Scientifical Truthiness and Manly Confidenceness

[daPyr0x]

mod note, split from the Guy Thread on 6/14/10

Think about it from a woman's point of view.

[it is the guy thread, but I figure I should emphasize MOST right now; from this point on "most" is inferred]

Women want to be led by the man in the relationship. Even the most experienced, sexually uninhibited women aren't going to lead you through your sexual experiences. Sex, for most women, is the ultimate in trust and submission to their partners - doesn't work so well when you don't know what you're doing. Not to mention the fact that according to most women I've spoken to - most men have no clue what they're doing in bed. Call it shallow all you want, but a woman's not going to be sexually attracted to a man she has to train.

That's why virgin-to-virgin works so well, and why as women get older they're less interested in men with no experience. Let's face it - we all know men like sex, we all know men are driven towards sex, if you're 30 (male) and a virgin, it's pretty telling that you're either a stickler for your beliefs or you're an insecure pussy. Show me a woman who wants to be with an insecure pussy and I'll show you a relationship that'll fail in weeks. It isn't about whether or not you've had sex, it's about whether or not you're comfortable and confident within yourself. Not having those qualities as a man will continue to be unattractive to women, regardless of your level of sexual experience.

[jotabe]

most men have no clue what they're doing in bed. Call it shallow all you want, but a woman's not going to be sexually attracted to a man she has to train.

Sheesh >_> can't be rocket science. Bunnies do it like 3 months after birth.

You just said that most men don't know what they're doing in bed anyway, so what difference does being inexperienced have?

Why so much hatred against insecure guys that you have to call them pussies? Have you ever been beaten up by one?

[Syphon the Sun]

can't be rocket science. Bunnies do it like 3 months after birth.

Bunnies don't care whether it's enjoyable for both parties, either.

[daPyr0x]

It was very simply that I knew I wasn't ready. I was afraid and a little insecure and completely unwilling to contemplate the possible consequences of having sex, let alone actually dealing with them.

I wasn't waiting for any defined moment in time. I couldn't give those boyfriends a deadline (We'll have sex after prom, after one year, after two years, after you tell me you love me, after we graduate from high school, after we graduate from college, whatever). And they decided not to stick around. It hurt, a lot. But I don't regret those choices.

I have just gained so much respect for you.

Sheesh >_> can't be rocket science. Bunnies do it like 3 months after birth.

Says the man who believes "doing the jackhammer" to be good sex...

You just said that most men don't know what they're doing in bed anyway, so what difference does being inexperienced have?

I want to buy an economical car. I know most cars are expensive to maintain; but in practice an older car is more likely to be expensive to maintain. In practice, it is a reasonable assumption to make that a virgin is a "worse lay" than an experienced man.

Why so much hatred against insecure guys that you have to call them pussies? Have you ever been beaten up by one?

No, because insecure guys are too easily intimidated by my big talk to ever try and beat me up. I call them pussies because that's what they are, cowardly (synonym provided by urbandictionary). You run around scared of what people are thinking of you or whathaveyou. Why am I so vehemently opposed to them? Because I was one, and all the gentle coddling in the world wasn't going to magically turn me in to someone who's not only happy living life as himself but also attractive to a potential mate. Insecurity is unattractive. This is true for both sexes (in my eyes anyways); but certainly more so for men. Men are expected to be leaders; of their life, household, whatever. How can you lead anything if you're constantly looking to others for validation? Strap on a pair, sally!

[jotabe]

Sheesh >_> can't be rocket science. Bunnies do it like 3 months after birth.

Says the man who believes "doing the jackhammer" to be good sex...

There are way more important skills to be had. Being able to make a lot of babies, or "being a good lay" isn't going to let you survive. Plus, i'd have to know what a jackhammer has to do with it, first.
So, as the old tale says, "they're green".

Why am I so vehemently opposed to them? Because I was one.

Well, i wouldn't use the past tense so quickly. Speaking all macho isn't a dashing display of maturity or self-posession (while it might please the ladies) . It's more of a delusion than the real thing.

[daPyr0x]

There are way more important skills to be had. Being able to make a lot of babies, or "being a good lay" isn't going to let you survive.

I'd say being able to please my partner is a pretty valuable skill, not to mention mutually beneficial. Maybe it won't help me survive longer - but it'll certainly help me be happier (a satisfied partner does make a relationship happier/easier)

Plus, i'd have to know what a jackhammer has to do with it, first.

I think you're smart enough to piece that one together...

