Ai Dreams Forum
AI Dreams => General Chat => Topic started by: infurl on July 16, 2020, 05:43:16 am
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https://physicsworld.com/a/fighting-flat-earth-theory/ (https://physicsworld.com/a/fighting-flat-earth-theory/)
The idea that the Earth is a sphere was all but settled by ancient Greek philosophers such as Aristotle (384–322 BC), who obtained empirical evidence after travelling to Egypt and seeing new constellations of stars. Eratosthenes, in the third century BC, became the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth. Islamic scholars made further advanced measurements from about the 9th century AD onwards, while European navigators circled the Earth in the 16th century. Images from space were final proof, if any were needed.
It beggars belief that anyone could think that the earth is flat but over the last ten years their numbers have been growing. It's important to find out why this worrying trend is occurring, and think about possible ways to counter it. I'm interested in this topic because to me the most important application for artificial intelligence will be to coach and guide human beings into more productive and fulfilling ways of thinking and acting. Studying people whose thought processes are this badly broken is bound to provide some useful insight.
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I don’t think this is anything new; there have always been minorities who have ‘blind faith’. Religion, cults, etc are all examples, but prior to the internet they were localised pools, geographically isolated. These traits have always run through a minority of the population but now they are coming to the fore, or being noticed because of the internet. It’s acting as a vehicle/ catalyst and allowing these people to pool/ accumulate on a global scale and self-reinforce their belief systems.
There are many different types of intelligence, and just as some people excel in one sphere others lack, some people just don’t have the neural/ reasoning capacity/ tools to contemplate concepts like this.
All humans are similar but not the same, there are probably humans who believe plants can talk... they just haven't found a forum yet.
:)
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I don’t think this is anything new; there have always been minorities who have ‘blind faith’. Religion, cults, etc are all examples, but prior to the internet they were localised pools, geographically isolated. These traits have always run through a minority of the population but now they are coming to the fore, or being noticed because of the internet. It’s acting as a vehicle/ catalyst and allowing these people to pool/ accumulate on a global scale and self-reinforce their belief systems.
That's true, but what is odd about the flat-earthers is that this particular delusion had almost disappeared until a little over ten years ago. Those other disturbing and dangerous aberrations of the present time such as anti-vaxxers and trump supporters can be attributed to the greed and poor judgement of various social media companies, but the dramatic rise in numbers of flat-earthers can be directly traced to one particular algorithm employed by YouTube. If someone watched a conspiracy video, that algorithm would react by showing them more and more conspiracy videos, and it succeeded in quickly converting huge numbers of dumbasses into extremely paranoid dumbasses.
By the time Google realized what was happening and corrected the problem it was too late. Now the question that we're faced with is how do we get these idiots back to a relatively harmless state of mind. We're not just talking about a few people here either. We're talking about significant portions of the population in some countries, such as Brazil where there are estimated to be about eleven million people who fervently believe the earth is flat now.
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I suspect one aspect of fringe conspiracy theories' power is their appeal to pride. They'll give you the feeling that you possess secret knowledge the majority of people have missed. You're "in" and everyone else is "out." You're a "free thinker" and everyone else is a "sheep." The Establishment tried to fool the world and would have gotten away with it too, but for the fact that you're SO very clever.
I'm not sure how to counter this ... short of being aware of it and watching for times when we could fall prey to it ourselves.
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I suspect one aspect of fringe conspiracy theories' power is their appeal to pride. They'll give you the feeling that you possess secret knowledge the majority of people have missed. You're "in" and everyone else is "out." You're a "free thinker" and everyone else is a "sheep." The Establishment tried to fool the world and would have gotten away with it too, but for the fact that you're SO very clever.
I'm not sure how to counter this ... short of being aware of it and watching for times when we could fall prey to it ourselves.
What you're describing is biology, it doesn't care if your genome is based on a philosophy, culture or a true molecular configuration, so long as you can aggregate, isolate, groom and then balkanize to pollinate the groomed genome, then its all good.
Welcome to evolution, and as my favorite amoeba from "Blazzing Saddles" says: "We don't need no sticken brains" and nor does evolution...
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Paranoid Android?
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The things that stay are the things that can survive the dangers of space.
