Mindscape 61 | Quassim Cassam on Intellectual Vices and What to Do About Them

[@DeeBiobaku]

Is anybody out there?... This comment universe is cold and lonely just a few minutes after the Big Upload

[@madderhat5852]

"Cheer up, Brian....."

[@billlyons7024]

I can intuitively identify vices in other people. It's one of my virtues.

[@chrisrecord5625]

Such intuition demands reward.

[@madderhat5852]

LEAD US, PLEASE

[@MadScienceWorkshoppe]

Somehow his use of "bullshit" really raised the level here.

[@rollingrock3480]

Psychology has already covered this. Quassim keeps using the term "character traits" for some reason instead of "personality traits." Just look at The Big 5 personality traits and sub-traits. Those, combined with cognitive biases that we have or haven't learned to eliminate from our reasoning, and our education (fact base), define how we see the world. Changing your personality, or, "character traits" as Quassim calls it, is very difficult once the brain is finished developing (around age 25) and takes a concerted effort for many months or most likely years. The typical cases of "overnight" personality change (weeks to within a few months) are near death experiences, religious experiences, serving time in prison, and serving time in the military. I suppose psychedelics should get an honorable mention, but the standard personality textbooks weren't really touching that when I was studying psych. In people as absent-minded as your average conservative, we will basically have to wait for them to die in order to bring about radical political change. They are closed-minded (low score on Openness to New Experience on The Big 5), and you can come back in 500 years and they will still be sitting at the same diner in the middle of nowhere eating the same microwaved Jimmy Dean sausage patties and talking about the weather. As someone who is at the 99th percentile on Openness to New Experience (and also kind of smart), it is very difficult for me to explain how outlandishly ignorant the average conservative looks. What are you supposed to do with a 50 year-old man at the bar doing Asian *squinty eyes* with his fingers and reciting the name of the local Chinese place in an exaggerated Chinese accent? Like, literally what the fuck do you do with that?

[@rollingrock3480]

Average conservative = average Fox News viewer.

[@deaconcouric5037]

This should be, and in time probably will, a lot bigger.

[@chrisrecord5625]

Previously, there was a link on the KZbin podcast that allowed you to go quickly to the transcript, etc. It does not appear on episode 61 landing site. I hope that's not intentional.

[@seancarroll]

Oops! My mistake, hopefully not caused by an intellectual vice.

[@chrisrecord5625]

@@seancarroll Whew! I get much out of the transcripts. Publish an ebook with the first fifty podcasts transcripts, etc., a little subsequent commentary and what you add on the home site and I'll buy it.

[@DrDress]

A treat for the ears 53:04: An intellectual dry British accent saying "bullshit" as if it is a philosophical term.

[@billhowes5871]

Do you find that "People" around you are often wrong? Me too. Let's listen in on Sean, shall we? If he's wrong about anything then, it all adds up. Doesn't it.

[@alankoslowski9473]

He states there are some things that are highly probably true (gravity), some things that aren't clear either way (multiverse), and other things that are almost certainly false (afterlife). That's how science works. In this discussion he states he's uncertain about whether there's a precise formula for determining the best course of action in some situations.

[@woody7652]

I got something wrong once, never again.

[@madderhat5852]

I like your chutzpah : )

[@j3orbit761]

Masoltof

[@DAVIDPETERS12C]

What happens to the unfortunate PhD student who finds errors in the established paradigm, as written in textbooks authored by his mentor and professor?

[@chrisrecord5625]

Please elucidate. Perhaps, you can skip the Ph.D. phase and go directly to publishing or to Sweden.

[@harrybarrat3978]

If you're a good PhD student you set up an experiment to test your new hypothesis and prove that the field is wrong. It will probably take way more than one experiment to form a theory, probably more than one PhD.

[@chrisrecord5625]

@@harrybarrat3978 I am guessing we are talking much more than a "good" Ph.D. student, or the number of established paradigms isn't truly extant. Brother can you paradigm?

[@harrybarrat3978]

@@chrisrecord5625 I don't understand what your saying, can you elaborate?

[@chrisrecord5625]

@@harrybarrat3978 I would refer you to Thomas Kuhn's, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (1962 but updated in 2012).

