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VideoSkepticism is crucial to both philosophy & practical life, but deciding when to exercise it (& to what degree) is a serious problem. (youtube.com)

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[–]fencerman 306 ポイント307 ポイント  (14子コメント)

Skepticism is crucial to both philosophy & practical life, but deciding when to exercise it (& to what degree) is a serious problem.

...or is it?

[–]Demons0fRazgriz 78 ポイント79 ポイント  (10子コメント)

You obviously have not been to r/conspiracy

[–]TheJimPeror 129 ポイント130 ポイント  (9子コメント)

Or has he?

[–]Geometry314 42 ポイント43 ポイント  (7子コメント)

Turtles all the way down.

[–]814543665329808 39 ポイント40 ポイント  (6子コメント)

Or are there?

[–]Geometry314 15 ポイント16 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Okay I lied. There's a tortoise in there somewhere.

jk, Turtles all the way down.

[–]throwawaylogic7 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Is it trivial to ask "Or are there?"

[–]itsianbruh 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

*Vsauce Theme Music plays

[–]ZeyGoggles 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (0子コメント)

He didnt insinuate anything about Jews, so Id say the odds are pretty low

[–]GrandmaYogapants 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

This passage applies to flat earthers

[–]Shitgenstein 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Well done. Went for the immediate accessible humor about the title and nothing of any substance about the ideas in the video.

[–]ArchitectofAges[S] 136 ポイント137 ポイント  (20子コメント)

This video explains the difference between philosophical & everyday skepticism, summarizing the thesis for radical/Academic skepticism under the Closure Principle.

It also investigates some of the broader implications of skeptical attitudes, & offers a suggestion for how to cultivate healthy versions of them.

[–]nbcte760 15 ポイント16 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Loved it. You dun great

[–]ElliotNess 14 ポイント15 ポイント  (3子コメント)

First time I've ever seen a "Thunk" and looking forward to more.

edit--holy shit there's already 113 more.

[–]ArchitectofAges[S] 10 ポイント11 ポイント  (1子コメント)

🎶 Welcome to the jungle... 🎶

[–]ruutipipo -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

We've got fun 'n' games

[–]katonai 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

See you in week

[–]computerbutts 21 ポイント22 ポイント  (8子コメント)

I don't think that was healthy.

Since when is it philosophy's job to make you feel better? Considering how terrifying the alternative is, acknowledging how woefully little you really know, that seems like a very easy conclusion for someone to reach.

Being "too skeptical" doesn't mean that you automatically become victim to any ideas that cross your path, it just means that you're not attached too any of these ideas, including the most accepted ones.

What I think the video was mostly dancing around was really just an emotional one. People tend use their ideas of truth to inflict their intellectual superiority onto people and then that causes other people to dig in and you get this neverending trench warfare of a debate that never reaches it's conclusion because both sides are too invested in proving the other wrong.

[–]Acuate 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (4子コメント)

Isn't it always-already an emotional question? When we feel satisfied with our vetting of concepts? When we desire more proof for any given claim?

Whether it being the neurological explanation or psychosocial (or critical cultural lens), emotions influence our decision making and epistemological systems regardless of the drive for objectivity. The objective/subjective distinction (as the basis for skepticism, e.g. Descartes or Hume) has always been an artifical one, often for ideological or (more generously) theoretical reasons.

[–]computerbutts 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Isn't it always-already an emotional question?

Absolutely, the tricky thing about emotions is that sometimes they disguise themselves as other ones, specifically with hate and fear.

David Bohm has written a lot about the idea of thought lacking awareness of itself and it's emotional underpinnings, he refers to it as a lack of proprioception. The best way to deal with it isn't with resisting it or trying to stamp it out, because those are emotional reactions, you want to do is suspend it. A great method for that is meditation, it allows you to quiet your reactive mind and really take inventory of how violent the waters in your mind have become and they've been keeping you back from reaching certain uncomfortable truths about yourself.

When we feel satisfied with our vetting of concepts?

I feel like this assumes that "we" are the end goal of these ideas. We might "feel" satisfied but that doesn't really have any bearing on whether the work is "finished," you need other people to stress test those ideas. What you need is a network of humanity. You need dialogue, which is what we're doing right now.

