1 00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:06,400 David, um do you know of any podcasts that um well actually I'll just leave it 2 00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:06,640 at that. 3 00:00:06,800 --> 00:00:08,320 Do you know of any podcasts? 4 00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:13,840 Uh I I know of one of them that is my personal favorite called Evolutionary Psychology the 5 00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:14,160 Podcast. 6 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:16,480 That is not what I was expecting you to say at all. 7 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:19,920 You were expecting me to say some other podcast? 8 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:23,920 Well, I don't I mean you're on this one, so I I mean that's great that it's your favorite 9 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:24,240 too. 10 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:25,280 Is that is that true? 11 00:00:25,440 --> 00:00:26,560 Is that really your favorite? 12 00:00:27,130 --> 00:00:30,810 I don't know if I'm an impartial uh I see source. 13 00:00:31,370 --> 00:00:34,010 Well, we'll we'll we'll talk about this offline. 14 00:00:34,090 --> 00:00:36,570 So um we'll circle back to that as they say. 15 00:00:36,730 --> 00:00:38,890 Um but uh what are we doing today? 16 00:00:39,210 --> 00:00:43,370 Uh well we're actual evolutionary psychologists, and we're talking to actual evolutionary 17 00:00:43,370 --> 00:00:45,770 psychologists who do actual evolutionary psychology. 18 00:00:45,850 --> 00:00:48,170 It's a not quite our tagline, but it's close enough. 19 00:00:48,570 --> 00:00:50,890 Uh isn't that I thought that was our tagline. 20 00:00:51,450 --> 00:00:55,940 Well, it's actual evolutionary psychology by evolution actual evolutionary psychologist. 21 00:00:56,260 --> 00:00:57,060 What did you what did you say? 22 00:00:57,220 --> 00:01:00,980 Should we change the I said something like I changed it slightly I think it was more had 23 00:01:00,980 --> 00:01:04,660 more than it well we'll check the transcript later. 24 00:01:04,740 --> 00:01:09,700 Okay anyway I'm sorry to uh keep going on and on uh without further ado here is our episode 25 00:01:21,430 --> 00:01:27,270 Okay, uh David, today we have a special guest who is uh where is where is David 26 00:01:28,230 --> 00:01:29,030 said David. 27 00:01:29,270 --> 00:01:31,270 Uh we should that's um that's we're laying it. 28 00:01:31,510 --> 00:01:33,110 Safe bet given all the Davids we interact with. 29 00:01:33,270 --> 00:01:35,270 Uh actually Dan, another another D name. 30 00:01:35,510 --> 00:01:40,700 It is uh and Dan Dan is uh our first philosopher that we've had on the podcast. 31 00:01:41,420 --> 00:01:46,220 Um and uh he's a a wonderful and brilliant thinker, uh philosopher at the University of 32 00:01:46,220 --> 00:01:50,220 Sussex, which I screwed up uh during the beginning of the interview I saw with Sheffield. 33 00:01:50,700 --> 00:01:55,020 And for those people at Sheffield, um we we really like Sheffield too. 34 00:01:55,100 --> 00:01:56,940 It's a wonderful institution. 35 00:01:57,660 --> 00:02:02,450 Yeah, it was it was a uh a complimentary mistake, and that I you know, it was you know It's 36 00:02:02,530 --> 00:02:03,730 a it's a wonderful institution. 37 00:02:03,890 --> 00:02:07,170 But also Sussex is a great institution as well, uh, so far as I'm aware. 38 00:02:07,330 --> 00:02:08,770 Well, at the very least, it has Dan Williams. 39 00:02:09,090 --> 00:02:10,930 So that it must be it must be a great institution. 40 00:02:12,130 --> 00:02:13,810 Uh anyway, who is Dan Williams? 41 00:02:13,890 --> 00:02:18,770 He's a philosopher, he studies um belief, misinformation, delusion, 42 00:02:19,490 --> 00:02:20,690 epistemology. 43 00:02:20,850 --> 00:02:22,690 Uh we get into all sorts of things. 44 00:02:22,850 --> 00:02:24,530 It was a really mind-bending conversation. 45 00:02:24,610 --> 00:02:26,050 What is the nature of belief? 46 00:02:26,210 --> 00:02:28,770 Uh what is the evolutionary psychology of belief? 47 00:02:28,930 --> 00:02:34,720 How do social forces uh and and uh social status how do they affect the 48 00:02:34,720 --> 00:02:39,680 things that we believe what is a delusion what does it mean to really believe something we 49 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:43,280 even get into Jordan Peterson and whether we should think he's full of shit or not. 50 00:02:43,360 --> 00:02:45,280 Uh it was it was a really fun conversation. 51 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:51,520 Yeah I think what people believe and why the science of that gets into sort of some deep 52 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:55,280 waters too with people sort of feeling like being attacked too. 53 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:56,720 And we talk about that a little bit too. 54 00:02:56,800 --> 00:03:01,710 So it's it's definitely a very interesting content in that sense too. 55 00:03:01,790 --> 00:03:06,910 Of you one starts to sort of step on uh political ideas that in the same way you do, David. 56 00:03:06,990 --> 00:03:09,470 And I think that was an interesting part of the conversation, too. 57 00:03:09,870 --> 00:03:10,190 Yeah. 58 00:03:10,430 --> 00:03:11,870 So super fun conversation. 59 00:03:11,950 --> 00:03:13,710 I think you'll have a good time listening to it. 60 00:03:14,110 --> 00:03:14,750 Sounds good. 61 00:03:14,830 --> 00:03:19,070 And uh yeah, listen for the uh everyone's opinion about Jordan Peterson. 62 00:03:21,470 --> 00:03:21,870 All right. 63 00:03:22,190 --> 00:03:22,830 All right, we're going. 64 00:03:25,620 --> 00:03:30,260 uh professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield and Sussex. 65 00:03:30,740 --> 00:03:31,540 Sorry, Sussex. 66 00:03:31,700 --> 00:03:32,660 Oh my god, I'm so sorry. 67 00:03:32,980 --> 00:03:36,500 No, that's what did I get that where where did I get Sheffield? 68 00:03:36,660 --> 00:03:37,380 Was that a display? 69 00:03:37,620 --> 00:03:38,420 It is a place in the US. 70 00:03:39,620 --> 00:03:40,180 Oh, okay. 71 00:03:40,260 --> 00:03:41,940 I must have mixed it up with a different place. 72 00:03:42,420 --> 00:03:44,900 I feel like someone else that's similar to you works there. 73 00:03:45,940 --> 00:03:47,700 David, you invited Dan on. 74 00:03:47,780 --> 00:03:50,100 Was there a different Dan Williams that you wanted to invite? 75 00:03:50,260 --> 00:03:50,820 Is this the case? 76 00:03:51,140 --> 00:03:51,700 Oh, you know what? 77 00:03:51,780 --> 00:03:52,980 There are a lot of Dan Williams. 78 00:03:53,300 --> 00:03:54,490 I think we got the wrong one. 79 00:03:54,730 --> 00:03:57,370 You know, we'll have to make do with this Dan Williams. 80 00:03:59,050 --> 00:04:05,050 Anyway, and you're also uh the writer of the popular substack Conspicuous Cognition, 81 00:04:05,130 --> 00:04:06,490 which is a wonderful substack. 82 00:04:06,730 --> 00:04:09,210 I recommend everyone subscribe to it. 83 00:04:09,610 --> 00:04:13,530 Um so Dan, you're our first philosopher on the show. 84 00:04:14,010 --> 00:04:14,410 Yeah, I know. 85 00:04:14,570 --> 00:04:16,010 That's a big lift. 86 00:04:16,090 --> 00:04:16,330 Yeah. 87 00:04:16,740 --> 00:04:16,980 Yeah. 88 00:04:17,060 --> 00:04:20,500 So you're gonna have to represent the entire discipline of of philosophy. 89 00:04:20,820 --> 00:04:23,140 Um I hope you're ready to take on that mantle. 90 00:04:23,460 --> 00:04:25,700 Yes, defend it on uh first principles. 91 00:04:25,860 --> 00:04:30,260 We were we were actually both saying how we have all sort of interacted online but never 92 00:04:30,260 --> 00:04:30,980 met in person. 93 00:04:31,220 --> 00:04:34,180 Um so I feel like this is sort of like meeting in person. 94 00:04:34,260 --> 00:04:38,500 Um, although we're we're still not I don't know, is this online or in person? 95 00:04:39,380 --> 00:04:40,180 It's both. 96 00:04:40,570 --> 00:04:40,810 Okay. 97 00:04:40,970 --> 00:04:42,410 That's the philosoph the philosophy. 98 00:04:42,730 --> 00:04:43,690 That's the definitive answer. 99 00:04:44,090 --> 00:04:44,250 Great. 100 00:04:44,330 --> 00:04:44,810 It's both. 101 00:04:44,970 --> 00:04:45,370 Good. 102 00:04:45,610 --> 00:04:49,210 Um, so uh so so Dan, really great to have you here. 103 00:04:49,450 --> 00:04:55,290 Um uh I know a lot of the work that you do um involves I kind of 104 00:04:55,290 --> 00:05:01,130 think about your work similar to to David's work, um, which is a compliment to 105 00:05:01,130 --> 00:05:01,690 David. 106 00:05:01,770 --> 00:05:03,210 Um uh sorry. 107 00:05:03,370 --> 00:05:09,370 Um, but uh uh but it's sort of in this category of there's a social 108 00:05:09,530 --> 00:05:15,060 logic to lots of stuff that's maybe hidden and hasn't been appreciated. 109 00:05:15,300 --> 00:05:18,900 Um, do you think that is a fair characterization of your work? 110 00:05:19,060 --> 00:05:24,100 And if so, can you maybe for people who haven't come across your work, sort of talk a 111 00:05:24,100 --> 00:05:29,300 little bit about how you view um, you know, if you're stuck in an elevator with somebody 112 00:05:29,300 --> 00:05:34,260 and they're they want to know more than a you're a philosopher informed by evolution, um 113 00:05:34,690 --> 00:05:38,450 How do you think about sort of what's the main line of what you do? 114 00:05:39,330 --> 00:05:40,930 Hmm, that's a good question. 115 00:05:41,090 --> 00:05:46,930 Um I suppose the overarching question that I'm interested in is why do people believe what 116 00:05:46,930 --> 00:05:52,530 they do, especially when they seem to believe things that are strange or irrational, um, 117 00:05:52,770 --> 00:05:54,930 outright bizarre, delusional. 118 00:05:55,170 --> 00:05:57,010 Um, that's a sort of overarching question. 119 00:05:57,170 --> 00:06:00,930 It's not the only question that I'm interested in, but it tends to be connected to many of 120 00:06:00,930 --> 00:06:02,770 the other things that I'm interested in. 121 00:06:03,100 --> 00:06:08,940 And there is this sort of view I have, which is very general, that human beings 122 00:06:08,940 --> 00:06:11,420 are these intensely social animals. 123 00:06:11,820 --> 00:06:17,420 And most of the features of human psychology and our behavior that 124 00:06:17,420 --> 00:06:22,780 seem otherwise sort of strange or self-defeating or irrational or 125 00:06:22,780 --> 00:06:28,220 paradoxical actually make a lot more sense once you situate that psychology within the 126 00:06:28,220 --> 00:06:30,540 context of the fact that we're social animals. 127 00:06:32,270 --> 00:06:37,790 competing for prestige, trying to cultivate a good reputation, trying to form 128 00:06:38,190 --> 00:06:41,390 alliances that would advance our interests, and so on. 129 00:06:41,630 --> 00:06:45,710 And I think that then is really important when it comes to understanding belief 130 00:06:45,710 --> 00:06:46,270 specifically. 131 00:06:46,430 --> 00:06:52,190 So I think that many of the sort of strange things that we believe in domains like 132 00:06:52,190 --> 00:06:58,120 religion and ideology, and often what's thought of in terms of self-deception, is sort 133 00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:03,080 of best illuminated by understanding the kinds of social goals that we have. 134 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:08,520 And that's also where my sort of interest in evolutionary theory comes from, which I think 135 00:07:08,520 --> 00:07:13,960 is quite unusual for someone in academic philosophy and uh especially unusual in the sort 136 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:15,400 of humanities more generally. 137 00:07:15,640 --> 00:07:20,360 Because I think evolutionary theory gives you a kind of important toolkit for thinking 138 00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:24,680 about the ways in which the fact that we're social animals has shaped the kinds of minds 139 00:07:24,680 --> 00:07:26,730 that we have and the kinds of motivations that we have. 140 00:07:26,970 --> 00:07:30,250 I guess at the most abstract level, that would be the kind of the kind of idea. 141 00:07:30,570 --> 00:07:31,690 That's that's fantastic. 142 00:07:31,930 --> 00:07:35,930 Um, you know, in you mentioned philosophy, and you mentioned belief. 143 00:07:36,250 --> 00:07:42,250 Um in my understanding, and I'm gonna like qualify everything I say with, you know, I'm 144 00:07:42,250 --> 00:07:48,010 an amateur philosopher, I'm a happy amateur um uh for philosophy, but uh 145 00:07:48,090 --> 00:07:54,040 belief, the idea of belief and what it is and how it works has been a longstanding thing in 146 00:07:54,040 --> 00:07:54,680 philosophy. 147 00:07:54,840 --> 00:08:00,520 Do you view taking an evolutionary approach in particularly what you just described as 148 00:08:00,760 --> 00:08:04,440 divert diverging in important and interesting ways? 149 00:08:04,600 --> 00:08:06,520 Maybe I'm leading by saying interesting. 150 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:11,560 But do you think that's a different way of approaching the idea of belief and what it's for 151 00:08:11,640 --> 00:08:13,720 and its function in philosophy? 152 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:16,280 It's difficult to say. 153 00:08:17,710 --> 00:08:23,710 I think that historically there hasn't been a sharp distinction between philosophy and 154 00:08:23,710 --> 00:08:26,270 psychology and and social theory. 155 00:08:26,430 --> 00:08:32,350 And historically, when I think many philosophers, psychologists, um, sociologists and so 156 00:08:32,350 --> 00:08:37,950 on have tried to understand the ways in which we form beliefs and why we form beliefs 157 00:08:38,190 --> 00:08:42,300 that we do, I don't think they've been sufficiently sensitive to the fact that we're social 158 00:08:42,300 --> 00:08:42,780 animals. 159 00:08:42,940 --> 00:08:48,780 Um, so in that sense, I think pushing this sort of social perspective is at 160 00:08:48,780 --> 00:08:53,900 odds with lots of theory both in philosophy and elsewhere when it comes to understanding 161 00:08:53,900 --> 00:08:54,540 belief. 162 00:08:54,780 --> 00:08:56,220 Um, but but it's difficult. 163 00:08:56,300 --> 00:08:59,820 I mean, lots of philosophy is often concerned with what you might think of as sort of 164 00:08:59,820 --> 00:09:03,420 conceptual questions or maybe metaphysical questions, depending on which way you look at 165 00:09:03,420 --> 00:09:03,660 it. 166 00:09:03,820 --> 00:09:06,300 Like, what even is it to believe something? 167 00:09:06,830 --> 00:09:10,430 And that's just this really deep and complex question. 168 00:09:10,590 --> 00:09:13,710 And I think in many ways we still don't have a particularly good answer to that. 169 00:09:14,350 --> 00:09:20,190 Because this term belief gets used to refer to lots of different things that are different 170 00:09:20,190 --> 00:09:22,430 from each other in very complex ways. 171 00:09:23,070 --> 00:09:26,350 And so, for example, you know, I believe I'm talking to you two. 172 00:09:26,500 --> 00:09:30,180 Um, I might also believe, let's say, that capitalism is an unjust system. 173 00:09:30,260 --> 00:09:34,100 You know, I might believe that there's a supernatural agent that monitors my behavior and 174 00:09:34,100 --> 00:09:35,300 punishes me for bad things. 175 00:09:35,380 --> 00:09:38,740 You know, we use belief to capture all of these different things. 176 00:09:39,060 --> 00:09:44,740 And it's not really at all obvious that they are the same thing, um, except insofar as 177 00:09:44,740 --> 00:09:47,460 there's a sincere commitment to the truth of a proposition. 178 00:09:47,630 --> 00:09:51,390 Um, but I think even there, I mean, we can we can we can get into this, and this is 179 00:09:51,390 --> 00:09:53,790 something, David, I know that you're really interested in as well. 180 00:09:54,110 --> 00:09:58,670 Even there, I think the fact that we're we're social animals competing for status and 181 00:09:58,670 --> 00:10:02,510 trying to you know boost our reputation and trying to influence other people in 182 00:10:02,510 --> 00:10:07,310 advantageous ways, that's relevant to understanding a lot of that complexity. 183 00:10:07,470 --> 00:10:13,340 Um, I think if we weren't social animals to the degree that that we are, then the 184 00:10:13,500 --> 00:10:17,740 concept of belief would be a lot less complicated and a lot more transparent. 185 00:10:17,820 --> 00:10:22,220 So I think when it comes to, you know, even chimpanzees and bonobos and gorillas, I mean, 186 00:10:22,300 --> 00:10:26,940 these are social animals, although not social, I think, in the ways and to the degree that 187 00:10:26,940 --> 00:10:30,780 human beings are animals, they've got cognitive mechanisms that function to track their 188 00:10:30,780 --> 00:10:34,380 environment, their material and social environment in ways that help them achieve their 189 00:10:34,380 --> 00:10:35,260 goals and so on. 190 00:10:35,420 --> 00:10:36,380 And we've got that as well. 191 00:10:36,540 --> 00:10:40,810 I think that's the kind of the dominant thing that's going on when it comes to what we 192 00:10:40,810 --> 00:10:42,010 sometimes think of as belief. 193 00:10:42,090 --> 00:10:45,850 It's like modeling those aspects of the world which are relevant to our practical goals. 194 00:10:46,170 --> 00:10:52,090 But once you get into religion, politics, ideology, aspects of culture, there's something 195 00:10:52,090 --> 00:10:56,010 very different going on when it comes to talking about belief, which you're not going to be 196 00:10:56,010 --> 00:11:00,010 able to understand in terms of this sort of basic model which applies in almost every other 197 00:11:00,010 --> 00:11:02,730 case, which is forming beliefs to track how things are. 198 00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:03,400 Right. 199 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:07,880 And so just to summarize, and then I'll let David, who's chomping at the bit here, I think, 200 00:11:08,280 --> 00:11:13,960 um, but if what I hear you're saying is that um there's almost been sort of this I there's 201 00:11:13,960 --> 00:11:19,960 this idea sort of philosophy counteracts this naive realist idea that's sort of like things 202 00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:21,720 just are the way they are or psychology does. 203 00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:26,810 So the idea of naive realism is that the world is the way it just appears to us and what we 204 00:11:26,810 --> 00:11:31,690 know from psychology and philosophy is that we have all this machinery mediating the 205 00:11:31,690 --> 00:11:33,930 relationship between the real world and what we experience. 206 00:11:34,090 --> 00:11:37,530 So visual illusions being a great example of that, that we see things that aren't 207 00:11:37,530 --> 00:11:38,650 objectively sort of there. 208 00:11:38,730 --> 00:11:40,730 It's a function of how our machinery works. 209 00:11:40,890 --> 00:11:46,650 And what I'm hearing you say is that both people, just every day, all of us sort of 210 00:11:46,650 --> 00:11:52,460 intuitively, but then also the scientific community has been sort of not maybe naive 211 00:11:52,460 --> 00:11:56,940 realism, but sort of socially naive in a sense, or we haven't appreciated the social 212 00:11:56,940 --> 00:12:01,180 complexity of the idea of belief, for example. 213 00:12:01,820 --> 00:12:02,540 I think that's right. 214 00:12:02,620 --> 00:12:02,780 Yeah. 215 00:12:02,860 --> 00:12:08,860 And I think that I think there are interesting questions about why theorists historically 216 00:12:09,020 --> 00:12:14,850 have not been sufficiently sensitive to the social sort of 217 00:12:14,850 --> 00:12:17,410 motivations that underpin a lot of what we believe. 218 00:12:17,570 --> 00:12:21,970 And also they haven't, I think, been sufficiently sensitive to the role of strategic social 219 00:12:21,970 --> 00:12:23,490 motivations in governing our behavior. 220 00:12:23,650 --> 00:12:28,610 I know that this is a big part of your work, uh David, thinking about cynicism and so on. 221 00:12:29,250 --> 00:12:34,850 So it's not as if I think it's just a sort of ordinary theoretical omission, the fact the 222 00:12:34,850 --> 00:12:40,320 fact that people have uh not been sensitive to the to the importance of things like social 223 00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:44,640 signaling and things like advocacy and propaganda when it comes to biasing how we view the 224 00:12:44,640 --> 00:12:48,160 world and giving rise to these sort of complexities when it comes to belief. 225 00:12:48,320 --> 00:12:52,560 It's not as if I think it's just an ordinary sort of you know gap in the knowledge with 226 00:12:52,560 --> 00:12:53,440 theoretical omission. 227 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:57,360 I think there are probably interesting things to say about why it is that it's often a 228 00:12:57,360 --> 00:13:01,600 little bit awkward to acknowledge the the role of things like status competition and 229 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:06,000 reputation management and propaganda in shaping this domain of belief. 230 00:13:08,170 --> 00:13:10,090 I couldn't agree more with with that. 231 00:13:10,250 --> 00:13:16,090 I think given that we are so uh fixated on signaling various things to one another 232 00:13:16,250 --> 00:13:21,850 about our identities, our loyalties, our traits, um, it is often in our interest to conceal 233 00:13:21,850 --> 00:13:24,170 the fact that we're signaling those things at all. 234 00:13:24,410 --> 00:13:29,210 Because signaling those things can itself become a cue of something bad about you, that 235 00:13:29,210 --> 00:13:35,040 you're narcissistic, you're selfish, um, you are insecure, um and 236 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:40,160 and and needy of uh attention, for example, there are all sorts of inferences that we draw 237 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:41,120 about each other. 238 00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:46,960 Um and the inferences that we draw about status seekers, about signalers, about attention 239 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:49,200 seekers, those are often bad. 240 00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:54,880 Uh and so often the social games we play have to be played in the cover of darkness, or at 241 00:13:54,880 --> 00:13:58,400 least without becoming common knowledge among the players. 242 00:13:58,690 --> 00:14:04,370 And I think that might explain why it has taken so long for us to 243 00:14:04,690 --> 00:14:10,130 to realize the the social games we're playing is because one of the moves in those social 244 00:14:10,130 --> 00:14:12,450 games is trying to hide the fact that it's a game. 245 00:14:13,410 --> 00:14:18,530 In order to effectively compete for political power, you have to conceal the fact that your 246 00:14:18,530 --> 00:14:21,640 primary motive is, you raw power seeking. 247 00:14:21,880 --> 00:14:26,120 In order to compete for status, you have to conceal the fact that you're you're merely 248 00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:28,200 interested in status. 249 00:14:29,240 --> 00:14:34,360 So I think that that might be what's going on here, why uh it has taken us so long to 250 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:39,880 explain our beliefs in in terms of uh of social motives. 