Self-image (was: Constructor theory paper by David)

[Rami Rustom]

This isn't necessary
true in more business/middle-class districts...but in poorer
districts
dealers are often pushers...under pressure to get new customers
for
new types of drug. It happens. There will be lots of other,
complicated, social class relaterd, explanations.

And in all of that you fail to mention the law.

We've been talking around the idea you had rejected cannabis was a
gateway drug. If that wasn't the case why didn't you just say so?

I don't know what you're asking. You asked me questions and I
answered
them directly. Are you again saying that I evaded?

I don't remember the first time I said you were evading. I'm not
aware
of feelings like that toward you. Did I introduce that word?

Well, the joke thing you said that I did is a type of evasion.

Rami - I'm sorry for raising the joke thing.

No apology necessary. You use it as part of your explanation about the
self-image. I see no problem in that.

The intention was to
illustrate a reflexive response that we all fall into sometimes when
things happen very quickly.

*Each* time that it happens, there is a meme involved. Its not some
default mode of thinking or anything like that.

I wasn't thinking of 'evasive' because
from my perspective...from looking at myself and others...what happens
in those situations is that we respond - as I say - reflexively and
then we rationalize what we did in keeping with our self-image and
then it's gone.

By reflexive, you mean subconscious. Though, I think you're saying
that since its a reflex, then it can't be changed. But thats false.
Its an idea. We can change them.

I would agree with you that it can be changed. But something I
currently question is whether the popperian mindset helps or hinders
making such changes.

External criticism helps a person notice his anti-rational memes. Agreed?

Popperians ***want*** external criticism because they know that
criticism can help them with the growth of their knowledge.

So Popperians seek out external criticism by posting their ideas publicly.

And then they address the criticism, rather than evade.

In your case, denying concepts like ego,
self-image and so on....I see this as a really useful conceptual
framework for identifying such behaviours in oneself.

When you first brought up the idea of self-image, I had never thought
about it before. My initial reaction was this IIRC:

Why *should* anyone think about their self-image?

And you didn't answer me. Why? I guess you're thinking that *everyone*
*must* think about their self-image. But I don't know since you didn't
answer me.

Why did I ask that question? Because I didn't understand the purpose
of thinking of one's self-image.

Most of my life I've been asking, "What do I gain by doing X?" If I
can't answer that question, then I don't do X.

So when you brought up the idea of self-image, I asked: "What do I
gain by thinking of my self-image?" And since then, I've figured some
out.

I think that thinking of one's self-image is harmful. And I see no advantages.

What do you think?

With that said, you strike me as someone who has done a lot of work on
himself. You've mentioned that this process goes back way before
coming along to the popper philosophy. You also mentioned that many of
the popper positions, you actually came to on your own. I'm interested
in that.

There is one objective set of truths. I called it the universe's
knowledge network.

And each one of us has a set of conjectural truths. I called it each
person's knowledge network.

All humans are trying to make their knowledge network converge with
the universe's knowledge network. In the Popper/Rand era, Popper's and
Rand's knowledge networks converged with the universe's knowledge
network more than any other people.

Perhaps you would consider doing a separate post to the group
telling your story. I would be interested anyway. Another point of
interest is that you've characterized your internal learnings - and
popper/deutsch's - as a 'network' or at least used that word. I'm
certainly like to hear more about that.

Popper and Rand both understood that *all knowledge is connected*. I
realized that back in July 2010. I wonder if I knew it subconsciously
before that and in July I just made it conscious and explicit.

*All knowledge is connected* implies that all knowledge exists in a
network. All I did was apply some math to the idea. I have a strong
math background.

So no evasiveness as I am interpreting you are using
the word.

You're thinking of consciously evading. I'm thinking of evading in
general, which includes subconsciously evading.

FWIW my personal learning from this discussion will most
definitely include that the way you responded to my raising the joke
thing was very much in keeping with the claims you had earlier made
about yourself (a lot of people - possibly including myself - would
have reacted much more adversely).

I don't know what you mean. What claims did I make about myself?

