| View previous topic :: View next topic |
|
|
|
 |
|
I am new to this site so I don't yet know a fraction of the background and origins of the AE methodology. But I was watching a YouTube video of Mick called the "Megalithomania Interview" from May last year, when I was struck by something he said that comes straight from a discipline that I do know something about.
Mick said he was drawn to Megalithomania because it is an area in which ". . people believe things, on the whole, not because they are true, but because . .". This statement struck me because epistemology is a field studied in applied psychology (my field). Epistemology can be simplistically defined as 'How we know that we know what we know'. And, of course, belief is a large part of that. Returning to Mick's statement, it is a strange but true fact that most people think that they believe something because it is true. The reality is (almost always) that they think it is true because they believe it. The mental process is actually reversed.
I have not yet seen this quoted or stated in any of the AE principles, etc. so I thought I would post it up here and see if someone tells me that I am rehashing old and well known facts.
If so, then just ignore me and maybe I'll go away - I usually do . . . eventually.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| David wrote: |
Mick said he was drawn to Megalithomania because it is an area in which ". . people believe things, on the whole, not because they are true, but because . ." |
"They are stoned"
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, well, there are days when I put too much whisky on my breakfast cereal, so I know what it is like!
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| David wrote: | | The mental process is actually reversed. |
Reversing is quite a simple way of beating the Einstellung effect (hey look at me!) But you will need to give us some examples.
| David wrote: |
If so, then just ignore me and maybe I'll go away - I usually do . . . eventually. |
Please don't.
Just tell us something new.....Don't tell us what you know...tell us something new, unorthodox and interesting.
| David wrote: |
Yes, well, there are days when I put too much whisky on my breakfast cereal, so I know what it is like! |
Way to go....
To celebrate my Aunt's 85th birthday, I took her round a £70.00 bottle of Rioja. She decanted it and handed me a glass. She poured her own, and topped it up with Coke.....
When I asked her why she had done this, she told me.
"Rioja works better with Coke than Pepsi..."
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Wile E. Coyote wrote: | Please don't.
Just tell us something new.....Dont tell us what you know...tell us something new, unorthodox and interesting." |
Sorry Wile E. but I can't make sense of your comment. I can only tell you that which I know. And not all truths are new or unorthodox - surely AE is a quest for truth more than merely a quest for the unorthodox and "interesting".
Besides all that, I have no idea what is new to you. I have come across many old truths that were new to me when I first found them.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I can, however fully relate to your reaction to your aunt topping up her quality Rioja with Coke. I recall my father's reaction to being offered water to go with his whisky . . . "Water!?! Water is for washing in! Don't you know that fishes fornicate in water?"
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| David wrote: |
Sorry Wile E. but I can't make sense of your comment. |
No problem.
You do have a point.
Wile is always seeking to trial a "new" and original invention...and yet most of the time he ends up in the bottom of the canyon....
There probably is a causal link.....
In fact, there must be a better method.
I just can't figure it out.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
|
You can look up at the stars from the bottom of the canyon.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Ishmael
In: Toronto
|
|
|
|
| David wrote: | | ...surely AE is a quest for truth more than merely a quest for the unorthodox and "interesting". |
To the contrary. Applied Epistemological maxims hold that...
- The truth is always simple.
- The truth is always obvious.
- The truth is always boring.
Application of these rules helps us to detect errors in orthodoxy; where the accepted wisdom is found to be complex, arcane, and compelling, it's almost certainly wrong.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But doesn't detecting errors in orthodoxy merely assist you in finding the real truth rather than the assumed and erroneous 'truths' of orthodoxy? In which case AE is also a search for truth. If it is not that then it is only a game and I don't believe that is the case.
Whether a truth is simple or boring is merely a statement about some attribute of the truth - it still remains truth.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| David wrote: | | But doesn't detecting errors in orthodoxy merely assist you in finding the real truth. |
Well if it did.......it might make things a tad easier....
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Roger Stone
In: conclusive
|
|
|
|
| You can look up at the stars from the bottom of the canyon. |
I believe this one is an urban myth? They say the same about looking up from inside a tall chimney; but it would have to be tall enough to reach outside the atmosphere for this to work.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
|
|
|
|
|
I wonder if someone told Robert Hooke that. The night sky above an Arizona canyon is pretty clear, clearer than London's light-polluted skyscape... or is that also an urban myth?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Boreades
In: finity and beyond
|
|
|
|
|
I do have "hands-on" experience to offer, but first: I'm curious, what's Robert Hooke got to do with it?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
Robert Hooke caused the Monument to be built at vast expense (it was the tallest free-standing stone column in the world) to his specifications. He then took one measurement of the transit of Venus from the basement of the Monument, looking up at the night sky. It was then turned over to its 'official' purpose, to (rather pointlessly) mark the (alleged) site of the start of the Great Fire of London.
Full story: http://secret-cities.com/2009/04/04/the-monument-and-robert-hooke/
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The Library Index 
FAQ 
Search
Register
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