251 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:45,480 Um, because it it is often in our interest to conceal those motives, uh which often serves 252 00:14:45,480 --> 00:14:47,080 a deeper social motive. 253 00:14:47,890 --> 00:14:50,690 Yeah, I I think that's a massive part of what's going on. 254 00:14:50,850 --> 00:14:52,370 Um, but it but it's interesting. 255 00:14:52,450 --> 00:14:56,290 I mean, if you think about the sort of so so just to be concrete with an example, I mean, 256 00:14:56,370 --> 00:15:00,130 if you think about something like self-deception, you know, human beings often seem to be 257 00:15:00,130 --> 00:15:01,970 motivated to believe things. 258 00:15:02,210 --> 00:15:07,650 And, you know, we we we can get into this maybe in in more depth, but I think, you know, in 259 00:15:07,650 --> 00:15:11,570 in many cases that's boiling down to sort of one of two social motivations. 260 00:15:11,810 --> 00:15:13,650 Either it's sort of propaganda or advocacy. 261 00:15:13,730 --> 00:15:17,920 So we're sort of motivated to push particular claims and narratives, and then we end up 262 00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:19,360 kind of internalizing them. 263 00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:22,400 Or it's to do with social signaling and sort of reputation management. 264 00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:26,000 So we want to advertise certain kinds of qualities and allegiances that we've got. 265 00:15:26,880 --> 00:15:32,400 And then that bias is in the direction of certain kinds of beliefs, which are conducive to 266 00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:32,800 doing that. 267 00:15:32,960 --> 00:15:38,560 But what's interesting is, you know, throughout so much of uh the history of philosophy and 268 00:15:38,560 --> 00:15:42,400 also psychology, and then once you even when you get sort of Freudian psychoanalysis, which 269 00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:46,330 takes seriously this idea that there are these kind of hidden motives, So much of it is 270 00:15:46,330 --> 00:15:50,010 this sort of you can't handle the truth model of self-deception, right? 271 00:15:50,730 --> 00:15:54,330 It acknowledges the idea that we're sort of motivated to believe things for reasons 272 00:15:54,330 --> 00:15:59,290 independent of their truth, that there are these practical motivations and interests which 273 00:15:59,290 --> 00:16:02,090 shape and distort and bias what we believe. 274 00:16:02,410 --> 00:16:08,090 But there's even with sort of Freudianism and the sort of psychoanalytic tradition, 275 00:16:08,420 --> 00:16:12,420 even when there's this willingness to sort of you know dig deeper and look at these hidden 276 00:16:12,420 --> 00:16:17,700 motivations, it's all this sort of you know inward facing, intrapsychic, emotion 277 00:16:17,700 --> 00:16:21,220 regulation, um, the defense mechanisms of the ego and so on. 278 00:16:21,380 --> 00:16:24,980 So even when you've got what looks kind of ostensibly like a kind of a willingness to be 279 00:16:24,980 --> 00:16:30,180 quite cynical, there's not the willingness to be as cynical as I think is needed, which is 280 00:16:30,180 --> 00:16:31,300 to go one step further. 281 00:16:31,380 --> 00:16:35,270 And it's not about you know protecting your ego, and it's not about believing things that 282 00:16:35,270 --> 00:16:37,750 make you feel good and protect your self-esteem and so on. 283 00:16:37,830 --> 00:16:41,830 It's winning these, you know, social games, it's propaganda, it's it's it's advocacy. 284 00:16:41,990 --> 00:16:46,390 So I think there's definitely something to that, to that idea, David, that um, you know, 285 00:16:46,710 --> 00:16:49,990 that that there's something awkward about drawing attention to these things. 286 00:16:50,070 --> 00:16:54,550 So that even when you get these intellectual traditions, which uh on on the surface, you 287 00:16:54,550 --> 00:16:58,310 know, they they look like they're very cynical, they don't actually go the kind of whole 288 00:16:58,310 --> 00:17:04,160 way to draw attention to strategic social motivations as as a means of sort of biasing the 289 00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:05,440 way in which we think about the world. 290 00:17:05,920 --> 00:17:06,240 Yes. 291 00:17:06,400 --> 00:17:12,160 I I I love that distinction uh uh where the instead of saying that the goal is to impress 292 00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:16,640 you, the goal is inwardly focused, it's to feel good about myself. 293 00:17:17,360 --> 00:17:22,400 And what's interesting about that is we all we all we somehow for some reason view that as 294 00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:28,010 less problematic than to be concerned with impressing you or or being 295 00:17:28,010 --> 00:17:28,810 superior to you. 296 00:17:29,210 --> 00:17:33,290 If I'm doing it for me to feel good about myself, then it's like we can relate to that. 297 00:17:33,370 --> 00:17:34,250 It's it's not that bad. 298 00:17:34,330 --> 00:17:38,410 But if I'm doing it just to gain status or just to impress you, or just to look good in 299 00:17:38,410 --> 00:17:41,450 your eyes, then it becomes like even ickier. 300 00:17:41,690 --> 00:17:46,650 And so I I love that that point that, like, yes, we we are somewhat cynical and that we 301 00:17:46,650 --> 00:17:52,320 acknowledge that you know um we care about um, you know, advertising various 302 00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:56,880 features of ourselves, but we're not cynical enough because the uh the target of those 303 00:17:56,880 --> 00:18:01,840 signals is often ourselves, when really the the target should be other people, because that 304 00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:04,720 that is the adaptive target if we're thinking in evolutionary terms. 305 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:08,000 That those are the things that that matter for our fitness, what you know, what other 306 00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:12,610 people think of us was a huge um selection pressure for our ancestors. 307 00:18:12,770 --> 00:18:15,730 What we thought of ourselves was not necessarily a selection pressure. 308 00:18:15,970 --> 00:18:17,730 It's hard to imagine how it would be. 309 00:18:18,210 --> 00:18:20,290 So I really, I really love that distinction. 310 00:18:21,170 --> 00:18:25,410 You mentioned um self-deception. 311 00:18:25,890 --> 00:18:30,290 Um that is a huge topic both in in philosophy and psychology. 312 00:18:30,450 --> 00:18:33,680 Um I'm still struggling to wrap my head around it myself. 313 00:18:33,840 --> 00:18:37,920 I think I've I'm I'm starting to see how it works, but how are you thinking about 314 00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:39,520 self-deception these days? 315 00:18:39,680 --> 00:18:41,440 Are you are you skeptical of the term? 316 00:18:41,600 --> 00:18:43,280 Do you think it's a useful term? 317 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:50,400 So I tend not to use the term, um, except for the fact that uh in the 318 00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:53,680 sort of ordinary discourse, uh, I think it captures something that people are quite 319 00:18:53,680 --> 00:18:55,440 familiar with, so it can be helpful in that way. 320 00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:58,970 You know, oh yeah, of course, self-deception, you know, you believe things for reasons 321 00:18:58,970 --> 00:19:02,890 independent of their truth, or you're sort of biased in how you view the world by practical 322 00:19:02,890 --> 00:19:04,490 interests and emotions and so on. 323 00:19:04,650 --> 00:19:09,450 But I think it does, you know, raises all of these, you know, traditional paradoxes. 324 00:19:09,530 --> 00:19:11,530 You know, how can you deceive yourself? 325 00:19:12,010 --> 00:19:14,650 What's playing the role of the deceiver, what's playing the role of the deceived? 326 00:19:14,810 --> 00:19:19,450 And often it comes with quite, you know, implausible psychological models as well. 327 00:19:19,690 --> 00:19:23,610 I mean, the the way that I prefer to think about it, as I mentioned, is we've got these 328 00:19:23,610 --> 00:19:29,340 sort of two uh motivations or or goals, which I think are uh highly 329 00:19:29,340 --> 00:19:34,700 relevant to understanding uh what's going on when we form these biased beliefs, when we 330 00:19:34,700 --> 00:19:37,580 form these strange uh belief systems and narratives and so on. 331 00:19:37,820 --> 00:19:41,900 One of these is, you know, you can call it propaganda or you can call it advocacy, but it's 332 00:19:41,900 --> 00:19:47,820 just the idea that we're motivated to spread ideas, claims, narratives 333 00:19:47,980 --> 00:19:51,310 such that if other people accept them, it will promote our interests. 334 00:19:51,390 --> 00:19:51,550 Right. 335 00:19:51,630 --> 00:19:55,710 So if I can convince you two that I'm this generous, you know, pro-social, kind, 336 00:19:55,790 --> 00:20:00,750 fair-minded person, I've got a sort of standing motivation to advocate for my interests in 337 00:20:00,750 --> 00:20:02,430 that way, to propagate that kind of message. 338 00:20:02,670 --> 00:20:06,350 And I think for reasons that that we can get into, and I think it's really fucking 339 00:20:06,350 --> 00:20:09,790 complicated exactly what's going on, we tend to internalize our propaganda. 340 00:20:09,950 --> 00:20:14,280 Um that's the way that I'd sort of preferred to put it, rather than saying we deceive 341 00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:17,480 ourselves, because I think that that is more confusing than just the idea that when we've 342 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:21,720 got this standing motivation to propagate messages, we tend to internalize those. 343 00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:24,920 Although, even that I think is sort of subject to various constraints. 344 00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:29,000 And then similarly, I think we've we've got these motivations to engage in reputation 345 00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:34,200 management, to signal that we've got attractive qualities and allegiances, and that can 346 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:35,480 shape our outward behavior. 347 00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:41,410 It can shape how we dress, how we talk, uh the the ways in which we conduct 348 00:20:41,410 --> 00:20:45,010 ourselves, um, what what teams we we cheer for, and so on. 349 00:20:45,170 --> 00:20:47,890 And I think that can also shape what what what beliefs we form. 350 00:20:47,970 --> 00:20:51,730 Um so I think these signaling motivations can also bias what beliefs we form. 351 00:20:51,970 --> 00:20:56,050 That's the way that I tend to talk about it these days, rather than thinking in terms of of 352 00:20:56,050 --> 00:20:56,930 self-deception. 353 00:20:57,090 --> 00:21:01,010 But if you're just using self-deception as this sort of catch all term for the idea that 354 00:21:01,010 --> 00:21:06,370 our practical philosophers might say non-epistemic motivations bias belief, then I'm happy 355 00:21:06,370 --> 00:21:06,610 with it. 356 00:21:06,940 --> 00:21:07,180 Yeah. 357 00:21:07,260 --> 00:21:08,220 There's like that joke. 358 00:21:08,300 --> 00:21:11,180 Uh, how did you think of something smart, you know, like a smart thing? 359 00:21:11,260 --> 00:21:15,100 And it was like, well, I thought of somebody smarter than me and I imagined what they would 360 00:21:15,100 --> 00:21:15,820 do, right? 361 00:21:15,900 --> 00:21:21,660 And that that has all the paradox of uh, you know, you can't exceed your own intelligence 362 00:21:21,660 --> 00:21:24,060 by thinking of somebody smarter than you, right? 363 00:21:24,140 --> 00:21:25,580 You are as smart as you are. 364 00:21:25,740 --> 00:21:31,270 And so the the criticism, the sophisticated criticism of self-deception, like Rob Kurzman 365 00:21:31,430 --> 00:21:33,350 paper a while ago, like there is no self, right? 366 00:21:33,430 --> 00:21:33,750 Like that. 367 00:21:34,150 --> 00:21:35,990 It's or what are you calling the self, right? 368 00:21:36,070 --> 00:21:40,950 And and I mean I think the sophisticated argument is there's like the talkie or PR part of 369 00:21:40,950 --> 00:21:43,430 the phenotype, the the body envelope. 370 00:21:43,590 --> 00:21:49,190 Um, but yeah, if you kind of exactly if you sort of unpack it or poke on it even a little 371 00:21:49,190 --> 00:21:55,110 bit, um, it it sort of it it it bears more unpacking than just the idea of 372 00:21:55,110 --> 00:21:57,110 self-deception, I think, historically. 373 00:21:57,190 --> 00:22:02,840 But so I think that's um uh people have had that similar sort of 374 00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:07,160 notion and uh and I think that would what you just said sort of would agree with that idea. 375 00:22:07,800 --> 00:22:07,960 Yeah. 376 00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:13,640 No, it's it's a great example of of how um folk psychology or our intuitive, naive 377 00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:19,240 ideas about the mind are um I think stymieing progress in academic psychology. 378 00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:23,320 And and Dave has written a lot about this, because we have this intuitive idea that there 379 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:28,850 is a singular self in the head that thinks things, attends to things, remembers things, and 380 00:22:28,850 --> 00:22:30,050 these processes are unitary. 381 00:22:30,130 --> 00:22:32,930 We we had a whole episode on this uh a while back. 382 00:22:33,410 --> 00:22:38,370 Um this is what is leading to the to these paradoxes, that there is a singular self that 383 00:22:38,370 --> 00:22:39,570 can deceive itself. 384 00:22:39,730 --> 00:22:43,650 But we would never have gotten into this mess if we just stayed at the mechanistic level of 385 00:22:43,650 --> 00:22:47,810 what are the different mechanisms in the mind, which mechanisms have access to which kinds 386 00:22:47,810 --> 00:22:48,290 of information. 387 00:22:48,370 --> 00:22:51,810 Once we stay at that level, there are no paradoxes, uh, and it becomes much more 388 00:22:51,810 --> 00:22:52,370 intelligible. 389 00:22:52,620 --> 00:22:57,100 So I think it's a really good example of how we need to uh realize what level of analysis 390 00:22:57,100 --> 00:23:02,620 we're at when we're thinking about uh these issues and uh uh drop down to the mechanistic 391 00:23:02,620 --> 00:23:06,220 level to get a better and deeper understanding of what's going on. 392 00:23:06,460 --> 00:23:08,940 So you mentioned how you don't like the word self-deception. 393 00:23:09,100 --> 00:23:11,580 I agree, I don't, I'm not a fan of it either. 394 00:23:11,900 --> 00:23:16,990 But there has been a re-emergence of a different kind of distinction that's sort of related 395 00:23:16,990 --> 00:23:17,950 to self-deception. 396 00:23:18,110 --> 00:23:21,630 And it's the idea that there are two kinds of beliefs. 397 00:23:21,790 --> 00:23:24,110 And they've been referred to in different things in the literature. 398 00:23:24,190 --> 00:23:28,270 So uh Neil Van Leeuwen has referred to them as credences versus beliefs. 399 00:23:28,430 --> 00:23:33,310 Uh um Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have referred to the distinction between reflective 400 00:23:33,310 --> 00:23:34,830 beliefs and intuitive beliefs. 401 00:23:34,990 --> 00:23:40,590 I saw one philosopher refer to uh uh the latter kind as schm beliefs, as opposed to 402 00:23:40,590 --> 00:23:43,870 beliefs, as you know, they don't they're not real beliefs, they don't matter. 403 00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:49,760 And so there and we sort of intuitively recognize this. 404 00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:54,240 We refer to like, you know, he's a true believer, she's a true believer, versus, you know, 405 00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:56,000 they're just paying lip service. 406 00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:02,160 Um and uh you know Neil Van Leon gets into the idea that we we often recognize this 407 00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:07,250 distinction when we talk about um I think X versus I believe X. 408 00:24:07,570 --> 00:24:11,090 Think sort of implies a genuine belief that it's guiding your behavior. 409 00:24:11,330 --> 00:24:17,170 Believe X uh is more of a social connotation that maybe, you know, I I believe this uh to 410 00:24:17,410 --> 00:24:22,290 show what kind of person I am or what my values are or what group I belong to rather than 411 00:24:22,290 --> 00:24:25,730 it's like actually guiding my behavior in a in a concrete way. 412 00:24:26,210 --> 00:24:31,000 Um and so this I think is one of the most interesting and important distinctions that has 413 00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:32,680 come up uh in the in the last decade. 414 00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:35,640 And I'm still trying to grapple with it and what its implications are. 415 00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:41,400 Um, but do you buy this distinction that there are uh different kinds of belief and that 416 00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:45,560 some beliefs, you know, guide our behavior in day to day decisions and in in concrete ways, 417 00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:48,120 and some of them are kind of inert. 418 00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:53,550 They just kind of sit there and we we we may you know believe we believe them, we may think 419 00:24:53,550 --> 00:24:59,470 we believe them, uh, but they're not actually uh driving us in any real concrete way. 420 00:24:59,710 --> 00:25:01,150 Um do you buy that distinction? 421 00:25:01,310 --> 00:25:02,030 Do you think it's important? 422 00:25:02,190 --> 00:25:03,870 How are you uh approaching that topic? 423 00:25:04,430 --> 00:25:10,270 So what I think is true is that there are these um cases in which we're sincerely committed 424 00:25:10,270 --> 00:25:11,710 to the truth of a proposition. 425 00:25:11,870 --> 00:25:13,550 You know, God is always watching. 426 00:25:13,710 --> 00:25:19,360 Um Socialism will usher in a utopia. 427 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:24,000 There's a crocodile spirit that will hunt me down if I don't share my meat with fellow 428 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:25,120 members of the group. 429 00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,080 The belief that studied by Man Vir Singh. 430 00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:30,400 These are cases in which I think people are sincere. 431 00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:33,920 As you say, the belief is often very strangely compartmentalized. 432 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:38,720 I mean, my favorite example of this is from Dan Dennett, where he points out that you know 433 00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,450 nobody would ever masturbate in front of their parents, right? 434 00:25:42,770 --> 00:25:46,610 But but but they'll say they think God is always watching, and they think God is this 435 00:25:46,610 --> 00:25:52,290 omnipotent, all seeing um agent who will send them to hell if they 436 00:25:52,290 --> 00:25:57,410 masturbate, and yet they'll happily you know masturbate when they think this uh uh God is 437 00:25:57,410 --> 00:26:01,250 always watching, which suggests that you know that that commitment that they've got is not 438 00:26:01,250 --> 00:26:03,490 really functioning as an ordinary world modeling belief. 439 00:26:03,570 --> 00:26:05,170 And I think there are so many examples of that. 440 00:26:05,330 --> 00:26:09,900 If you look at you know, conspiracy theories, when somebody sort of intuitively thinks that 441 00:26:09,900 --> 00:26:13,900 there's a conspiracy going on, you know, if you live in North Korea and the the elites in 442 00:26:13,900 --> 00:26:18,940 your society are just actually conspiring in really horrific ways against your interests, 443 00:26:19,100 --> 00:26:23,020 as Hugo Mercier points out, like under those conditions, you you typically don't want to go 444 00:26:23,020 --> 00:26:27,340 out and just advertise your commitment to this conspiracy theory because it's going to be 445 00:26:27,340 --> 00:26:29,020 incredibly detrimental to your interests. 446 00:26:29,100 --> 00:26:33,990 But in a country like the United States, you've got these sort of proponents of QAnon who 447 00:26:33,990 --> 00:26:38,070 who claim to believe that there's this sort of all-powerful deep state that will crush them 448 00:26:38,070 --> 00:26:43,030 if they um speak out against the regime, and yet they feel no sort of strangeness in the 449 00:26:43,030 --> 00:26:46,310 fact that they're advertising their commitment to the belief in that way. 450 00:26:46,470 --> 00:26:50,870 So these are these are so many cases like that where you've got a kind of sincere 451 00:26:50,870 --> 00:26:52,710 commitment to the truth of some idea. 452 00:26:52,870 --> 00:26:55,670 It's not as if I think people are lying in these cases for the most part. 453 00:26:56,070 --> 00:27:01,880 Um and yet it is just strangely compartmentalized from their sort of uh world 454 00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:05,960 model in general and and from the kinds of behaviors that that that they're undertaking. 455 00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,760 The question then is how do you make sense of that psychologically? 456 00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:13,320 And and you're right, different theorists have proposed different ways of of trying to to 457 00:27:13,320 --> 00:27:14,040 to understand that. 458 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:19,000 So there's the kind of uh Sperber idea of uh I think it was at first sort of factual 459 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,800 beliefs and symbolic beliefs and then it's intuitive and reflective beliefs. 460 00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:26,600 You've got Neil van Leeuwen's idea where he thinks this difference is between sort of 461 00:27:26,670 --> 00:27:30,750 factual beliefs and what I think he calls religious credences, and he thinks that's closer 462 00:27:30,750 --> 00:27:34,270 to imagining than a sort of ordinary world modeling belief. 463 00:27:34,430 --> 00:27:38,430 Um, my sense is we still don't fully understand exactly what's going on there. 464 00:27:38,590 --> 00:27:40,830 We know that there's something that needs to be explained. 465 00:27:40,990 --> 00:27:46,910 Um, but in terms of having a kind of really satisfactory mechanistic understanding of the 466 00:27:46,910 --> 00:27:51,310 actual psychological processes that drive that, I think it's just it's just really 467 00:27:51,310 --> 00:27:52,030 complicated. 468 00:27:52,190 --> 00:27:56,030 And another thing that complicates it is you know, it seems like with many of these 469 00:27:56,040 --> 00:28:00,920 beliefs, which you might call merely reflective beliefs, or what Lewin calls, um Van Luwen 470 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:06,440 calls religious credences, it seems like internalization sort of comes in degrees in a way, 471 00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:07,320 which is also strange. 