It's funny that the video mentioned mimesis because this actually reminds me a lot of it and also David Bohm's work on Holonomy with Karl Pribram which is kind of a scientific retelling of Buddhism's Net of Indra where every living thing is interdependent and constantly reflecting the every other living thing within itself.

Basically, you know how you have huge server farms? Well, the way that data is stored is actually really interesting-- they use fractals, images of data that when cut in half still contain the whole image within themselves. So, rather than your youtube videos having their own designated server, they keep that data on ALL the servers in a "don't put all your eggs in one basket" sort of way. This is great because when disaster strikes and you lose half your servers, you don't lose your video, the resolution just drops.

The reason I mention all this is because this later became the same method which Bohm applied to human brain with the Holonomic Brain Theory, which is basically to say that we're all servers and the only reason we're "special" is that we do the exact same thing these servers do but with language which ties back into my original point about assuming we, individually, are the "end goal" for knowledge and truth but we're not-- they exist on a completely separate plane and thinking that you've nailed "it" down is akin to dropping the resolution to 144p on your idea of reality.

[–]Acuate 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Eh, I come from a psychoanalytic background, which refutes this:

meditation ... allows you to quiet your reactive mind and really take inventory of how violent the waters in your mind have become

by pointing out we don't have access to "all" of our psyche - Frued's subconscious, Jung's social symbolic, or my prefered, the Lacanian Real. Or, civilization is built upon the crumbled foundation of violence and animality paved over by socio-cultural symbols that represent (or stand in for) "civilization" and stability. Repression is the name of the game. We hide our "true selves" from the experience/semblance of ourselves because our desire for consistency, let alone the pleasures that liberal capitalism has brought. Essentially, we don't actually want to know our those uncomfortable truths about ourselves because its repression is the foundation (structural antagonism) for the Self, and correspondingly, society itself.

Zizek explains this by co-opting Rumsfeld's notion of Know knowns, known unknown, unknown unknowns by adding a 4th register: the unknown known. Or, instead of the know not what they do, yet they do it anyways, it is "the know what they do, yet do they do it anyways."

As rejoinder to the OP, skepticism is an epistemological naivete symptomatic of liberalism's faith in man as a rational animal, which we have already agreed to from different theoretical lens that we are not. Skepticism is fine as a general principle, but kind of misses the problem. It is not that problems arise when we fail to rationalize, rather we are fundamentally divorced from rationality because psycho-social symbolic structures, e.g. language. Not only are we fundamentally (or more appropriately structurally) emotional animals, we lie to ourselves about the fact because we desire the symbolic fruits of such rationality, aka a legitimizing claim to authority.

So, when I use "we" I am speaking to a shared experience across humanity, even if in different cultural expressions, structured upon a miscommunication, a misunderstanding between each other because the internal, inherent mis-recognition within ourselves.

Buddhism comes to a lot of the same conclusions psychoanalysis does (thanks to Jung's fascination with eastern religions) but either from different directions (if we think of politics/culture as a spectrum or even quadrant) or starts from the same initial phenomena and concludes the opposite way.

To reference your server metaphor, we are all connected (language and share collective alienation, e.g. culture) but there is a filter or lens between each connection that filters out some of the content without telling either the sender or receiver. There is no deeper "it" to be had, those are the stories we tell ourselves to justify ourselves to ourselves. Or, another common metaphor is language and culture are a mask we wear to face/conform to the public and our true selves lies underneath. Except beneath the mask there is only another mask, and another.. so on and so on, and once we reach the final mask, there is no face. There is nothing. No meaning, just culture - a collection of symbols we use to make sense and tolerate our existence. Culture is, in some ways, a coping mechanism against the total separation we experience (e.g. structural alienation, or the Lack as it is referred to in the literature base).

I really enjoyed your response, so I made sure to write one that did yours justice. Shit like this is why I enjoy this sub. While I frequent /r/politics - the slumming in no-substance, conjecture land gets old. Of course, sources on request. I can't be bothered to open google scholar right now as I just got out of a test :)

[–]computerbutts -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (1子コメント)

[–]Acuate 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think the disconnect is I am coming from a heuristic to analyze socio-cultural phenomena, certainly not "rigorous" depending on what you are referencing here (scientific method, etc.). This has nothing to do with psychology. I suppose there are still psychologist who practice Fruedian psychoanalysis but that is irrelevant to what I am describing, e.g. my referencing of Jung and only stealing Frued's metaphor from Civilization and it's discontents.