Well, i wouldn't use the past tense so quickly. Speaking all macho isn't a dashing display of maturity or self-posession (while it might please the ladies) . It's more of a delusion than the real thing.

Hahaha! Love it! Clearly I am merely an insecure child hiding behind a macho persona. That, or I truly am not the insecure person I once was, the "pussy" you describe (in a way that could only be truly referring to yourself), having matured to the point that I truly do not give a rats ass what you think about me.

Nah, I'm a child. It's easier that way.

[Syphon the Sun]

I hope you're not surprised to hear that, Cam. Jota's been arguing that any kind of confidence is actually fake (and inherently evil) for a long time, now.

See, e.g., "Were I unwed" thread... and the million others just like it.

[jotabe]

I hope you're not surprised to hear that, Cam. Jota's been arguing that any kind of confidence is actually fake (and inherently evil) for a long time, now.

See, e.g., "Were I unwed" thread... and the million others just like it.

*nods*
I just don't see a reason to stop now. It would be a bad mark in my score if i let such an easy target go, lol.

See, dap, i just love being insecure. It gives you freedom. Makes your senses sharper. Gives you an edge at whatever job you are doing. It makes you a better person (because it makes you more like myself, which is inherently good).
So what, you can't get laid? meh, it's not such a big deal.

Btw, not giving "a rat's arse" about what i say, doesn't make you a secure person. I don't give it either, and i don't think i am secure. *looks at self* humm yeah, still same ole insecure me

[Syphon the Sun]

Gives you an edge at whatever job you are doing.

I'm willing to bet the vast majority of law firm partners would disagree with that.

[jotabe]

Gives you an edge at whatever job you are doing.

I'm willing to bet the vast majority of law firm partners would disagree with that.

oh really! whatever am i going to do!
Won't be able to work for people who live off lying through their teeth!

StS, you just broke my heart and the illusions of my childhood, shame on you.

[Syphon the Sun]

Way to totally miss the point and completely and falsely generalize an entire profession. But if thinking that your insecurity in your abilities gives you an edge helps you feel better about yourself, by all means, have at it and good luck.

I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want the surgeon who freaks out halfway in because he can never be sure he's doing it right. And I don't want my team(s) to sign an athlete who chokes in clutch situations out of fear. I wouldn't want to hire an employee that needs constant supervision. Etc.

[jotabe]

Well, better than someone who believes in his skills so much that he doesn't need others' validation. For example, physicians without a formal degree (who needs a professor to tell you that you know enough to be a doctor? you are good because you are!).

In my case, i am currently expecting 2 unknown people to validate me, so i can get published. Peer review, such an alien concept!
And in a few months, it will be 5 people validating me for all i did these past few years. Should i scorn them, according to your and dap's school of thought?

lol

I would also want to add this to rest my point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOyP44Xu5FA

[Syphon the Sun]

So there's no difference between a skilled surgeon who is confident in his abilities because he possesses the education, training, and experience necessary to do his job and some unlicensed homeless guy doing procedures in back-alleys because the voices in his head told him he's a great doctor?

There is such a thing as over-confidence and using only silly examples of over-confidence as a warning of the dangers of any kind of confidence is more than a little ridiculous.

But apparently there's no difference between being confident in your own abilities and being unable to recognize that other people are also good at what they do (and, indeed, may be better, or know more about a particular subject, than you). Yep, those are totally the only two options. You can't possibly believe that you're good at something without also believing you're the best that ever lived.


And, as a side note, what happens if your paper is rejected from one journal? Does that mean you're wrong and it's time to give up? Or do you submit it elsewhere?

[jotabe]

Well, i hope you don't mind i reply only the side note, as it is way more interesting than the rest.

My research is sound to the best of my ability. If it is rejected, it means the referees are wrong (yeah, even scientists can be wrong! ). No, seriously now, the only issue can reject it over would be lack of novel physics (i have submitted it to a fairly high impact factor journal), which is an admitted weak point of my paper (even though i don't think so). Still, even if they reject it, you can address their criticisms and try to convince them. And if not, you try a different journal with similar or lower impact factor. Eventually, all (sound and methodical) research gets published, if you keep pressing forward.

[daPyr0x]

You wouldn't even bother submitting your work if you weren't at least a little confident in your abilities and findings.

Just because I choose to be who I want and really don't care what you have to say does not mean I scorn my superiors or I am somehow unable to learn from my peers, take criticism, or whatever other allusions you are making to "Confidence=Over-confidence." It's one thing to be confident in who you are as a person such that potential disapproval of people who are otherwise strangers is not a concern to you. It's completely different to suggest that being confident in who you are means refusing to listen to constructive criticism or looking for learning points throughout your life.