472 00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:13,400 So if you've got someone who's got a kind of identity-defining conviction, um, and you 473 00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:16,920 know, they're let's say that that they're a Christian, you know, they go to church every 474 00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:20,290 other week or something when they can remember, and They're going to hold these religious 475 00:28:20,290 --> 00:28:21,490 beliefs in a way that's kind of light. 476 00:28:21,570 --> 00:28:24,850 It's not going to make much of a difference to their behavior and their decision making in 477 00:28:24,850 --> 00:28:25,170 general. 478 00:28:25,330 --> 00:28:30,770 But if you take someone who's in a really kind of close-knit, intense, hyper-cooperative 479 00:28:31,010 --> 00:28:36,450 cult where they're constantly monitoring signals of cult loyalty, coalitional allegiance, 480 00:28:36,530 --> 00:28:40,690 and so on, often you will find the beliefs much more internalized in terms of their 481 00:28:40,690 --> 00:28:41,170 behavior. 482 00:28:41,330 --> 00:28:45,010 You know, in some contexts, you get these cases of collective suicide in the cult where 483 00:28:45,010 --> 00:28:49,180 you've got these really what seem like incredibly internalized beliefs and narratives. 484 00:28:49,340 --> 00:28:53,580 And if you just have this idea that there are just two different kinds of mental states, 485 00:28:53,660 --> 00:28:58,140 you know, factual beliefs and religious credences, I wonder whether you can explain that 486 00:28:58,140 --> 00:28:59,820 kind of variability. 487 00:28:59,980 --> 00:29:01,180 I genuinely don't know. 488 00:29:01,340 --> 00:29:03,180 Um it's interesting. 489 00:29:03,340 --> 00:29:08,610 And even I think like, and this is getting to I think taking an evolutionary approach and a 490 00:29:08,610 --> 00:29:12,370 psychological approach is that we don't even know. 491 00:29:12,530 --> 00:29:15,090 Like, if I know, like David is bleeding, right? 492 00:29:15,250 --> 00:29:20,930 Like just that representation, even a mundane one, a lot of the psychology of the 493 00:29:20,930 --> 00:29:24,610 inferences that follow still aren't very well studied. 494 00:29:24,770 --> 00:29:30,210 So, like, you know, the fact that in us there's a representation of our 495 00:29:30,210 --> 00:29:35,000 relationship, the physical fact of the matter of I one of us should probably go do 496 00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:36,760 something to get to help David. 497 00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:37,960 He's bleeding. 498 00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:43,640 Um, there's representations of sort of like, you know, the schedule will be put on hold for 499 00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:46,120 what we're doing and what will the social consequences be? 500 00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,440 What if we don't intervene upon David? 501 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:53,080 There's all these sort of what cognitive science call or scientists call inference engines, 502 00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:57,960 or computer scientists or AI researchers call these, like, um, or what Marvin Minsky called 503 00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,750 frames, where it's just sort of like an event representation. 504 00:30:02,070 --> 00:30:06,790 It almost sounds stilted to talk about it, but in order to actually build a computer, 505 00:30:06,950 --> 00:30:11,350 whether it's squishy or hard, to actually represent the current state of the world and 506 00:30:11,350 --> 00:30:16,150 future states of the world or what follows from a representation, we still don't know that 507 00:30:16,230 --> 00:30:22,150 even for something as normal and mundane as David's bleeding, let alone something like, 508 00:30:22,230 --> 00:30:26,790 you know, God is a spaghetti monster or we should all kill ourselves because, you know, the 509 00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:31,760 the space saucer is coming, and you know, we we're gonna have a better life elsewhere. 510 00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:36,080 So I don't think it's surprising that we still don't know a lot. 511 00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:41,040 Because I mean, as I read the literature, a lot of the point that you're making, Daniel, 512 00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:45,920 Dan, and and that I think we're all making, is that we just have to move from a you don't 513 00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:50,640 there's not enough structure in the world to tell these things apart, and we have to appeal 514 00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:52,720 to what is the underlying psychology. 515 00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:54,560 That's kind of what I'm hearing you say. 516 00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:56,390 Yeah, I think that's right. 517 00:30:56,470 --> 00:30:59,110 And I I think um I completely agree with that. 518 00:30:59,350 --> 00:31:05,190 I would just add that you know you can you can get far in some ways 519 00:31:05,350 --> 00:31:10,630 in thinking about you know high-level human behavior, thinking about broad uh 520 00:31:11,110 --> 00:31:15,990 patterns in behavior, how people interact, the sorts of things they do, the the narratives 521 00:31:15,990 --> 00:31:21,520 that they endorse, without having to um settle those questions about 522 00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:24,560 underlying mechanisms and how everything actually works. 523 00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:24,960 Right. 524 00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:29,520 So I think, you know, that I think there's very good reason to believe that that people um 525 00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,520 to some significant degree often internalise their propaganda. 526 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:37,680 You know, they're motivated to advocate for a claim and that tends to to shift their their 527 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:39,600 private beliefs in the direction of that claim. 528 00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:43,520 And similarly, you know, as we're saying, I think there are these cases where there's good 529 00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:48,310 reason to believe that that somebody's uh ideology, a narrative that they're committed to 530 00:31:48,470 --> 00:31:51,990 performs these social signaling functions and is sort of strangely compartmentalized in 531 00:31:51,990 --> 00:31:52,790 their mental life. 532 00:31:52,950 --> 00:31:56,630 We can say that, and I think that can be true and that can be important at the same time as 533 00:31:56,630 --> 00:32:00,070 we just put our hands up and say we don't fully understand exactly how that works in terms 534 00:32:00,070 --> 00:32:01,910 of the underlying psychology. 535 00:32:02,070 --> 00:32:06,150 And you're right, I mean, even when it comes to sort of ordinary inference, in and we're 536 00:32:06,150 --> 00:32:10,520 setting aside all of these complex social dynamics, so complicated to figure out exactly 537 00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:11,320 what's going on. 538 00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:15,880 But one of the things that makes it even more complicated in these social cases is, you 539 00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:20,680 know, even when these beliefs are sort of compartmentalized, because I think their function 540 00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:26,040 is very often social, you know, I believe this, I endorse this uh set of religious 541 00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:30,200 convictions because I want to signal that I'm a committed member of my group. 542 00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:36,230 There's some sense in which that comes about, and out of motivations to convince you that I 543 00:32:36,230 --> 00:32:37,030 really believe it. 544 00:32:37,110 --> 00:32:41,910 Um, which creates all of these extra additional worries when it comes to and and and and 545 00:32:41,910 --> 00:32:44,310 puzzles when it when it comes to explaining what's going on. 546 00:32:44,470 --> 00:32:48,550 Because there's some sense in which you know, you don't want to be transparent as the 547 00:32:48,550 --> 00:32:49,830 individual who's got that kind of belief. 548 00:32:50,070 --> 00:32:53,910 You're precisely acting in ways to convince other people that you really believe it. 549 00:32:54,070 --> 00:32:56,380 So it's just yeah so complicated, I think. 550 00:32:56,700 --> 00:33:01,980 Yeah, natural selection designed you to not to foil future psychologists, basically 551 00:33:02,140 --> 00:33:03,660 designed the mind in this respect. 552 00:33:03,740 --> 00:33:07,500 You you're taking on you're biting off a really hard part of human phenotype here. 553 00:33:07,980 --> 00:33:08,220 Yeah. 554 00:33:08,380 --> 00:33:14,060 How do you tell the difference between fake belief and real belief when often the agent is 555 00:33:14,060 --> 00:33:17,340 trying as hard as they can to convince you that it's real belief? 556 00:33:17,580 --> 00:33:22,470 And what what is the difference between trying really hard to convince you that I believe X 557 00:33:22,790 --> 00:33:28,710 and believing that you're going to scrutinize me uh for for that and truly believing 558 00:33:28,710 --> 00:33:28,870 X. 559 00:33:29,110 --> 00:33:33,270 They they seem to be pretty hard to empirically distinguish because both would lead to the 560 00:33:33,270 --> 00:33:38,630 same types of behavior that would be that would lend evidence to to the idea that I believe 561 00:33:38,630 --> 00:33:38,870 X. 562 00:33:39,190 --> 00:33:42,390 So it's a really thorny and difficult problem. 563 00:33:43,190 --> 00:33:49,000 Um the way I think of it is um in terms of uh 564 00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:54,440 cues and signals and how unstable the former are and how they can slide into the latter. 565 00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:59,480 So um for those who aren't familiar with the distinction, a cue is something that we use uh 566 00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:01,320 to to guide our behavior. 567 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:03,640 Um it's you know X is correlated with Y. 568 00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,840 People who comb their hair are more organized and conscientious. 569 00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,630 So I'm going to hire the people who, you know, neatly comb their hair. 570 00:34:10,790 --> 00:34:11,910 Um so that's a cue. 571 00:34:11,990 --> 00:34:16,310 A signal is you're intending to convey information to to someone else. 572 00:34:16,470 --> 00:34:21,750 Or in in the case of biology, uh the organism is evolving to convey information. 573 00:34:21,910 --> 00:34:27,910 So one is uh the the information was not intended to to to be conveyed um and or or 574 00:34:27,910 --> 00:34:30,070 was not evolved to to be conveyed. 575 00:34:30,310 --> 00:34:34,310 And then the other uh the information uh is evolved or intended to be conveyed. 576 00:34:34,390 --> 00:34:35,270 That's a signal. 577 00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:40,640 Um, and so what's weird about our species is because we're so obsessed with getting inside 578 00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:46,240 each other's heads um and anticipating what other people are going to think we think, that 579 00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:48,080 cues are really unstable. 580 00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:53,200 As soon as I pick up on the cue that people with neatly combed hair are organized and 581 00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:58,290 conscientious, I now have a social strategic incentive to comb my hair because I think that 582 00:34:58,290 --> 00:35:00,850 you're going to think that I'm conscientious and organized. 583 00:35:01,250 --> 00:35:05,570 And all of a sudden, once I start doing that, then it the cue may no longer be valid. 584 00:35:05,650 --> 00:35:10,930 It may be that people who are really sloppy and dish and disorganized comb their hair to 585 00:35:11,650 --> 00:35:12,450 dupe people. 586 00:35:12,850 --> 00:35:17,890 And that can lead to a lot of dynamism and arms races between deceivers and deceived. 587 00:35:18,450 --> 00:35:23,650 It can lead to status games collapsing and re-emerging in antithetical forms. 588 00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:29,600 And so what I think might be going on with this distinction between belief and schmeleaf or 589 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:35,600 whatever is that beliefs are really powerful cues that we try to 590 00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:41,040 use to anticipate others' behaviors, to anticipate others' allegiances and loyalties and 591 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:41,680 traits. 592 00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:47,280 And because they're such powerful cues, there is thus a powerful incentive to transform 593 00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:52,910 them into signals, to imitate uh the The superficial 594 00:35:52,910 --> 00:35:58,910 features of belief, to convince others that we truly believe something, as you put it. 595 00:35:59,790 --> 00:36:05,630 And once I am motivated enough to really convince you that I believe 596 00:36:05,630 --> 00:36:11,230 something, the harder it becomes to tell the difference between true belief and what I 597 00:36:11,230 --> 00:36:12,590 might call pseudo belief. 598 00:36:12,750 --> 00:36:18,190 I think a lot of our beliefs are pseudo beliefs, and that the goal is to make it difficult 599 00:36:18,270 --> 00:36:21,620 to tell the difference between real belief and fake belief. 600 00:36:21,940 --> 00:36:25,860 And that is why it's so hard for psychologists to tell the difference, because that 601 00:36:25,860 --> 00:36:27,460 difficulty is by design. 602 00:36:28,500 --> 00:36:34,020 It's tantamount to other kinds of mimicry we see in the biological world, where um a uh a 603 00:36:34,020 --> 00:36:39,620 non-poisonous uh butterfly will will mimic the features of a poisonous butterfly to avoid 604 00:36:39,670 --> 00:36:40,310 predation. 605 00:36:40,550 --> 00:36:45,510 And just as it is very difficult for predators to tell the difference, um, it is often 606 00:36:45,510 --> 00:36:47,350 difficult for biologists to tell the difference. 607 00:36:47,430 --> 00:36:51,830 I think a similar phenomenon is happening with us where we have a kind of belief mimicry. 608 00:36:51,990 --> 00:36:56,950 Uh and that makes it really hard to tell the difference between true belief and and fake 609 00:36:56,950 --> 00:36:57,430 belief. 610 00:36:57,750 --> 00:37:00,550 What do you w and that's sort of sort how I how I've been thinking of it lately. 611 00:37:00,630 --> 00:37:01,750 I'm curious what you think about that. 612 00:37:01,990 --> 00:37:02,070 Yeah. 613 00:37:02,310 --> 00:37:02,710 That's great. 614 00:37:02,790 --> 00:37:02,950 Yeah. 615 00:37:03,030 --> 00:37:04,550 I love this term pseudo belief. 616 00:37:04,630 --> 00:37:05,430 Um I'm gonna steal that. 617 00:37:05,510 --> 00:37:06,020 Uh that's great. 618 00:37:06,260 --> 00:37:06,580 Oh, cool. 619 00:37:06,740 --> 00:37:09,700 Actually that's that's but that's better than the other ones in the literature, I think. 620 00:37:09,860 --> 00:37:10,980 Just just thinking out loud. 621 00:37:11,060 --> 00:37:16,100 I mean I guess so as you said there's going to be this this sort of puzzle of of what 622 00:37:16,100 --> 00:37:19,060 distinguishes you know someone who's just let's say just lying. 623 00:37:19,140 --> 00:37:22,820 You know they know what they privately think and they're just saying that they believe 624 00:37:22,820 --> 00:37:23,380 something. 625 00:37:24,660 --> 00:37:28,900 And you know maybe they don't even feel bad about the the discrepancy because they're in a 626 00:37:28,900 --> 00:37:32,020 social context where it's not like anyone's gonna like hold them accountable. 627 00:37:33,510 --> 00:37:37,990 so what what distinguishes that kind of case from my understanding of what you said is in 628 00:37:37,990 --> 00:37:40,150 the case of pseudo-beliefs, it's not quite that. 629 00:37:40,230 --> 00:37:43,590 It's not that someone is just deliberately misrepresenting what they think. 630 00:37:43,750 --> 00:37:49,270 There is a kind of psychological state there, um, which which is not just about um 631 00:37:49,910 --> 00:37:53,350 uh misrepresenting deliberately the state of one's own mind. 632 00:37:53,510 --> 00:37:58,420 And it does seem important to think that something like that is going on, not just because 633 00:37:58,500 --> 00:38:01,620 you know it often seems like people are sincere, because you might say, well, they could be 634 00:38:01,620 --> 00:38:02,260 faking that. 635 00:38:02,420 --> 00:38:07,220 But it does seem like in many of these contexts people are willing to act on these beliefs, 636 00:38:07,380 --> 00:38:09,220 at least in some ways, in some contexts. 637 00:38:09,380 --> 00:38:14,180 In some cases, they're willing to sort of incur costs as a consequence of acting upon them. 638 00:38:14,420 --> 00:38:14,740 Yeah. 639 00:38:14,900 --> 00:38:20,900 Um, and so th that that's why I think we need this sort of this construct, which 640 00:38:20,900 --> 00:38:26,180 is not quite a ordinary world-modelling belief, and it's not quite a mere 641 00:38:26,590 --> 00:38:28,110 performance or deception. 642 00:38:28,190 --> 00:38:30,350 It's sort of something in between. 643 00:38:30,510 --> 00:38:34,590 Um is is is is that what you're meaning by by pseudo-belief, something that kind of exists 644 00:38:34,590 --> 00:38:38,910 in between those two things or no, I I think so 645 00:38:40,510 --> 00:38:45,710 So even if I do something that's really costly to to demonstrate that I believe something, 646 00:38:45,870 --> 00:38:48,830 that could still be part of the signal. 647 00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:49,360 Right. 648 00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,040 In order to convince you that I truly believe something, I have to incur a cost. 649 00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:54,080 It could be an honest signal. 650 00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:55,520 I mean, I that's the thing though. 651 00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,080 It's not an honest signal because I don't truly believe it. 652 00:38:58,240 --> 00:39:03,360 But I think that those kinds of signal signals can still be stable if they are if if what 653 00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:09,280 I'm signaling to you uh is correlated with something that um uh is beneficial to you. 654 00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:14,400 So let's say I don't truly believe that the the spider god is is going to smite me if I 655 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,000 steal from the group or whatever. 656 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:21,310 Um, but my belief in that uh is correlated with my loyalty to the group. 657 00:39:21,950 --> 00:39:27,870 So in that case, deceiving you that I believe in the spider god, um, 658 00:39:28,110 --> 00:39:31,230 that is still going to benefit you, even though it's a deceptive signal. 659 00:39:31,470 --> 00:39:33,870 Because you're going to that's going to endear me to you. 660 00:39:33,950 --> 00:39:37,070 You're going to welcome me into the group, and and you'll be you'll be right to do so 661 00:39:37,150 --> 00:39:38,670 because I truly am more loyal. 662 00:39:38,830 --> 00:39:44,030 And so this the deceptive signal can survive uh because it is correlated with something 663 00:39:44,030 --> 00:39:47,800 else that makes the signaling system uh mutually beneficial. 664 00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:53,160 So I that's another piece to this that I'm continuing to think about is that a lot of the 665 00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:58,440 times a lot of the time deceptive signals uh don't necessarily need to fall apart if if 666 00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,000 they're correlated with something else that's true that's valuable. 667 00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,120 But but do you not think that there is a psychological difference? 668 00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:09,160 I mean just just think of sort of two cases. 669 00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:15,190 You know if I uh you know let's say I'm a spy, you know, trying to infiltrate some 670 00:40:15,190 --> 00:40:16,470 ideological community. 671 00:40:16,710 --> 00:40:20,870 And as part of that, I really need to convince other people in that community that I hold 672 00:40:20,870 --> 00:40:21,270 their beliefs. 673 00:40:21,590 --> 00:40:23,750 So it's like a group of neo Nazis or something like that. 674 00:40:23,990 --> 00:40:29,670 Um you're right that you know I might need to like pay costs uh to to to credibly signal to 675 00:40:29,670 --> 00:40:33,560 these other people in the community that that I hold the ideological convictions. 676 00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:37,880 But nevertheless, this is a case in which you know I'm I'm consciously aware of the fact 677 00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:39,160 that I don't that I don't really believe it. 678 00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:43,080 It's a kind of pretense, it's this kind of like active fiction which I'm maintaining. 679 00:40:43,240 --> 00:40:46,600 That seems very different from the psychology of someone who's actually in the community 680 00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:48,840 and is actually committed and loyal to the community. 681 00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:53,000 There, there seems to be a sense in which, even though I think these social incentives are 682 00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:58,200 playing an important role in regulating what they believe and and how they think about the 683 00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:04,170 world and the evidence that they seek out and so on, um It's not a self-conscious deception 684 00:41:04,250 --> 00:41:05,850 in a way that it would be if I if I were. 685 00:41:06,330 --> 00:41:09,610 I'm thinking out loud here, but that seems like an distinction that we want to capture. 686 00:41:10,090 --> 00:41:11,530 Yeah, definitely. 687 00:41:11,850 --> 00:41:17,770 I think what's going on there is that the spy is aware that they don't believe the 688 00:41:17,770 --> 00:41:18,570 beliefs. 689 00:41:18,810 --> 00:41:24,650 Um but I think often in our quest to convince others that we believe our 690 00:41:24,650 --> 00:41:27,180 beliefs, we convince ourselves as well. 691 00:41:27,420 --> 00:41:33,260 And so often we put ourselves in a state where we um believe that we believe X, 692 00:41:33,420 --> 00:41:38,700 but we don't actually believe X, because we're so zealous about convincing others that we 693 00:41:38,700 --> 00:41:40,220 believe that we believe X. 694 00:41:40,620 --> 00:41:44,380 Or sorry, that that we're we're zealous about convincing others that we believe X. 695 00:41:44,780 --> 00:41:48,460 Um, that we that we convince ourselves as as part of that process. 