I think during this dialogue I have mentioned your post/s in which you
say you have moved beyond, for example, shame. As well as other
personal growth events. I was just saying that, your composure under
fire has impressed as a trait I would expect to see in someone who had
accomplishments like that.

Ah. I note that you said "under fire". That says something about your
attitude towards discussions. You thought that I would take your
discussion tactics as offensive or warlike or whatever. That is a
zero-sum attitude. I used to have that attitude. My attitude now is
very much non-zero-sum. I don't consider these discussions as
offensive/warlike. I saw your discussion tactics as a way to reveal
the truth. Why else would you do what you did? To hurt me? To make me
feel bad? I don't think you care about stupid stuff like that.

And if a person *did* think that way, and said things like that to me,
why should I get offended or feel shame or whatever? Either he made a
mistake or I made a mistake. Mistakes are not bad in and of
themselves.

Anyway, I discovered somethings about psychology before learning the
non-zero-sum idea. I learned that *all* emotions are due to
thoughts/ideas. So if one doesn't like his emotion, then he should
work to discover the thought/idea that is causing it. And if he
doesn't know immediately, then the idea is subconscious, in which case
there is some work to be done to make it conscious and explicit.

However, I feel the joke thing has its own container separate from the
gateway thread. In fact having just checked you introduced the word
asking me if I was evading providing a response about something.

Not addressing criticism can be evasion. Or it could be genuine lack
of interest. Or it could be related to a specific problem one has, and
addressing criticism does not solve his problem, or it would make the
problem worse.

Yes...not responding has many meanings. In fact could I ask you
something about this? Something I've noticed in some of your posts is
the way you talk about people stopping responding. I could be wrong
but it seems as though you are assuming they have no further
criticisms?

No. But that is one possibility.

Is that the case? If it was, I'd probably think that
fairly unreliable. I for one, will only respond if several boxes are
ticked. The most important is that I think the other person is making
an effort to understand what I have said.

Sure. But, if you think he's not making an effort, instead of
quitting, you could choose to call him out on that.

It's not that I am making
them responsible for what can be awful communication on my part...I'm
more than happy to take responsibility...but the bottom line is still
that the other person has to be getting it at least to some extent.
Good motivation is another key for me. There are lots of others. I'm
sure it's the same for most people.

The point is that a Popperian wants to solve his problems. And he
knows that anti-rational memes are problems. And he can't be sure
whether or not he has fixed all of them. So, in situations where he
subconsciously evades, he's (by definition) not aware that he did it.
So he wants others to point it out to him, allowing him to address it
and fix it.

That's the aspiration, but is it the reality?

Are you saying that some problems are insoluble?

People that consciously evade, are not Popperians. They have goals
that are inconsistent with Popperism.

To be popperian wouldn't it be enough to want to think better and be
making progress at thinking better? Are you saying consciously evading
is a hurdle someone has to get over before they can even be considered
on the path? What if they are really trying but have some whopping big
irrational memes in that area?

One huge criteria I would think is required in order to have the label
of Popperian is to like criticism.

I'm not sure what you are saying works.

I'm not sure we're communicating too well....I'm happy to take
responsibility for that. Let's give this discussion a bit longer to
come to something and then maybe drop it.

I reject the idea that any choice is a gateway to another choice

It looks to me like you are defining 'gateway' in particular ways
that
I wouldn't and doubt any mainstream discussion would either. If as a
consequence of buying grass, someone comes to a decision point about
heroin that they would not otherwise have come to, then that would be
enough to call buying grass a 'gateway' on some definition of
gateway.
There's no need to include personal responsibility in the equation
unless that is specifically what you want to do.

I don't see any way for a gateway theory to make sense. If you do, tell
us.

A 'gateway' seems to me more a 'container' word that is given sense or
not by the explanations provided. Like I say, if getting in pot
results in finding oneself at decision points that one would not
otherwise have come to, that is enough to start defining the decision
to get into pot as some sort of 'gateway'.
There's nothing wrong with defining it philosophically in terms of
choices and personal responsibility but that isn't necessary or
implicit unless those are the things you want to examine or refute or
whatever.