[jotabe]

*sigh* now you have to go along the "speaking reasonably" path?

Btw, "my" abilities and findings aren't really mine. I just follow the footsteps of better people. I follow a method that is sound, analyze exhaustively and draw conclusions in coherent manner. I use the scientific method, which is an achievement i can't claim pride over, because the greatest minds throughout the ages created and shaped it.
You could be the dumbest doorknob in the world, and you could still contribute to the scientific achievement, you just need to learn the mathematical and physical tools, which, let's face it, isn't all that hard.

On the other hand, what is "being confident in who you are as a person"? As a scientist, my merit depends on the other experts of a field acknowledging me as such. As a friend, my merit depends on my friends considering my company worth seeking, and my advice worth hearing. As a son, my merit depends on my parents being proud of me. As a companion, my merit depends on my companion believing their life quality standard is improved thanks to me. As a worker, my merit depends on meeting the standards that define "doing a good job" and exceeding them if possible, standards that, in turn, have been set up by other people.
Obviously, i would disregard the opinion about my achievements on a certain field from people who wouldn't qualify in that cathegory. For example, i'd neglect StS's opinion on how good i am as a scientist, or your opinion on how good i am as a friend, because you lack the knowledge to do so.

How exactly do you measure one person's merit "as a person", without it depending on other people? Actually, unless you consider "as a person" as the summation of all the cathegories i said, and maybe more i didn't mention, what else is being happy with oneself "as a person"?

[daPyr0x]

Is that to suggest, then, that one's value or merit as a person is low just because others deem it so? A child runs away from an abusive home. As a son, his merit is very low by your suggested valuation system. Due to the abusive nature of the home in which he grew up, he doesn't socialize well. As such, in society, his merit is very low. That means, inherently, that he too should think low of himself and continue the downward spiral in which he was placed. Sounds like a great outlook on life.

How do you gauge a person's merit "as a person"? You don't. That's the whole point. Nobody knows you, who you are as a whole, or what you're truly thinking but you (and God if your beliefs are as such). As such, nobody is qualified to determine or gauge your merit "as a person." Valuing yourself in the eyes of other people is a strategy that is bound to fail. People don't want to have to constantly give the feedback required to maintain an ego like that. Confidence is about knowing, in your soul, that you are a good person trying the best you can. Any criticism or direction received should be considered and compared to anything conflicting in your previous knowledge/beliefs and a decision should be made as to whether or not to adopt said criticism/direction. That decision making process, that logical thought process that we are all capable of, that determines whether conflicting guidance trumps that of whatever previous experience suggested the contrary, is what I am confident in. I am confident in my mind. My ability to understand, use, and apply logic. Everything else is just a bunch of decision criteria being thrown at you.

[Syphon the Sun]

Whether your theory is right depends on its acceptance by others? Your skill in formulating that theory depends on its acceptance? Those scientists who were laughed at by their contemporaries (and who turned out to not be crackpots at all, but actually right in their hypotheses) should have just given up? Their worth should be determined by how many of their contemporary scientists agreed with them?

Whether you're a good son or not depends on whether your parents are proud of you? Those children who choose a career their parents disapprove of are not good children? Those children who become teachers when their parents want them to be doctors, lawyers, or businessmen are bad children? Those children who are beaten by their parents when their parents get drunk are bad children?

Whether you're a good friend depends on whether you give good advice? Someone who lives such a drastically different life from you that he can't give any real advice to help with a problem he has never (and will never) encounter is a bad friend? Someone who makes poor decisions in their own life that you wouldn't ask for advice are bad friends?

Whether you're a good worker depends on whether your boss thinks you meet arbitrary standards imposed by your boss? Someone who works for a boss that sets outrageous standards (4,000 billable hours a year) that can't reach those standards is a bad worker? (4,000 billable hours would require 16.25 hours of work, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.) You're a bad worker if your boss hates you (maybe you slept with his daughter) and will never, ever think you're a good worker or set standards that any good worker can reach?

[jotabe]

I said , iirc:

Obviously, i would disregard the opinion about my achievements on a certain field from people who wouldn't qualify in that cathegory.

An abusive parent doesn't qualify as an expert in parenting, the "contemporaries" do not qualify as experts in science, no matter how good they are at theology.* A bad boss doesn't qualify as an expert in management of human resources. And there are many ways to gauge friends, not only those i said, each scale with different worth. In any case, with this, i think you understand what i mean, so i need to say no more.