696 00:41:48,860 --> 00:41:53,180 Um, I think that is what that is what what might be going on. 697 00:41:53,340 --> 00:41:54,790 Um I don't know. 698 00:41:54,870 --> 00:41:57,990 Do you but I'm still this is obviously a very complicated topic. 699 00:41:58,070 --> 00:42:01,030 Uh um and you know I'm still kind of figuring it out. 700 00:42:01,190 --> 00:42:04,310 Um but yeah, what what do you think of of of that idea? 701 00:42:04,710 --> 00:42:08,630 So I I think that that's Dennett's idea about religion, that that in many of these cases 702 00:42:08,710 --> 00:42:10,870 you've got, as you say, you've got a kind of belief in belief. 703 00:42:10,950 --> 00:42:14,070 So it's like you don't believe it, but you sort of become convinced that you believe it. 704 00:42:14,150 --> 00:42:15,830 So there's this weird second order thing going on. 705 00:42:15,990 --> 00:42:16,070 Yeah. 706 00:42:16,230 --> 00:42:20,480 Yeah, I think that's that's that's one of the candidate explanations in this area, which 707 00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:22,640 really needs to be explored and tested. 708 00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:27,200 Just as I think the kind of Van Leuen picture also needs to be be tested, and the spurber 709 00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:28,320 like Mercier one. 710 00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:33,360 This is what I mean when I say that there's something going on here, which I think lots of 711 00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:35,120 people are getting at in lots of different ways. 712 00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:39,520 And each of the different stories I think has their own kind of advantages, and there are 713 00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:40,880 certain kinds of puzzles they run into. 714 00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:45,440 And I think it's just gonna require more research to really definitively figure out what's 715 00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:45,840 going on. 716 00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:50,430 But I will add, I mean, I think another thing that really complic complicates this is 717 00:42:51,950 --> 00:42:56,590 in some cases, I think, you know, these pseudo-beliefs, let's call them, these things which 718 00:42:56,590 --> 00:43:02,270 we're forming for for social reasons, as part of that, we we bias how we we 719 00:43:02,270 --> 00:43:05,230 seek out and recall evidence, right? 720 00:43:05,470 --> 00:43:10,110 And as a consequence, we can end up becoming sincerely persuaded of that of that thing, 721 00:43:10,270 --> 00:43:10,510 right? 722 00:43:10,670 --> 00:43:15,880 So I think this is a lot of what happens when it comes to um Advocacy 723 00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:18,760 biasing what people actually take to be the case. 724 00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:24,680 You know, if I said to you, look, you've got five minutes, I'm going to give you $1,000 if 725 00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:29,800 you can make an incredibly persuasive case that Obama was the best president in US history, 726 00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:30,120 right? 727 00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:34,040 Well, in that time, you're going to be searching through memory, recalling all of this 728 00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:36,600 information you have, which is in line with that conclusion. 729 00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,000 You're going to be thinking up good arguments and so on. 730 00:43:39,270 --> 00:43:43,350 And after that process, even though you're sort of self-consciously, you know that you're 731 00:43:43,350 --> 00:43:48,950 advocating for something, you end up with all of this evidence which is in line with this 732 00:43:48,950 --> 00:43:52,390 conclusion, which can end up sincerely persuading you of that thing. 733 00:43:52,630 --> 00:43:58,630 And I think that's often what happens in these cases of uh internalizing our propaganda. 734 00:43:58,790 --> 00:44:03,670 It's not so much as like Trivers, Robert Trivers famously argued that we're sort of 735 00:44:03,670 --> 00:44:06,760 deceiving ourselves so that we can deceive others. 736 00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:08,680 That might be what's going on in some cases. 737 00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:13,720 But I think often in the process of trying to be a propagandist and advocate for something, 738 00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:18,600 we just end up almost accidentally becoming convinced of it because we're so biased in 739 00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:24,360 terms of the evidence and the arguments we recruit to argue for that for that case. 740 00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:29,970 So I think this is why in in in sort of um the case of lawyers, when they're that they know 741 00:44:29,970 --> 00:44:34,130 that they're being paid to advocate, let's say, for their client, or they know that it's 742 00:44:34,130 --> 00:44:36,850 their job to argue that the accused is guilty. 743 00:44:37,010 --> 00:44:42,210 But I think there's some evidence that they actually end up becoming sincerely convinced in 744 00:44:42,210 --> 00:44:44,370 the direction that they're incentivized to advocate. 745 00:44:44,530 --> 00:44:48,370 And the reason for that is just that, or I think at least one potential reason for that, 746 00:44:48,620 --> 00:44:53,420 which complicates this whole discussion, is even though it like in the first instance 747 00:44:53,500 --> 00:44:58,700 they've got this this purely practical, non-epistemic motivation, because it's going to 748 00:44:58,700 --> 00:45:03,340 bias the evidence that they end up with, they're going to end up becoming sort of 749 00:45:03,340 --> 00:45:07,500 intuitively convinced of a certain kind of view in a way that wouldn't have happened unless 750 00:45:07,500 --> 00:45:08,940 they had that practical motivation. 751 00:45:09,180 --> 00:45:11,020 Apologies if that wasn't particularly clear. 752 00:45:11,100 --> 00:45:11,820 That's me sort of thinking. 753 00:45:11,980 --> 00:45:13,580 No, no, that was that was perfectly clear. 754 00:45:13,660 --> 00:45:16,290 Um I I I get that story. 755 00:45:16,530 --> 00:45:22,530 I I still don't I don't quite buy it because it's kind of puzzling to me 756 00:45:22,850 --> 00:45:28,770 that if I have a strategic reason to convince you of X, um it's kind of 757 00:45:28,770 --> 00:45:33,490 puzzling to me that so that some part of the mind wouldn't recognize that and recognize 758 00:45:33,490 --> 00:45:39,400 that that uh my search for evidence is biased and take that into account when uh updating 759 00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:40,200 my actual beliefs. 760 00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:46,120 It seems like a well-designed system would uh when trying to convince others of X, uh 761 00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:51,000 recognize that fact and correct for that when updating its own internal beliefs. 762 00:45:51,240 --> 00:45:54,840 Or at least that's if if we're thinking like good ad adaptationists, I would expect there 763 00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:59,250 to be uh a design uh uh uh for for that end. 764 00:45:59,330 --> 00:46:03,650 Um so that you know in the same way that if you're if you're trying to fight someone else, 765 00:46:03,730 --> 00:46:06,530 um you don't want to accidentally hit yourself. 766 00:46:06,690 --> 00:46:10,370 Um if you're trying to persuade and deceive others, you don't want to accidentally persuade 767 00:46:10,370 --> 00:46:12,450 and deceive yourself as part of that objective. 768 00:46:12,610 --> 00:46:17,010 Or at least so that's why I find it a bit implausible that we because it sounds like what 769 00:46:17,010 --> 00:46:21,410 you're saying is, you know, when we're we're we're we're trying to fight other people, we 770 00:46:21,490 --> 00:46:26,140 we sometimes hit ourselves and hurt ourselves accidentally uh it seems like we should be we 771 00:46:26,140 --> 00:46:30,300 should have evolved to avoid doing that as much as possible right can i can i actually push 772 00:46:30,300 --> 00:46:35,660 on this a little bit i mean just uh and and um but i think to be good adaptationists too we 773 00:46:35,660 --> 00:46:41,340 have to include the what is the function of our own internalization of the belief and 774 00:46:41,500 --> 00:46:46,940 yes it might not be that it's just this propositional of what is true if the if the 775 00:46:46,940 --> 00:46:52,670 underlying design of the system is accept as a belief though uh 776 00:46:52,750 --> 00:46:58,670 when when there's a good argument available than uh if that's the underlying 777 00:46:58,670 --> 00:46:59,950 reason for it, right? 778 00:47:00,110 --> 00:47:05,550 So it's not that I'm I've punched myself, it's that the 779 00:47:05,550 --> 00:47:09,150 underlying structure is different than believe what's true, quote unquote. 780 00:47:09,230 --> 00:47:15,230 It's a much more operationalized thing of what's the logic for why I'm accepting 781 00:47:15,230 --> 00:47:15,870 a belief. 782 00:47:16,030 --> 00:47:21,480 And if the design of that system is when a good argument and a lot of evidence is 783 00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:27,400 provided uh represent that into quote unquote your beliefs, then you would 784 00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:28,680 get that as part of the design. 785 00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,800 And you I mean we one would have to be functionalist about why that would be. 786 00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:36,520 It could be true, you know, but I but I think that would be I think that's the part to push 787 00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:38,680 on that doesn't make it punching yourself. 788 00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:39,320 Dan, yeah. 789 00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:39,640 Sorry. 790 00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:40,440 I get that. 791 00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:40,840 I get that. 792 00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:46,280 But but wouldn't a better design be believe X when there are good arguments and evidence 793 00:47:46,570 --> 00:47:51,370 unless you have strategic reasons to present one-sided arguments and evidence for X, in 794 00:47:51,370 --> 00:47:53,610 which case don't believe X, or at least discount it. 795 00:47:53,770 --> 00:47:57,210 That that would be a better design system than than the former system. 796 00:47:57,690 --> 00:47:57,930 Yeah. 797 00:47:58,170 --> 00:47:59,210 I think it's complicated. 798 00:47:59,370 --> 00:48:04,090 I mean I think somewhere in Hugo Mercier's book Not Born Yesterday, you you know, he pushes 799 00:48:04,090 --> 00:48:07,290 back on that line of reasoning a little bit precisely for this sort of reason. 800 00:48:07,450 --> 00:48:11,300 Like if you actually come across a really good argument for something, even if your search 801 00:48:11,300 --> 00:48:15,460 has been biased by non-epistemic considerations, you're gonna take it into consideration. 802 00:48:15,700 --> 00:48:19,780 But I totally see the force of your point, David, which is that, well, you know, you should 803 00:48:19,780 --> 00:48:23,060 correct for the fact that the search is biased. 804 00:48:23,220 --> 00:48:27,460 Um so what what I'd say is I think you're right, there's a sort of maybe let's say like a 805 00:48:27,460 --> 00:48:33,250 prima facie um Adaptationist presumption against this being the case, 806 00:48:33,330 --> 00:48:36,850 maybe, although for the reasons we've talked about, it's complicated and I still don't know 807 00:48:36,850 --> 00:48:37,970 entirely what to think about that. 808 00:48:38,370 --> 00:48:41,090 But it could be that this is just a kind of clue-y aspect of the mind. 809 00:48:41,170 --> 00:48:42,290 I think you have to be open to that. 810 00:48:42,450 --> 00:48:47,810 And then it could be as well that um, you know, as people like as people like Trivers have 811 00:48:47,810 --> 00:48:52,300 have argued, there is in addition some sort of like positive uh value that that can 812 00:48:52,300 --> 00:48:54,140 sometimes come from internalizing it. 813 00:48:54,300 --> 00:48:58,780 So even though it can come with costs, it comes with benefits, and that complicates it. 814 00:48:58,860 --> 00:49:03,500 Like, for example, if you do sincerely internalize it, you become a more effective advocate 815 00:49:03,500 --> 00:49:05,660 for the position, um, etc. 816 00:49:06,300 --> 00:49:12,140 So, yeah, I I I totally take take the point that if it it seems like you wouldn't 817 00:49:12,140 --> 00:49:15,500 expect this to be the case if you've got this kind of adaptationist assumption, which I 818 00:49:15,500 --> 00:49:16,780 think is a really important point. 819 00:49:17,020 --> 00:49:21,110 Um, But again, it's what it's one of those, it's one of those, I've been thinking about 820 00:49:21,110 --> 00:49:23,910 this for a while now and I still I still don't know exactly what to think. 821 00:49:23,990 --> 00:49:27,910 Um because I think another thing that really complicates this is you know, my sense in so 822 00:49:28,070 --> 00:49:32,390 is that at least in some cases, people do kind of incur costs. 823 00:49:32,550 --> 00:49:37,670 Like it is somewhat maladaptive to internalize the views that they're advocating for, and 824 00:49:37,670 --> 00:49:38,550 yet they still do it. 825 00:49:38,630 --> 00:49:44,600 Um which makes me a little bit more receptive to the to the sort of this is a uh a klugy 826 00:49:44,760 --> 00:49:48,280 aspect of our psychology or a byproduct of other things or or something like that. 827 00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:53,800 Could it be that just argument is a service for coalitional entrepreneurship? 828 00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:59,320 So I mean just baked in intrinsically to a mental representation is if I've come up with a 829 00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:05,000 good argument um that's just sort of probabilistically this is 830 00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:10,850 a a social item that's gonna be a coalitional um 831 00:50:11,090 --> 00:50:11,650 opportunity. 832 00:50:11,810 --> 00:50:17,810 It might not go, but I mean that would be one explanation for it is kluge, but it's sort of 833 00:50:17,890 --> 00:50:19,330 it's intrinsically social. 834 00:50:19,650 --> 00:50:25,090 Um yeah so the uh the idea there is that is that truly 835 00:50:25,090 --> 00:50:30,610 believing something serves a useful uh coalitional purpose and that it 836 00:50:30,610 --> 00:50:36,280 helps coordinate the group and and uh or around say a shared goal is is that the idea 837 00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:42,040 it's a more of a David Pinsoth idea which is that um if I have come up if I have arranged 838 00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:47,480 arguments yeah that uh that I think are good and I model that will convince other people 839 00:50:48,040 --> 00:50:53,640 um that that whenever that is tripped that I have that representation I have that I've come 840 00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:59,240 up with it or I have access to that that is part of the 841 00:50:59,690 --> 00:51:05,210 um this is a status acquisition opportunity because there's such an 842 00:51:05,210 --> 00:51:10,970 interest in arguments as coordination devices um 843 00:51:11,610 --> 00:51:12,970 for social coordination. 844 00:51:13,050 --> 00:51:15,130 So this is a David Pins off idea. 845 00:51:15,210 --> 00:51:16,410 Um David. 846 00:51:16,730 --> 00:51:19,530 I think I understand what you're getting at. 847 00:51:19,690 --> 00:51:24,410 Uh let me see if I can repeat to you what I think you're getting at, which is that um 848 00:51:24,570 --> 00:51:30,360 there's one way to uh design a mind to believe things, which is just believe 849 00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:35,240 things that have the most evidence, uh, the best arguments, and if there are biases in in 850 00:51:35,240 --> 00:51:38,520 in the uh production of evidence and arguments, take that into account. 851 00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:41,320 Uh, and and that's like a one way to form beliefs. 852 00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:47,560 But another way to form beliefs is to think about what are the arguments 853 00:51:47,560 --> 00:51:52,280 and evidence that other people in your culture will find plausible and will be likely to be 854 00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:53,560 uh convinced of. 855 00:51:54,050 --> 00:51:59,810 Yeah, that's that's a way of believe whatever your social and cultural group will likely 856 00:51:59,810 --> 00:52:01,330 join you in believing. 857 00:52:01,970 --> 00:52:05,170 Um regardless of whether it has good evidence or good arguments for it. 858 00:52:05,250 --> 00:52:09,490 And the argument there would be there are adaptive benefits to coordination. 859 00:52:09,650 --> 00:52:13,970 And often it is more important to coordinate with other members of your group than it is to 860 00:52:13,970 --> 00:52:15,570 coordinate with reality. 861 00:52:15,810 --> 00:52:21,520 So if you see a belief that um it has strong intuitive appeal to other 862 00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:25,200 members of your cultural group, believe that because that's going to help you coordinate 863 00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:28,560 with other members of your group and perhaps give you status for having come up with that 864 00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:30,640 belief uh, you know, as the originator of it. 865 00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:31,920 Is that is that basically what I'm saying? 866 00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:32,400 Yeah, yeah. 867 00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:35,920 I mean, I think it includes other things, but I think like the existence of logical 868 00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:41,920 fallacies and arguments and what those are are descriptions of exactly when 869 00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:43,710 th those exist. 870 00:52:44,510 --> 00:52:50,350 The existence of an ad hominem attack, the existence of uh appealing to common 871 00:52:50,350 --> 00:52:55,870 knowledge or to the group, um, I think exit it precisely exists because this happens all 872 00:52:55,870 --> 00:52:56,190 the time. 873 00:52:56,350 --> 00:52:56,830 Yeah. 874 00:52:58,590 --> 00:52:59,230 Yeah. 875 00:52:59,470 --> 00:53:04,750 I I believe something if there are social benefits to believing it or social costs for 876 00:53:04,750 --> 00:53:05,470 disbelieving it. 877 00:53:05,790 --> 00:53:06,110 Right. 878 00:53:06,340 --> 00:53:09,540 It's like what Bacon called like the idols of the tribe, right? 879 00:53:09,620 --> 00:53:11,700 Or like, you know, he had like these idols, right? 880 00:53:11,780 --> 00:53:16,500 Where it was sort of like Francis Bacon had, you know, what why do people believe why do 881 00:53:16,500 --> 00:53:20,100 scientists or philosophers at the time or natural philosophers hold the beliefs that they 882 00:53:20,100 --> 00:53:20,500 hold? 883 00:53:20,660 --> 00:53:24,580 And he's like, it's stupid because like they're just going around like it's a status 884 00:53:24,580 --> 00:53:25,060 scheme, right? 885 00:53:25,140 --> 00:53:28,260 Or like it's because everybody believes it and they're just sort of like who's high status. 886 00:53:28,340 --> 00:53:34,210 And so there's this r beautiful like literature in the history of sort of people arguing 887 00:53:34,210 --> 00:53:39,810 for science above and beyond these status games, like logical fallacies, like Bacon's 888 00:53:39,810 --> 00:53:42,130 Idols of the Tribe or The Species or the Cave. 889 00:53:42,210 --> 00:53:45,650 I mean, there's like, you know, they're they're all different ones, but I think they all 890 00:53:45,650 --> 00:53:45,970 exist. 891 00:53:46,050 --> 00:53:51,010 They're they're a documentation informally of like the presence of this, of these 892 00:53:51,010 --> 00:53:52,210 adaptations, right? 893 00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:54,240 Yeah. 894 00:53:54,480 --> 00:54:00,320 It's almost like um an example is like um so I think Jordan Peterson is full of 895 00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:00,960 shit, right? 896 00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:02,320 But I haven't done my own. 897 00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:05,040 We're not gonna uh we're not gonna edit that out. 898 00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:06,080 We're not gonna edit that out. 899 00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:09,280 Uh so but but like it's a totally unjustified belief. 900 00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:10,640 I haven't actually read the guy. 901 00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:15,040 I haven't like, you know, done my homework in terms of figuring out if he's actually like 902 00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:17,360 saying interesting or legitimate things or not. 903 00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:23,250 It's just kind of I know um Can I say can I say yeah can I say everybody 904 00:54:23,250 --> 00:54:29,090 should find somebody to marry them who thinks about them like Jordan Peterson 905 00:54:29,250 --> 00:54:30,770 thinks about himself. 906 00:54:31,650 --> 00:54:33,570 That's what I'll say about Jordan Peterson. 907 00:54:33,650 --> 00:54:33,810 Okay. 908 00:54:34,130 --> 00:54:34,370 Yeah. 909 00:54:34,450 --> 00:54:40,290 So like that get like it's so deeply uncool in our in my cultural social group to be into 910 00:54:40,290 --> 00:54:41,650 Jordan Peterson, right? 911 00:54:41,940 --> 00:54:46,660 Um and that uncoolness has sort of inf infected my my epistemology. 912 00:54:47,060 --> 00:54:51,060 Like I I truly believe that he's he's full of shit, but I have no I don't think I have like 913 00:54:51,060 --> 00:54:55,940 legitimate reasons other than that I just feel that he's so deeply uncool uh in my in my 914 00:54:55,940 --> 00:54:56,260 group. 915 00:54:56,500 --> 00:54:56,740 Right. 916 00:54:56,900 --> 00:55:00,340 Um I think I think you're being I think you're being hard on yourself. 917 00:55:00,820 --> 00:55:05,380 Yeah I find that I find I think I think this is a case where you've got sufficient 918 00:55:05,700 --> 00:55:07,140 epistemic justification. 919 00:55:07,220 --> 00:55:10,980 I mean I'm assuming that you've you've read some things you've seen some things that he 920 00:55:10,980 --> 00:55:11,140 said. 921 00:55:11,300 --> 00:55:15,470 I'm assuming it's not one of those cases where like you've never come across any of his 922 00:55:15,470 --> 00:55:16,350 intellectual output. 