Arguably this schism in psychoanalysis, and even its abject-status to psychologist, stems from this disagreement: Frued was die hard on the psychology, whereas Jung emphasized the symbolic foundation of the self, e.g. ego. If you're not familiar with Jung, you've probably heard of archetypes - which is his most known contribution. Cross cultural shared/basic symbols we understand without really understanding (from Darth Vader, the "Dark-brooding father" seen in Hamlet etc., to why blind (from birth) people smile without knowing why. Of course, this understanding has evolved but the central idea is the same: Frued was onto something with the subconsious, but he was wrong to psychologize it, rather its something like language.

In fact, the neurological interpretation is somewhat oppositional to the point I'm making, I brought it up initially to represent the study of the subject, not advance its thesis. To be fair, psychoanalysis can be confusing because it borrows/mimics a lot of psychological (or even just psychological sounding) terminology but has reapplied it to a non-psychological context. Psyche here is moreso the basic unit of society interlinked with others to create culture, so on so on. The individual is a metaphor for the collective (psycho-social analysis - not psychological), the collective is a metaphor for the individual (cultural/social phenomena as its object of study, not scientific or quantifiable phenomena).

Yes, I have employed (to various degrees of time and consistency) meditation. A close friend of mine studies psychology and studies CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), which to my understanding, advances meditation in response to exploring and ameliorating mental illness (I am diagnosed with MDD and GAD).

Fair distinction about all vs. some/enough to help. If anything, psychoanalysis originated with this very goal in mind, thus why Frued chose the most disturbed patients he could find in Vienna and later Europe. I mean to challenge faith in rationality and the ability to "know thyself" as (western) philosophy sets out to achieve, then continues with the modernist/classical era (why I referenced Hume and Descartes initially). If what you are proposing, as I understand it, doesn't rely upon such foundations then I misunderstood your point initially. At the least, skepticism hearkens to a specific era and functions as a term of art to describe a method of thought/epistemology associated with a group of thinkers.

I have read parts of Dawkin's book, but that was a much younger me and I barely trust that interpretation - let alone through the fog of memory. Can you expand upon the perceived disconnect?

To clarify about my adaptation of the analogy: I understand Dawkins and psychoanalysis offer diametrically opposed points of view on essentially every level. I was trying to use your language (or example) to frame the refutation. After all, we are just having a conversation online trying to understand each others perspective (ironically, this depth of misinterpretation is exactly what I am trying to describe..). This is largely my fault by assuming others are familiar with my esoteric philosophy largely because the people I work under and with share at least tangentially related rhetorical and philosophical frameworks.

If anything, its been a long day for me so sleepiness may be effecting my explanatory abilities. At the least, engaging with differing points of view is valuable in and of itself.

[–]Caz1982 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (2子コメント)

So don't get invested in any ideas - basically don't have beliefs - that way you don't have a problem tossing them for the sake of harmony?

Eh, nice idea, but I'm not getting bent out of shape over it.

[–]computerbutts 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (1子コメント)

You could have beliefs, the problem is getting emotionally invested in them. Sometimes really smart people, who are known for their ideas, tend view those ideas as extensions of themselves so when they are attacked, they too feel under siege.

[–]Caz1982 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm not convinced that's something that affects only smart people, or that it's something you can purposely control. Nor am I convinced that having people not be attached to ideas wouldn't have some seriously bad side effects, like living lives devoid of meaning, or not taking social obligations seriously, or some such.

[–]Shitgenstein 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (4子コメント)

The claim made about Descartes, starting at 3:16, is incorrect.

Descartes, as far as I know and I've read Meditations on First Philosophy, never suggested that "everything that could possibly be untrue [...] shouldn't count as knowledge."

First, the goal that Descartes set out in Meditations was to discover knowledge which could not doubted in principle, i.e. certain knowledge. The reason for this was to then build the rest of what we know on the solid foundation of certain knowledge.

To this end, Descartes employs a methodological form of skepticism to find knowledge which, in principle, could not be doubted. The key here is that it's methodological, not a statement about the actual status of the statements he's doubting. In fact, Descartes ultimately, at least to his own satisfaction, arrives to the "clear and distinct ideas" which provide foundation for all higher-order claims of knowledge.