Dap, sorry, but i don't believe in any of that feel-good self-help booklet philosophy.

*actual scientists might not agree with you, but still acknowledge your expertise in the field. If they don't, then they aren't scientists and their opinion is not to be taken in account.

[Syphon the Sun]

Who gets to decide who is and isn't an expert? A hundred years from now, people will look back on our "experts" and laugh.

Not to mention that you're not even talking about the relevant fields for the qualified experts. Someone could be a great father and a terrible son, a great worker and terrible boss, and vice versa. The relevant field wouldn't be parenting unless what is being judged is *gasp* parenting. The relevant field wouldn't be management skills unless that's what is being judged.

So what if your dad is a great son to his father but a terrible father to you? What if he can never be proud of you? You're worthless as a son because your father, a qualified expert in being a good son, can't see that?

And when the scientists of today turn out to be wrong, tomorrow, what then? Were they not "experts" of their time? Were you not basing your self-worth of the experts of the day? (If not, I'm not sure how you're supposed to base your self-worth on experts at all. How will you know what the experts will think ten, twenty, two hundred years from now?)

[jotabe]

I didn't say it was simple. It's you guys who assume that reality is simple and everything can be trusted to a set of abilities that we posses, which have led us to all the good that mankind has done, but to all the bad as well.

Human reason sucks. Reason + facts is the way to go.

Do we laugh at the experts of centuries past? No, not unless they were worthy of being laughed at even at their time. Do we laugh at Newton, Barrow, Lavoisier, Cauchy, Adam Smith? Nope, even if their conclusions are dated, because their method was sound.

[Syphon the Sun]

Yeah, they do laugh at those who got it wrong. Do they look back on the experts who accepted phlogiston theory for over a century or humorism for millennia with kindness? Do they still consider them experts?

Hindsight's always 20/20. "Oh, they deserved to be laughed at during their time." Really? Because they weren't laughed at by their community. They were praised for their work, their methods, their findings. It's easy to look back now and say that they should have been laughed at then.

Who are you to say that the methods the experts use today are sound? Who are you to say that our "experts" will still be viewed as such in the future?

[jotabe]

Uh... well, now you'll excuse me, because this time you are talking nonsense: what scientist exactly does laugh at the guys who came up with the phlogiston, or the caloric fluid, or the ether? Phlogiston defenders were meticulous scientists like J. Priestley, whose discoveries contributed precisely to the oposite theory, the oxygen (heck, he did discover the oxygen). Caloric fluid was a theory that fitted really well with the available experimetns, and ether, well, it was the only explanation they could come up with, before Einstein realized the particle nature of light waves.

Humours is a different thing, because it wasn't derived of experience but of philosophical beliefs. Even in their moment, people who used the humour theory to cure others had the same rate of medical success than a granny, maybe even less, because grannies only used tried-and-true natural cures. There is a reason why people are culturally scared of physicians: because they took otherwise healthy people and killed them with bleeds and other nonsense.

Our experts will keep being considered experts, know why? Because their predictions are confirmed by experience. Because their inventions work. Because their designs are effiecient. Because they are as close to the truth as it's humanly possible.

[Syphon the Sun]

Uh... well, now you'll excuse me, because this time you are talking nonsense

That's why there are several articles and book chapters explaining why modern scientists shouldn't ridicule those who adopted and believed in phlogiston theory. People don't generally urge their peers to stop doing something unless, you know, at least some of their peers are doing it.

As far as your humourism comment goes: remember what I said about hindsight? The best physicians of the age accepted it as a tried and true practice. And it wasn't just some crackpot idea they randomly came up with and decided to try out on people (and stick to using for centuries and centuries).

They could observe that when blood clots, it clots in four layers, each with a distinctive color. They could observe women bleeding themselves naturally. Blood-letting was used as preventative care, so when their patients weren't getting diseases when regularly getting their blood taken out, this served to reinforce its effectiveness. Likewise, physicians were reporting wide success and few in the medical field were able to collect evidence of any sort of widespread failure. And it's not as if failure couldn't be explained by other factors at the time.

But you're just proving my point: every society thinks that they are the ultimate summit of knowledge. Every society thinks their designs are efficient. Every society thinks they are as close to the truth as humanly possible. Every society thinks their theories are confirmed by experience. And every society is wrong.

Nevermind that with every single post, you get further and further from your initial claim (and seem to disregard all but the most minute, irrelevant details of any of the responses).