923 00:55:16,430 --> 00:55:18,830 Um and you're probably seen like sure. 924 00:55:18,910 --> 00:55:22,830 I've maybe seen like one or two clips of his, but like that's not really sufficient 925 00:55:22,830 --> 00:55:25,470 evidence to judge an entire person's work and output. 926 00:55:26,510 --> 00:55:28,990 You know, like that's that might not be a representative sample. 927 00:55:29,310 --> 00:55:32,830 Surely it was shaped by people's, you know, a desire to make him look bad. 928 00:55:32,910 --> 00:55:34,670 You know, take maybe it was taken out of context. 929 00:55:34,750 --> 00:55:35,390 Like, I don't know. 930 00:55:35,470 --> 00:55:40,030 I I really I feel like I don't have enough evidence to be confident one way or another, and 931 00:55:40,030 --> 00:55:40,910 yet I'm confident. 932 00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:41,440 I don't know. 933 00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:43,760 It's a weird schizophrenia in my in myself. 934 00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:44,240 Yeah. 935 00:55:46,720 --> 00:55:48,160 Just just really quickly on that. 936 00:55:48,720 --> 00:55:53,680 I mean, you might say you've got kind of higher order evidence, in as much as the people 937 00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:54,960 who you trust who think that. 938 00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:57,760 And often that's how we form beliefs. 939 00:55:57,840 --> 00:56:02,480 You know, even if you take it take away these sort of uh impression management concerns and 940 00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:07,070 status competition, You know, we we don't have first hand experience of of most of the 941 00:56:07,070 --> 00:56:08,270 things that we form beliefs about. 942 00:56:08,350 --> 00:56:11,790 And so we just rely upon people that that we trust to be good information sources. 943 00:56:12,030 --> 00:56:15,550 And if you're in a I'm I'm not saying this is necessarily what's going on in your case. 944 00:56:15,630 --> 00:56:19,790 It could just be pure, you know, this guy's uncool within your kind of prestige economy, 945 00:56:19,870 --> 00:56:22,590 but but it could also be the case that, you know, you're surrounded by people that you 946 00:56:22,590 --> 00:56:28,430 think are smart and generally sort of thoughtful when it comes to evaluating whether 947 00:56:28,430 --> 00:56:32,140 people are intellectually worthwhile you trust those people. 948 00:56:32,300 --> 00:56:36,380 And I think those sorts of explanations are often quite difficult to tease apart. 949 00:56:36,460 --> 00:56:40,780 You know, the the case in which you form a belief for its social benefits because it's 950 00:56:40,780 --> 00:56:45,100 going to make you look good, because that's the kind of the socially enforced orthodoxy 951 00:56:45,100 --> 00:56:46,540 within your reference network. 952 00:56:46,780 --> 00:56:50,540 Distinguishing that from cases in which, no, you are trying to get at the truth, but you're 953 00:56:50,540 --> 00:56:54,380 just forced to rely upon kind of the higher order evidence of what people in your social 954 00:56:54,380 --> 00:56:55,900 network take to be the case. 955 00:56:56,060 --> 00:56:59,740 Um, I think disentangling those two things is quite difficult in in some cases. 956 00:56:59,990 --> 00:57:00,150 Yeah. 957 00:57:00,390 --> 00:57:00,710 Yeah. 958 00:57:01,350 --> 00:57:01,670 Totally. 959 00:57:02,710 --> 00:57:07,670 Dan, one question we've asked people and to sort of maybe move things in a slightly 960 00:57:07,670 --> 00:57:13,670 different direction, just for a little bit at least, is how did you get interested in this? 961 00:57:14,870 --> 00:57:20,470 Many people we've talked to have sort of had an origin story, either with taking an 962 00:57:20,470 --> 00:57:25,030 evolutionary approach, but then also sort of a reason for why they study what they study. 963 00:57:25,190 --> 00:57:30,620 And I'm imagining people sort of wondering you know, you're interested in belief and its 964 00:57:30,620 --> 00:57:36,460 social strategic function, um, and you know, not to psychoanalyze you or yourself, 965 00:57:36,540 --> 00:57:40,620 but I mean, have you thought about sort of what when you're thinking about the these 966 00:57:40,620 --> 00:57:46,460 phenomena, is there do you either have like a life experience or was there something about, 967 00:57:46,540 --> 00:57:51,730 you know, you looked out in the world and you're like, this is weird or unjust or just 968 00:57:51,730 --> 00:57:52,370 strange? 969 00:57:52,610 --> 00:57:53,890 Like what what do you know? 970 00:57:53,970 --> 00:57:59,970 Do you have some notion of sort of why this particular thing and not study some something 971 00:57:59,970 --> 00:58:00,610 else? 972 00:58:01,650 --> 00:58:02,210 Hmm. 973 00:58:02,450 --> 00:58:08,370 Um so I mean I guess one part of that is why am I interested in 974 00:58:08,370 --> 00:58:13,650 the application of evolutionary ideas to psychology and behavior, which I think is quite um 975 00:58:13,890 --> 00:58:17,250 let's say unusual for a humanities academic. 976 00:58:18,260 --> 00:58:22,980 And and there, I mean, I mean who knows what the actual causes are, but the the kind of the 977 00:58:23,140 --> 00:58:29,060 the boring story which strikes me as uh plausible is just that when I was a teenager, I 978 00:58:29,060 --> 00:58:33,860 read books by you know Richard Dawkins, Stephen Pinker, a little bit later on, Dan Dennett. 979 00:58:34,340 --> 00:58:39,300 And since the the the minute I came across these ideas, the moment I came across these 980 00:58:39,300 --> 00:58:44,990 ideas, I just found them incredibly almost obviously compelling in a way that's never 981 00:58:44,990 --> 00:58:47,710 really been replicated in other areas of intellectual inquiry. 982 00:58:47,870 --> 00:58:53,230 Um, learning about evolution by natural selection, uh, just this sort of profound 983 00:58:53,230 --> 00:58:55,630 transformation in how I understood the world. 984 00:58:55,790 --> 00:59:01,070 And then also, more specifically, the idea that you know, applying uh uh 985 00:59:01,120 --> 00:59:05,200 evolutionary theory to understanding our minds and our behavior and our societies, that 986 00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:06,320 that would be fruitful. 987 00:59:06,480 --> 00:59:11,040 Um, again, just struck me as obvious from the the moment I came across this. 988 00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:12,480 Um, but that was young. 989 00:59:12,640 --> 00:59:18,480 And then I went into sort of university and eventually did a PhD and went into academia in 990 00:59:18,480 --> 00:59:19,200 the humanities. 991 00:59:19,280 --> 00:59:23,200 And there's this strange thing where you know I assumed learning this stuff as a teenager, 992 00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:29,280 that this is just like what our you know, uncontroversial picture of what human beings 993 00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:34,130 um uh Alike, inasmuch as we're products of evolution by natural selection, and that fact is 994 00:59:34,210 --> 00:59:36,050 relevant understanding of behavior. 995 00:59:36,210 --> 00:59:40,850 I assume that was just the kind of consensus view among all smart people for the most part, 996 00:59:40,930 --> 00:59:42,370 with some exceptions here and there. 997 00:59:42,530 --> 00:59:47,890 And then when I went into academia as someone in the humanities, I mean you'll both know 998 00:59:47,890 --> 00:59:53,650 this very well, it was this shock to me that evolutionary psychology, even understood in a 999 00:59:53,650 --> 00:59:57,580 really broad sense, is incredibly stigmatized. 1000 00:59:57,660 --> 01:00:03,580 People are actively hostile to it, which I found 1001 01:00:03,580 --> 01:00:06,860 just baffling and continue to find uh really baffling. 1002 01:00:07,260 --> 01:00:12,300 Um, and so so that's sort of the origin story of how I got into evolutionary psychology in 1003 01:00:12,300 --> 01:00:15,260 a way that I think is kind of unusual for a humanities academic. 1004 01:00:15,340 --> 01:00:19,930 I just came across these ideas really early on, and before I could have been up 1005 01:00:19,930 --> 01:00:24,730 indoctrinated, I think, by the kind of you know humanities style view of evolutionary 1006 01:00:24,730 --> 01:00:25,530 psychology. 1007 01:00:26,010 --> 01:00:30,010 Um and then in terms of my like specific research interests, I don't know. 1008 01:00:30,090 --> 01:00:34,090 I feel like the the truth there is just really boring and mundane, which is that certain 1009 01:00:34,090 --> 01:00:35,290 things I found interesting. 1010 01:00:35,450 --> 01:00:37,930 I read certain people, I found their arguments persuasive. 1011 01:00:38,090 --> 01:00:38,250 Yeah. 1012 01:00:38,490 --> 01:00:44,140 Um and also, you know, yeah, yeah With within academia, it's this you know, sort of status 1013 01:00:44,140 --> 01:00:47,820 game to come up with kind of interesting and engaging ideas. 1014 01:00:47,980 --> 01:00:51,500 And so you you try to find those aspects of the literature that you think are most 1015 01:00:51,500 --> 01:00:56,300 promising for generating new ideas, and especially if you've got a kind of rich theoretical 1016 01:00:56,300 --> 01:00:58,940 framework that you can use to generate a few different ideas. 1017 01:00:59,180 --> 01:01:03,630 Um, and and again, in that context, I've found you know, kind of evolutionary cognitive 1018 01:01:03,630 --> 01:01:07,550 science, social science in the broadest possible sense of those terms, just incredibly 1019 01:01:07,550 --> 01:01:08,190 fruitful. 1020 01:01:08,510 --> 01:01:08,750 Yeah. 1021 01:01:08,910 --> 01:01:09,070 Yeah. 1022 01:01:09,310 --> 01:01:10,110 So that's the story. 1023 01:01:10,350 --> 01:01:11,150 Yeah, no, thanks. 1024 01:01:11,230 --> 01:01:11,550 That's great. 1025 01:01:11,630 --> 01:01:16,350 And I mean, I think one of the other things that people might be listening, especially 1026 01:01:16,350 --> 01:01:21,070 people who aren't familiar with your work, you know, we've talked about evolution not being 1027 01:01:21,230 --> 01:01:26,700 just so story, and we have talked about examples of taking an approach and generating, have 1028 01:01:26,700 --> 01:01:31,340 an idea of like the underlying function of this phenomenon is X, that makes additional 1029 01:01:31,340 --> 01:01:31,820 predictions. 1030 01:01:31,980 --> 01:01:33,100 We can test that. 1031 01:01:33,580 --> 01:01:39,500 Um, do you have an example of when you talk about this to people or of your work 1032 01:01:40,060 --> 01:01:45,740 where that functionalist approach that's saying that the underlying function of this weird 1033 01:01:45,740 --> 01:01:48,220 thing is this other thing? 1034 01:01:48,470 --> 01:01:53,830 And when we think about that and understand that, um, it makes predictions or gives us 1035 01:01:53,830 --> 01:01:54,150 insight. 1036 01:01:54,230 --> 01:01:58,710 Do you have an example of that for people who might not know your work that well? 1037 01:01:59,270 --> 01:02:03,910 So I think what we've been talking about in terms of um you know motivated reasoning, what 1038 01:02:03,910 --> 01:02:09,350 gets called self-deception and so on, with with within philosophy, um philosophy of mind, 1039 01:02:09,510 --> 01:02:13,030 there's still this, I think, quite strong commitment to the, you know, you can't handle the 1040 01:02:13,030 --> 01:02:18,380 truth model of Of these sorts of beliefs, that we believe things that 1041 01:02:18,940 --> 01:02:23,340 we want to be true, that protect our self-esteem, that help us regulate our emotions and so 1042 01:02:23,340 --> 01:02:23,660 on. 1043 01:02:24,060 --> 01:02:27,980 And, you know, I've been pushing for a long time, you know, this is not really original, 1044 01:02:28,060 --> 01:02:31,980 this is drawing on the work of, you know, David and Robert Trivers and Robert Wright and 1045 01:02:31,980 --> 01:02:33,740 Richard Alexander and so on. 1046 01:02:34,460 --> 01:02:38,300 Firstly, the idea that, as we've already talked about, that's just very implausible from an 1047 01:02:38,300 --> 01:02:39,340 evolutionary perspective. 1048 01:02:39,500 --> 01:02:40,940 And that I think should count against it. 1049 01:02:41,020 --> 01:02:46,090 It doesn't rule it out definitively, um, because we do do things to regulate our emotions 1050 01:02:46,090 --> 01:02:48,330 and sort of hedonic self-manipulation and so on. 1051 01:02:48,490 --> 01:02:52,330 But at the very least, in terms of thinking about things in a careful, sort of rigorous 1052 01:02:52,330 --> 01:02:57,450 way, theoretically, it's sort of mark against it, in as much as this is very bizarre as a 1053 01:02:57,450 --> 01:02:59,610 view from an evolutionary perspective. 1054 01:03:00,250 --> 01:03:06,250 But then also if you take a a kind of a a a a goal which makes a lot more evolutionary 1055 01:03:06,250 --> 01:03:12,160 sense, as we've been talking about something like advocacy or propaganda, where the goal 1056 01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:16,320 is not to adjust your own psychological state, but to influence other agents and their 1057 01:03:16,320 --> 01:03:18,320 mental states in advantageous ways. 1058 01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:24,880 I think if you then understand lots of these biased beliefs as being wrapped up with 1059 01:03:24,880 --> 01:03:28,800 these motivations towards advocacy, that can then not only does it have this sort of 1060 01:03:28,800 --> 01:03:33,760 evolutionary plausibility, I think it explains a whole suite of patterns that we see that 1061 01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:38,710 you don't get from the I can't handle the truth model of self-deception. 1062 01:03:38,950 --> 01:03:42,470 Um, one of them, and you've written about this, I can't remember exactly where, David, but 1063 01:03:42,550 --> 01:03:46,790 but it's the fact that you know often we we're biased to believe things that we don't want 1064 01:03:46,790 --> 01:03:48,790 to be true in a way that's very confusing. 1065 01:03:48,870 --> 01:03:52,310 If you've got this, you know, you can't handle the truth model of self-deception, like 1066 01:03:52,390 --> 01:03:56,950 believing that there are witches engaging in these like audiastic gatherings, you know, 1067 01:03:57,030 --> 01:03:59,110 under cover of night against the community. 1068 01:03:59,270 --> 01:04:02,230 That's not something people believe for reasons of emotional comfort. 1069 01:04:02,310 --> 01:04:05,900 Um, believing in hell, you know, it's not the kind of thing people believe, so it makes 1070 01:04:05,900 --> 01:04:07,020 them feel good about the world. 1071 01:04:07,260 --> 01:04:11,820 Believing that the rival group is this incredibly threatening, malevolent force, it's not 1072 01:04:11,820 --> 01:04:13,340 gonna, you know, make you sleep better at night. 1073 01:04:13,500 --> 01:04:15,260 These are often quite distressing beliefs. 1074 01:04:15,340 --> 01:04:15,420 Yeah. 1075 01:04:15,660 --> 01:04:19,100 But in each of those cases, they serve these sort of propagandistic purposes, right? 1076 01:04:19,180 --> 01:04:23,180 If you can demonize someone as a witch, you send a signal about your intentions towards 1077 01:04:23,180 --> 01:04:25,260 them, you you you denigrate their reputation. 1078 01:04:25,490 --> 01:04:29,250 If you can portray a rival group as being incredibly threatening and dangerous, well, 1079 01:04:29,330 --> 01:04:30,450 that's useful propaganda. 1080 01:04:30,610 --> 01:04:34,530 So it makes sense that we'll be biased towards those kinds of beliefs, even if it's not 1081 01:04:34,530 --> 01:04:36,290 something that would like to be true. 1082 01:04:36,530 --> 01:04:41,970 And I also think it explains why we sort of touched on this a little bit already, but why 1083 01:04:42,050 --> 01:04:47,010 when it comes to sort of motivated cognition, these cases where our practical motivations 1084 01:04:47,010 --> 01:04:52,530 bias our beliefs, there seems to be this sort of rationalization constraint where, you 1085 01:04:52,530 --> 01:04:57,060 know, generally we're only going to internalize something in as much as we can find sort of 1086 01:04:57,060 --> 01:05:02,180 epistemic justifications for it, if we can find evidence and arguments that that that uh 1087 01:05:02,260 --> 01:05:06,820 are consistent with that with that idea, even if they're not good, judge objectively. 1088 01:05:06,980 --> 01:05:10,820 And again, I think that kind of makes sense on a sort of propagandistic, you know, uh uh 1089 01:05:11,060 --> 01:05:11,940 rationale. 1090 01:05:12,100 --> 01:05:16,900 Um, if the goal of these beliefs is to be spread and to persuade and to propagandise, then 1091 01:05:16,900 --> 01:05:20,660 it makes sense that you would try to recruit selectively evidence and arguments in favor of 1092 01:05:20,660 --> 01:05:20,820 them. 1093 01:05:20,980 --> 01:05:25,650 Whereas if the goal is merely to indulge in this sort of you know masturbatory wishful 1094 01:05:25,650 --> 01:05:29,650 thinking, it's very unclear why you would need to recruit these these forms of evidence and 1095 01:05:29,650 --> 01:05:30,210 arguments. 1096 01:05:30,450 --> 01:05:34,050 So off the top of my head, I mean that that sort of those arguments in different places 1097 01:05:34,050 --> 01:05:38,690 have been made before, but I think it's a really clear case where um, you know, taking a 1098 01:05:38,690 --> 01:05:42,210 kind of evolutionary perspective that says, look, here's this striking thing about human 1099 01:05:42,210 --> 01:05:46,690 psychology, let's try to explain it in terms of the goals that would actually make sense 1100 01:05:46,690 --> 01:05:50,530 from an evolutionary perspective, including the perspective of what are the actual 1101 01:05:50,530 --> 01:05:54,200 selection pressures that we confronted ancestrally, which had to do with playing these 1102 01:05:54,200 --> 01:05:55,320 complex social games. 1103 01:05:55,560 --> 01:05:59,800 So start with that as your kind of your guiding set of priors. 1104 01:06:00,200 --> 01:06:05,320 And then building on that, show how it illuminates many aspects of this phenomenon that 1105 01:06:05,320 --> 01:06:07,000 would otherwise be be quite puzzling. 1106 01:06:07,240 --> 01:06:11,400 That's something that sort of jumps to mind as a really good case. 1107 01:06:11,560 --> 01:06:17,550 Um where I think, you know, taking this broad evolutionary perspective really helps to 1108 01:06:17,550 --> 01:06:22,030 eliminate something which is sort of central to the human condition and I think widely 1109 01:06:22,030 --> 01:06:25,470 misunderstood by people who don't bother with the evolutionary perspective at all. 1110 01:06:25,790 --> 01:06:26,110 Yeah. 1111 01:06:26,990 --> 01:06:30,910 For and you know, when you think about beliefs, right, you know, I think we've talked, 1112 01:06:31,390 --> 01:06:37,150 David and I have talked a bit about cynical approaches to ourselves. 1113 01:06:37,310 --> 01:06:41,640 And in some sense, it's sort of humbling because it applies to ourselves, right? 1114 01:06:41,720 --> 01:06:44,360 And it's sort of being like, well, what am I? 1115 01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:46,040 What do I believe? 1116 01:06:46,280 --> 01:06:51,320 And you know, I think all of us who take an evolutionary approach as professionals, I mean, 1117 01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:55,080 to varying degrees, we sort of have our work hat and life hat. 1118 01:06:55,240 --> 01:07:00,120 But I'm wondering, like, for you, and I'm sort of for for people listening, and and David, 1119 01:07:00,200 --> 01:07:04,280 this question is for you too, because I think you you guys both are sort of the world um 1120 01:07:04,280 --> 01:07:05,800 experts on this. 1121 01:07:06,120 --> 01:07:11,130 Um, When you're thinking about social biases or propagandistic biases, or even if we get 1122 01:07:11,130 --> 01:07:15,210 rid of the word bias, and just say, like, you know, the reason why we do these things is 1123 01:07:15,210 --> 01:07:16,570 for these reasons. 1124 01:07:16,970 --> 01:07:22,650 Um, do you find yourself like in a day-to-day way, sort of like, is it helpful? 1125 01:07:22,810 --> 01:07:26,410 Like I think some people might think it's sort of oppressive and cynical. 1126 01:07:26,570 --> 01:07:31,360 Do you actually find it liberating or a nice check on sort of just double checking your 1127 01:07:31,360 --> 01:07:31,760 assumptions? 1128 01:07:31,920 --> 01:07:37,760 Like David is gonna go and read two hours worth of Jordan Peterson after this, I'm sure. 1129 01:07:38,240 --> 01:07:43,520 Um you know, like that kind of like, you know, are there for people listening who might 1130 01:07:43,520 --> 01:07:47,680 just think it's all cynical and and sort of you're just trying to say people are stupid? 1131 01:07:47,840 --> 01:07:51,200 Like what I'm not saying you're saying that, or either of you, you know, and I I know you 1132 01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:53,920 guys both are very explicit about the opposite point. 1133 01:07:54,080 --> 01:07:55,760 Um, but yeah, do you know what I'm getting at? 1134 01:07:55,840 --> 01:08:01,770 Like, do you how do you think about, you know what's the what tools does this give you in 1135 01:08:01,770 --> 01:08:05,610 your day-to-day existence that people might want to pick up? 1136 01:08:06,650 --> 01:08:10,010 Yeah, I mean I'd really interested in in David's view on this as well, because obviously 1137 01:08:10,090 --> 01:08:12,890 it's something he's he's thought a massive amount uh about. 1138 01:08:13,050 --> 01:08:18,170 So I guess there's a question of um what do we gain from this sort of perspective on belief 1139 01:08:18,250 --> 01:08:22,250 specifically, and then what might we gain from a sort of more cynical view of human 1140 01:08:22,250 --> 01:08:23,850 motivation in general? 1141 01:08:24,090 --> 01:08:29,820 Um What I would say is, I mean, this is a framework for thinking about our psychology and 1142 01:08:29,820 --> 01:08:34,700 our behavior that is, you know, part of a the the scientific project. 1143 01:08:35,580 --> 01:08:40,140 So, you know, it needn't be the case that the things we learn in science would benefit us 1144 01:08:40,140 --> 01:08:43,020 in the ordinary interactions we're we're having with each other. 1145 01:08:43,100 --> 01:08:46,140 There's no a priori reason why why that should be the case. 1146 01:08:46,370 --> 01:08:51,570 Um, and it's not obvious to me that that you know, you do kind of benefit from having these 1147 01:08:51,570 --> 01:08:56,690 sorts of like understanding of the the the deeper causes of your beliefs and and and the 1148 01:08:56,690 --> 01:08:59,810 way in which you think and reason in terms of just ordinary social life. 1149 01:08:59,890 --> 01:09:04,850 You know, if I think about like would would my mum benefit from having uh uh an 1150 01:09:04,850 --> 01:09:06,690 understanding of socially adaptive beliefs? 1151 01:09:06,900 --> 01:09:07,780 Almost certainly not. 1152 01:09:08,100 --> 01:09:11,540 I don't think she'd like positively benefit in her practical life. 1153 01:09:11,940 --> 01:09:14,420 It might even be disadvantageous in various ways. 1154 01:09:14,660 --> 01:09:18,500 But in the scientific project, we're trying to understand the way that the world really is. 1155 01:09:18,660 --> 01:09:22,820 And that's important because sometimes it really matters to understand the way that the 1156 01:09:22,820 --> 01:09:23,700 world really is. 1157 01:09:24,020 --> 01:09:26,180 And this is something maybe, maybe we can get into. 1158 01:09:26,260 --> 01:09:30,500 But you know, the reason I think it's important is when it comes to stepping back and 1159 01:09:30,500 --> 01:09:35,410 thinking about society, thinking about social organization, thinking about the kinds of 1160 01:09:35,410 --> 01:09:39,170 political projects that are likely to work, thinking more reflectively about the human 1161 01:09:39,170 --> 01:09:39,650 condition. 