Want to learn more philosophy? Got questions? Got Ideas? Want criticism? Want to read philosophy discussions? There is now a single best place online to go: The Fallible Ideas discussion group.

http://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Business-Essentials/dp/006124189X

this book doesn't use critical thinking. it takes some evidence and tells a story to explain it and doesn't tell us how it knows that story is correct and not some other story. it doesn't consider and criticize rival explanations. it just gives selective attention, over and over, to favored explanations. why are those explanations favored? it never says.

each influence tactic it discusses it acknowledged as fallible. but there's no extensive discussion about when and why they fail. the author doesn't seek explanations about what differentiates the successes and failures, instead he simply accepts and ignores the failure rate. the "scientists" involved in the field try to argue that X causes Y by doing an experiment where X happens and Y results, with a control with no X and no Y. they don't consider the Z and W that also differed between the test group and the control. but they also don't consider what A, B or C could be added to stop it from working anymore, or what background factors D, E, and F are required to be present for the X/Y relationship to work.

generally, the book is concerned with selective positive claims and not with error, correcting error, or considering everything.

the book is also sometimes wrong, incompetent or dishonest about technical details. in one case it described a drop from 38% to 10% as impressive. but it was in circumstances where we would have expected a 2/3 drop anyway. a 2/3 drop already gets us down to 12.66% so the observed drop could easily be within the margin of error, but that isn't mentioned. there was also a straightforward reason for a greater than 2/3 drop. yet the 38% to 10% drop was simply presented as a large drop scientifically proving the point – it was treated as evidence of the author's particular story about why there would be a drop in this case.

another issue is the book doesn't try to apply what it claims we're learning. it will raise some point, e.g. that people are biased in a particular way in a particular kind of situation. then it won't go looking for what other situations that applies to. for example it talked about fraternity hazing and how people try to act consistent with their sunk costs, so if they already went through tough hazing then they try to like the group they joined. hazing is an easy target but why not consider whether the same principle can be used to criticize some less well known target? for example people with PhDs is a group with high costs to enter it, so should people with PhDs watch out for bias regarding how much they think their PhD was worth the price and how nice life in the PhD recipient group is? the book consistently doesn't go the extra mile to consider anything controversial, it keeps just discussing psychological factors to make points that are already popular.

the book has other flaws too.

This was originally posted 2003-09-16. It's not there anymore and I've decided to repost it. This story is 100% pure fiction. David had no involvement in creating or posting this. A friend of mine did help me write it.

This is a sex story. If you don't like sex, don't read it. It's also a comedy, so if you don't like comedies don't read it. Also, if any of the characters resemble real people, that's purely a coincidence, so don't sue me.

If you do like it, you might also want to read my Worst Romance Story Ever.

Physics Is Fun

by curi

Once upon a time, Elliot danced around merrily in a grassy meadow in England. He was merry because England is such a merry place. But it was a hot day and Elliot soon tired. He sat under an apple tree where it was shady. He took his shirt off for use as a headrest against the rough bark. Sweat glistened on his cut chest, and he flexed his muscles, enjoying the freedom that came with the removal of his constricting shirt. Elliot was in a pleasant place, so he sat and mused on matters philosophical.

Suddenly, an apple fell from the tree, and landed but two feet from Elliot. It broke on the ground and juice splattered onto him. But it had more effect than just making Elliot sticky. It set him thinking about gravity!

A few minutes later, Elliot set off at a run. He absolutely had to tell David his insight. Moments later, he burst into David's living room. "I've got it!" he announced.

David was wearing a Tie-Dye shirt that said "Death To Sociobiologists" in red and purple letters. Obviously he wasn't expecting any other visitors that day. His shorts were short, white, plain. Totally boring. On the upside, he'd really let lose with some thong...sandals.

David's chiseled abs made bulges in his shirt, and his painted toenails added a glimmer of fashion. He had a strong chin with a dimple, like Sparticus. And his eyes were dreamy brown, the sort to lose yourself in.

"Got what, my dear boy?" asked David, looking up from his computer.

Elliot's eyes met David's. Time seemed to slow. Usually Elliot was careful to keep his eyes downcast to avoid this awkwardness, but in his haste he had forgotten himself. Mmmm. Elliot tried not to drool.

As Elliot gazed into David's eyes, David took in the sight before him. And with a bare chest, it was some sight! David saw the bit of sticky brown apple juice. And he saw Elliot's fit figure. He saw Elliot's cute belly button, and his sexy haircut. And he saw Elliot's eyes staring into his own. David tried to focus himself.

Eventually, Elliot came to himself and stammered out some words. "I did it! I united quantum physics and general relativity into a new theory of quantum gravity!"

David was shocked to his senses. This was an impressive feat that Elliot had accomplished. Not just impressive. Earth-shattering. One of the largest breakthroughs in physics history. Or at least it would be, if Elliot was right...