In the video's defense, misunderstanding Descartes and attacking misunderstandings of Descartes as Descartes is very popular, especially in the less rigorous forum of short-form Youtube philosophy.

[–]ArchitectofAges[S] 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (3子コメント)

This is a great correction, TY!

[–]Shitgenstein 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (2子コメント)

I take that as a pleasant form of "fuck you, nobody cares." Which is fair enough.

But overall, a reasonable response to global skepticism and pseudo-skepticism is a good message for popular philosophy audiences. Wittgenstein's On Certainty would have provided another interesting response to philosophical skepticism.

[–]ArchitectofAges[S] 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

No no! I'm being absolutely sincere; it's an important distinction, & it's great that someone's checking my work!

Regarding Wittgenstein, I think you'd appreciate my Tsundoku: http://imgur.com/a/94yth

[–]Shitgenstein 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

That's nice to read. All I can say is that I hope you de-Tsundoku it someday, along with the Mackie, but I've got my own mini-pile waiting in the wings.

[–]gertylooker 21 ポイント22 ポイント  (6子コメント)

Great video and a wonderful intro to skepticism. I subscribed.

[–]drkalmenius 9 ポイント10 ポイント  (4子コメント)

Hmmm. I don't believe you.

[–]gertylooker 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (1子コメント)

I'll get u more information...

[–]drkalmenius 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Wait... how can I trust you?

[–]DeusExMentis 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Good! You shouldn't. He doesn't even exist. Only you do.

[–]13InchesAround 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I subscribed to this channel after seeing an older Thunk post. I highly recommend going back and watching all his previous videos, especially the one about cognitive biases. If you go all the way back, don't mind the hats, I think the host was going through a phase. Loved all the puns though.

[–]SlamDammit 26 ポイント27 ポイント  (1子コメント)

My name is René Descartes Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

[–]Wiizepanda 37 ポイント38 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Im skeptical that this guy is who he says he is, and not Jim Moriarty in disguise.

[–]ArchitectofAges[S] 35 ポイント36 ポイント  (1子コメント)

That's what skeptics DO.

[–]Thiswasacouch 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Ah HAH! That's EXACTLY what they'd WANT you to BELIEVE BUT- [hurtles backward down a rabbit hole]

Edit [from inside afore mentioned rabbit hole] or is it a snake hole?! THEY'D JUST WANT YOU TO BELIVE IT WAS A RABBIT HOLE BECAUSE THATS WHEN YOU WOULD LEAST EXPECT IT!

[–]BO_GONSHA 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (0子コメント)

"Controversy is necessary to elucidate the truth" This reminds me of this quote, I don't remember who said it though.

[–]intuser 15 ポイント16 ポイント  (7子コメント)

The closure principle is bonkers.

I know all the axioms and derivation rules of mathematics, but I don't know the proofs of all true theorems in mathematics (as the closure principle will have me believe).

This is known as the problem of LOGICAL OMNISCIENCE.

[–]lapse_of_taste 12 ポイント13 ポイント  (2子コメント)

That's not what the principle claims. It only implies that we are in a position to know, not that we actually do know.

[–]null_work 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Eh, there are a lot of variations on it. There isn't a singular form of closure, and often in terms of skepticism and skeptical arguments, the knowledge of p does in fact imply knowledge of q with the knowledge that p -> q. It does happen this way. Though the reasonable forms of it are the ones such as what you suggest, they provide different types of justifications from the form that /u/intuser is talking about.

[–]intuser 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thank you for your reply. You are absolutely correct.

Just to spell it out a little bit more. Yes, there are some reasonable ways to fix it. It is a well-known problem, after all. But as postulated in the video, it seems like the weakest form.

I'm not trying to straw-man the closure argument, but I do think that in the stronger forms the closure argument doesn't exactly support the video the way he needs.

[–]ArchitectofAges[S] 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

There's an (arguably) necessary assumption in using closure for academic skepticism that the relationship between a fact & the knowledge it entails must be obvious to the subject.

The scenario you describe is one that this assumption is meant to mitigate, as well as epistemic perversity (e.g. being thick/crazy).