1162 01:09:39,890 --> 01:09:43,090 Those are cases in which I think it's really important to have an accurate understanding of 1163 01:09:43,570 --> 01:09:44,530 what's going on. 1164 01:09:44,770 --> 01:09:48,370 And that's where I would place the value of this kind of perspective. 1165 01:09:48,610 --> 01:09:53,410 It might have value in terms of making us more reflective about our own biases and so on, 1166 01:09:53,490 --> 01:09:55,940 but um, I think that's a slightly more complex case. 1167 01:09:56,020 --> 01:10:00,580 And I, you know, I wouldn't assume that there there must be a practical value in knowing 1168 01:10:00,580 --> 01:10:04,900 the truth, given that the whole point is actually we often advance our interests by not 1169 01:10:04,900 --> 01:10:06,660 following the truth in a disinterested way. 1170 01:10:06,820 --> 01:10:08,020 So that's the first thing that comes to mind. 1171 01:10:08,100 --> 01:10:09,940 But I'm interested in your views, David, as well. 1172 01:10:10,420 --> 01:10:12,420 Yeah, that was really well put, Dan. 1173 01:10:12,580 --> 01:10:14,740 Um I agree with 100% of it. 1174 01:10:14,820 --> 01:10:18,260 Um, and I'm inclined to say um the exact same things. 1175 01:10:18,580 --> 01:10:24,490 Um yeah, I I I love the point that we shouldn't automatically assume that knowledge of 1176 01:10:24,490 --> 01:10:30,170 the truth is going to be personally advantageous to us, especially if concealing the truth 1177 01:10:30,170 --> 01:10:34,810 is often advantageous to us, as as we've been talking about pretty much this whole time. 1178 01:10:35,130 --> 01:10:40,330 Um so yeah, has it been advantageous to me? 1179 01:10:40,570 --> 01:10:46,500 Um I don't know that it has like leaked into my personal life enough for me to 1180 01:10:46,500 --> 01:10:49,060 really say because I there are sort of two hats you can put on. 1181 01:10:49,140 --> 01:10:53,780 You can put on your scientist hat, your philosopher hat and think about the human condition 1182 01:10:53,780 --> 01:10:58,020 on an abstract level, and then you can just do your day day-to-day chores and live your 1183 01:10:58,020 --> 01:11:03,860 day-to-day life and you know uh do the dishes or whatever and and um and and 1184 01:11:03,940 --> 01:11:06,420 and then and that part of your brain is just turned off. 1185 01:11:06,660 --> 01:11:10,770 Um so I don't know that it has affected my day-to-day life that much. 1186 01:11:10,930 --> 01:11:16,450 Occasionally it like it gives me more insight into why people do things. 1187 01:11:16,610 --> 01:11:22,050 Um, it helps me avoid bullshit, I think, better uh and and to better understand where it 1188 01:11:22,050 --> 01:11:23,970 comes from and and how to avoid it. 1189 01:11:24,130 --> 01:11:29,920 Um one thing I've noticed is that it makes me less surprised by 1190 01:11:29,920 --> 01:11:34,560 things happening in the world, I think that's often a good way of checking whether your 1191 01:11:34,560 --> 01:11:39,600 world model is accurate, is that if you're less surprised by things, because that that's a 1192 01:11:39,600 --> 01:11:43,840 sign that your that your predictions are are uh are coming true a lot and you have good you 1193 01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:44,720 have a good predictive model. 1194 01:11:44,880 --> 01:11:48,080 If you're constantly surprised and taken aback by everything, that's a sign that you have a 1195 01:11:48,080 --> 01:11:50,400 pretty crappy predictive model of how the world works. 1196 01:11:51,280 --> 01:11:51,680 Yeah, exactly. 1197 01:11:52,160 --> 01:11:53,200 Yeah, you're like a baby. 1198 01:11:53,570 --> 01:11:58,850 Um so I f you know, I with with the political chaos surrounding uh the Trump stuff 1199 01:11:58,850 --> 01:12:03,410 recently, you know, uh with the the uh the whipsawing between different views on the 1200 01:12:03,410 --> 01:12:07,090 tariffs and different justifications that that the Republicans are are launching into. 1201 01:12:07,170 --> 01:12:11,490 Like first the tariffs are are uh are great and you know, you don't have to worry about 1202 01:12:11,490 --> 01:12:12,370 prices increasing. 1203 01:12:12,450 --> 01:12:16,370 We should well consumerism is really just uh a bad thing, you know. 1204 01:12:16,930 --> 01:12:22,260 These these crazy about faces that we're seeing um politically right now, people have come 1205 01:12:22,260 --> 01:12:24,580 to me like, Wow, I can't believe this is happening. 1206 01:12:24,740 --> 01:12:27,540 Like, isn't this such amazing evidence for alliance theory? 1207 01:12:27,700 --> 01:12:30,020 I'm like, Oh yeah, I I I barely noticed it on it. 1208 01:12:30,100 --> 01:12:31,700 Like it it it didn't surprise me at all. 1209 01:12:31,860 --> 01:12:36,580 Like it just kind of w was part of the background radiation of my life because I it was 1210 01:12:36,580 --> 01:12:41,380 just so expected to me that that that these kinds of propagandistic responses would uh 1211 01:12:41,540 --> 01:12:42,420 would pop up. 1212 01:12:42,820 --> 01:12:45,770 Uh and um so maybe that's a bad thing. 1213 01:12:45,850 --> 01:12:47,850 Like maybe I should be more surprised by this. 1214 01:12:48,010 --> 01:12:52,650 Um and you know maybe you know maybe that surprises doing something for people and like 1215 01:12:52,650 --> 01:12:55,690 motivating them to uh engage in more political activism. 1216 01:12:55,770 --> 01:12:56,730 I don't know. 1217 01:12:56,890 --> 01:13:01,210 Um but that's one way in which it has affected me. 1218 01:13:01,690 --> 01:13:04,410 Um yeah there's lots more to say on this topic. 1219 01:13:04,490 --> 01:13:08,540 I don't know that I've said everything, but that's yeah that's what comes to the top of my 1220 01:13:08,540 --> 01:13:08,700 head. 1221 01:13:08,780 --> 01:13:08,860 Yeah. 1222 01:13:09,100 --> 01:13:09,260 Yeah. 1223 01:13:09,340 --> 01:13:13,660 And a real related question is sort of how, and Dan, this is more for you because you're 1224 01:13:13,660 --> 01:13:18,220 the guest, but I am also interested in what David has to say, is how do people react to 1225 01:13:18,220 --> 01:13:24,140 this, whether professionally, um, the people that you're you know arguing with um 1226 01:13:24,300 --> 01:13:29,900 professionally or also just sort of day-to-day, um, you know, because you're telling them 1227 01:13:29,900 --> 01:13:34,540 something that we're talking about is sort of intrinsically revealing, it's pulling the 1228 01:13:34,540 --> 01:13:37,630 curtain back on on our on on us. 1229 01:13:38,030 --> 01:13:42,270 And you know, as we've already talked about and alluded to, there there's probably good 1230 01:13:42,270 --> 01:13:48,270 reasons uh for our evolved psychology to not like that revelation. 1231 01:13:48,430 --> 01:13:54,350 So and again, you're kind of working you're basically on this theory, the 1232 01:13:54,350 --> 01:13:57,870 science of doing this should be sort of aversive to people. 1233 01:13:58,030 --> 01:14:00,510 Is that uh is that prediction borne out? 1234 01:14:00,670 --> 01:14:05,860 Or are there enough people, maybe at least in your professional day-to-day, you know, that 1235 01:14:05,940 --> 01:14:09,540 that they sort of they've trained themselves enough to sort of appreciate what you're 1236 01:14:09,540 --> 01:14:09,780 doing? 1237 01:14:09,860 --> 01:14:14,180 How what's the temperature on the street in terms of the reception to the work? 1238 01:14:14,260 --> 01:14:17,300 Um I don't know. 1239 01:14:17,380 --> 01:14:18,660 It's good good question. 1240 01:14:18,900 --> 01:14:24,570 Um I think that um so you know my view is 1241 01:14:24,650 --> 01:14:29,210 everyone is biased um when it comes to thinking about the world for for you know many of 1242 01:14:29,210 --> 01:14:34,810 the reasons that we've talked about and um for me that's a kind of insight of modern 1243 01:14:34,810 --> 01:14:40,330 science and um i mean that sounds like grandiose like but but I think on a certain 1244 01:14:40,330 --> 01:14:45,260 interpretation of what it is to be biased um I think we we've got enough evidence now that 1245 01:14:45,740 --> 01:14:48,380 scientists should sign on to that being the case. 1246 01:14:49,020 --> 01:14:53,420 And yeah, there are whole parts of the sciences where if you suggest the possibility that 1247 01:14:53,420 --> 01:14:57,820 like research might be subject to certain kinds of biases, there's this explosive reaction. 1248 01:14:57,980 --> 01:15:01,980 So we haven't really talked about this today, but one of the areas I'm kind of interested 1249 01:15:01,980 --> 01:15:07,910 in as a philosopher of science is modern misinformation research, where people 1250 01:15:07,910 --> 01:15:13,830 try to study the nature, the causes, the sort of prevalence, the consequences of something 1251 01:15:13,830 --> 01:15:17,350 called misinformation, and also things like disinformation and so on. 1252 01:15:17,590 --> 01:15:21,750 And that's interesting because I think it kind of exists at two levels. 1253 01:15:21,830 --> 01:15:25,750 You know, at one level there's the question of what we've been talking about, which is why 1254 01:15:25,750 --> 01:15:29,110 do people believe what they believe, and why do people sometimes believe false things and 1255 01:15:29,110 --> 01:15:30,710 things that aren't supported by the evidence? 1256 01:15:30,870 --> 01:15:35,510 But you can also ask those questions about the people who are studying misinformation. 1257 01:15:35,740 --> 01:15:40,700 Um and so I've pointed out various ways in which I think this field is often kind of biased 1258 01:15:40,780 --> 01:15:45,580 in terms of the examples of misinformation it focuses on, how it focuses on the topic. 1259 01:15:45,820 --> 01:15:51,820 And you know, there's been a pretty um negative reaction to some of that among people 1260 01:15:51,980 --> 01:15:53,180 within that field. 1261 01:15:53,340 --> 01:15:57,660 And I think that generalizes more broadly, I think lots of people in the social sciences, 1262 01:15:57,820 --> 01:16:03,730 even though they're happy to um uh when they're describing, you know, the Hoi Paloi, 1263 01:16:03,810 --> 01:16:08,050 the great unwash, the kind of ordinary people, to point at these various biases that sort 1264 01:16:08,050 --> 01:16:11,330 of corrupt their cognitive processes and interfere with how they view the world. 1265 01:16:11,570 --> 01:16:15,490 If there's the suggestion that they as researchers might also be human beings who are 1266 01:16:15,490 --> 01:16:19,650 subject to these sorts of biases, there's often this incredibly kind of explosive reaction. 1267 01:16:19,890 --> 01:16:24,680 So that's maybe one area where it has resulted in backlash. 1268 01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:30,760 Um but I think there are also just people who um for whatever reason find these 1269 01:16:30,760 --> 01:16:34,280 ideas interesting and um compelling. 1270 01:16:34,360 --> 01:16:38,920 And and after all, like within the the social sciences, within intellectual inquiry, we are 1271 01:16:38,920 --> 01:16:42,520 ostensibly playing this status game where we care about the truth and we care about you 1272 01:16:42,520 --> 01:16:44,600 know what's supported by evidence and arguments. 1273 01:16:44,840 --> 01:16:48,920 And like within that context I think it can often be you know quite alluring to come across 1274 01:16:48,920 --> 01:16:52,670 these sorts of ideas which will better help illuminate certain kinds of phenomena. 1275 01:16:52,830 --> 01:16:56,270 So those are the things kind of kind of that immediately jump jump to mind. 1276 01:16:56,350 --> 01:16:59,950 But I mean you've you both also, I guess, must have encountered similar things. 1277 01:17:00,110 --> 01:17:03,790 David, because you're an outright self-described cynic, and Dave because you're an 1278 01:17:03,790 --> 01:17:07,230 evolutionary psychologist, which people often think of as as being cynical. 1279 01:17:07,470 --> 01:17:09,310 So I'd be interested what what you two think as well. 1280 01:17:09,470 --> 01:17:10,110 Yeah. 1281 01:17:10,910 --> 01:17:15,680 For me, I think um the fact that I almost kind of play a character on everything is 1282 01:17:15,680 --> 01:17:16,160 bullshit. 1283 01:17:16,240 --> 01:17:20,160 I think that gives me some cover that like people know that it's kind of tongue in cheek 1284 01:17:20,240 --> 01:17:23,520 and they and I and I get less backlash because of that. 1285 01:17:23,680 --> 01:17:29,120 So I I found that that's a pretty good strategy uh in terms of avoiding backlash, just to 1286 01:17:29,120 --> 01:17:31,040 sort of be playful about it. 1287 01:17:31,200 --> 01:17:34,800 Um and and try to you know find the humor in it. 1288 01:17:34,880 --> 01:17:40,000 I think that uh has been very helpful for me in sort of helping the medicine of this 1289 01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:41,200 message go down. 1290 01:17:41,680 --> 01:17:47,450 Um but um and also just writing versus saying it out loud is 1291 01:17:47,450 --> 01:17:48,090 often helpful. 1292 01:17:48,170 --> 01:17:52,010 Like if I say some of these things out loud, I often you know get you know dirty looks or 1293 01:17:52,010 --> 01:17:52,250 whatever. 1294 01:17:52,330 --> 01:17:56,410 But if I write them, you know, it's it's all of a sudden a different medium and I don't 1295 01:17:56,410 --> 01:17:59,610 have to deal with people's facial expressions because I don't see them. 1296 01:17:59,850 --> 01:18:01,130 Um yeah, I don't know. 1297 01:18:01,290 --> 01:18:05,850 Um I mean, certainly, I mean, uh, you know, hostility against evolutionary approaches is is 1298 01:18:05,850 --> 01:18:06,490 ubiquitous. 1299 01:18:06,650 --> 01:18:10,090 It's had it's certainly gotten better in the past few decades, but it's still there. 1300 01:18:10,250 --> 01:18:16,160 Um and uh and you know the hostility against evolution, hostility against cynicism, and 1301 01:18:16,160 --> 01:18:18,400 when you combine them, you get double hostility. 1302 01:18:18,640 --> 01:18:23,680 Um but um I don't know, par part of me kinda likes it though, like if if if everyone 1303 01:18:23,680 --> 01:18:27,680 perfectly agrees with everything I say and and there's no disagreement and I'm not like 1304 01:18:27,760 --> 01:18:29,360 challenging anything like it's just boring. 1305 01:18:29,520 --> 01:18:33,680 So part of me kinda likes the thrill of of pushing back against the conventional wisdom. 1306 01:18:33,760 --> 01:18:36,080 So you know, it's it's a it's a mixed bag, I'd say. 1307 01:18:36,370 --> 01:18:36,690 don't know. 1308 01:18:36,770 --> 01:18:37,490 What do you think, Dave? 1309 01:18:37,810 --> 01:18:39,570 I I think I like that last part. 1310 01:18:39,650 --> 01:18:43,730 And I think, you know, I I often I talk about this story of like, you know, I one of my 1311 01:18:43,730 --> 01:18:47,810 good friends at the Mox Plunk when I first met him, he's like, I hate evolutionary 1312 01:18:47,810 --> 01:18:48,370 psychology. 1313 01:18:48,450 --> 01:18:49,410 And I was like, great. 1314 01:18:49,570 --> 01:18:53,570 I sat down eagerly and was like, I pulled up a chair for him and I was like, tell me why 1315 01:18:53,570 --> 01:18:54,210 you hate it. 1316 01:18:54,370 --> 01:18:57,730 You know, because like I thought I hated it when I first encountered it too. 1317 01:18:57,890 --> 01:19:02,180 And and and like it turns out that he he hated what I hated. 1318 01:19:02,340 --> 01:19:04,500 And actually we agreed essentially. 1319 01:19:04,580 --> 01:19:06,500 Like he had a misrepresentation. 1320 01:19:06,660 --> 01:19:12,340 Um, and so for me, I sort of I maybe it's sort of like David's not surprised, where it's so 1321 01:19:12,340 --> 01:19:13,300 much in the water. 1322 01:19:13,540 --> 01:19:16,740 The default is it's gonna be misunderstood. 1323 01:19:16,980 --> 01:19:22,890 Um, and so for me, it's sort of like I'm an anthropologist of sort of like, oh, do 1324 01:19:22,890 --> 01:19:26,730 I understand this particular instance of the misunderstanding? 1325 01:19:26,890 --> 01:19:32,730 And it's not that I'm sort of like um uh trying to 1326 01:19:32,730 --> 01:19:37,690 convert everybody, but it's just sort of like trying to map, like, you know, like, does 1327 01:19:37,690 --> 01:19:41,450 this person have a good faith effort trying to understand something and they're 1328 01:19:41,450 --> 01:19:42,170 misinformed? 1329 01:19:42,330 --> 01:19:46,420 Is it just that it's a status game and they just don't like the people. 1330 01:19:46,580 --> 01:19:48,020 Do they have a good reason for that or not? 1331 01:19:48,180 --> 01:19:50,580 You know, and that informs sort of like, do I try? 1332 01:19:50,740 --> 01:19:55,300 Um, but for me, I just sort of view it as an interesting scientific enterprise, but I still 1333 01:19:55,300 --> 01:19:56,580 do get like worked up. 1334 01:19:56,660 --> 01:20:00,820 Um, although, as like we had a Deb Lieberman on, and she said, you know, as you get older 1335 01:20:00,980 --> 01:20:04,500 and not everything is life or death, not every paper that's get rejected, you know, the 1336 01:20:04,500 --> 01:20:08,100 beginning when you're a grad student and you're like, you think, okay, I have a really good 1337 01:20:08,100 --> 01:20:08,580 argument. 1338 01:20:08,740 --> 01:20:11,140 You know, it still hurts to get a paper rejected, you know. 1339 01:20:11,220 --> 01:20:15,750 Like I know David and I just had, you know, we both had like really big important papers 1340 01:20:15,750 --> 01:20:19,350 that we think are really important, get rejected for I think really dumb reasons. 1341 01:20:19,510 --> 01:20:21,510 That always hurts no matter what your approach is. 1342 01:20:21,590 --> 01:20:23,350 And so, you know, I think that always hurts. 1343 01:20:23,590 --> 01:20:29,510 But, you know, as each one is less important than I think, you know, I just 1344 01:20:29,510 --> 01:20:35,430 sort of it's just again, as David said, it's just sort of part of the expectation for me 1345 01:20:35,510 --> 01:20:35,990 at least. 1346 01:20:36,150 --> 01:20:36,550 Yeah. 1347 01:20:36,870 --> 01:20:42,620 For the misinformation one, Dan, Do you think that it's because people think you are 1348 01:20:42,780 --> 01:20:43,980 have an agenda? 1349 01:20:44,540 --> 01:20:49,340 Um, and that like, you know, what do you have you thought about sort of why people are 1350 01:20:49,340 --> 01:20:50,940 pushing back against it? 1351 01:20:51,660 --> 01:20:52,860 Maybe I do have an agenda. 1352 01:20:52,940 --> 01:20:58,060 I mean, maybe there is a set of motivations which I'm not motivated to acknowledge. 1353 01:20:58,300 --> 01:21:00,220 Um it's it's complicated. 1354 01:21:00,300 --> 01:21:05,980 I mean, a lot of it is it's yeah, I mean, that's such a complicated sort of can of worms to 1355 01:21:05,980 --> 01:21:06,380 open. 1356 01:21:06,460 --> 01:21:11,350 Um I mean, just just to focus on one part of it psychology and the social sciences 1357 01:21:11,590 --> 01:21:17,270 overwhelmingly skewed towards the left, um, sort of liberal left 1358 01:21:17,270 --> 01:21:17,990 politics. 1359 01:21:18,310 --> 01:21:22,790 And um, you know, I think your your prior should be that if you've got an entire field 1360 01:21:22,790 --> 01:21:28,070 where people share political allegiances, that's going to influence the ways in which they 1361 01:21:28,070 --> 01:21:32,800 seek out, interpret, evaluate, process information and so on, conduct studies, 1362 01:21:33,040 --> 01:21:35,760 operationalize things, how they measure things, etc. 1363 01:21:36,080 --> 01:21:40,880 And then I think that should be your prior based on general models of human psychology. 1364 01:21:41,040 --> 01:21:47,040 And then I think when you look at misinformation research, um just as you look at many 1365 01:21:47,040 --> 01:21:51,360 aspects of the modern social sciences where they're studying sort of politically relevant 1366 01:21:51,360 --> 01:21:55,920 things, I think you find lots of cases where these sorts of, you know, progressive ideas, 1367 01:21:56,080 --> 01:22:00,910 values, partisan allegiances influence the kind of research that they're doing. 1368 01:22:01,150 --> 01:22:06,510 And, you know, there's this sort of familiar set of coalitional dynamics where if you point 1369 01:22:06,510 --> 01:22:10,510 that out, the inference people are going to draw on is you're not on the right team. 1370 01:22:10,670 --> 01:22:16,110 Um so there there was an article in a uh Time magazine published recently um 1371 01:22:16,590 --> 01:22:22,510 which links one of my my articles as an example of someone defending the authoritarian 1372 01:22:22,510 --> 01:22:28,260 agenda, i.e., defending um Donald Trump and MAGA and so on and his attacks 1373 01:22:28,260 --> 01:22:33,380 on institutions, which, you know, for anyone who knows anything about my political views, I 1374 01:22:33,380 --> 01:22:35,300 find absolutely absurd. 1375 01:22:35,460 --> 01:22:40,020 It's not at all a political coalition that I've got any sympathy for. 1376 01:22:40,260 --> 01:22:44,500 Um, but but nevertheless, the idea is if you're criticizing, or or at least if you're even 1377 01:22:44,500 --> 01:22:48,500 just pointing out that there is a kind of liberal bias in this research in such a heated, 1378 01:22:48,750 --> 01:22:54,190 polarized political context, then familiar coalitional dynamics are going to kick in and 1379 01:22:54,190 --> 01:22:57,150 it's going to be well, like you're either with us or you're against us, right? 1380 01:22:57,230 --> 01:23:00,110 If you're criticizing us in this way, you must be trying to support the other team. 1381 01:23:00,270 --> 01:23:00,750 Right, right. 1382 01:23:00,910 --> 01:23:05,150 And I think that makes sense in the context of ordinary kind of partisan debate. 1383 01:23:05,230 --> 01:23:08,430 I think it's unfortunate that even there for various reasons. 1384 01:23:08,590 --> 01:23:13,790 But I think it's so destructive to science because science, you know, its esteem within 1385 01:23:13,790 --> 01:23:18,260 society, which I think is, you know, deserved for the most part, is wrapped up with the 1386 01:23:18,260 --> 01:23:22,020 fact that it's our best way of escaping these kinds of partisan biases. 1387 01:23:22,180 --> 01:23:27,380 We try to institutionalize various procedures and we try to enforce various sorts of norms, 1388 01:23:27,540 --> 01:23:32,660 which are gonna enable us to overcome these sorts of familiar forms of coalitional politics 1389 01:23:32,740 --> 01:23:34,180 to try to get at the truth. 1390 01:23:34,420 --> 01:23:39,940 And I think it's a real big problem for science, both in terms of its capacity to generate 1391 01:23:39,940 --> 01:23:45,150 knowledge, but also in terms of its public reputation, if it's seen as being subject to the 1392 01:23:45,150 --> 01:23:49,390 same forces that that apply when it comes to ordinary partisan politics. 