zurew

@Leo Gura I know this is a complex question, but given that we have these two variables (one is spiritual development the other is cognitive development) and lets say for the sake of simplicity that these variables can only take on two values (low or high). I wont define what I personally mean by spiritual development and cognitive development - use your personal definition for them ( you don't need to spell out your definitions , its more than enough if you can engage with the model) We can create a small model like this: Person 1) low spiritual development - low cognitive development Person 2) low spiritual development - high cognitive development Person 3) high spiritual development - low cognitive development Person 4) high spiritual development - high cognitive development Can you describe the differences between each person? Like what would be the difference between person 3 and person 4? Your answer doesn't need to be extremely precise and extensive , I just want to get a general picture of how you use these concepts.

Do you take cognitive development to necessarily entail some kind of moral development? Cant you imagine a 200 IQ systems-thinker, who is a complete psychopath and completely selfish?

Yeah I guess we would need to flesh out what we mean by "not being careful about one's rhetoric". By not being careful I would personally say not being clear about the conclusion you try to establish and you let the audience to fill the inference gap (to make inferences for themselves from the premises that you lay out). Also qualifying your statements sometimes is probably good, if you know that a good chunk of your audience is prone to misinterpret your content in a particular way. I think that certain people cant be "saved" and will misuse your content no matter what , and those people cant be persuaded - so catering to those people is definitely the wrong move. Those people will weaponize your arguments and statements no matter what. Given that those people exist, is that alone a good argument to not have public talks and debates about certain topics? Probably not, only if there is a very good argument that can demonstrate that it has much more negative effects than good effects. There are other groups though (saveable people), where doing some mitigation (that I listed above) can be more than enough to significantly lower the chance of them misinterpreting your statements . So I think it is fair to ask for that.

Yeah, I have argued extensively against the favoritism of some of these people in other threads . I have a very low opinion on Bret Weinstein because of his incredibly misleading and sometimes outright wrong takes on covid vaccines. I have low opinion on Terrence Howard (when it comes to him being a revolutionary math guy or scientist - but he is an okay actor). I have argued against Terrence Howard in other threads. With respect to Eric Weinstein - I cant engage with his ideas in depth so I cant comment on that - but my general assumption is that people probably have a good reason to reject it. I dont have a personal issue with Dave , I also have no issue with acknowledging and admitting the great effects of his work. I think his rigor is very good and a lot of people lack that. I have issue with him being dismissive of certain things , or strawmanning certain things - and those things are mostly related to philosophy and not to science.

No I dont try to claim that, my claim was specifically aimed at people who incorrectly use the "but science works though" talking point to dismiss new potential theories (this point stands even if the theory in question is garbage - the point is not about how valid the theory is, it is whether the argument that used against it makes sense or not) or they use it to dismiss any kind of criticism of science. This is why I said that suggesting a new theory doesnt entail that science wont work and making a criticism of science (for example about methods) from that doesn't necessarily follow that science wont work (since you dont attack the parts of science that gives you the ability to send a rocket to the moon). I dont have any data on how most scientists react to new potential theories or how they engage with criticism of science, so I have no comment on that.

Thats a very good faith summary of what I said. A+ level engagement right there. Once you calm down a little bit and once you are ready to engage in good faith - there are reasonable ways to reconcile disagreements. Tell me when you are ready.

I think Dave's (be careful about your rhetoric, because you will fuel pseudoscience and science denialism) argument about scientist who criticise science has some merit and it can be used as an argument in favour of not having public debates/talks about certain topics (because of the broader negative effects on the population and because people are not mature enough to engage with certain content without misinterpreting it or without being misled by it). The question comes up - whether academia gives enough space and opportunity to academics where they can provide their criticism. And the follow up question is, whether academics are incentivised to not provide criticism (inside academic settings) , because if thats the case, then its not a surprise that they will eventually air out their grievances on other platforms.

Yeah - because of the lack of rigor , there is an equivocation going on, where people use a specific meaning for the term "Absolute" and then in the next sentence suddenly "Absolute" means something completely different. I have seen this trick being used in the context of a formal argument ( premise 1: if p then q; premise 2: p Conclusion: therefore q ) where 'p' in premise 1 means something completely different than what it means in premise 2 and because of that, the conclusion doesn't actually follow (but if we only look at what phrase is used 'p' - it could seem like the argument is valid) This method of randomly switching up the meaning behind how one use a particular a phrase, makes talks and debates about spirituality and philosophy impossible or at the very least unnecessarily confusing.