[jotabe]

That's why there are several articles and book chapters explaining why modern scientists shouldn't ridicule those who adopted and believed in phlogiston theory. People don't generally urge their peers to stop doing something unless, you know, at least some of their peers are doing it.

It's elementary textbooks that say that. During compulsory education. An educated person doesn't need to be told that. Well, i thought so, till i heard you.

Humour medicine was fake. It was known to be fake at the time. There were no reportable successes, just wild speculation. Physicians that actually wanted to cure their patients didn't use, sticking to medicinal herbs. Others without actually ill intent went with the humours because of the argument from authority.
They got patients? yeah. Acupuncturists and homeopaths get patients nowadays, too. Desperation for lacking health and fear of death move people to trust crooks.
There is no real medicine till the XV century, when physicians start to actually study real human anatomy on human corpses.
There is no hindsight: good science was good science in the past and now. Crooks were crooks in the past (as soon as their intent to deceive was discovered) and now.

every society thinks that they are the ultimate summit of knowledge. Every society thinks their designs are efficient. Every society thinks they are as close to the truth as humanly possible. Every society thinks their theories are confirmed by experience. And after the development of the scientific method, every society is right.

FTFY

Can you please explain to me how our scientific discoveries are not supported by experiments? How our inventions don't work? Seriously, way to be out of the reality.

Excuse me, i disregard all the uninteresting discussion. Seriuosly, about the sense of self security, you guys are so obviously wrong that it's boring for me to keep arguing. Specially after mister "insecure pussies should die in a fire" tried to use the pity argument on the example of the kid mistreated by his father. He could surely treat that kid's emotional traumas by pushing him around and calling him "insecure pussy" until he "reacted".

In the end, you guys keep defending that there is "something" inside yourselves that allows you to make assessments of yourselves better than the rest of the people. Your soul, your essence, fairy tales. Not even other's assessment about you is good, without a method, a tried-and-true method. The rest is just wishful thinking. You reject being measurable... meh.

[Syphon the Sun]

Okay, you win.

There certainly aren't numerous articles out there insisting that a number of formulations regarding phlogiston theory are often ridiculed in modern discussions of the theory. And you certainly couldn't find any with a simple Google search, let alone an actual search of science journal databases. Nope, nope.

And medical professionals certainly knew humourism to be fake but continued to practice it for millenia. They were trying to pull one over on everybody, I suspect. It couldn't possibly be true that reports of its success existed. It couldn't possibly be true that observation could form any kind of basis for its use. Hell, it couldn't be possible that blood-letting is still used today in Western medicine for certain conditions. It couldn't possibly be true that the most celebrated physicians of the time were busy bleeding people.

And certainly modern acupuncturists are as celebrated as physicians like William Osler, Benjamin Rush, John Pringle, etc. were in their day. Because clearly "having patients" is exactly the same as "best physicians of the age."

And bloodletting certainly didn't persist well after the 15th century. Those three physicians I mentioned earlier (widely considered icons of the field of medicine) certainly weren't around in the 18th, 19th, and even 20th centuries.

And certainly "supported by experiment" means confirmed by experiment. And it definitely means proven by experiment. It couldn't possibly happen that a theory that has supporting evidence can later turn out to be wrong. We certainly don't understand things differently than we did even fifty years ago. We're it. We're the epitome of knowledge. What we discover today is Truth. It is wholly impossible that a theory could be overturned in the future because we don't understand everything, yet. Nope, if we have a theory and the evidence we currently have supports it, THE END.

And it's certainly true that if an abusive father (who is a great son to his dad, mind you, which therefore makes him a qualified expert in the relevant field) thinks you're a bad son, you're a bad son.

You're right. You win.

As for me, I'll be sitting here enjoying the fact that I don't have to seek validation from everybody else to know I'm not a worthless piece of sh*t at everything I do.

[Luet]

Acupuncturists and homeopaths get patients nowadays, too. Desperation for lacking health and fear of death move people to trust crooks.

Jota, have you heard of The 10:23 Campaign?

[Janus%TheDoorman]

I'd like to submit a third interpretation of merit and its derivation.

Science is wrong. All of it is completely wrong. We think we're slightly less wrong than we were before because we can now make better predictions about things, but in the end it's all still wrong. And we know it's wrong. Any paper published since the founding of the scientific method up until today, and forever on into the future so long as the scientific method is practiced is based upon the fundamental assumptions and beliefs of whosoever chooses to write it. Assumptions which have no actual proof in reality, and are merely interpretations of the experience of scientists. Newton saw things being attracted to each other and called it universal gravitation. Was he wrong? No, that was a perfectly valid interpretation of his experience. Was it the actual truth of the universe? Not by a long shot. Merit isn't derived from the truth of our judgment - we already know it's all wrong. To be clear, I don't think anyone in this thread was arguing that, but this is a useful starting point.