1393 01:23:49,630 --> 01:23:52,670 Um I've forgotten what the question is now, but that that's one case. 1394 01:23:53,150 --> 01:23:53,550 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1395 01:23:53,630 --> 01:23:58,110 Just no, it was like sort of why or what yeah, why people do push put push back against it. 1396 01:23:58,190 --> 01:24:03,040 And I mean, just to sort of follow up on that, I think like um if you're c if you're saying 1397 01:24:03,040 --> 01:24:09,040 that like misinformation research is skewing in a particular way, one inference 1398 01:24:09,040 --> 01:24:10,880 is like, well, you're for the other side. 1399 01:24:11,040 --> 01:24:16,560 It's interesting that the the inference isn't, well, what are the ways in which our 1400 01:24:16,560 --> 01:24:18,400 values we're not living up to? 1401 01:24:18,480 --> 01:24:18,720 Right. 1402 01:24:18,800 --> 01:24:22,640 Like, I mean, it would be nice if that was sort of the way people approach things. 1403 01:24:22,720 --> 01:24:26,590 I mean, for reasons like David's studies, that that's typically not. 1404 01:24:26,750 --> 01:24:30,670 It's rare, but I mean, you know, I think that would be the ideal, would be to sort of say, 1405 01:24:30,750 --> 01:24:36,590 you know, if we really think if we really do hold these values, what would we predict 1406 01:24:36,990 --> 01:24:42,270 in pointing out ways in which we're um we're not being consistent 1407 01:24:42,830 --> 01:24:44,350 as David has documented? 1408 01:24:44,430 --> 01:24:47,470 Well, it's sort of uh it's being coalitional. 1409 01:24:47,550 --> 01:24:49,070 I think that's a good adjective, right? 1410 01:24:49,150 --> 01:24:53,310 Is to sort of, and this is for me actually, for me, this is actually gets back to this 1411 01:24:53,310 --> 01:24:56,840 question of like what what do I use my work for? 1412 01:24:57,400 --> 01:25:01,080 And I often check myself just being, am I being coalitional about this? 1413 01:25:01,160 --> 01:25:01,320 Right. 1414 01:25:01,480 --> 01:25:07,160 Like it feels good to sort of defend my side, but then I'm like, but is this a 1415 01:25:07,160 --> 01:25:11,560 situation where I'm taking sides as opposed to taking a principle? 1416 01:25:11,720 --> 01:25:11,960 Right. 1417 01:25:12,120 --> 01:25:17,960 And there's many times throughout, especially like if I look on social media or 1418 01:25:18,280 --> 01:25:23,370 these things that are not just sort of dispassionate, like quote unquote boring scientific 1419 01:25:23,370 --> 01:25:26,490 issues, but these charged issues, they're very coalitional, of course. 1420 01:25:26,570 --> 01:25:28,410 That's why they're charged. 1421 01:25:28,570 --> 01:25:32,090 Um, that's where I often find myself sort of checking myself. 1422 01:25:32,170 --> 01:25:36,250 And I do this thing of like, I almost flip the coalitional side where it's like, you know, 1423 01:25:36,330 --> 01:25:40,090 if if the other political party that I support said this, what would I think? 1424 01:25:40,250 --> 01:25:45,540 You know, or if it's something my political party says, I flip it into like try to simulate 1425 01:25:45,540 --> 01:25:46,340 as best I can. 1426 01:25:46,500 --> 01:25:48,740 If this was coming from the other side, what would I think? 1427 01:25:48,980 --> 01:25:51,380 I think like that's a useful heuristic. 1428 01:25:51,700 --> 01:25:57,380 Um, and so it's not surprising that when you're presenting 1429 01:25:57,380 --> 01:26:01,700 something that is you're saying it's skewed, that there's a concern. 1430 01:26:01,860 --> 01:26:03,140 I mean, you would predict it, right? 1431 01:26:03,220 --> 01:26:07,060 That there's a concern about like whose side are you on and what's your agenda. 1432 01:26:07,220 --> 01:26:10,260 But it's but it's interesting that that it plays out that way. 1433 01:26:12,470 --> 01:26:13,830 I'm curious, Dan. 1434 01:26:13,990 --> 01:26:19,830 I feel like one stop on this train of examining our biases is 1435 01:26:19,830 --> 01:26:22,070 uh a kind of epistemic nihilism. 1436 01:26:22,470 --> 01:26:27,830 Uh and I don't mean epistemic nihilism in the sense that truth is impossible to 1437 01:26:28,070 --> 01:26:28,950 achieve. 1438 01:26:29,190 --> 01:26:34,710 Um, I don't mean epistemic nihilism in in that you know there aren't institutions that can 1439 01:26:34,710 --> 01:26:37,910 more or less reliably produce true information. 1440 01:26:38,220 --> 01:26:44,220 I mean epistemic nihilism in the sense that me personally, I, David Pinsov, have no hope of 1441 01:26:44,220 --> 01:26:45,260 knowing what's true. 1442 01:26:45,500 --> 01:26:45,900 Right. 1443 01:26:46,300 --> 01:26:50,780 I I can wrap my head around the idea that as a society, if there are cultural evolutionary 1444 01:26:50,780 --> 01:26:55,580 processes or incentives, that that will societally push us toward true beliefs, or maybe 1445 01:26:55,580 --> 01:26:57,820 it'll push the institution of science toward true beliefs. 1446 01:26:57,900 --> 01:26:59,020 I can get behind that. 1447 01:26:59,260 --> 01:27:04,780 But everything we know about our own psychology and our epistemology suggests that truth, 1448 01:27:04,940 --> 01:27:07,930 if it exists, is an emergent phenomenon. 1449 01:27:08,330 --> 01:27:12,730 It emerges from uh cooperative groups and institutions that are well designed. 1450 01:27:12,890 --> 01:27:15,290 It is not a product of any individual human. 1451 01:27:15,450 --> 01:27:18,330 No individual human is likely to have all the answers. 1452 01:27:18,650 --> 01:27:23,530 Most individual humans have their own biases, their own agendas, their own uh limitations. 1453 01:27:23,850 --> 01:27:29,770 Um so when I reflect on that, the ultimate conclusion is that me, I, David Pinsoff, 1454 01:27:30,120 --> 01:27:34,520 have no hope of achieving the thing that I want most, which is to know what's true. 1455 01:27:35,160 --> 01:27:37,560 And that to me is really distressing. 1456 01:27:38,280 --> 01:27:41,320 Um what do you think about that? 1457 01:27:41,480 --> 01:27:42,840 Has that occurred to you? 1458 01:27:43,000 --> 01:27:45,160 Uh how do you how do you deal with that? 1459 01:27:45,480 --> 01:27:46,040 Soothe me. 1460 01:27:46,360 --> 01:27:46,840 Yeah. 1461 01:27:47,160 --> 01:27:48,600 I I can't soothe you, unfortunately. 1462 01:27:48,680 --> 01:27:49,480 It's a great question. 1463 01:27:49,640 --> 01:27:51,400 Watch some Jordan Peterson, David. 1464 01:27:51,800 --> 01:27:53,720 Yeah, maybe he'll he's the answer to the robot. 1465 01:27:54,360 --> 01:27:57,800 He'll disabuse you of this uh humility. 1466 01:27:58,070 --> 01:28:00,150 Jordan Pearson knows what's true, yeah. 1467 01:28:01,110 --> 01:28:04,790 Yeah, I I've yeah, I've I've written a few pieces sort of grappling with that, and I don't 1468 01:28:04,790 --> 01:28:06,470 have a particularly satisfactory answer. 1469 01:28:06,630 --> 01:28:09,750 Although interestingly, I'm not I'm not really bothered by it in the way that you seem to 1470 01:28:09,750 --> 01:28:10,390 be bothered by it. 1471 01:28:10,470 --> 01:28:15,350 So I think if I if I step back, I think yeah, I'm I'm biased in ways that you know some 1472 01:28:15,350 --> 01:28:19,510 ways I'm probably uh vaguely aware of and some ways I'm less aware of. 1473 01:28:19,670 --> 01:28:24,900 Um and it's almost certainly true that I've got a very selective and partial picture of the 1474 01:28:24,900 --> 01:28:26,900 world and I'm fallible in all these different ways. 1475 01:28:27,060 --> 01:28:30,500 So I do think a certain kind of skepticism is correct. 1476 01:28:30,660 --> 01:28:36,340 You know, I do think we tend to be absurdly overconfident about our capacity to know the 1477 01:28:36,340 --> 01:28:42,020 world, especially when it comes to these sort of heated social and political um phenomena. 1478 01:28:42,580 --> 01:28:45,140 Um and I I think that's just that's just true. 1479 01:28:45,220 --> 01:28:47,780 I think it's something you have to sort of face up to. 1480 01:28:48,330 --> 01:28:51,770 In a way, the fact that you're facing up to it, I think, is a, you know, it's a it's a good 1481 01:28:51,770 --> 01:28:55,450 signal of the fact that you're more reflective about these sorts of things than the average 1482 01:28:55,450 --> 01:28:55,770 person. 1483 01:28:56,810 --> 01:29:02,330 And you know, one maybe small area where I disagree is you said that sort of knowledge is a 1484 01:29:02,330 --> 01:29:06,730 is a consequence of not sort of individual level cognition, but these broader norms and 1485 01:29:06,730 --> 01:29:07,290 institutions. 1486 01:29:07,450 --> 01:29:08,570 And I think that's exactly right. 1487 01:29:08,730 --> 01:29:12,650 But but I'll just add that I do think there are individual differences in in cognition. 1488 01:29:12,810 --> 01:29:16,760 Often I think they're downstream of the social norms that get enforced in particular 1489 01:29:16,760 --> 01:29:17,320 communities. 1490 01:29:17,560 --> 01:29:21,640 Like if you're in a community where it's expected of you that you're going to provide 1491 01:29:21,640 --> 01:29:25,880 evidence and arguments, at least of some kind, when you state a view, it's expected of you 1492 01:29:25,880 --> 01:29:29,080 that you're going to acknowledge uncertainty if you want to win a good reputation and so 1493 01:29:29,080 --> 01:29:29,320 on. 1494 01:29:29,400 --> 01:29:33,880 You know, you're gonna end up with a I think more accurate understanding of topics than 1495 01:29:33,880 --> 01:29:37,080 somebody who belongs to a community where those sorts of norms aren't enforced. 1496 01:29:37,240 --> 01:29:41,370 So even though I think you're right that the the social is kind of primary, given that you 1497 01:29:41,370 --> 01:29:45,530 inhabit a certain kind of social and institutional context, I think it can have sort of 1498 01:29:45,530 --> 01:29:48,330 consequences in terms of your individual cognition. 1499 01:29:48,570 --> 01:29:53,450 Um, but but but but I agree with the the basic point, which is yeah, if if you step back 1500 01:29:53,450 --> 01:29:58,410 and you reflect on your epistemic situation to use the kind of pretentious philosophical 1501 01:29:58,410 --> 01:30:02,650 term, but your you know your situation with respect to your ability to acquire knowledge 1502 01:30:02,650 --> 01:30:05,530 about the world, you should embrace a kind of skepticism. 1503 01:30:05,660 --> 01:30:08,700 Um, but you know what are you going to do with that? 1504 01:30:08,780 --> 01:30:12,620 Um, you have to participate in this game of life, right? 1505 01:30:12,700 --> 01:30:17,820 You have to make the best case you can in accordance with the the norms that that are in 1506 01:30:17,820 --> 01:30:20,700 your environment, uh, for the kinds of views that you take to be true. 1507 01:30:20,860 --> 01:30:25,900 You have to try to live up to the ideals that that are going to be relevant to seeming like 1508 01:30:25,900 --> 01:30:28,860 a good member of your epistemic community, and so on. 1509 01:30:29,020 --> 01:30:34,870 Um, and I think you can do those things even as you acknowledge that you're biased and 1510 01:30:34,870 --> 01:30:38,710 probably wrong in various respects, and you don't exactly know what respects they're going 1511 01:30:38,710 --> 01:30:38,950 to be. 1512 01:30:39,110 --> 01:30:44,230 I mean, certainly when I write a blog post, I mean, I could write a 1513 01:30:44,230 --> 01:30:48,710 50,000-word blog post, you know, adding all these qualifications about how I'm not, you 1514 01:30:48,710 --> 01:30:50,550 know, maybe I'm biased here, you know. 1515 01:30:50,950 --> 01:30:55,590 Of course, all of these different ways, I think, what I'm arguing for is going to be a 1516 01:30:55,590 --> 01:31:00,020 selective and somewhat biased understanding of the world that I'm trying to present, But it 1517 01:31:00,020 --> 01:31:03,780 doesn't really have much value in terms of injecting that into the conversation in many 1518 01:31:03,780 --> 01:31:04,020 cases. 1519 01:31:04,180 --> 01:31:08,500 You just sort of do your best in a relatively humble way to argue for certain kinds of 1520 01:31:08,500 --> 01:31:10,340 viewpoints and see what the response is. 1521 01:31:10,500 --> 01:31:14,580 That's not a very satisfying response to your question, but that's I guess currently how 1522 01:31:14,580 --> 01:31:15,940 I'm thinking of things. 1523 01:31:16,900 --> 01:31:18,740 Yeah, no, I I like that response. 1524 01:31:18,900 --> 01:31:24,180 Um just remembering, I mean, you you had a wonderful, wonderful uh post uh called uh the 1525 01:31:24,180 --> 01:31:30,110 everyone is biased bias about how it's it's possible to take these ideas about 1526 01:31:30,110 --> 01:31:35,950 human bias too far, uh to a point where you're uh flattening human variation as you put it. 1527 01:31:36,110 --> 01:31:41,070 Um it's often easy to lose sight of the fact that human variation is large and significant 1528 01:31:41,070 --> 01:31:46,510 and important and that there are pretty large differences in epistemic character, 1529 01:31:46,750 --> 01:31:51,870 differences in moral character, and um those differences matter and we should attend to 1530 01:31:51,870 --> 01:31:52,190 them. 1531 01:31:52,820 --> 01:31:56,900 And I think it's it's easy to lose sight of that when your focus is on human nature. 1532 01:31:57,620 --> 01:32:00,180 It's easy to forget about human variation. 1533 01:32:00,420 --> 01:32:02,980 Um, just because that's just not the thing that you're focusing. 1534 01:32:03,140 --> 01:32:05,460 You're thinking about the stuff that we all share as humans. 1535 01:32:05,700 --> 01:32:10,580 You necessarily will uh forget about the stuff that you know differs between people when 1536 01:32:10,580 --> 01:32:12,100 you embark on that project. 1537 01:32:12,260 --> 01:32:16,110 Um so I thought that was that was a really uh beautiful point. 1538 01:32:16,190 --> 01:32:19,950 Uh and so I guess I can comfort myself with the knowledge that maybe, maybe I'm one of the 1539 01:32:19,950 --> 01:32:24,110 better humans epistemically, and maybe, maybe I'm in one of the better cultures, which uh 1540 01:32:24,110 --> 01:32:26,110 unfortunately sounds just as self serving. 1541 01:32:26,910 --> 01:32:32,910 Well, or or maybe, maybe David, the the you're you're trying to be less uh you're doing 1542 01:32:33,070 --> 01:32:35,950 you're in the path dependency that as we all are. 1543 01:32:36,030 --> 01:32:38,750 You're just sort of like, What what looks to be the best? 1544 01:32:38,990 --> 01:32:39,870 What looks better? 1545 01:32:40,030 --> 01:32:41,230 What's what's less wrong? 1546 01:32:41,390 --> 01:32:41,630 Right. 1547 01:32:41,710 --> 01:32:42,590 Um That's true. 1548 01:32:42,670 --> 01:32:42,910 Yeah. 1549 01:32:43,150 --> 01:32:47,840 Taking the the you know the the marginal perspective and the relative looking at things uh 1550 01:32:47,840 --> 01:32:51,120 relative to their alternatives rather rather than relative to perfection. 1551 01:32:51,280 --> 01:32:51,520 Yeah. 1552 01:32:51,680 --> 01:32:53,360 Is also a healthy way of looking at things. 1553 01:32:53,600 --> 01:32:53,760 Yeah. 1554 01:32:53,920 --> 01:32:58,240 At the risk of poking the mindfield, I do want to turn back one more time to the 1555 01:32:58,240 --> 01:33:00,080 disinformation concern though, too. 1556 01:33:00,240 --> 01:33:05,040 And this is again sort of for both of you, is uh Dan, I was reflecting on what you had said 1557 01:33:05,040 --> 01:33:10,490 earlier in you talking about why people, people sort of thinking you might have an 1558 01:33:10,490 --> 01:33:15,290 agenda for for pointing the these this thing out about the disinformation literature. 1559 01:33:15,610 --> 01:33:21,530 Um the the idea that and you even mentioned some people did use what 1560 01:33:21,530 --> 01:33:26,410 you said to argue for something you weren't espousing, um, right? 1561 01:33:26,570 --> 01:33:32,040 Like that that people sort of picked up on it to s to make other uh to make arguments like 1562 01:33:32,120 --> 01:33:36,040 this is an example of like support for these ideas that you don't hold, right? 1563 01:33:36,120 --> 01:33:36,840 Um incorrectly. 1564 01:33:37,080 --> 01:33:41,400 Uh that that was that that was the accusation that that I was uh publishing these works, 1565 01:33:41,480 --> 01:33:41,800 defending. 1566 01:33:42,120 --> 01:33:42,360 I don't know. 1567 01:33:42,520 --> 01:33:44,760 I can't I mean no no evidence was provided. 1568 01:33:44,920 --> 01:33:48,840 I mean, in a way, it's absurd the idea that you know you know Trump would be or anyone 1569 01:33:48,840 --> 01:33:53,800 that's sort of in a faction would be looking at you know the obscure substack posts of an 1570 01:33:53,880 --> 01:33:54,600 editing philosophy. 1571 01:33:54,920 --> 01:33:58,280 Um so but I'm wondering, like, is that is that sort of like just to look at it as a 1572 01:33:58,280 --> 01:34:03,250 scientific perspective, like do you think that that's do you think that's like the the 1573 01:34:03,250 --> 01:34:05,410 rational concern, right? 1574 01:34:05,650 --> 01:34:10,930 Is that um like if we're just scientists about this phenomenon, that like their evolved 1575 01:34:10,930 --> 01:34:16,770 psychology is concerned that is like, what does this afford me in my interests, 1576 01:34:17,010 --> 01:34:17,250 right? 1577 01:34:17,410 --> 01:34:21,890 In and it could this be used against us, right? 1578 01:34:21,970 --> 01:34:27,740 Like I did you think that that's um I mean, in some sense, that's almost, you know, 1579 01:34:27,900 --> 01:34:33,340 the the the idea that at least, you know, you or David are sort of, you know, it's that 1580 01:34:33,340 --> 01:34:37,980 there's a social, it's really being looked at in this social coalitional instrument 1581 01:34:38,140 --> 01:34:39,500 instrumental way. 1582 01:34:41,020 --> 01:34:44,620 Yeah, I'd I'd be really interested to hear what you two think about this as well, because 1583 01:34:44,700 --> 01:34:47,980 I've been I've been thinking about this a lot recently, this idea of um 1584 01:34:49,590 --> 01:34:55,590 objecting to a claim or an argument not on its merits, but on the 1585 01:34:55,590 --> 01:35:00,070 basis that it might be weaponized in a in a way that people object to. 1586 01:35:00,550 --> 01:35:00,870 Right. 1587 01:35:01,430 --> 01:35:02,710 So which is a very common thing. 1588 01:35:02,790 --> 01:35:07,590 You know, so at the moment that there are these, you know, in in the in the US, these 1589 01:35:07,590 --> 01:35:13,430 attacks from uh the Trump administration on these uh elite universities like like 1590 01:35:13,430 --> 01:35:14,150 Harvard. 1591 01:35:14,310 --> 01:35:18,920 And you know, there are some people who have come out, or they've said this in the past, 1592 01:35:19,000 --> 01:35:23,480 um, with arguments to the effect that look there are real problems with these institutions. 1593 01:35:23,720 --> 01:35:27,720 Um, they do have certain kinds of political biases, um, there is certain forms of 1594 01:35:27,720 --> 01:35:30,040 groupthink, etc., these sorts of arguments. 1595 01:35:30,200 --> 01:35:34,200 And and one response to those arguments is to say, here's why they're wrong, right? 1596 01:35:34,360 --> 01:35:40,040 Another response to those arguments is to say those criticisms of these institutions are 1597 01:35:40,040 --> 01:35:45,830 being weaponized by this administration, which is engaging in these sorts of bad 1598 01:35:45,830 --> 01:35:46,470 behaviors. 1599 01:35:46,870 --> 01:35:48,950 And that's a reason not to make those arguments. 1600 01:35:49,110 --> 01:35:50,310 Like I've seen loads of that. 1601 01:35:50,710 --> 01:35:55,830 Stephen Pinker recently published an article in the New York Times and um where he sort of 1602 01:35:55,830 --> 01:35:57,510 says, look, there are real problems with Harvard. 1603 01:35:57,590 --> 01:36:00,070 He sort of talks about things that he's mentioned in the past. 1604 01:36:00,550 --> 01:36:04,470 But nevertheless, he explicitly says he thinks what the Trump administration is doing is 1605 01:36:04,710 --> 01:36:05,270 really bad. 1606 01:36:05,430 --> 01:36:09,540 And lots of the criticisms I saw were it's like, well, you're kind of responsible for, or 1607 01:36:09,700 --> 01:36:14,180 at least you've played a role in defending, or your arguments have been instrumentalized 1608 01:36:14,180 --> 01:36:15,140 for this bad thing. 1609 01:36:15,460 --> 01:36:19,860 Ergo, you know, that's something that you should be held accountable for. 1610 01:36:20,180 --> 01:36:25,700 And, you know, I guess what you can say is if you step back, there is at least something to 1611 01:36:25,700 --> 01:36:31,470 the idea that when you advance claims or arguments, you know, you probably 1612 01:36:31,470 --> 01:36:35,550 should be, at least in some contexts, sensitive to the possibility that they're going to 1613 01:36:35,550 --> 01:36:37,390 get weaponized in nefarious ways. 1614 01:36:37,870 --> 01:36:41,150 In some contexts it would be reasonable to hold you accountable to that. 1615 01:36:41,310 --> 01:36:47,230 Like if if if you set up a social media account and all it is is videos of like racial 1616 01:36:47,230 --> 01:36:48,590 minorities committing crimes. 1617 01:36:48,670 --> 01:36:48,830 Right. 1618 01:36:48,990 --> 01:36:54,740 Even if every video is real, I think it would be reasonable to say you haven't 1619 01:36:54,820 --> 01:36:58,340 gotted every eye on that line of inferences, but yeah, we know what you're saying. 1620 01:36:58,500 --> 01:36:58,980 Yeah, exactly. 1621 01:36:59,220 --> 01:36:59,300 Yeah. 1622 01:36:59,540 --> 01:37:04,900 Um so I think in some context it's reasonable, but I also think the norm that says you 1623 01:37:04,900 --> 01:37:09,860 shouldn't assert something that you take to be true or you shouldn't make an argument, lest 1624 01:37:09,860 --> 01:37:15,700 it be used by the wrong side, lest it be uh instrumentalized in a nefarious way 1625 01:37:15,780 --> 01:37:20,250 by people that you might disagree with and you might explicitly disagree with, is so 1626 01:37:20,250 --> 01:37:25,770 corrosive in general to knowledge generation, to the pursuit of truth. 1627 01:37:25,850 --> 01:37:28,170 It's such a recipe for groupthink. 1628 01:37:28,330 --> 01:37:34,170 If whenever somebody criticizes your group, you can say you're just defending 1629 01:37:34,170 --> 01:37:36,570 or supporting the other side. 1630 01:37:36,730 --> 01:37:39,850 So I think it's I don't quite know what to think about it because I think if you really 1631 01:37:39,850 --> 01:37:44,540 steel man these these arguments about weaponization, you can think of cases where they 1632 01:37:44,540 --> 01:37:45,340 might have a point. 1633 01:37:45,420 --> 01:37:49,260 But as a general norm, this idea that you should be able to criticize a claim or an 1634 01:37:49,260 --> 01:37:54,140 argument not on its merits, but merely because you think it might be instrumentalized by 1635 01:37:54,140 --> 01:37:58,860 the other side, seems to me it's like totally corrosive to the pursuit of truth and and the 1636 01:37:58,860 --> 01:38:03,580 sorts of norms and procedures that we should care about in truth seeking institutions. 1637 01:38:03,740 --> 01:38:06,530 That's my current thought, but I'll be interested what you two think about. 1638 01:38:06,770 --> 01:38:10,130 I mean, just as a quick follow-up, I mean, do you think because I uh this sounds also very 1639 01:38:10,130 --> 01:38:12,770 familiar in terms of like a conversation, right? 1640 01:38:12,850 --> 01:38:18,690 Where like a lot of times a claim is made and what is implied, you know, is is 1641 01:38:18,850 --> 01:38:22,930 it's almost it's it comes back to this thing of like inferences. 1642 01:38:23,250 --> 01:38:28,280 There's a lot of inferences, but but based on any one thing we say, you know, like we still 1643 01:38:28,280 --> 01:38:32,760 don't have an AI system that if you just if it actually represents a statement is like 1644 01:38:32,920 --> 01:38:34,920 actually percolates all the correct inferences. 1645 01:38:35,000 --> 01:38:39,720 It doesn't have the semantic common sense knowledge to to draw these inferences. 