[@myothersoul1953]

40:00 How many minutes you should stay at any drinking party follows this law: minutes =( n at the party/oz of alcohol) * gama.

[@websurfer352]

We are all close minded to a certain extent, we all espouse a world view built on some invariant framework, a cornerstone on which an edifice is built and aligned to. Take modern spacetime physics, the whole relativistic world view is built in the invariance of the speed of light!! Changes to such invariants means a shift in the whole model. An invariant is necessary to build a framework to house a paradigm, but to not be open to other “possible” ways to see things and to discount them outright is close mindedness!! To give everything the benefit of the doubt and to look for ways for such to possibly work is all that is needed!! It is counterfactual analysis!!!!!!

[@chrisrecord5625]

I have little doubt that the maximum speed of light, in a vacuum, is 186,000 miles per second. Has that changed?

[@alankoslowski9473]

@@chrisrecord5625 Not as far as I know. As you probably know, speed of light does vary depending on the medium such as air or water, but it's velocity of 186,000 mps in a vacuum has been thoroughly verified.

[@madderhat5852]

After listening to this, I think I need some cake. And whiskey....

[@Jason-gt2kx]

Sean, we were told to expect more quantum mechanics guests two months ago, but only received two :(. Looking forward to your new book!

[@websurfer352]

Why the bias against being wrong?? Error is a necessity, it is often the case that we learn more from being wrong than not!!! We grow from being right and being wrong. Investors know that a down market isn’t necessarily a bad thing!!! If we dish the stigma against being wrong and instead embrace it as an opportunity to learn and grow we would reap much more from the experience!!!!!

[@not2tees]

Is Cassam suggesting that we refocus on the psychology of the arguer rather than his argument? The old ad hominem approach?

[@michaelgilday]

This chap lives in his own bubble regarding Brexit and has obviously no understanding of why people ignored the intellectual argument in favour of remaining. He is an example and prime reason why people ignored intellectual’s advice. He has no evidence to fully support his argument as we still have not left the EU.

[@SuperGnarley]

Please invite David Deutsch!

[@lennarthedlund9783]

Episode 22

[@lennarthedlund9783]

@@Human_Evolution- kzbin.info/www/bejne/aJWxqaujpbClnLM

[@lennarthedlund9783]

@@Human_Evolution- OK :)

[@chrisrecord5625]

Nuking hurricanes? Certainly, much thought went into this idea.

[@SolSystemDiplomat]

Jay K it pains me to see fellow travelers on their path of exploring the world waste their time and energy spewing NPC jargon. Be your own person.

[@SolSystemDiplomat]

Jay K Big Bang theory originated from theology. Only people who use such a broad term as “evolution,” most likely couldn’t describe the most basic concepts let alone describe the difference between convergent DNA structures masked as ancestral body plans. No one denies the climate changes. Your lack of specificity again signals your lack of education. You can joke. Evidence you aren’t left wing.

[@SolSystemDiplomat]

Jay K keep bleating your NPC nonsense. I need more quotes to tattoo on my NPC morph suit for Halloween this year. 😂

[@chrisrecord5625]

@@SolSystemDiplomat I think it is a stretch to state, as a fact, that the BB theory originated in theology. Georges Lemaitre, the Jesuit Priest, and one of the early proponents of the "primeval atom" and the BB, specifically warned Pope Pius XII not to conflate science and theology relative to the BB theory. The Greeks might have had some influence...too.

[@SolSystemDiplomat]

Jay K lmao not bad. You’re funny, I’ll give you that. But you also avoid informative conversations like the plague.

[@aaron2709]

Excellent.

[@chrisrecord5625]

Was there a stealth commercial in this, that I missed? No obvious commercial, wishful thinking? Not really, ads are okay.

[@redrowolloftnod5230]

This episode of the Mindscape podcast is inspired by Same Harris, Ben Shapiro, Dave Rubin, Jordan Peterson and the Intellectual fruitcake web.