As Elliot waited for David to respond, he tried to avoid eye contact, so he kept his gaze downcast. The result was that he stared directly at David's crotch. He noticed the outline of David's cock on the thin shorts, and how the leg of the shorts rode up on one side revealing extra scrumptious leg.

"That's amazing!" David finally exclaimed. "But this is no place to talk. We better make ourselves comfortable in a nice, fluffy bed."

Elliot followed David warily, but David soon explained. "Distractions reduce the creativity available for the problem at hand," David began, "because they themselves require the use of some creativity. It is best to avoid them when one wants to focus. In a bed, one maximises his comfort, and therefore his creativity. It's really the best way to think."

It was a queen-sized bed, fit for a queen. It was covered with pink sheets and a matching pink comforter. Pink was, after all, David's favorite colour. The two men grabbed feather pillows (with pink pillowcases) and laid down luxuriously. "This bed is so soft," said Elliot.

"Soft like your skin," replied David. Elliot thought for a bit and replied, "I'm not sure. It's hard to tell if my skin or the bed is softer." Elliot rubbed the sheets and his body by turns, trying to decide.

As Elliot rubbed his bare chest and arms, David mused, "You know what this reminds me of? This one time in high-school we were doing a friction experiment, to see if stone or plastic wheeled cars would go down a wooden ramp faster. It turned out the plastic wheels had less friction because they were smoother. But I guess you're not plastic, stone or wood, and neither are the sheets, so this doesn't reveal the answer to your query."

"Well, I can't decide," said Elliot. "But speaking of friction experiments, I know another one. If a dick enters an ass abruptly, there is heavy friction thus damaging the ass. But if you use lubrication, it doesn't hurt at all. Also, if the dick is sufficiently small, like in the case of Dan, that would lower the level of friction."

"You're right," said David, "that's a good point. The reason the entering abruptly has more friction, is that there are two sorts of friction, static and dynamic. No matter what speed you go, you'll get dynamic friction. But, if you overcome all the static friction at once, it will be one painful burst. If you overcome it slowly, spread out over time, the average friction level will be lower."

"Wow, I never thought of that," exclaimed Elliot. "I'm sure that new knowledge will come in handy next time I seek an anal common preference."

"Well, we didn't come here to discuss friction," David pointed out. "You were going to tell me your new theory of quantum gravity. I can't wait to hear it, I'm so stimulated."

And so it came to pass that Elliot and David lounged on fluffy pink pillows, and talked of physics. As they reclined on the queen-sized bed, they only faced one sort of distraction, so their creativity was very well nurtured. As beds are a great place for physics, and also a great place for the other sort of distraction, one couldn't help but compliment David on his ideal setting selection.

Words flowed naturally from the intellectuals, like pre-cum from an aroused cock. But after some progress, words began to flow quickly, in spurts of brilliance, just as cum spurts from an oragasming cock. Then Elliot and David reached an epiphany of understanding, and glowed happily, like the afterglow of a man who had sex.

"I think I got the thrust of your theory," said David, "but I could use some hands on learning. Got any ideas to help?"

"Let me demonstrate my theory with a quick skit," Elliot answered. "Your ass is a well known quantum gateway, so let me just apply some gravity to my dick, and penetrate the gateway, thus combining quantumness and gravity into a unified whole."

"You're such a genius," David announced. "My skits are always so dull. I'm glad you invented a more exciting version that really draws the audience into the action. It's a nice breakthrough in educational technique"

"I'll educate your ass!" shouted Elliot.

"Not if I educate yours first!" shouted David. "I'm a master educator."

Elliot and David both tried to move behind each other at once. But the laws of physics intervened, and they collapsed on the bed, thwarted.

"Wait a tick! A thought strikes me," said David. "You know in The Fabric Of Reality where I talk about Cantgotu environments? Well, we're trying to get to a position that we can't go to. But I think I have a solution."

As David explained his idea, Elliot's eyes lit up with glee. "Oh, your intellect makes me so hot," said Elliot, "keep talking physics to me!"

"And so you see," continued David, "using your new theory of quantum gravity for some extra pull, and relying on the high density of our engorged cocks, I believe we can just manage to collapse into a Cantgotu environment."

It came as a surprise to no one that David had spoken truly. So soon enough Elliot and David were fucking each other's asses at the same time! It was a true testament to the power of new theories of physics.

Elliot's hard cock filled David up, and David moaned with pleasure. He never knew it could be this good. And in turn, David's cock filled Elliot up. He too never knew it could be this good. They pounded each other roughly.

It wasn't long before their breathing came faster, and their pleasure heightened. There's a reason we can't go to Cantgotu environments: they're so intense it's hard to take! Soon, Elliot and David shot buckets of jizz into each other's asses.