1646 01:38:39,880 --> 01:38:45,640 And so in a conversation, if I say something often, so like Dan, you might be like, Well, 1647 01:38:45,720 --> 01:38:46,840 did you mean this or this? 1648 01:38:47,000 --> 01:38:49,800 And I'll be like, No, no, no, no, I don't actually agree with this thing. 1649 01:38:49,960 --> 01:38:51,720 I'm just pointing out this other problem. 1650 01:38:52,040 --> 01:38:57,970 And I wonder sometimes if like what you're describing is sort of the scaled up version 1651 01:38:57,970 --> 01:39:02,050 of what ordinarily for our Valve psychology would be the right thing to do, which is sort 1652 01:39:02,050 --> 01:39:07,330 of it's sort of like a conversation of like, okay, Dan, I hear you that I'm just gonna take 1653 01:39:07,330 --> 01:39:12,050 the other side, the, the, the, the devil's advocate side of sort of, I hear you that, you 1654 01:39:12,050 --> 01:39:17,650 know, there is there there is a objective skew in terms of like representation 1655 01:39:17,650 --> 01:39:18,610 politically. 1656 01:39:18,850 --> 01:39:24,640 Um, But you know, there's there's a concern that the this could be used for 1657 01:39:24,640 --> 01:39:29,040 other other reasons that that are not advancing science at all. 1658 01:39:29,280 --> 01:39:34,160 Are you are you backing that or are you making a point that advances science? 1659 01:39:34,560 --> 01:39:39,520 And to the extent that, you know, the representation that should advance science, which m 1660 01:39:39,840 --> 01:39:42,000 which I might even disagree with, is that the thing? 1661 01:39:42,080 --> 01:39:45,920 Like, is your North Star science, or is it this other status game? 1662 01:39:46,090 --> 01:39:50,010 in an interpersonal conversation, we can do that really quick. 1663 01:39:50,330 --> 01:39:55,610 Um, and I sometimes wonder if things like social media or things where we can have a 1664 01:39:55,610 --> 01:40:00,810 conversation back and forth, it perpetuates a thing where you you sort of feel like you're 1665 01:40:00,810 --> 01:40:05,210 a bad guy because they don't understand where you're coming from and they haven't 1666 01:40:05,210 --> 01:40:06,490 understood where you're coming from. 1667 01:40:06,570 --> 01:40:10,320 And you may not understand that maybe this is some of their people, some people's 1668 01:40:10,320 --> 01:40:12,000 motivation, and maybe some people's not. 1669 01:40:12,080 --> 01:40:17,600 You know, I mean, we all know that there are people, even within our community, that 1670 01:40:17,760 --> 01:40:21,920 they're like science, my personal status, like hold my beer. 1671 01:40:22,000 --> 01:40:23,760 I'm gonna go with personal status, right? 1672 01:40:23,840 --> 01:40:29,760 Like the people who are sort of trolls and like sort of advance their status on the backs 1673 01:40:29,760 --> 01:40:33,470 of a correct understanding of even what we do. 1674 01:40:33,550 --> 01:40:37,390 And we're like that, you know, we all know, like, we're like, oh, we hate those people, or 1675 01:40:37,470 --> 01:40:41,470 like well, we like them interpersonally, but wish they wouldn't do that. 1676 01:40:41,710 --> 01:40:47,710 Um and so I just, yeah, so that's my long-winded way of saying, like, I wonder sometimes if 1677 01:40:47,710 --> 01:40:53,310 this is almost an example of almost a mismatch in terms of the communicative 1678 01:40:53,950 --> 01:40:59,620 back and forth that in under more maybe sort of ecologically 1679 01:40:59,620 --> 01:41:05,540 valid, sort of Grician, uh communicative, pragmatic ways would sort 1680 01:41:05,540 --> 01:41:08,580 of quickly eliminate, like, what is your status game? 1681 01:41:08,740 --> 01:41:12,180 You know, I think a lot of communication is sort of like figuring out like what's what's 1682 01:41:12,180 --> 01:41:13,300 your game here, buddy? 1683 01:41:13,460 --> 01:41:13,700 Right. 1684 01:41:14,020 --> 01:41:15,540 And then it's sort of like, are you cool? 1685 01:41:15,620 --> 01:41:16,020 I'm cool. 1686 01:41:16,100 --> 01:41:16,500 You're cool. 1687 01:41:16,580 --> 01:41:19,540 You know, like that's kind of what I did with the person who was like, I hate Ep Psych. 1688 01:41:19,700 --> 01:41:21,690 I was like, okay, what's your game? 1689 01:41:21,850 --> 01:41:23,610 You know, are you actually interested in what's true? 1690 01:41:23,690 --> 01:41:27,770 Or are you just like interested in like shooting down something and making yourself feel 1691 01:41:27,770 --> 01:41:28,090 better? 1692 01:41:28,330 --> 01:41:33,050 And then the second that we both realized that we were both interested in just like a good 1693 01:41:33,050 --> 01:41:34,890 faith effort, then we were cool. 1694 01:41:34,970 --> 01:41:39,450 And it was like, you know, so I just I wonder sometimes if that's what goes on. 1695 01:41:41,940 --> 01:41:45,780 Yeah, um I I think it's probably a large part of it. 1696 01:41:45,940 --> 01:41:51,300 Um, but I think in these cases that I'm thinking of here, there's also this fact that it 1697 01:41:51,300 --> 01:41:54,900 occurs in a highly polarized partisan conflict. 1698 01:41:55,220 --> 01:42:00,500 Um and I I think you're right, you know, when you when you communicate anything, people are 1699 01:42:00,500 --> 01:42:02,900 going to draw inferences about your motivations. 1700 01:42:03,130 --> 01:42:08,970 Um and and for for me then the question should be, you know, what are the norms that 1701 01:42:08,970 --> 01:42:11,930 we want in institutions like universities? 1702 01:42:12,410 --> 01:42:18,090 What are going to be conducive to those universities performing their 1703 01:42:18,090 --> 01:42:18,490 function? 1704 01:42:18,650 --> 01:42:22,970 And I take the the sort of T los, the function of universities to be basically kind of 1705 01:42:22,970 --> 01:42:26,940 epistemic, like to produce knowledge, understanding, truth and so on. 1706 01:42:27,820 --> 01:42:32,460 And I think, and even when it comes to mainstream media, I think similarly, they also have 1707 01:42:32,460 --> 01:42:34,940 kind of epistemic functions. 1708 01:42:35,180 --> 01:42:40,860 And I think you know, you that there should be a strong presumption against 1709 01:42:42,380 --> 01:42:48,380 criticizing claims or arguments, not based on the kind 1710 01:42:48,380 --> 01:42:53,900 of merits of those claims or arguments, but because they might be used as 1711 01:42:53,900 --> 01:42:57,470 ammunition by another political faction. 1712 01:42:58,510 --> 01:43:04,510 It seems to me that's first of all, um I think there are going to be 1713 01:43:04,510 --> 01:43:10,350 such strong motivations to uh uh criticize claims and arguments 1714 01:43:10,670 --> 01:43:16,110 for mundane partisan reasons which should be frowned upon within the context of 1715 01:43:16,110 --> 01:43:20,910 science um and mainstream media and and these other sort of epistemic institutions. 1716 01:43:22,280 --> 01:43:27,640 And secondly, it just strikes me as a kind of recipe for 1717 01:43:28,120 --> 01:43:30,360 groupthink and institutional decay. 1718 01:43:30,440 --> 01:43:35,960 If people can't criticize these institutions without that being criticized because it might 1719 01:43:35,960 --> 01:43:40,680 give ammunition to the wrong side in a political conflict, that seems like it's not going 1720 01:43:40,680 --> 01:43:44,680 to be good for those institutions in terms of their function of seeking knowledge and so 1721 01:43:44,680 --> 01:43:44,840 on. 1722 01:43:45,000 --> 01:43:47,080 So I haven't fully thought things through. 1723 01:43:47,240 --> 01:43:51,230 That's my kind of current intuition about these these cases, but but yeah. 1724 01:43:51,470 --> 01:43:51,630 Yeah. 1725 01:43:51,870 --> 01:43:57,150 It's it seems to me like what you're saying, Dan, is that the argument that we shouldn't 1726 01:43:57,150 --> 01:44:02,510 promote ideas that can be weaponized, um, is itself a good argument. 1727 01:44:02,830 --> 01:44:07,310 It's it's just that when you apply it to itself, it destroys itself. 1728 01:44:08,110 --> 01:44:13,860 So the idea that um we shouldn't promote i ideas that can be weaponized, 1729 01:44:14,020 --> 01:44:16,260 uh can itself be weaponized. 1730 01:44:16,580 --> 01:44:21,700 And that when we should uh count on it to be weaponized because we're coalitional primates 1731 01:44:21,700 --> 01:44:27,460 who have agendas, and if uh you know if we can defend our coalitions by criticizing any 1732 01:44:27,460 --> 01:44:33,170 idea that could be conceivably construed as a as a weapon, then we can just dismiss 1733 01:44:33,170 --> 01:44:35,970 anything that that challenges our coalitional narratives. 1734 01:44:36,210 --> 01:44:39,330 Uh it's just it it's it's an unsustainable norm. 1735 01:44:39,650 --> 01:44:45,570 Uh that it can be exploited in the same way that um allowing anyone to censor speech 1736 01:44:45,650 --> 01:44:50,290 uh can be exploited by bad actors who will inevitably censor ideas that interfere with with 1737 01:44:50,290 --> 01:44:51,170 their agendas. 1738 01:44:51,410 --> 01:44:56,840 Um this idea that um we we should only promote ideas that have good consequences and avoid 1739 01:44:56,840 --> 01:45:01,480 bad consequences or or that cannot be weaponized, like that itself can be weaponized and 1740 01:45:01,480 --> 01:45:05,560 can be exploited by by bad actors to protect cherished narratives. 1741 01:45:06,040 --> 01:45:11,480 So I think it's another example of how cynicism can be a good thing. 1742 01:45:11,960 --> 01:45:17,800 When you start thinking uh at a broader level of what kinds of norms are sustainable 1743 01:45:17,880 --> 01:45:23,610 given our cynical motives, given that we can count on you coalitional primates like us to 1744 01:45:23,610 --> 01:45:29,370 abuse and exploit the power to censor or the power to dismiss ideas on the basis of their 1745 01:45:29,370 --> 01:45:30,090 consequences. 1746 01:45:30,250 --> 01:45:34,250 Given that we know this about us, what are what are the best norms that are sustainable and 1747 01:45:34,250 --> 01:45:37,370 that are conducive to producing knowledge and truth? 1748 01:45:37,530 --> 01:45:42,890 And as soon as we abandon this cynicism or apply it selectively to our rivals but not 1749 01:45:42,890 --> 01:45:45,460 ourselves, then we get into a bad place. 1750 01:45:45,620 --> 01:45:50,260 And so this is one area where I think cynicism can be a good thing when thinking about the 1751 01:45:50,260 --> 01:45:54,980 broader social incentives and institutions and norms that we're designing. 1752 01:45:55,620 --> 01:45:56,980 Yeah, great, great point. 1753 01:45:57,140 --> 01:45:58,180 Can completely agree with that. 1754 01:45:58,340 --> 01:46:04,340 And actually it sort of as you say gets back to this issue of when can a sort of 1755 01:46:04,340 --> 01:46:09,860 sensitivity to the ways in which cognition can be biased, when can that be helpful? 1756 01:46:10,100 --> 01:46:15,950 Well, when we are ostensibly constructing communities and institutions, the 1757 01:46:15,950 --> 01:46:20,590 function of which is to generate knowledge, that's a specific context in which actually 1758 01:46:20,670 --> 01:46:26,430 it's very useful to identify those cases in which certain 1759 01:46:26,430 --> 01:46:31,230 kinds of motivations can bias how people think and reason about the world, so that we can 1760 01:46:31,230 --> 01:46:37,070 flag them and then construct norms and institutional procedures which are designed either 1761 01:46:37,070 --> 01:46:41,340 to sort of harness them in ways which generate collective knowledge, like pitting people's 1762 01:46:41,340 --> 01:46:45,660 biases against each other, or that flag them so that you can develop norms that then sort 1763 01:46:45,660 --> 01:46:47,020 of penalize them. 1764 01:46:47,580 --> 01:46:50,620 And I think also that's that's important because when we're talking about the sort of 1765 01:46:50,620 --> 01:46:56,620 practical advantages of you know socially motivated cognition and belief and so on, 1766 01:46:56,700 --> 01:47:00,610 you know, it's practical advantages for the individual who's engaging in that kind of 1767 01:47:00,610 --> 01:47:01,090 cognition. 1768 01:47:01,250 --> 01:47:05,730 But in as much as we're cooperating on a on a project which is not about advancing the 1769 01:47:05,730 --> 01:47:11,010 interests of specific individuals, but but generating something through intellectual 1770 01:47:11,010 --> 01:47:16,770 collaboration, under those conditions, the the capacity to identify features of human 1771 01:47:16,770 --> 01:47:21,250 psychology that will be threatening to that project, there I think it's really, really 1772 01:47:21,250 --> 01:47:22,050 helpful. 1773 01:47:22,580 --> 01:47:22,820 Yeah. 1774 01:47:22,900 --> 01:47:28,500 And I and I think too, like one norm might be to also sort of, you know, there's a world of 1775 01:47:28,500 --> 01:47:33,380 difference between somebody saying, like, you know, something you're factually saying 1776 01:47:33,380 --> 01:47:38,660 about, you know, the political affiliation of people I don't want you to say that versus 1777 01:47:38,660 --> 01:47:44,500 sort of like, will I accept it if you clarify that your interest is not 1778 01:47:44,740 --> 01:47:47,460 another nefarious agenda, right? 1779 01:47:47,620 --> 01:47:49,940 And I think that's like a good litmus test, right? 1780 01:47:50,070 --> 01:47:52,070 Like what is the actual claim you're making, right? 1781 01:47:52,230 --> 01:47:54,070 And what is the actual thing you're pushing? 1782 01:47:54,230 --> 01:48:00,230 And I think that's where having this kind of conversation back 1783 01:48:00,230 --> 01:48:02,470 and forth is really helpful. 1784 01:48:02,630 --> 01:48:08,630 Um, because I think it kind of will tease apart, I'm gonna completely swat down 1785 01:48:08,630 --> 01:48:14,460 your ability and censor you, versus this this idea that it's 1786 01:48:14,460 --> 01:48:17,820 true is is perfectly fine and I will accept it. 1787 01:48:18,060 --> 01:48:23,180 What are the other implicit or explicit inferences that you want to make or not? 1788 01:48:23,340 --> 01:48:24,940 And let's debate those, right? 1789 01:48:25,260 --> 01:48:30,060 Like I think that that's the kind of healthy conversation to have. 1790 01:48:30,220 --> 01:48:36,170 So for example, if there is a political skew in academia, then what what of it, 1791 01:48:36,250 --> 01:48:36,490 right? 1792 01:48:36,570 --> 01:48:37,690 Like what's the consequence? 1793 01:48:37,850 --> 01:48:40,410 And what, how does it impact science? 1794 01:48:40,890 --> 01:48:44,010 Has the historical skew been the other way for a long time? 1795 01:48:44,170 --> 01:48:46,730 And these are all kind of conversations to have. 1796 01:48:46,810 --> 01:48:48,570 And there are other skews that we're ignoring. 1797 01:48:48,650 --> 01:48:49,690 So that could be another thing. 1798 01:48:49,770 --> 01:48:53,530 Like to say, look, you know, like we've talked about, David and I talked about like social 1799 01:48:53,530 --> 01:48:57,210 classes at one area where like there's not a lot of people from low social classes that are 1800 01:48:57,210 --> 01:48:58,090 in academia. 1801 01:48:58,250 --> 01:49:00,940 That blinds the questions that are asked. 1802 01:49:01,100 --> 01:49:03,020 You know, philosophy is a great example. 1803 01:49:03,180 --> 01:49:09,180 Like I kind of laugh at, like, I look at people who are sort of of the like Quine or 1804 01:49:09,180 --> 01:49:10,780 even Dennett generation. 1805 01:49:11,020 --> 01:49:15,660 Philosophy is way overrepresented as the phenotypes of people who will give people the 1806 01:49:15,660 --> 01:49:17,020 benefit of the doubt. 1807 01:49:17,260 --> 01:49:23,020 It's often like, you know, uh deep voiced, uh, you know, a a posh accent, 1808 01:49:23,420 --> 01:49:24,610 a white male, right? 1809 01:49:24,690 --> 01:49:28,210 Like these are people who are like they stand up in a room and who has like the highest 1810 01:49:28,210 --> 01:49:30,530 social bargaining power historically, right? 1811 01:49:30,770 --> 01:49:35,490 Like that that has clearly influenced philosophy immensely, right? 1812 01:49:35,650 --> 01:49:40,770 From a first principles perspective, there's lots of reasons why that's true, but that 1813 01:49:40,770 --> 01:49:44,210 shouldn't be true to the extent that there's equal access to knowledge. 1814 01:49:44,370 --> 01:49:48,370 Like the fact that, like, a smart brain who can do an analysis, who can come to new 1815 01:49:48,370 --> 01:49:52,680 insights, it's probably going to be pretty orthogonal to like your social bargaining power. 1816 01:49:52,760 --> 01:49:56,920 And it's kind of a problem that like the two sort of go hand in hand, right? 1817 01:49:57,240 --> 01:50:02,840 Um, and so I think um these are all cases where sort of like having 1818 01:50:02,840 --> 01:50:08,040 conversations about what's the representation of what people look like, or these other 1819 01:50:08,040 --> 01:50:13,590 things that like we have these evolved primate brains that we care about, but are they 1820 01:50:13,590 --> 01:50:15,750 getting in the way of good ideas or good science? 1821 01:50:15,910 --> 01:50:17,990 Like that's a really good conversation to have. 1822 01:50:18,150 --> 01:50:23,910 And I do think so much ink is spilled in not doing that. 1823 01:50:24,150 --> 01:50:27,190 I sometimes wonder if people are actually interested in science. 1824 01:50:27,270 --> 01:50:31,990 Like, like we talked about a lot of the internet trolls or for even in F-Psych. 1825 01:50:32,640 --> 01:50:36,480 I sort of get angry at them because they're not arguing for adaptationism. 1826 01:50:36,960 --> 01:50:40,160 They're not arguing for a task analysis. 1827 01:50:40,320 --> 01:50:42,960 They're arguing political things, right? 1828 01:50:43,040 --> 01:50:48,400 And I'm like, you really are using up our social capital that we we earned for like a 1829 01:50:48,400 --> 01:50:49,520 mundane political thing. 1830 01:50:49,600 --> 01:50:51,680 And it's sort of that's not science, right? 1831 01:50:51,760 --> 01:50:55,760 Um, whether or not they have a point politically, which you know is a different issue. 1832 01:50:55,920 --> 01:51:00,720 Um I I often wonder if a lot of this, so especially social media or these political things, 1833 01:51:00,800 --> 01:51:06,110 it's almost like there's are you actually interested in the science or do you actually have 1834 01:51:06,110 --> 01:51:06,590 an agenda? 1835 01:51:06,670 --> 01:51:11,630 And the people's prior implicitly is so high that you have an agenda that you're not 1836 01:51:11,630 --> 01:51:16,830 actually doing science that like it's a wonderful rare thing to find somebody who's a 1837 01:51:16,830 --> 01:51:17,550 scientist. 1838 01:51:17,630 --> 01:51:19,150 Um yeah. 1839 01:51:19,310 --> 01:51:20,030 Yeah, yeah. 1840 01:51:20,110 --> 01:51:20,990 That seems right. 1841 01:51:21,550 --> 01:51:21,870 Yeah. 1842 01:51:21,950 --> 01:51:27,920 I mean, good faith um conversation and debate where people care about 1843 01:51:27,920 --> 01:51:33,840 arriving at the truth collaboratively is a very rare and precious flower that 1844 01:51:33,840 --> 01:51:35,360 is hard to cultivate. 1845 01:51:35,600 --> 01:51:40,560 Um and there are all sorts of forces arrayed against it, and even once you do get it, it 1846 01:51:40,560 --> 01:51:44,320 can be infiltrated by mimics and copycats who try to exploit it. 1847 01:51:44,450 --> 01:51:48,770 It is uh difficult to achieve, but when it happens, it's beautiful. 1848 01:51:48,930 --> 01:51:52,290 I think it has happened in the past couple hours as we've been talking. 1849 01:51:52,610 --> 01:51:58,450 Uh and uh it has happened uh on on our various episodes here, and I hope we can continue 1850 01:51:58,450 --> 01:51:59,810 to nurture this flower. 1851 01:51:59,970 --> 01:52:03,090 So thank you, Dan, for having this uh awesome conversation with us. 1852 01:52:03,170 --> 01:52:06,130 I hope we can have you back to have another one at some point. 1853 01:52:06,540 --> 01:52:07,420 And uh yeah. 1854 01:52:07,900 --> 01:52:08,620 This sounds great. 1855 01:52:08,700 --> 01:52:14,460 And David, I really look forward to hearing from you next time we talk about your deep 1856 01:52:14,460 --> 01:52:15,980 dive into Jordan Peterson. 1857 01:52:16,540 --> 01:52:19,660 I will I will I will give you a full report next time. 1858 01:52:19,740 --> 01:52:24,940 Well, maybe we should just have a uh an entire uh episode devoted to to Jordan Peterson and 1859 01:52:24,940 --> 01:52:26,700 his uh luminous uh insights. 1860 01:52:27,100 --> 01:52:30,780 I I'm sure that there would be many people. 1861 01:52:30,940 --> 01:52:33,550 Uh I actually I'm not I'm not even gonna finish that sentence. 1862 01:52:33,630 --> 01:52:34,190 So yeah. 1863 01:52:34,270 --> 01:52:36,990 Um but yeah, Dan, thank you so much. 1864 01:52:37,150 --> 01:52:39,310 It was it was a fun uh conversation. 1865 01:52:39,390 --> 01:52:44,590 And yeah, thank you for you know good faith effort into sort of uncovering what we all have 1866 01:52:44,590 --> 01:52:47,950 as sort of these these social agendas and what we think and believe. 1867 01:52:48,030 --> 01:52:52,750 So it was a fun and I think a a representation of it even in our conversation. 1868 01:52:52,830 --> 01:52:53,950 So thanks so much. 1869 01:52:54,440 --> 01:52:56,600 Thank you for the for the invitation to come on. 1870 01:52:56,760 --> 01:52:57,720 Big fan of you both. 1871 01:52:57,880 --> 01:52:59,000 Big fan of the podcast. 1872 01:52:59,160 --> 01:53:00,520 Best of success in the future. 1873 01:53:00,920 --> 01:53:01,560 Thank you so much. 1874 01:53:01,640 --> 01:53:04,600 We'll we'll pay you after I turn off the recording. 1875 01:53:08,680 --> 01:53:10,040 Whoa, what a fun conversation. 1876 01:53:10,280 --> 01:53:10,920 I don't have no idea. 1877 01:53:11,400 --> 01:53:11,960 That was great. 1878 01:53:12,040 --> 01:53:12,440 Yeah. 1879 01:53:13,080 --> 01:53:14,120 So we don't know what it what we do. 1880 01:53:14,280 --> 01:53:14,600 We don't know it. 1881 01:53:14,920 --> 01:53:16,600 No, we're breaking the fourth wall again, but that's okay. 1882 01:53:16,680 --> 01:53:17,320 It's fun to do that. 1883 01:53:17,480 --> 01:53:22,750 Um but uh really, David, I did appreciate your uh all of the all the things you said that 1884 01:53:22,750 --> 01:53:24,030 during this episode as well. 1885 01:53:24,430 --> 01:53:27,390 I I really appreciated all the things you said as well, Dave. 1886 01:53:27,470 --> 01:53:30,110 Uh you you were really spot on in all the points you made. 1887 01:53:30,270 --> 01:53:35,870 Um if you agree with my assessment of of Dave and Dave's assessment of me, uh please say so 1888 01:53:35,870 --> 01:53:37,710 on social media, leave us a kind review. 1889 01:53:37,790 --> 01:53:41,710 And if you feel so inclined, you can check out our Patreon page and support us. 1890 01:53:41,870 --> 01:53:46,740 Uh your enthusiasm uh and support uh is the fuel that keeps us going. 1891 01:53:46,980 --> 01:53:47,140 Yeah. 1892 01:53:47,220 --> 01:53:50,340 So a couple of people have already said this is their favorite podcast. 1893 01:53:50,580 --> 01:53:54,420 And even if it's just, you know, a couple people's favorite podcasts, that means a lot to 1894 01:53:54,420 --> 01:53:54,500 us. 1895 01:53:54,580 --> 01:53:55,140 So thank you. 1896 01:53:55,380 --> 01:53:56,420 Yeah, absolutely. 1897 01:53:56,660 --> 01:54:02,340 Uh and without uh further ado, we'll uh we'll end the episode here and then just wait for 1898 01:54:02,340 --> 01:54:02,820 the next one. 1899 01:54:02,900 --> 01:54:06,980 And if you're binge listening, um, you know, it'll be a few seconds and then we'll start 1900 01:54:06,980 --> 01:54:07,620 back up. 1901 01:54:07,950 --> 01:54:09,070 Yeah, cool. 1902 01:54:09,390 --> 01:54:10,270 Thank you.