Looking back over the posts, jotabe argues that merit is derived from following sound methodology, and having your findings validated by experts in the field. He then argued when asked, what is it that makes the methods sound, and the experts experts, and answered that it was that the predictions made by the experts are confirmed by experience. But are they really? Back to Newton again, and his apples and planets. Newton predicted that apples fell to the Earth and would always do so because of the mass of the earth and an inherent force of the universe called gravity and would do so according to his second law of motion, with an appropriate acceleration based on their mass and distance from the Earth.

But he was wrong. All that really happened in the confirmation of Newton's theory of Universal Gravity was that a whole bunch of other situations where Newton's prediction would apply and weren't able to find any where he was wrong for a while. But does it matter that it took a few hundred years for someone to find situations where his predictions didn't hold up? If it had taken a week instead would he have been more wrong? Simply put, even if it took a while, Newton's predictions didn't hold up to peer review, his predictions were never actually confirmed by experience, experience was just misinterpreted. Just because we didn't notice the QCD and QED and relativistic effects on the systems we were observing doesn't mean they weren't there.

Jotabe also argued that merit could be derived from an invention that works. But what exactly does it mean for an invention to work? Does a blender that makes great smoothies, but breaks down after about 50000 smoothies work? Does a blender that makes great smoothies, but needs to have its blades cleaned after every once in a while work? Does a blender that makes great smoothies but every once in a while spontaneously combusts, sending shrapnel into the user work? What if it only does that after 50000 smoothies? What if after 50000 smoothies, the blender started leaking toxic fumes in lethal amounts? What if it was leaking them slowly, with every smoothie, but it was only a lethal buildup after 50000? What if it was leaking toxic fumes the whole time, they took forever to build up, and nobody knew the fumes it was leaking were toxic? What if instead of a blender, it was an engine, and instead of fumes it was CO2, and instead of deadly to the user, it just built up in the atmosphere until it heated up the planet and low lying areas started getting flooded out, killing thousands? Does the invention still work? Or have we merely interpreted its operation to meet some arbitrary standard of satisfaction without regard for the actual effect of the device?

I'd argue that absolute merit is not derived from either of these things - neither that their predictions are confirmed by experience, nor that their inventions work - as neither is an actual absolute themselves. They are merely interpretations of experience. They are merely beliefs about what we have seen, heard, felt, tasted, smelled, etc. without any actual certification of absolute truth. As such, merit which is derived not from any truth, but merely from our own beliefs, is a belief itself. Something has merit because we believe it has merit, and in keeping with my own experience that the only beliefs I've encountered thus far are my own, merit is derived solely from one's own belief in the value of the thing being considered.

The people jotabe considers experts - meritorious individuals - have merit because jotabe believes they have merit, because he believes they are valuable in some way. His papers have merit because he believes they have merit. If he believes they have merit because he believes that the people he believes have merit believe that his papers have merit, so be it. This is simply his own experience. The rest of us are completely free to believe his papers have merit for other reasons, and as such they do have merit in the only way it's possible for anything to have merit.

In short, merit is in the eye of the beholder, it's not something that can be observed or experienced, it's something we believe about what we are observing and experiencing.

[jotabe]

StS, a bit of straw man is alright, but i think you just overdosed seriously, try to quit before it controls your life. I mean, you go as far as to misrepresenting me saying exactly the opposite of what i literally said. Did you study law, perchance?

As for me, I'll be sitting here enjoying the fact that I don't have to seek validation from everybody else to know I'm not a worthless piece of sh*t at everything I do.

Ignorance is bliss they say. And the key is knowing who can validate you, and who can't. Something that somehow escapes you.

Janus, i'd say tl:dr, but i actually read it lol. So let's see how can i reply
Newton's discoveries are true. Just go and throw a brick to the air, and tell me if it doesn't follow the trajectory predicted by newtonian mechanics. Classical Mechanics, it's true. Or, if you prefer, it's very close to the truth in a certain experimental range... which it's more of "hard truth" than any other use of the word truth in our daily lives. Only mathematic truths are harder.