[–]intuser 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't think that assumption helps at all:

In mathematics, given a known fact, every possible derivation is obvious (and here I mean applying ON single derivation rule to a known fact). But then, by induction, the closure of the axioms contains ALL true theorems (this is in fact the definition of a true theorem!). And this holds by taking obvious steps, one by one.

Here is a simpler example: Given a chess board set-up (a known position) every possible move from that position is obvious to any good player. In other words, he KNOWS all positions reachable from the starting one, in one single step. The closure of that knowledge is ALL possible reachable positions in n moves (for any n). Since every game is finite, that is equivalent to knowing how to play chess perfectly.

The problem here is very simple: The closure of "obvious" steps contains very complex results.

[–]falsedichotomydave 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (1子コメント)

You know, you just don't know that you know.

[–]betscgee 17 ポイント18 ポイント  (0子コメント)

You have tickled my curiosity with your talk on skepticism. I nearly always become inordinately irritated when hearing or reading philosophy-I always want to reach up into the thought cloud above your head and pull the argument or idea back down to earth. Where it either makes no sense, doesn't apply, or doesn't matter. But your inclusion of a cartoon head of Frye drew me in. And your zippy presentation kept me there. I would have to go back and listen about 20 times in order to retain any of these ideas-they make my brain hurt-but I am definitely intrigued. I think I'll subscribe!! Thanks...

[–]ArcaneTheory 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (2子コメント)

I don't know about this.

[–]HenryJonesVictor 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Exercise it always and to the highest degree. Dying alone might be a side effect.

[–]BandarSeriBegawan 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (4子コメント)

I don't know about the rest of you, but my fierce philosophical skepticism has led me directly into understanding the importance of faith and mysticism. Much needed corrective to the broader materialist objective epistemology that dominates bourgeois western thought

[–]herp_thederp 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Could you elaborate on how your skepticism led into the understanding of faith and mysticism? Genuinely interested

[–]BandarSeriBegawan 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Sure. The basic idea is that when I was trying to find out something that is known in the truest sense, something I could base an idea of truth on, I had to admit no such thing could be found. Knowledge in a real sense isn't there to be found.

Yet I felt a powerful need to respond to the idea "nothing is known, not even this." I realized that I was completely unwilling to reject reality on the basis that I could not verify it.

At first I simply said what I was doing was "accepting appearances," which is to say assuming that things that appear to me are true. I knew from the beginning that this was not a rational choice in any sense as it was a complete "shot in the dark." Instead, it was simply something I chose to do, for reasons of course I knew I could not really understand on that basic level.

Later, I came to understand this as faith. I think of faith as a choice to believe something that cannot be verified as true in the empirical way. It dawned on me suddenly that engaging with material reality was an act of faith.

This led also into mysticism. I realized that the key idea of the faith is a belief in a material reality, or universe, or nature. An affirmation of "being," without being able to comment on the nature of being, its source, or anything else, simply embracing it and engaging with it. Before long I encountered mystical philosophy found mostly in Hinduism, Daoism, some Buddhism, and in Spinoza and the transcendentalists in the west. That's when it fell into place that others had tread the same path and were clear eyed about it as well. All of the sudden talk of "spirit" didn't sound like hokum. It occurred to me that these people also realized that they were in the dark about what being is or what it meant, but that they acted on faith to believe in it and affirm it.

The Dao De Jing says:

"Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations share the same source. This source is called Darkness. Darkness within darkness: the gateway to all understanding."

That passage really hit me when I first read it. It hit me that knowledge is possible - but through faith. Not through the means I originally sought. Much of western philosophy is, if not deluded, somewhat misled on that point.

Hope that made sense!

[–]Shamrokkin 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (1子コメント)

I'm not sure knowledge through faith can really be called knowledge. You can come to conflicting conclusions through faith, and so I don't think reasonable people can consider that "knowing" something.

[–]Catssonova 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think he is dealing with the fact that to believe anything you have to make some basic assumptions about existence and the way you encounter the physical world.

I think in this context it would be said that all people have "faith" but they fail to realize the impact it plays in their lives.

[–]Vince_McLeod 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Pyrrhonism all the way!