After their heart and ass pounding sex, they lay in bed in each other's arms, in a dreamy state of bliss.

"I'm glad you put your knowledge of friction to good use," whispered David, "my rectum thanks you for it."

"My pleasure," answered Elliot. "I'll be happy to apply physics knowledge with you anytime."

This was originally written in a March 2012 email:

Having a bit of knowledge about physics is important to most fields.

For example: tennis, chess, hockey, baseball, architecture, chemistry, biology, cooking, cleaning, building computers, building chairs, and so on.

The amount of physics knowledge needed for basic competence in this fields is small: the large majority of people in our culture have enough already.

You don't see people trying to heat their food in the freezer.

You don't see people losing tennis tournaments because they were confused about physics.

You don't see people doing chemistry experiments using only water and expecting each portion of water to transmute into the right chemicals because they want it to.

So, people take for granted having some understanding of physics as background knowledge. That knowledge still matters and it's still correct to say physics has a lot of reach even if people take it for granted.

If you get this basic physics stuff wrong, you can be really screwed. All sorts of stuff can go horribly wrong. Getting it right does matter a lot.

In general you don't need to know the details of quantum physics. That has less reach. It's quite important for some stuff like building nanometer-scale computer chips. But you don't need to know any quantum physics to win a tennis tournament or cook dinner or even to build a skyscraper.


To do basic science you do need to know some physics, but often not quantum physics, and often not any physics that goes beyond the background knowledge your average scientist will have and get right. If they messed up the physics they need, it could easily invalidate all their experiments in their field and make all their conclusions wrong, but in practice this rarely comes up because they don't get it wrong.

There are people who get a lot of basic physics wrong. We call them superstitious or gullible or stuff like that. It matters. But they are a minority. And a lot of the people watching science TV shows or getting fooled by bending spoons or talking about "crystal energy" or "dreamcatchers" aren't actually getting physics wrong, they are making different kinds of mistakes like they think it helps provide meaning for their life and they intentionally don't think about whether the physics is right or not.


Epistemology is a lot like physics in this regard. A relatively small amount of epistemology knowledge is relevant and important to pretty much every human endeavor. It matters to tennis, chess, hockey, baseball, architecture, and all the rest, same as with physics.

And our culture has some good quality knowledge of epistemology which people take for granted and routinely use.

But, contrary to physics, most have large mistakes in their basic epistemology background knowledge. There are widespread mistakes in our culture. And they don't just affect some special minorities that stand out, they affect 99%.

The result? All sorts of stuff goes wrong, and people don't know why or sometimes don't even know something went wrong.

People do lose tennis tournaments due to bad epistemology. That's actually common. Top people in all types of competition face significant psychological issues. They have to keep the right kind of mindset and focus to play their best. And what happens is they get to the finals and make a mistake. Then they make 5 more mistakes. Then, some people will set it aside and continue to play their best. But other people will get frustrated and have the wrong attitude to mistakes and let it "rattle" them, and will "lose focus" and start playing worse and making more mistakes they wouldn't normally make if they were relaxed in a low pressure situation, or wouldn't make if they weren't frustrated with previous mistakes.

Sometimes these problems dealing with mistakes decide a match. Better attitudes to mistakes and learning, and better understanding of their mind and emotions -- better philosophical knowledge -- could have won the match.

Sometimes players come back the next year, get in a similar situation, but then get past it and win this time. They thought hard about it and improved their epistemological knowledge (and some other knowledge too). Without knowing the name of the field. Without having the benefit of a lot of already-known and useful stuff in the field. They have to re-invent some stuff, and pick some up in bits and pieces from advice from their coach and sports/competition-related books and so on.

Some people never get past these mental issues and never become champions. That's common too. It's hard to reinvent enough epistemology and pick it up from scattered places. More people fail at this than succeed.


Epistemology comes up, and sometimes goes wrong, in all sorts of more mundane situations too. People get frustrated while playing a video game and throw the controller at the TV and break it, or just feel bad. People get stuck playing a video game and don't improve. People fight with their friends when playing a team video game and blame each other for letting the team down. Bad epistemology (in the background knowledge of our culture that people take for granted) contributes to these problems and good epistemology could address them.


And epistemology comes up, and goes wrong, when scientists start talking philosophy and trying to draw philosophical conclusions from their work.


Just like there are some places where physics reaches more (e.g. building GPS devices) and more advanced physics is important, there are also places where epistemology reaches more and more advanced epistemology is important.

Without physics well beyond the background knowledge in our culture, you're going to have a lot of problems building a GPS device. The background knowledge isn't even close to good enough.