No. Its *always* necessary when talking about choices.

We're talking about something that does at the individual level
involve choices, but that doesn't mean we are necessarily talking at
this time....about individual choices.
Just logically speaking....if smoking pot leads to a decision point
that the person would not otherwise have come to, or would have had a
much lower probability of coming to, then that is enough to start
defining smoking pot as a gateway to that decision point. The reason
why we are doing it is undefined in this example, and does not need to
be defined in the logic being proposed.

Ok. And at this point, its not a good explanation.

Suggesting the gateway theory is that
100% of people who try cannabis will try heroin is obviously
not
plausible at all.

That is not a theory. That is a statement of an expected
observation.
You're saying that the gateway theory *is* of the form: X% of
people
who do X will do Y. That is not a theory. It doesn't explain why
anything is happening. It only *asserts* that something is
happening
without explaining causality.
And the only causality you've explained so far is stuff about
drug
dealers and you didn't even mention why we have drug dealers.

I actually don't know what you are talking about at this stage. We
began a discussion based on the idea you had defined the concept
of
cannabis being a gateway drug as "100% of users will try heroin".
If
that wasn't your position you should have said so.

I didn't say anything about numbers. You brought that up. All I said
was that the gateway theory says that A causes B. And I'm saying
that
A and B are choices. And choices don't cause choices. People make
choices using their ideas.

I thought the refutation you brought...along the lines of an example
of someone smoking pot and not taking heroin....implied that the
conjecture you were perceiving involved an absolute link in each and
every instance.

If A causes B, then A *always* causes B. There is no sometimes or in
some situations.
If the gateway theory doesn't talk about causality, then what is the
point of the theory?

I don't think the causality is implied by the term 'gateway'.

Then its stupid. A theory that doesn't explain causality is a bad
explanation. It says nothing.

Explaining causality would certainly be an essential end-product. But
knowledge creation is step-wise and evolves - as you know. There are
all sorts of devices (thought experiments, say) that might be
deployed to support the knowledge creation process. All that is
important in the popperian sense - I think - is that each step is
subject to the explanation/criticism process. In terms of using an
abstract container such as 'gateway' one explanation would presumably
be along the lines of "this is why using this abstraction is useful to
the process of ultimately explaining what if any link connects pot to
smac and whether that link is useful/interesting"

You have
to add in what it is. What I would expect is that in the mainstream
debate, things begin with some statistics and testimony, and a process
of adding causality has been attempted in various ways and remains
incomplete.

What is the causality part of the gateway theory?

Well....I don't know precisely where the mainstream debate has got to
on this, but in my example above the causality would still be a work
in progress but could be stated so far as, people who obtain and
consume pot are X more probable to come to a decision point about Y
(say heroin) than people who do not obtain and consume pot.

That is a bad explanation. It uses the idea a person makes a decision
by probability. That idea is false. Do you have a criticism of this
idea?

So, if you want to fix the bad explanation, you can start by taking
out the probability part.

The nature
of the link would not yet be understood, but the use of the gateway
concept would be explained as a container for things like the
statistics, the testimonies, the proposition of a link...and all
useful if, and only if, the process is brought closer to identifying a
cause.

My original point was just that, it only makes sense to try to capture
the actual process that has taken place in the mainstream debate,
before attempting to refute it or not.

But the mainstream debate messes up the causality of the gateway theory.

It might. But what it simply cannot be seriously proposing is "100% of
people who smoke pot go on to take heroin". That can't be the
proposal because that just isn't at all sensible.

Another way to refute it in the popperian method would be to
'pre-refute' for violating some other principle regarded as true.

Right. And you think this is a fault, right? So explain it. Explain
why you think this is a fault.

I don't think that is a fault, although I do think sometimes
Popperians misuse it. But that is for another discussion since that is
not what you did. What you did was define the mainstream gateway
conjecture effectively as "100% of people who smoke pot go on to take
heroin". That is what you then refuted.

Basically you're saying that if an explanation (theory) is bad, then
its still ok to consider it true or do science based on that theory.
You are contradicting Popperism. So what is your criticism? What is
your explanation that this is a flaw?