[–]alpinejonny 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I find this very interesting... there are some people i'm dealing with in my personal life that are highly intelligent (masters degree, etc), however they use their intelligence in the way described in this video... a lack of curiosity leads them to use their logic to further their agenda, rather than to explore options in order to create a better outcome. The fact that the current status contradicts their world view has made it a massive uphill battle to get them to open their minds to other ideas, no matter how different.

Great video, thank you :)

[–]sean19620 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is terrific, I think

[–]SleepyMage 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I would mostly agree with the ending study supporting curiosity as a measure of one's skeptical flexibility. Curiosity in itself doesn't mean you uncover truths. After all, you can walk a line of reasoning and discovery and still end up with an incorrect conclusion. What it does do, however, is give you the tools that could lead you to truth more often not; that tool being statistics.

The more curious you are, the more likely you are to pursue experimentation, verify data, and revisit previous conclusions. This will almost always give you an edge in accuracy, not necessarily time though.

After all, if two people look into a box to check its contents, the one who checks more often and more recently will have a better understanding of any changes that may or may not have taken place.

[–]NZ-Food-Girl 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have no idea what he just said. But listened. Will come back to this when not so emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted as it seems like it's bloody interesting and would love to learn.

[–]Illecebrous-Pundit 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

The closure principle has been debated. Dretske wrote Epistemic Operators in 1970, which criticizes the closure principle with an analogous argument. Nozick also criticized the closure principle differently, in Philosophical Examinations, if anyone wants to read that, too.

[–]AngeloUMD 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (7子コメント)

So help me out here, is it OK to be skeptical that humans are the sole reason for global warming, and it wouldn't have happened without us?

[–]ArchitectofAges[S] 9 ポイント10 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm going to respond as though your question was earnest & not rhetorical. 

AFAIK, the problem with so-called "climate change skepticism," why it's unpopular, isn't actually its skeptical nature - scientists & climate model experts will be the first to acknowledge & challenge every potential hole in their theories. The problem is twofold, & both issues are mentioned in the video: the inconsistent application of a standard of doubt & the lack of sincerity of those applying it. 

The scientific consensus on & evidence for human-driven climate change approaches levels that most people would accept readily in any other context - if 9 out of 10 doctors agreed on some course of action for someone with your disease, you'd probably do it. If 4 out of 5 mechanics told you to perform some car maintenance, you'd do it. But if 99 out of 100 researchers say that climate change demands immediate action, for some reason, intense skepticism is suddenly warranted. 

That skepticism is (by many accounts) fueled by organizations with a vested interest in prolonging the "debate." It's highly unlikely that a topic with this degree of scientific support would come under scrutiny in any other context, but all of a sudden, the standard for what counts as "knowledge" has gotten remarkably strict. 

The backlash you're probably commenting on is driven by incredulity that this degree of skepticism is anything but a rhetorical tactic to delay the implementation of inconvenient legislation (which, if those researchers are to be believed, is time-sensitive). It's obviously OK to exercise skepticism, to wonder & question the paradigm in pursuit of greater understanding, but it's not OK to do it to forestall action simply because we don't like what that knowledge implies.

[–]moco94 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Of course... just cause people might disagree or worse, downvote you, doesn't mean you can't be wary about something. Their disagreement is in no way evidence to the contrary.

I say this mostly because I believe that humans played a very little role in climate change. Majority of people I talk to about this disagree with me but it hasn't ever stopped me from believing it. I've seen the evidence I've seen and have seen other produce (to me) insufficient evidence to say other wise.

[–]AngeloUMD 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thank you, I feel the same. And it's not that I'm not educated (masters degree in engineering). I just think that there are so many variables, it's just too difficult to be 100% sure one way or another.

[–]gunder_bc 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Depends on how you define "skeptical" in this case. To dismiss evidence because it disagrees with a conclusion you already have is not "being skeptical" - that's motivated reasoning and is more appropriately called "denial" instead of "skepticism".

But attempting to learn more about a given field, coming with a truly open mind, an awareness of your built-in biases, both cognitive and social, and honestly and openly considering the data, evidence, and collected consensus of expert opinion, sure. That sort of skepticism is encouraged.

