Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Imagine No Religion 3: Peter Boghossian - Street Epistemology + Q&A with LAAG
Peter Boghossian (PB) talks about dialectical http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical interventions which are designed to separate Faith (the virus) from its host (the faithful person). The strategy for talking people out of their faith is called Street Epistemology. Rationality, reason and evidence should be used to determine what is good for people and their community, not Faith. In USA public policy is driven by Faith eg abstinence only sex education, prohibitions against gay marriage, bans on death with dignity, corporal punishment in schools, non-funding of family planning projects, promotion of creationism and other pseudosciences in school RE lessons.
PB talk comes from Chapter 4 (Interventions & Strategies) of his book, A Manual for Creating Atheists (Kindle £3.77, accessed 21st December 2013) gives tools to stop the spread of the faith virus.
Its an action plan for skeptical citizenship (2mins 57secs = 2:57), to align their views with reality, to move people away from Faith and superstition. PB has a framework and 9 strategies:-
Framework
The core of the framework of Street Epistemology is not about changing peoples beliefs (3:45) its about the way people form beliefs. Epistemology is the study of knowledge, its how you know what you know. Faith is an epistemology (4:25). Faith is belief without sufficient evidence (I use Peter Atkins phrase 'reliable evidence'), it's virtually impossible to prove a faith claim. His research was on behavioural change of prisoners (7:44).
Strategy 1: Meet People 'Where they Are'
From 'Transtheoretical Model of Change' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical_model (8:21). 5 stages of change http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transtheoretical_model#Stages_of_change: 1) Precontemplation (Not ready to change) aka denial (I'd say 'delusional') 2) Contemplation (getting ready to change) 3) Preparation (ready to change) 4) Action 5) Maintenance. The goal is to meet people where they are and move them through these stages of change.
2: Non-Adversarial Relationships
People change pathological views from a position of safety. Set the tone of the conversation, the adult table. Use the right words eg We not You. Don't have a hint of the angry atheist, this will compromise the intervention (12:17). Relationship Evangelism (12:40) is used by Faithful but can be used to turn people to atheism and reason.
3: Reconceptualise faith as a virus
12:55m: I conceptualise Faith is a virus. The faithful are not well cognitively and they need our help. They are epistemic victims of some specious dangerous epistemology - way to come to knowledge. Our goal is help them trade an unreliable epistemology for a reliable epistemology - from an unreliable way to know the world to a reliable way to know the world. I'm not upset with somebody who has caught a cold, so to I'm not upset with somebody who has caught the faith virus (13:55). It is an epistemological sickness. Everyone in this room need more compassion and more understanding to try to help people move through these stages of change. This will also help to conceptualise Faith as a virus - so we don't develop adversarial relationships (14.30).
4. Faith not god
Strategies 4-6 are prohibitions. God is a conclusion one has based on an unreliable epistemology (14:39). Faith not God (15:24). Don't address the symptom, address the underlying illness. The faith virus is the belief in God (15:49).
5. Faith not religion
Don't address religion, address faith. Community is wedded to religion. Take away faith and everything built upon it is severely compromised (16:55).
6. Faith not politics
How do you know that's true? (17:32)
7. Avoid Facts (in Precomplentative stage)
Don't bring facts into discussion when people are precomplentative (18:18).
8. Bring Focus back to epistemology
Focus on epistemology, don't be sidetracked (20:49)
Strategy 9. Divorce belief from morality
Defense mechanism of faith is that any challenge to it is immoral (22:19) They think that having faith makes them a moral person.
Interventions
(moving on from Chapter 4) (25:40). When flying sit in the middle chair. Be sincere. Don't talk about yourself. Ask a question that establishes a rapport. Then begin the intervention eg if reading the bible. Many diagnostic questions. Then ask 'Did Jesus walk on water?' 'How sure of that are you?' 90% = precontemplative (don't use facts!), 80%=contemplative, 60%=Preparative. How would someone know that? It's in the bible. (don't talk about existence of god or evolution). [Peter has done 'street epistemology for 25 years, several hours each day!] They say 'I feel it in my heart'. Validate their experience. Dissassociate feel with cause. What do you think of people in other faith traditions? Keep focused on epistemology. How do they know this.