[@leonenriquez5031]

13:47 In the episode about intellectual vices, Carroll showcases his very own intellectual vice. Thank you for the correction, Cassam: it's Knowledge, not Truth that which we all (as scientists) want and need. To presume that what we learn about nature from Physics is Truth is nothing but hubris (not that there are not true statements about the world from Physics). 22:27 I wonder how much of the overconfidence intellectual vice is something that comes more from males and the masculine gender? I hear that women usually report having less confidence than men seem to display in their hubris... Maybe we (men) should take the hint and have less confidence on our non-proven hypotheses... 26:42 "... getting to the Truth..." there he goes again. I thought we had established it: we all want to get to Knowledge that, yes, we can have a degree of certainty of its truth value. This is not a subtle difference. 32:49 I agree that it would be too open-minded to consider the ideas of Holocaust deniers. But, from his physics podcasts, Carroll seems to consider epistemic, semiotic, relativistic, etc., in sum, Knowledge-oriented-views and interpretations of quantum mechanics to be too open-minded. I would argue the opposite. To be able to integrate Truth as a virtuous concept in Physics (IMO it is vicious now), you have to "open your mind" to (a.k.a. integrate) those interpretations as complementary (balanced in reference) to purely material-oriented ("truth-getting") interpretations. 38:10 Yes! Thank you! There is still hope for you yet! ;) Not that there isn't a formula... but, is it a feeling you have that there is a formula? Can you think of a formula for that feeling? And a formula for that? Get it? 54:09 Completely agree. Bullshit tolerance is a currently flourishing intellectual vice. But, "fake news" in politics, as Yuval Harari has argued in his famous books, is as old as humanity itself. I think there is a mistake in thinking that what is new is the bullshit a. The new conditions of digital communication and information seems to be what is new. Harari's and, also, Byung-Chul Han's take on this problematic seems to me much more nuanced and adequate for this discussion. (How about Harari and/or Han's for a Mindscape?) 1:03:09 Yes. You can read Spinoza, C.S. Peirce, Whitehead, Stjernfelt; you can invite Harari, Han, Donald Hoffman and Stuart Hameroff; you can open your mind to non-deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics and not dismiss them laughing them away as non-Realist. P.S. Thank you, Sean, really enjoyed it. Will keep an eye open for my own vices.

[@robertglass1698]

OK, I've been a left voter my whole life. But I have to say that it is really disheartening to see the intellectual community try to explain the current political climate on people being wrong. Maybe try looking in the mirror and seeing what you (the establishment both in terms of wealth and knowledge) have done to this world. Maybe consider your certainty that your worldview is right as a potential vice; and that the people who vote populist can actually see how bad things have gotten. Not that they are necessarily right, but if your answer is that they are wrong--maybe you are too.

[@robertglass1698]

@Fleet Fox Exactly. But somehow when I say that too most of my family or co-workers, they think I'm just a secret racist trying to justify Trump and Boris. The establishment can't see past its own nose right now.

[@alankoslowski9473]

But both the Iraq War and Brexit are examples of obvious mistakes that could have been avoided were in not for intellectual vices. In the case of the Iraq War W and his admin arrogantly refused to consider perspectives of military experts who knew more than them. With Brexit, both politicians and much the British public refused to consider the consequences even though it was clear what they were.

[@robertglass1698]

@@alankoslowski9473 Yeah, whether he meant to or not, all of the examples were from one side. It wouldn't have been that difficult to bring up examples from both sides. Unless he was trying to give us an example of the thing he was discussing (his own intellectual vice), he failed the basic hypocrisy test.

[@alankoslowski9473]

@Fleet Fox So instead of they voted for someone who's even more of an incompetent liar (Trump) than any of the other options just because he marketed himself as anit-establishment? That makes no sense.

[@alankoslowski9473]

@@robertglass1698 That's a fair point and he should have used a comparable example from the left, but I think he was speaking extemporaneously, and the two examples he cited are recent and particularly egregious. In the last 20 years I can't think of any comparably disastrous leftist actions.

[@neptunethemystic]

Firsss... ah damn!

[@madderhat5852]

Actually, just keep saying you were first and anyone who says different is wrong ; )

[@neptunethemystic]

@@madderhat5852 Lol OK....people have become presidents with that strategy!

[@0BS9RVER]

10th