If you find that data and consensus of expert opinion runs against something in you that doesn't agree... well, at some point you have to acknowledge that probably you're the one with the mistaken logic or a bias you're not acknowledging. The heart of practical skepticism is humility - knowing that we're wired with biases that make it almost impossible for an individual to rationally and dispassionately consider evidence and come to a logical conclusion.

Skepticism is about the process - instead of being emotionally tied to a particular outcome. Being emotionally invested in the tools to learn and the process of following the evidence to wherever it leads, not in any particular outcome. Attempting to use those tools to construct an argument that looks logical in defense of a conclusion you've already arrived at is not skepticism.

[–]moco94 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

This isn't always the case though.. for years people were lead to believe trans fats were the leading cause of heart disease in the US, and then we found out people from the sugar industry were paying to suppress studies that proved it was processed sugars that were the leading cause. Sometimes the loudest voice isn't always right.

[–]Twilightdusk 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

There's a line between skepticism and denial. The evidence suggests a drastic increase in global temperature even compared to previous "hot periods"

Being skeptical here would be to want to see the direct sources of where this information comes from and judge their validity. Plenty of people go beyond that and refuse to accept that such information exists in the first place and anyone trying to convince them otherwise is in on some elaborate hoax. Mindlessly saying "But what if it's wrong" to every conceivable source makes you Descartes without the belief in God to fall back on.

[–]Hatchaerson -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

If you think it is OK I have a bridge you would totally love to buy!

[–]rmeddy 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I suppose Popper and Lakatos may enter at this point

[–]chimpy_chimpster 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm skeptical

[–]FatJesusMoney666 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Is there a podcast version of this?

[–]xjoho21 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I am skeptical

[–]mycynical30s 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

What's the difference between being a cynic and a skeptic?

Just wondering if I have to change my username:/

[–]HarboringOnALament 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Exercising it always seems safest.

[–]drkalmenius 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I want to watch this video, but I doubt it will be any good.

[–]SkepticalInquisition 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Skepticism and criticism are no problem, they are indeed essential. The problem arises when they become cynicism. At least those are my personal "definitions".

[–]Dirnk-you-drunk-me 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

This made me skeptical about my own existence, what if we are just energy or just powerful computers that stock information and then we sleep forever and in that dream we actually dream about what we see know? What if our brain ,which is the most powerful "computer" in the world, creates everything we see, and in this hole time we are just dreaming, and when we wake up we are just matter floating through space?

[–]Theons_sausage 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

And why shouldn't I be skeptical of this video?

[–]SPIAT 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Too much skepticism lands you in mental illness.

[–]neck_slicer1 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I highly recommend going back and listen about twenty times in order to allow for any given claim?

[–]Salih_Miroo 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

In a way, it allows you to perform some car maintenance, you can walk a line between skepticism and denial.

[–]Liamcarballal 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Alex jones epitomizes this the post

[–]def_penaltyz 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

If you think it isn't a fact and an opinion.

[–]gmerfE 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (4子コメント)

The way I think about it is pretty straightforward. If any actors pushing forward a proposition or narrative have an incentive for said proposition/narrative to be true, then one must be skeptical and demand evidence. Not much more to it.

[–]ncburbs 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Unfortunately, almost every actor pushing forward a proposition has at least one thing to gain: attention. Not a very useful heuristic by itself in practice.

Looking at how much incentive they have can be one factor in your estimation, but I'd strongly disagree with "not much more to it".

[–]gmerfE 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (2子コメント)

I don't think that's necessarily true. We make matter of fact statements all the time, like "it's sunny out," or "the sky is blue". There aren't incentives involved in these statements. I'll grant that the degree of the incentive certainly matters and I oversimplified on that ground.

[–]ncburbs 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (1子コメント)

We make matter of fact statements all the time, like "it's sunny out," or "the sky is blue".

And I'm not skeptical of them because of reasons such as

1) easily verifiable

2) I know it's true to begin with

3) this doesn't really matter so I don't give a shit

not because I don't think people don't have an incentive to lie about "matter of fact" things.

Little kids lie about random shit all the time because it's a really "cool" fact that gets them to wow their friends. Or people exaggerate how shitty the weather was in their story to make it more interesting.

[–]gmerfE 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Sorry didn't see the "attention" part of your first comment. And right, I suppose that differentiating between peoples' incentives to deceive is the hard part about skepticism.

