/SE Asia/Indonesia. They seem to realize that 90% of our behavior is unconscious & impulse driven, not free will driven. To control those impulses to one's benefit is to be truly in control of oneself... or at least closer to control.

[flintlock]

Re: Next Bubble or Last Hurrah? - Part I: Stocks and houses - Eric Janszen

Engaging in behavior that is knowingly negative doesn't happen because of a lack of free will.

The primary cause is a willful suspension of one's consciousness; the refusal to think. It's a form of evasion; not blindness, but a refusal to see. It's not automatic, or imposed; it's a conscious choice.

The motivation is wanting to have your cake and eat it too -- to want things that are contradictory, such as smoking and health, or overeating and being skinny, etc. Since it's impossible to deny reality, people evade it instead; if they don't think about something they don't like, then they can pretend it's not real. If they do this enough, it can appear automatic (although it isn't), but that doesn't change the fact that the behavior is ultimately there by choice.

So true. Only normally its 6 year olds acting this way, not adults. I say find out why some people won't grow up and you'll have your answer. Or at least part of it. Perhaps its too easy today not to grow up? Less consequences for your actions? Get fat, there a pill for that. Cancer from smoking? We treat that too. But we had this same type behavior in the past. Perhaps not so many though. Today its an epidemic.

I'll tell you one thing, people were a lot more serious in the past. Death was common happening, not just something that happens to old people or the very unlucky. That has a way of sobering up even the worst case of Peter Pan syndrome.