Merit is a useful concept, but we cannot (should not) try to take it to an absolute scale. Merit concept was born in our minds out of the competitive pressure during our evolution, as a way to find members of your same species of whose partnership you could benefit. And that's exactly where it can be applied to, and that's why any merit is essentially a comparison to OTHER members of your same species. There isn't an absolute merit, and hence there is no way to know you are worth anything without comparing yourself ot others.
So, it can be observed and experienced, but only as a dynamic comparison. What we do believe in is the different scales we measure one another with. People who believes in "good" scales will associate to people who can enhance their chances to reproduce. People who believes in "bad" scales will not.

Luet, i did not know about it, but among the disappointment on humanity this thread has caused me, that's certainly good news!
Made me as happy as when i saw this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHL6L9i2AWA
good times

[daPyr0x]

Janus I love you

I just couldn't let this one go...

Dap, sorry, but i don't believe in any of that feel-good self-help booklet philosophy.

Feel-good self-help philosophy? I mean, I guess that's how it may have come off... The Christian bible teaches not to judge others, or fear judgement from others, that God is the only one whose judgement you should look to appease. The Hindu religion teaches self-fulfillment as the true path to salvation. I'm sure if I was better educated in other religions I could pull the same conclusion from other sources as well, but experts have been saying this for years. You trust experts, right? So long as they have peers to vouch for their conclusions, they must be right.

There isn't an absolute merit, and hence there is no way to know you are worth anything without comparing yourself ot others.

So without someone else to pride yourself as being better than, you are worthless? Again, lets go back to the teachings that people have been living by for thousands of years. There is a reason for the firmly held belief that God loves everybody.

There is regular evidence throughout the world that constantly leads us to a "wtf, I don't understand how that happened," conclusion. The placebo effect. Essentially, the idea that one can "will" themselves to get better. Studies have shown conclusively that a person's mindset has a definite impact on their medical recovery, though it's unknown to what extent this can be used. It's quite impossible to create usable data because of the requirement for the person to be in the right head space, which is very difficult to control. Until our brain wave monitoring devices are able to interpret that sort of data we'll never be able to create a repeatable, verifiable experiment to prove this definitively. However, the point is, the people who believe in the positive, self-identify themselves as "healthy, able to overcome," generally recover quicker and with fewer complications. Is faith the same as confidence? In this situation I would say so. So, confidence = healthy? Beneficial physiologically? Crazy. I could give you more examples, like how those who are confident and charismatic typically do better in the business world, build more close relationships with those around them, and are generally "happier."

There was a time when the experts told us the world was flat. I'm pretty sure there was also a time experts told us black people were inherently less intelligent than whites. There was a time experts said there are WMDs in Iraq. Experts once told us that prohibition & enforcement would be beneficial to society. Experts used to tell us we'd have enough oil reserves to last us centuries. Some "experts" continue to insist that there couldn't be more intelligent life out there, despite the fact that universe (appears to) span >500 million light years in all directions, and that at those distances things appear to exist in ways our current understanding of physics had thought impossible; and as such the density of the infinite void known as space would lead one to recognize the unlikelihood of every single one of those planets to be devoid of life and unable to sustain it. Experts say a lot of things, they are human beings. To be human is to make mistakes, but to learn from them upon realization. Thus, they are fallible. Even the Bible teaches that one. People, generally, are wrong often. Especially if you ask them to judge another's character. Some, seeing how I write on this board might suggest that I'm something like this guy.

Yet, others, seeing me in person, would suggest that I'm an awful lot more like this guy.

But still others, knowing me at work, would liken me to this guy. [I have actually been given the nickname of "Horatio" numerous times]


Is my character any of these popular television characters? Can I be judged on "how good I am" based on people likening some of my qualities to those shared with television characters? No, all of them are wrong. They don't know me. I am not Dr. Perry Cox (Scrubs), nor am I Leonard (from Big Bang Theory), nor am I Horatio Caine (CSI:Miami). I really don't care about, and happen to like, some of those allusions. I know they're all simplistic views of only a small portion of who I am and thus have no value or merit in and of themselves. So why would I judge or value myself based on them?

I don't know why you insist upon selling yourself short. You've clearly done some intense study in your chosen field, and I think you would benefit from a similar level of study into philosophy and sociology. The metrics by which you associate "value" for a person seem to suggest that sometime in the future we'll have babies going through an automated machine to measure them and determine their "value" or "potential value," and direct them to parents of appropriate "value." Sounds like a pretty sweet way to get the best out of your population. Doesn't it, Orwell?