[–]nerf_herd 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Scientific curiosity isn't a very compelling metric, and I couldn't tell you that the correlation moves in a "non confirmation biased" way. Sure they both move from lower left to upper right, but the people on the left were actually less convinced about a thing, which is good in its own right.

Also there are so many ways to muck with the quantification of something like "scientific curiosity". I mean scientific knowledge is hard enough to quantify, but now it is "how does science make you feel"...

FWIW I did not find the first graph "terrifying", that is kind of an over the top emotional response to normal human behavior, no?

[–]TonyGameChanger 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I believe this theory without question

[–]Whoops-a-Daisy 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Hopefully this will give THUNK some more subscribers! It's one of my favorite channels on YouTube.

[–]Prophet_Of_Loss 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I remain skeptical of your premise and motives for posting here.

[–]moco94 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Question everything.

[–]oolypmil 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

oh god it's like like literally an unsolvable problem without the 4th-wall breaking of the people around you (eg i could literally use that right now "lol")

[–]czytaj 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Problem or challenge?

[–]zimotic 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Always be 100% skeptical of the media. They lie.

[–]Everybodyonsteroids 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (4子コメント)

I view skepticism as simply accepting that which is evidence-based. I don't believe in leprechauns because there is no physical evidence that passes muster.

Why put "facts" in quotes? We don't have our own facts, we have our own perception of the objective truth we take part in. What someone says isn't a fact, it is hearsay.

I really don't care for Descartes. He had a fine idea in deconstructing his reality to find real truth, but he assumed God. Fine to shape your philosophy around a higher power, but if you're going to be a philosopher famous for deconstructing reality, you should actually have deconstructed your reality.

I find the world video guy perceives as a sort of clusterfuck of "I don't know, maybe if I think hard enough..." That isn't very practical. My philosophy is to give up and simply accept that which is evidence-based.

Back to leprechauns. My earliest childhood memory was what I perceived as seeing a leprechaun (not making this up). It was when I was 5, maybe 6, and enrolled in preschool. We were in the gym and I was looking out the window and saw a small man in traditional leprechaun garb. Before this, I had never seen a little person, so I was convinced this was a leprechaun and remained convinced for years. Now, I'm aware of little people. I can look back on that experience and see it for what it was. It was never a question of reality, it was a question of evidence and perception. The reality persists despite our limited capacity to perceive it.

[–]Whiteout67 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (3子コメント)

You said that "what someone says isn't a fact, it is hearsay." However, what someone says could be both a fact and an opinion. It's not an either/or situation.

Also, Descartes doesn't assume God, he throws God out as well in Meditations on First Philosophy 1 and 2. I think these are the most valuable ones, because it's only after that that he "proves" God's existence.

To "give up and simply accept that which is evidence-based" sounds a whole lot like Descartes and video guy's stance to me.

[–]Sansa_Culotte_ 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Also, Descartes doesn't assume God, he throws God out as well in Meditations on First Philosophy 1 and 2. I think these are the most valuable ones, because it's only after that that he "proves" God's existence.

The problem is that given the position he maneuvers himself into, he has to prove God in order to allow for any knowledge at all beyond the Cogito.

[–]Everybodyonsteroids 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (1子コメント)

When someone says something, it is a fact that they said it, but there's no reason to accept what they say as factual unless evidence aligns with it.

Honestly, it has been a while since I read Descartes, but it was a really strong takeaway at the time. I've still got a copy, I'll give it another go.

[–]Whiteout67 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Cool. Thanks for the response.

[–]know_comment -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

your fast car is subjective. as soon as he uses that as the example- i know this guy isn't getting it, and now I'm intuiting that he is doing this whole video to put down "conspiracy theorists" (maybe he'll even bring up "flat earth")- and will probably be talking about global warming.

I'm going to keep watching to see if I'm right.

edit: ok- kindof wrong. he does play a partisan role by bringing Trump into it and not fully explaining the reactive element to that model. in that way he kindof sets up the memetic "poltical conservatism vs science" dichotomy. he explains that we're talking about the effect of confirmation bias' and that curiosity is positive in JUDGEMENT relating to skepticism- especially as it applies to intuition. He also talks about how being objective is not particularly helpful in argumentation. These are important points.

[–]Michael5596 -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I fucking hate philosophy