1) Im saying that Dave's attitude is irrational and dogmatic and sometimes doesn't make any sense. Especially his reply video to formscapes didnt make any sense. Formscapes provided very similar arguments to what Leo provided in his Myth of science series . He created a compact video where he brought facts about the replication crisis, he also gave a comprehensive argument about physics, he provided arguments on the limitations of certain ways of thinking about science and about the philosophy of science. Dave after seeing that video sperged the fuck out of his mind , made a bunch of accusations that he couldn't substantiate and provided 0 counter arguments to the issues that were brought up about the limitations and issues with philosophy of physics (inlcuding the assumed metaphysics and including the limiations of certain methods) 2) Im also saying that the reply of "but science works though" doesn't engage with a specific type of criticism thats aimed at a more broad and more abstract things like "there havent been any significant physics breakthrough in the last 50 years ". Attacking the foundations of physics doesnt entail that you need to reject some set of laws that will make science unfunctional to the point where we wont be able to build any tech anymore. One can provide a new theory that is consistent with those more pragmatic set of laws, while also offering solutions to other challenges. (hence why I brought up the example about Newton and Einstein). And my point is that if Dave wants to reject a new theory, or if Dave wants to reply to the lack of breakthrough criticism - saying "but science works though" isn't gonna cut it, because that is completely unresponsive to those criticisms. - Btw this isn't just aimed against Dave, because other people have used the "but science works though" argument in a context where it doesn't make any sense. 3) " What exactly do you believe scientists should be doing? " I personally think they should re-examine their methods and have debates about what kind of methods they should be using and they should collectively make a deep analysis on the effectiveness of their current methods and they should find a good explanation for the replication crisis and find a good explanation for the lack of breakthroughs in physics. They should also sometimes re-examine what science is and they should re-examine the set of exact principles and justifications that they want to use differentiate between pseudo science and science. This is consistent with the proposition that 'we should re-examine our methods '. The very fact that it is more and more difficult to make breakthroughs probably give some reason to be more sensitive to some change or to make a systemic analysis of all the mistakes and failures - analysing all the instances where scientist were wrong and where their reasoning failed and where the theoretical predictions turned out to be false.

Do you think the main reason why people don't eat healthy food in general is because they cant afford it? I don't think so , but even If I grant you that premise thats going to be more of an economic issue. Sure he can do that, but Im not sure what % of the health issues that will solve - I reject the premise that the main reason why people buy toxic food is because they cant afford more healthy food.

The way I use those words that sentence doesn't make much sense. What do you mean by terms like 'reality' and 'illusion' under which saying 'Reality is a true illusion' is a coherent statement?

People make comments about prevention but most people dont give a fuck about it. Lack of prevention doesn't happen because people dont know how to do it, people know about the basic methods but they still dont do them. Making a diet and lifestyle change is compatible with the current system right now and yet people dont do it. RFK wont suddenly solve that issue.

The general reply to the phil of science issues is that but "science works though" - look (insert a bunch of examples). Yep, thats true but that often times doesn't really engage with the criticism that is made. Its a strawman, because the criticism isn't about denying the validity of certain lower level equations that are necessary for us to build certain techs , the criticism often times aimed at more abstract level problems and equations and formulas. You can send a rocket to the moon using newtonian physics and you can do the same even if you accept general relativity. You accepting the validity of general relativity wont undermine you from sending rockets to the moon, but it will give you a more precise understanding of other things. So the point is - multiple different kind of theories are comaptible with "science working".

You are engaging in a hardcore fanboying of RFK without actually checking out what evidence he provides for his claims and without evaluating how many right or wrong claims he makes. The reason why you are doing that is because you like his anti-establishment approach. But you know that you can maintain your anti-establishment stance, without any need for endorsing all the wrong and retarded RFK claims, right? Making a systemic change in the health department and destroying bad incentive structures is compatible with you acknowledgeing that RFK jr either makes a bunch of claims that he cant subtantiate or at worst he is outright wrong on a big set of things including vaccines, seed oil, AIDS, antidepressants,fluoride and the list goes on and on.

She did elaborate a little bit on it, but I think that it is a dishonest portray of science from her part. She shouldn't have characterized the method the way she did, but again, her point still stands (that she has an issue with that method and not just with the mischaracterized version of it) and there was no specific response addressing the effectiveness of that specific method (other than bringing up higgs boson as an achievement for the last 50 years and then talking about achievements that are not foundations of physics related but sub discipline related) There is no engagement with the boogeyman - which is that there is probably a big need for phil of science debates and talks. (and probably this is not just related to physics)

What ? If you reread what I wrote you can see that I say "She brought up specifically the method she has an issue with, which is guessing math" -I didn't say there that he said it. Never said anywhere the he said that guessing math is a great strategy. What I said was, that he didn't demostrate that the current methods that are used are effective or helpful for making progress on the foundations of phyiscs (which was one of her contention and that is one point that he didn't address). With respect to the comment about 'scientific methodology can't be debated '- yes thats what the implication is, because he frames it as science denialism. Really? I wonder whether I included that in my previous post (that you replied to ) or not Maybe next time read my post more carefully before you try to defend Dave with this level of passion.

