26 Comments
May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

Great piece. As for blind acceptance of truth (or dismissal), I see this happen a lot in politics. While I certainly am no fan of the mainstream media, this ideologically driven dismissal or acceptance of information is the driving force behind the “fake news” trend in America.

As much as I detest the media, I abhor the term “fake news” even more, for it neglects nuance, and is a catch all for all reporting and facts that “I don’t like.”

Just because you do not like something, does not mean it is fake (though sometimes it may be a misleading half truth).

There is no honor in the media and our politicians use this to mask their own flaws and lies. That is just another reason I write about cutting out the middlemen and going for some kind of direct democracy.

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author

Abstolutly. We don't default to actual truth... just the truth we want. Then we turn and call everyone else out for that behavior. We have a really hard time with truth when it goes against what we want.

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May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

Yeah I think the more accurate phrase would be "default to (your own) truth" - that explains why stuff that coincides with our pre-existing beliefs and assumptions is absorbed more easily and why we put up defenses by being skeptical of stuff that doesn't align with what we already think.

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author

The number of times I've shared the no shit facts to business leadership and I get side eye and then another person tells them what they want to hear and bam... that's the truth!

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May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

But have you tried being the "another person," Michael? Maybe that's your problem right there!

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author

Actually, the medication keeps that in check.

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I really enjoyed the review of Malcolm Gladwell's book. Talking to Strangers has generated many doubts and questions in me. However, Gladwell remains without a doubt one of my favorite authors.

In my opinion, once again, what is very interesting is his structural approach: the idea of searching and testing (even without actually proving perhaps) the existence of a pattern and addressing it in an interdisciplinary way. It's an approach that fascinates me a lot and that I would also like to see applied in other books or newsletter issues. In any case, great piece!

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author

I too am a huge fan of Gladwell which is why this one threw me a bit.

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May 12·edited May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

Well-written and valuable, thank you. Trust (but), think, verify.

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author

Thanks and totally agree. I like to accept, analyze, adjudicate.

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May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

I've been doing a lot of exploring into something called the calculus of variations, which is at the core of most modern physics. I've been looking for places where it could be applied which aren't traditional, and this topic reminded me of this quest.

Fundamental to the idea of calculus of variations is the idea of finding "stationary" paths, which are maxima, minima, and inflection/saddle points, the latter of which is really pesky to think through, so it's REALLY easy to simplify to simply finding minima/maxima. That kind of optimization is intuitive.

If you minimize energy, you get something that is stable. Rocks will roll down a hill until they get to the bottom. Then, if you perturb them, they roll back to where they were. Stable. Personally, truth always had that feeling to me. While it clearly means more than stable, it has this stable property. If you try to perturb the truth, it always comes back to the truth. Perhaps it is this stability people seek when they "default to the truth."

It gets really interesting when you start including actors, like Madoff. With active effort, you can make things that are stable only because you are making them stable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meMWfva-Jio&t=60s is a famous controls example. That pendulum is ASTONISHINGLY unstable, but in the presence of the microcontroller it's quite stable. one can be lured into this apparent stability(real stability?)

The funny connection between this physics experiment and the topic of confirmation bias is that, given enough time with a controlled tripple pendulum, you might come up with equations of motion which make that upright top position the "lowest energy" state. And it turns out that the calculus of variations equations don't distinguish between maxima and minima. On can imagine how irrational someone would appear if they sought out ephemeral transient maxima as one would normally seek out the truth.

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author

Yeah, the layers get super deep as you drive into truth. Hell Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson had a two hour conversation and couldn't agree!

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May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

Jonathan Haidt makes that point about politics in "The Righteous Mind." When we want something to be true, we look for any scrap that we can hang our belief on. When we don't, we look for any way to dismiss the new information.

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author

That's a great point. I love The Righteous Mind. That's probably what threw me off so much about 'Default to Truth' because we really don't do that. Not the actual truth.

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May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

A problem Jonathan has: he (and his theories) is subject to his very own theory...and I don't think he has any sophisticated methodologies to counteract it.

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author

Right, not defending JBP but just showing that he and Sam Harris couldn't pin down Truth. To be fair to JBP, he at least made an effort to do so whereas SH just kept pivoting.

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May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

Sam Harris is the most educated dumb person I know, he is like a walking paradox. JBP is a whole other ball of wax, though I was quite a fan of him before he went nuts on politics (a lot like Sam lol).

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author

Very true on both accounts.

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May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

Excellent insights. This is very well done.

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author

Thanks!

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Siren Suno

ChatDCT (Dreams Come True)

StableFulfillment

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Nov 4Liked by Michael Woudenberg

I appreciate and agree with your post. I wish more people were talking about this and taking it seriously.

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author

I appreciate that and agree. I try to focus on this myself. It's surprising what you find!

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Remember Colbert's old term "truthiness"?

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May 12Liked by Michael Woudenberg

Colbert / Stewart beautifully divide up the masses so they can be conquered, and many of the masses love them for it.

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author

Kind of close, close enough to use, but don't question it?

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