I don't think has been said, at least not in this thread.

And if its going to talk about causality, how can anyone create a
theory which explains causality when each person that the theory
attempts to explain is different. Each person has different ideas, and
those ideas affect his choices.

You are implicitly assuming Popperianism is infallible. I have
said I
have a criticism, one knock-on consequence of which is that
Popperians
aren't going to be any better than anyone else at hearing
criticism
they don't want to hear.

Do you know why people don't want to hear criticism of certain
ideas?
It means they have anti-rational memes related to those ideas. Can a
Popperian have anti-rational memes? Of course. I've already said
this.
What is infallibilist about it?

You haven't heard the criticism because I haven't made the decision
to
attempt to explain it. So there's no way that I can see that you can
attach antirational memes to it.

I brought up anti-rational memes because that is the only thing that
shields ideas from creativity and criticism. By *shielding* I mean
that a person *evades* thinking about the (shielded) idea. Feeling
shame is one type of consequence of a person feeling the effects of an
anti-rational meme doing its work of shielding an idea.

I hear what you're saying but I do feel there's a certain amount of
circularity going on in how you define the extent someone understands
popperianism...that doesn't seem to keep fallibility enough in the
loop.

You said that earlier. I replied with a criticism and a question. You
did not address my criticism nor answer my question. And then you
repeated your unexplained assertion a second time. This is a form of
evasion.

You might be right....but if you're willing I think you'll have to run
this past me one more time. Perhaps one way to help me understand is
by explaining the distinction between where you are going in this
component, and the following statement which can't be popperian
"Someone who criticizes Popperianism cannot understand Popperianism".

I didn't say/mean that.

I said that someone who consciously evades criticism doesn't
understand Popperism.

But, you brought up a couple of other reasons that someone would
consciously evade criticism, like believing that the other person is
not willing to understand your argument. But, a Popperian would call
him out on that, instead of not addressing a criticism.

But, maybe you have a gut feeling, that disagrees with me. That means
you have a subconscious idea that conflicts with my idea. So, at this
point, you could try to make that idea conscious and explicit, so that
you can present it to me, so that I can try to criticize it, or be
persuaded. Of course, you would only want to do that if you're
interested in this problem. By problem I mean the conflict between my
theory (that your action is inconsistent with Popperism) and your
theory (that your action is consistent with Popperism).

I would have to be interested in the problem, and believe that you
were able and willing to work with me to put my idea into a reasonably
strong form, such that we'd both come away satisfied by either an
agreement or a refutation.
I appreciate what I say above is not necessarily according to the
- it is consistent with my criticism of, say, the way you set up the
gateway conjecture

What you tried to do with the gateway conjecture was make a trap for
me to fall in. That is a tactic that conventional debaters use. Its
anti-Popperian.

- on the face of it, it is also consistent with something popper
himself said which was something like, before criticizing an idea, one
should first improve it, improve it again....and then criticize THAT.

If
an obligation like that does exist in the philosophy, then for sure
that is an area I didn't know about.
Also, as mentioned above, I don't recall thinking or saying that you
were being evasivre in this particular thread.

You said that I was evading about not getting the joke. You did use
the word "evading" but its the same meaning.

I didn't mean anything with the same meaning as evasive as I
understand it to be, but I do acknowledge that would very likely be
the strong impression given. Also...I want to apologize for putting
you on the spot about that.

I'm not hurt. And you needed to do it to explain your theory about
self-image.

OK Rami that's very cool

For any given observable, there are an infinite set of possible
interpretations. Some are negative -- some are positive. The goal is
to rule out all but one. But often we are presented with situations
where we have to make a choice where we haven't yet ruled out all but
one interpretation. What should we do? I choose to error on the side
of a positive interpretation.

In this case, the observable was your debate tactic, and the positive
interpretation I chose was that you used the debate tactic in order to
reveal something that would help explain your self-image theory. In
this interpretation, your goal is good -- you are trying to expand
your knowledge.

In other words, "Innocent until proven guilty."

-- Rami