And without more advanced knowledge of epistemology, you're going to design schools wrong. Education is an area where epistemology very heavily reaches. The background knowledge about epistemology in our culture is faulty, but the error rate with some of the "more advanced" knowledge (like explicit versions of induction, empiricism, justificationism and other stuff you can read in philosophy books) is a lot worse.

It's a bit like using superstition to build a GPS device. It's so wrong that you make a compete and utter mess of things.

That is, by the way, why our schools are "failing". (They don't even know what succeeding would be and are judging be the wrong criteria. But our schools do happen to be bad according to better criteria too. FYI US schools are far better than all the asian countries though.)


So there are various areas where epistemology is extra relevant. You don't just need a bit, you need lots. Everything has to do with learning, but some stuff more than others.

Epistemology heavy topics include: education (including lots of parenting stuff), morality, stuff to do with organizing knowledge (like programming or organizing a library), stuff to do with brains, stuff to do with how people or animals or computers or anything think or learn or create knowledge, stuff to do with evolution, stuff to do with ideas or types of ideas (like the distinctions people draw between emotions vs theories vs values vs guesses, etc), qualia, stuff to do with fallibility, errors, mistakes, sources of error, good explanations, judging explanations, methods of interpreting observations, scientific methods (b/c the point of science is to create knowledge, so the methods for doing that are methods of creating knowledge, methods in epistemology).


When scientists try to do science to address questions about how people think and live, and how that compares with animals, and the consequences for morality, they are straying especially heavily into epistemology in multiple ways and going far beyond what cultural background knowledge can be expected to handle (sort of handle, but actually fail a fair amount). When their epistemology is grossly false, they make multiple large mistakes per substantial idea in these areas, and so all their conclusions are crap.

The typical pattern of romantic relationships: people hurt themselves and blame their partners.

This evasion prevents most self-improvement.

Other areas of life are similar. When someone doesn't have the career or social role they want, they typically hurt themselves far more than anyone else hurts them.

learning productivity multipliers (such as philosophy) ASAP is most efficient by far. i think that's something worth aggressively optimizing.

for example, some people prioritize their career ahead of philosophy. so then they do all kinds of career stuff which they could have done twice as fast if they were better at philosophy and a few other skills. like they have to learn some skills for work, and they learn them slowly, whereas if they knew more about learning they could have learned it a lot faster.

or people start dating and get married before learning about romance philosophy. big mistake.

besides philosophy first being a more efficient order (if are ever going to learn to learn faster, the sooner you do that the more efficient, since you get to use it in the most cases), it also helps deal with mistakes of various kinds (like marriage. marriage shouldn't be done at all at any speed).

how is one to know whether he's making a big picture mistake he'll regret later, without knowing lots of philosophy? i think it's a serious risk. this includes both risks of doing things badly out of order so it's really inefficient and also risks of doing something that shouldn't be done at all in any order.

so learn a substantial amount of philosophy ASAP or huge risk of disaster. those are the only choices.

put another way, you should start on the beginning of infinity track, now. that means thinking, learning, aiming for lots of speedy progress. you've gotta start making progress now, not at some indeterminate point in the future. and if you're trying to make rapid progress as your standard way of life, then to do it well you've gotta learn what's known about how to do that (which is called "philosophy").

ppl often seem to think the risks of doing their life as-is and meeting current preferences are low. they think that things seem to be going pretty well, how bad can it be? maybe they even know some philosophy and fixed some mistakes, and think there can't be too many more (uhh what? how do you know how many more there could be? we're all alike in our infinite ignorance!)

i think basically anything but doing quite a bit of philosophy is extremely risky. also i do and know more philosophy than you and i'm telling you it's risky. so why are you doubting me when you have no criticisms of my philosophical positions? and since you do way less philosophy, how would you even evaluate the risk? it takes philosophy to evaluate how much danger there is and to do anything about the danger. so how can you decide it's an ok risk to take when you lack the knowledge to even understand the risk?

Jews and Israel are good. Anti-semitism is bad, including when it pretends to be criticism of Israel.

As far as I know, none of the following people made a public pro-Jewish statement: David Deutsch, William Godwin, Edmund Burke, Thomas Szasz, Karl Popper and Ludwig von Mises.

They should have. That's why I wrote this post. I think it's important to be clear about this issue.

Ayn Rand did, see comments below. :)

EDIT: Clarified wording, 2014-07-01

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15679/15679-h/15679-h.htm

Other revolutions [than the French one] have been conducted by persons who, whilst they attempted or affected changes in the commonwealth, sanctified their ambition by advancing the dignity of the people whose peace they troubled. They had long views. They aimed at the rule, not at the destruction of their country. They were men of great civil and great military talents, and if the terror, the ornament of their age. They were not like Jew brokers contending with each other who could best remedy with fraudulent circulation and depreciated paper the wretchedness and ruin brought on their country by their degenerate councils.

Edmund Burke. :(