Personally, I spent my entire childhood with my value constantly being compressed by others. My intelligence was constantly undervalued based on my age. I was told, repeatedly, how awful "I" or "people like me" were, how they dragged on society as a whole. I was encouraged to use someone else's judgement for my life decisions over my own, as they were "closer" to God or had a subjectively "better" understanding of the teachings they followed than I. Encouraged is the wrong word, because failure to do so would invite some pretty strong repercussions; but you get what I mean. But I don't think like them. I don't have the same core values as them, and while I'm not going to condemn them for how they choose to live; I'm also not going to accept their condemnation as justification for having a low self value. I choose not to get in to discussions of core values with most people as those discussions tend to be more involved and more personal than desired; but without those I can't have any idea whether their valuation of me is "accurate." I swear regularly and smoke pot; those two facts alone mean that to a good chunk of people my value is immediately very low. It doesn't matter that I'm a nice, caring guy who's really quite intelligent; my value is low based on their "skewed" core beliefs. I use the word skewed not to indicate correctness, just difference. My core beliefs are skewed to them, too. Skewed core beliefs mean that objective judgments of character are impossible. Combine that with the aforementioned failure of anyone else to truly know your character and I'd say that gives for some impossibility when it comes to anyone accurately judging who I am or what my value should be. If I already know their opinions don't "mean" anything more than how they as people view me, and I know that with billions of people on this planet there are tons of people who think differently, why would I base my internal valuation of self on what such a small subset of people think?

tl;dr I've taken a lot of s*** in my life, from all sides, and basing my self-value as such has not proven to be a successful way to live emotionally or socially

[jotabe]

Well, then be a (hu)man and stop being emotional about it.

What do you want me to tell you? I am not the one with the magical recipes, i call them as i see them. Also "a successful way to live socially"? i thought you didn't care about what others say, why would you want to be socially sucessful? that's for pussies, right?

People with insecurity have enough with themselves as to have you calling them pussies because you hate the way you used to be. Get over yourself, please.

[Syphon the Sun]

I mean, you go as far as to misrepresenting me saying exactly the opposite of what i literally said.

You go as far as calling my mother a whore. See, I can make silly claims without explaining them, too. If you're going to call me out on something I said, you might want to, you know, actually note what the hell you're talking about, instead of making some generalized claim and ignoring everything else.

PS -- You still haven't explained how to choose what experts to listen to or what happens when the "experts" turn out to be wrong. Sir William Osler is still known in the medical field as one of the greatest icons of modern medicine. And he taught a whole new generation to use bloodletting.

[jotabe]

So, StS, we can start lying now?
Then you must obey me, because i am your father, and i am like 7 kilometres tall.

Edit: you don't really need me to tell you that, so what would be the point?

[daPyr0x]

Well, then be a (hu)man and stop being emotional about it.

What do you want me to tell you? I am not the one with the magical recipes, i call them as i see them. Also "a successful way to live socially"? i thought you didn't care about what others say, why would you want to be socially sucessful? that's for pussies, right?

No. Being socially successful, having a fulfilling social life, has nothing at all to do with following the lead and direction of whomever you happen to come across. It has everything to do with being comfortable with yourself enough to find a path that best suits you, and finding others along the way to whom you can relate.

People with insecurity have enough with themselves as to have you calling them pussies because you hate the way you used to be. Get over yourself, please.

Hate the way I used to be? No, not really. But I wasn't happy that way. There are many, many studies that show that a life lived that way leads to unhappiness and a lack of self-fulfillment. There are also many studies that show one's own self perception alters that of those around them; such as to infer that someone who's insecure and not confident in their words are to be listened to, trusted, and respected less than those who speak confident in their words. It's human nature.

Pussy pussy pussy pussy pussy. Does that hurt your feelings? Make you question yourself and your value? WHY THE f*** DOES IT MATTER TO YOU? Some people just won't like you, won't agree with your way of thinking, and may even berate you for it. Confidence is what you're showing when you write your next witty response to this calling me an a******. There's no reason that can't apply to daily life the same way it does on the internet, you just have to build the social skills to be able to do so successfully.

[Syphon the Sun]

Isn't that what you were doing when you said I was misrepresenting your statements as the opposite of what you said? Because, you know, if you weren't, you sure have a funny way of responding to someone asking you to actually flesh out your accusation, rather than make some generalized statement. Like, oh, I don't know, pinpointing exactly what you said, what I said, and how I misrepresented it as the exact opposite of your actual claims.

Or you can keep playing dumb. But if that's what you're going to do, I think we're done, so just let me know.