He did engage with some things, but he also spent a lot of time on speculating about her motivations. No, motivations are not always relevant and this is obvious. In the context of a debate - if I say X is true, its irrelevant why I say it, whats relevant is whether X is actually true or not. You can speculate endlessly why I hold my positon, but that doesn't engage with whether my postion is true or not. I watched the video and Dave didn't engage with some of her points. So for example, she made a criticsm about theory making and that there hasn't been any progress on that in the last 50 years . Dave didnt directly address this, he pivoted to talk about sub-disciplines , and then he brought up one valid point about Higgs boson. Yes, it can be said that finding the Higgs boson was an achieviement when it comes the foundations of physics, however this doesn't reply to whether the methods that are used in physics and in theory making are effective or good or not. She brought up specifically the method that she has an issue with which is "guessing math". Where you come up with something and then after that you start to search for it (and not inversely) . She tried to point to how absurd it would be if the same principle would be used in any other field . For instance - " Biologists inventing new species and then making expeditions to find them. Chemists inventing a hidden dark sector of the periodic table. Neurologists arguing it’d be pretty if synaptic connections followed the E8 root diagram and then putting people into MRI machines to search for it." - Now Dave did respond to that point with "Physicist work within models to predict with firm empirical basis what particles ought to exist should the Standard Model be accurate." - which is a fair reply , however 1) I don't know whether that can be said in all cases 2) That doesn't reply to the fact that she has an issue with this method - which would be a philosophy of science disussion around what kind of methods should be accepted in science, and more specifically what kind of methods should be accepted in physics and used by physicist for research and for theory crafting. The idea or the implication that there is no room for philosophy of science talk in any scientific field is ridiculous. I think thats not enough evidence. I think it can be perfectly explained by the bad experience she had with academia in general. I would be surprised if she would have such a good opinion about academia after the experience she had with it. I also disagree with framing it as science denialism. Its not science denialism, its supposed to be a philosophy of science (and more specifically philosophy of physics) critique.

And - there are instances when its appropriate and there are other instances where its completely irrelevant and its just a red herring. In a fucking debate - spending 50%+ of your time on speculating about why your debate opponent hold his/her views rather than addressing the positon is problematic. Even if you can address their position I don't know whats the relevance of speculating about their motivations. In politics though thats not the case - in politics there are many cases where figuring out motivations behind actions can be incredibly relevant and important. He doesn't establishes that she is grifting , but he certainly speculates a lot about it. He didn't provide a single argument in his video that would provide a symmetry breaker between the hypothesis of 'she genuinely believes in what she says and thats why she say the things she says' vs the hypothesis of 'she is exclusively doing it for the views and she is dishonest about her real position'. What was one piece of evidence that he provided in his video that is incompatible with the hypothesis of 'she genuinely believes in what she says' ?

what does that mean?

Dave spends a lot of time on talking about rhetoric and on psychoanalysing the other person and on speculating about motivations. His video on formspaces is exceptionally bad and full of rhetoric rather than engaging with the substance. Do you have an argument for this?

If you are trying to appeal to foundational values, then I agree (1. you probably wont be debated out of your most foundational values , those things are just a given and I dont think you can consciously change those) , but If you are not talking about that, then I disagree.

@Carl-Richard Given now that you clarified what you were trying to make an argument against I largely agree with what you are saying. I also agree that generally speaking Dave's content is a problematic type of debunking and not a good type of debunking .

Cause he is bad at it

I dont see the inherent issue with debunking. If there is an idea that you think is false then you can engage in debunking and thats probably good in a lot of circumstances. In my view, debunking entails that you arent arguing against a strawman but you are arguing against ideas that the other person actually holds (and therefore debunking in my view entails the understanding of the other side's point). Of course one can engage in arguments where you argue against a strawman - but thats not an argument against debunking, thats an argument against a specific type of debunking. With respect to the issue of making one's audience more biased - 1) I don't see how thats necessarily entailed. Also there are ways to get around this for instance - by showing the weakpoints and limitations of your own argument and by showing some ways how your argument can be undermined and what kind of assumptions its built upon 2) If you are truly right , then its probably good that you audience will try to defend something that is actually true. If you want to argue something like - the reason why its inherently bad is because it creates a bad environment (almost like claming that it is a 0 sum game , where the game is about pursuing truth) - my response to that would be that its not necessarily entailed. If you do debunking in an adverserial and smug way, then yes , that will probably foster an environment where all sides become less interested in the pursuit of truth and that can be an issue. But if you do it in a non-adverserial and non-smug way then it can be helpful and good.

That doesnt follow