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The things that stay are the things that can survive the dangers of space.
In the long run that may be true, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to correct problems like this without having to wait for this batch of flat-earthers to all die? The odds of survival are better for all of us if we can keep waste to a minimum.
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I suspect one aspect of fringe conspiracy theories' power is their appeal to pride. They'll give you the feeling that you possess secret knowledge the majority of people have missed. You're "in" and everyone else is "out." You're a "free thinker" and everyone else is a "sheep." The Establishment tried to fool the world and would have gotten away with it too, but for the fact that you're SO very clever.
I'm not sure how to counter this ... short of being aware of it and watching for times when we could fall prey to it ourselves.
There's that Dunning-Kruger effect in play again. ;)
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The ones we should send to space for free are the flat Earthers.
Or better, take them in a jet around Earth.
We should take their leader, and send him in a jet.
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The ones we should send to space for free are the flat Earthers.
Or better, take them in a jet around Earth.
We should take their leader, and send him in a jet.
I'm sure it would be interesting to observe the impact that such an experience would have on their beliefs but I'm not sure that it would actually correct their delusions. Given what I read in the article, many of them would still find a way to explain away the experience.
Remember that the problem is not ignorance so much as paranoia. The YouTube algorithm accidentally helped them construct a complex layer of overlapping conspiracy theories around their ignorance so that subsequently any evidence that confronts their beliefs was dismissed as attempts to manipulate them.
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People could be picking up on our society’s preoccupation with beliefs. Disagreements about beliefs are what most of the fuss is about; online, off line, on TV, with family, on a train, in the rain… though we overwhelmingly refuse what is being proposed on the other side. Given the abundance of such interactions, the importance of beliefs probably gets incorporated into people’s worldviews quite early on. This fundamental assumption then steers their choices from behind the scenes, without being identified as an agent.
So, whatever people happen upon to believe in, they’ll often feel that it’s really important. This motivates them to invest lots of time and effort into securing and championing beliefs, which is made easy by the auto suggestive positive feedback loops of our algorithms. It’s now easy to develop an illusion of concentrated support for many beliefs.
We have both the cultural proclivity, and the adaptive informational networks which can exploit it. So, we could either change our convenient search algorithms (I’d rather not), or we could stop conflict around differences of opinion (seems good). But it does seem nearly impossible to change each other’s beliefs through reason. Usually a substantial emotional incentive is required, and even then, it’s the person who chooses to (or usually not) convince themselves.
How could we overcome such an unmovable force? Maybe some stances are mutually supportive, but separately unstable, like two people having thumb wars on stilts. I’m thinking we could take some broad steps to disengage from the thought wars. Not by instituting more prohibitive laws, and not through a movement which is itself belief driven. But by removing laws governing opinion, then reducing and simplifying the laws governing actions.
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The things that stay are the things that can survive the dangers of space.
In the long run that may be true, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to correct problems like this without having to wait for this batch of flat-earthers to all die? The odds of survival are better for all of us if we can keep waste to a minimum.
I never said long term events, space dangers include fast things too, like us wanting to fix them "now".
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Here is Flat Earthers
https://www.tfes.org/
Utterly hilarious,,, I want to shake their heads off their bodies
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?board=7.0
In some sense it is hard to prove Earth is round, I get them just a bit...
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https://www.sciencealert.com/an-ai-tool-can-distinguish-between-a-conspiracy-theory-and-a-true-conspiracy (https://www.sciencealert.com/an-ai-tool-can-distinguish-between-a-conspiracy-theory-and-a-true-conspiracy)
This could become a useful tool for detecting and correcting harmful trends on social media. What is important is that it is able to tell the difference between bogus conspiracy theories and genuine conspiracies. Given the events of the past few days such a capability is becoming more important than ever, though four years ago anyone with at least half a brain could have easily predicted what was going to happen.
I'm curious whether anyone knows someone who has fallen for an obviously phoney (to you) conspiracy theory. Even more interesting and edifying would be introspection from someone who got sucked into one, and how they extricated themselves from it.
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If the viewer can't prove what they're seeing for themselves, you shouldn't be "all in" one way or the other...