You have to be genuinely willing to reconsider your beliefs. But ... Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (Carl Sagan).
Instead of a replacement 4th Horsemen we can have millions of Street Epistemologists. (35:00)
Questions to 35:00-55:00
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
What is Skepticism?
Interesting ideas about 'What is Skepticism?'
sources:
sources:
- http://skeptoid.com/skeptic.php
- http://davidwaldock.wordpress.com/2011/05/01/what-is-a-skeptic-and-am-i-one-part-1-defining-skepticism/
The Skeptic's Dictionary at skepdic.com - G. I. Gurdjieff & PD Ouspensky
Updated 17th December 2013 (original blog dated 10th December 2011)
Between 1982 and 1985 I attended lectures at the School of Economic Science (SES) (not to be confused with the London School of Economics!) in London. SES influences included G Gurdjieff and PD Ouspensky. On 10th December 2011 I spoke to a lady at Dorset Humanists who had been a member of another Gurdjieff group in London in the 1990s, which reminded me of my early philosophical influences. I agree with Skepdic.com that GG/PDO system took little cognisance of science or the scientific method - and that, to me, was their fatal flaw.
To me both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky were the antithesis of skeptics; they were Aristotelian in their approach. The School of Economic Science used a sophisticated, but ultimately flawed method of anecdotal and personal evidence building, the antithesis of the scientific method.
As Brian Dunning (Skeptoid.com) said in 2013:
In the Skepdic's Dictionary Gurdjieff is given a mention in the A-Z (Abracadabra to Zombies) section. These quotes I think are quite perceptive:-
According to Skepdic.com:-
Between 1982 and 1985 I attended lectures at the School of Economic Science (SES) (not to be confused with the London School of Economics!) in London. SES influences included G Gurdjieff and PD Ouspensky. On 10th December 2011 I spoke to a lady at Dorset Humanists who had been a member of another Gurdjieff group in London in the 1990s, which reminded me of my early philosophical influences. I agree with Skepdic.com that GG/PDO system took little cognisance of science or the scientific method - and that, to me, was their fatal flaw.
To me both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky were the antithesis of skeptics; they were Aristotelian in their approach. The School of Economic Science used a sophisticated, but ultimately flawed method of anecdotal and personal evidence building, the antithesis of the scientific method.
As Brian Dunning (Skeptoid.com) said in 2013:
"Anecdotal evidence and personal testimonies generally don't meet the qualifications for scientific evidence, and thus won't often be accepted by a responsible skeptic; which often explains why skeptics get such a bad rap for being negative or disbelieving people. They're simply following the scientific method."G. I. Gurdjieff
In the Skepdic's Dictionary Gurdjieff is given a mention in the A-Z (Abracadabra to Zombies) section. These quotes I think are quite perceptive:-
- He offered numerous claims and explanations for everything under the moon, rooted in little more than his own imagination and never tempered with concern for what science might have to say about his musings.
- What makes a guru such as Gurdjieff attractive as a spiritual conquistador is his seemingly shrewd observation that most human beings who are awake act as if they are asleep. Gurdjieff also observed that most people are dead on the inside. I think he meant by these claims that most people are passive sheep and need a guru to give their lives vitality and meaning. That is to say, I believe Gurdjieff correctly noted that most people are neither skeptics nor self-motivated, and that many are easily duped by gurus because they want someone to show them the way to live a meaningful life. He offered to show his followers the way to true wakefulness, a state of awareness and vitality which transcends ordinary consciousness.
- Gurdjieff obviously had a powerful personality, but his disdain for the mundane and for natural science must have added to his attractiveness.
- To those on a quest for spiritual evolution or transformation, guides like Gurdjieff and Ouspesky promise entry into an esoteric world of ancient mystical wisdom. Such a world may seem attractive to those who are drifting at sea and rudderless.
According to Skepdic.com:-
- Ouspensky was a mathematician and mystic who played the St. Paul to Gurdjeff's Jesus, taking the occult and often unintelligible notions of the master and making them palatable, if no more comprehensible
- Ouspensky is likely to remain a favourite among New Agers since he wrote books with titles like Tertium Organum: The Third Canon Of Thought: A Key To The Enigmas Of The World, an attempt to reconcile the mysticism of the east with the rationalism of the west.
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