If there's matching data and a claim that supports it, then it's true. If there's non-matching data but the claim is that it matches, then the credibility is broken or the data is broken/insufficient... Again can't be "all in", or use this as a reason to empirically decide on all matters relating to it without looking at evidence.
It's much easier to decide issue by issue, no empirical evidence (Ie "this person would never say that"), watch for strawman responses (Ie trying to solve a question by using unrelated data, especially in an emotional way).... much more aspects break logic....
Flat Earth has always been a metaphoric statement ("straight logic"), but it's been promoted as a literal statement in order to get people to mock anyone who thinks straight... as it's counter productive to "change" and lgbt campaigns.
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I fell for the 2012 end of the world thing, around 2008, I was probably 12 myself. Just went down an internet rabbit hole one weekend, I must have printed out a few hundred pages from someone’s conspiracy website, because I though it was that important to show my parents. I think what made it convincing for me was the sheer amount of ''evidence'' which was loosely tied to real things such as the Mayan Calendar, the magnetic reversal of the poles, the asteroid Apophis, maybe even Yellowstone, things along those lines. I extricated myself by learning a bit more about the world by watching the Discovery Channel all summer long, and then learning some rationality by stumbling across YouTube channels like "The Atheist Experience" where people would debate things. The final nail in the coffin, of course, was when I survived 2012 ;D. Regarding other people, a couple family members are/were inclined to believing in homeopathy and superstition, and one of my class mates was very Christian. That's about it.
As for fixing broken ideas, Elon Musk made a good point about how most people tend to think using analogies, because its correct often enough for the basics, and doesn’t use a lot of energy. But the way he tries to examine ideas, and think about things, is by going back in the logic tree, to the most basic knowledge that we are most sure is correct, and then extrapolating from those ground rules to see if his idea is supported by them. Maybe there could be classes to teach this. When he explained it I understood it well enough to repeat it back, but I don’t fully get it. It’s like with a new type of math problem, you need to practice it for a while before you actually understand anything. Maybe some kind of first principles practice problem handbook, as part of an international educational curriculum.
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There is also entire cult around Nibiru planet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_cataclysm).
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Wait no, just realized I was deluding myself a little. I am superstitious about a bunch of things; I just don’t usually act on it. All these little sayings like, don’t walk under a ladder, black cats, stepping on cracks, accumulate like barnacles on a ship, I’m still steering the rudder, but… it’s like navigating a website with occasional popups, it does slow you down. For my case of "fixing broken ideas" all it might require is the mental discipline to not engage with irrational concerns until the GTP smoothes itself out.
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You're not alone there. What would you say about avoiding number six while programming? Once you start paying attention, it's everywhere, especially at line numbers in editor and file sizes! Unnecessary activity. It doesn't even make me happy.
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Thanks man. On one hand that can be frustrating, on the other hand its basically a free Zen teacher. If approached correctly the brain can be a very cool self optimizing mechanism.
Edit, with some more things for reference in case you find them helpful:
In Zen stories the masters usually give their students a series of impossible assignments. The modern equivalents of not thinking about a pink elephant for a week. These are meant to trick them into suddenly intuiting the solution, like with the punchline of a joke. Basically, the point is to realize that you can’t consciously will yourself to not think about something.
So, lets take the example of thinking about a pink elephant. The student would meet back up with the master after a week, and the master would ask them “Tell me, did you manage to avoid thinking about pink elephants?” “No, I completely failed. I was constantly worried about thinking about pink elephants.” And the master would say “That’s alright, for next week just try not to worry too much about thinking about pink elephants.” “
All right,” Said the student. “I will try that and report back to you next week.” So, when the student returned a week later the master asked “Did you manage to avoid worrying too much about thinking about pink elephants?” And the student replied “No! It was terrible! I could not stop worrying about the fact that I might worry too much about thinking about pink elephants!” And the Master would go “That’s all fine. Just try for next week not to worry too much about worrying that you might worry too much about thinking about pink elephants”
… And it went on like that, until the student got hopelessly tangled up in the double negatives and so on, and they could no longer hold the distressing concept in their mind. At which point they were allegedly suddenly enlightened. You can find some Zen stories on YouTube if you like. They are quite interesting culturally/historically if nothing else, and Alan Watts does some fun readings of them.
Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna put the same basic principle more eloquently by saying “You must void the void.” …your thoughts neither exist nor do not exist... I think what he was getting at, was that most people initially get the wrong idea about what “nothing” means.
Korrelan’s concept of a Global Thought Pattern can be used to imagine this idea from more of a physics standpoint, specifically regarding the tendency towards paths of least resistance within systems which are not interfered with. When not reinforced by attempts at use or destruction, unnecessary structures can end up in much the same predicament as a non-Newtonian fluid.
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I wonder how much of it is superstitious behaviour and how much of it is obsessive compulsive disorder. As computer programmers we are especially prone to OCD and it can take quite an effort to keep it under control. I have to fight the urge to make all my identifiers the same length when I am coding! :D
Either way, a lot of these behaviours may have arisen from situations in which we found ourselves in the past, or common sense taken too far. There is a very good reason for not wanting to walk under ladders if you can avoid them, although the unconscious compulsion that I feel when I see a ladder does seem a lot stronger than is warranted. The same goes for avoiding stepping on cracks; it makes sense to avoid potentially unstable ground. I'm not so sure about black cats. While it is sensible to avoid cat sized animals in general because they are a tripping hazard, maybe in olden days, black cats were especially dangerous because of dim lighting. As for spilling salt, salt used to be an extremely valuable and hard to obtain substance and could supposedly even be used in lieu of money. It's bad luck to waste money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spilling_salt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_superstitions
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I have to fight the urge to make all my identifiers the same length when I am coding! :D
;D
There is a very good reason for not wanting to walk under ladders if you can avoid them, although the unconscious compulsion that I feel when I see a ladder does seem a lot stronger than is warranted.
I know, right!?
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Everyone has OCD it’s a key reflection/ aspect of being human/ learning.
Picking up a spoon in order to place sugar in a cup is exactly the same neural process, but certain patterns/ traits are framed by our society as OCD. If everyone clicked a light switch three times, the person who clicked it once would appear odd; they would have OID... obsessive in-compulsive disorder. (societal framing)
Superstitions and OCD both give insights into the mechanisms of free will and how it manifests/ compounds from the multitude of predefined/ learned facets that comprise a thought/ decision.
We can only make decisions based on our own current knowledge/ insights and this knowledge is constructed from the facets of our subjective experiences. Every concept/ construct/ thought is built from thousands of sub-constructs that are applied/ compounded automatically, we have no control of this process in the moment, but we can add to the mix, swaying/ influencing the process for future use.
Neurons/ networks have maturation cycles; they become less plastic with age, this is part of how our connectome builds hierarchical knowledge. When we are young our ‘foundational’ base networks are very plastic and impressionable and we tend to place our trust in specific adults (parents/ teachers). Superstitious belief stems from this early indoctrination, we ‘pick up’ their traits, once it’s embedded at the lowest levels of abstraction it’s practically impossible to remove, it’s just part of who you are.
Our global thought pattern (GTP) is akin to circulating mixing bowl of paint/ pigment. Every colour added changes the overall colour, no matter how small the amount it will have an effect on the outcome. If pink (pink elephants lol) is added there is no way to remove it, it’s an additive process… time dilutes the pink and it eventually fades until next time.
We are the sum of our experiences and learning, a well rounded education is important to prime/ prepare the adolescent brain to both conform and perform in our societies. But not all educational experiences/ brains are equal; we constantly combine/ build upon prior knowledge, if something low level is not understood correctly it will have repercussions right up through the learning stack.
There’s no point trying to convince a true ‘Flat Earther’ the earth is spherical (ish), that construct is built upon flawed or missing knowledge, they can’t help/ control what they are currently thinking… the key is to work back and figure out what miss conceptions are leading to the construct. Then provide arguments/ knowledge/ empirical proof that causes internal turmoil between their existing accepted beliefs/ knowledge… bringing their core facets into line.
All brains are different, I have a visual imagination… some people have limited or none. They get through life by compensating, using other skills/ / coping strategies to approximate a visual imagination when the experience requires. They don’t know they have none, just like I don’t know what mental skills you have that I don’t. Through experience/ learning and imagination I understand that the closer you get to the surface of a spheroid the flatter it appears… some are just missing the facets/ or unable to build this construct.
:)