{"id":110,"date":"2018-07-27T09:19:07","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T14:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/?page_id=110"},"modified":"2020-02-08T09:25:38","modified_gmt":"2020-02-08T14:25:38","slug":"article-8","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/article-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Article 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

BELIEF: AN OWNER\u2019S MANUAL<\/strong>
ARTICLE 8 <\/strong>
A CLOSER LOOK AT AMBIGUITY<\/strong>
PART 1: AMBIGUITY’S NATURE AND IMPORTANCE\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Article 7, we took a closer look at the nature of the needs we look to our beliefs to satisfy. We learned how to identify those needs and why it was essential to be aware of them. In the next few articles, we\u2019ll be doing the same thing for ambiguity. So, let\u2019s start out by taking a closer look at two fundamental questions: \u201cWhat is the nature of ambiguity?\u201d and \u201cWhy does ambiguity matter?”<\/p>\n

TWO DEFINITIONS OF AMBIGUITY<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s ambiguity? From one perspective, ambiguity is the breadth of observations consistent with a belief.<\/p>\n

The more ambiguous a belief is, the broader the range of observations that support it and the narrower the range of observations that challenge it. As we noted in Article 5, if you\u2019re playing roulette, the least ambiguous belief you can have is, \u201cOn the next spin, the ball will land in a specific pocket.\u201d A more ambiguous belief would be, \u201cOn the next spin, the ball will fall into one of the wheel\u2019s eighteen red pockets (or one of the wheel\u2019s eighteen black pockets).\u201d And the belief that the pocket that the ball lands in will reflect divine will \u2013 a belief that is consistent with all possible outcomes \u2013 is more ambiguous still.<\/p>\n

The ambiguity of a belief can also be thought of as the difficulty of falsifying it \u2013 that is, how hard it is for believers to recognize that the belief is incorrect, if it is. Sometimes second-order precepts (the ways believers are expected to allow themselves and others to think and talk about their beliefs) can make it hard to recognize the flaws of those beliefs.<\/p>\n

During my career I ran quite a few alcohol and drug treatment programs. All of them encouraged patients to attend AA, NA, or other self-help groups. In the interest of maintaining good relationships with those groups, I was expected to be uncritical of their claims and philosophies. That was challenging because I viewed some of those claims as misguided.<\/p>\n

For example, AA and NA claimed that \u201cthe program works if you work the program.\u201d That is, they claimed that if you did what they suggested, you\u2019d stay \u201cclean and sober.\u201d While that assertion sounds precise and falsifiable, its second-order precepts protected it from falsification by explaining away failures.<\/p>\n

It was always possible to claim that those who relapsed failed to “work the program.” Believers could argue that relapsers should have gone to more meetings, spent more time with their sponsors, been more sensitive to their thoughts and feelings, or done a better job of avoiding relapse triggers. Thus, relapses could be blamed on failure to comply with the program rather than limitations in the program’s effectiveness.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if someone was doing well, their brothers and sisters in recovery were less attentive to similar flaws in the ways they \u201cworked the program.\u201d These habits of thought created plenty of evidence that those who relapsed failed to \u201cwork the program\u201d and little evidence that those who succeeded might be doing so even though their programs were also imperfect.<\/p>\n

The second-order precepts that encouraged attention to flaws in the \u201cprograms\u201d of those who relapsed and inattention to deficiencies in the \u201cprograms\u201d of those who maintained sobriety protected the belief that \u201cthe program works if you work the program\u201d from falsification, rendering it highly ambiguous in practice.<\/p>\n

WHY DOES AMBIGUITY MATTER?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As you will discover in the following articles, the more precise a belief that addresses a range of phenomena, the more that belief, if accurate, can help you understand, predict, and manage the issues it addresses.<\/p>\n

Ambiguous beliefs, by contrast, offer less specific, less powerful, and less reliable guidance than more precise beliefs. However, ambiguity grants beliefs the power to convince believers that they understand things they don\u2019t and can control things they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

These illusions of understanding and control encourage believers to rely on ambiguous beliefs for guidance in preference to more precise beliefs. For examples of this phenomenon, we need look no further than political discourse and decision-making \u2013 areas in which believers often embrace data-refractory narratives in preference to more precise models that address the same issues.<\/p>\n

If we wish to choose the right cognitive tools for the tasks that confront us and to use those tools effectively, we need to be realistic about the guidance that beliefs offer us and to guard against the misconceptions that beliefs can all to easily create. Explicit attention to the ambiguity of our beliefs and their alternatives can help us choose our beliefs wisely. We\u2019ll see how in the following articles.<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 EXERCISE 8:<\/b><\/span> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>ENHANCING AWARENESS OF\u00a0<\/b><\/span>THE CONSEQUENCES \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 OF TREATING AMBIGUOUS BELIEFS AS IF THEY WERE PRECISE\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

1) Read \u201cThe Trouble with Truth,\u201d which you can find at the top of the Welcome Page. Answer the following questions, preferably in writing: <\/span><\/p>\n

a) What do advocates of The Law of Attraction claim to believe?<\/span>
b) Considering the belief-specific precepts that advocates of The Law of Attraction invoke, what do they actually believe?<\/span>
c) How do those belief-specific precepts affect the precision of the predictions The Law of Attraction inspires?<\/span>
d) How do those belief-specific precepts defend The Law of Attraction from falsification?<\/span>
e) What are the likely consequences of treating The Law of Attraction as if it offered more precise guidance than it does?<\/span><\/p>\n

2) Read about Lysenkoism. (Feel free to choose your own sources, but two, however imperfect, that suffice for our purposes are https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lysenkoism and https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trofim_Lysenko.) Answer the following questions, preferably in writing: <\/span><\/p>\n

a) What were Lysenko\u2019s claims?<\/span>
b) Superficially, how precise did those claims appear to be?<\/span>
c) How were Lysenko\u2019s claims were protected from falsification?<\/span>
d) Was Lysenko\u2019s conception more precise or less precise than the (more conventional) conceptions that the Soviets suppressed?<\/span>
e) What were the consequences of treating Lysenko\u2019s claims as more precise, accurate, and reliable than they were?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BELIEF: AN OWNER\u2019S MANUALARTICLE 8 A CLOSER LOOK AT AMBIGUITYPART 1: AMBIGUITY’S NATURE AND IMPORTANCE\u00a0 In Article 7, we took a closer look at the nature of the needs we look to our beliefs to satisfy. We learned how to identify those needs and why it was essential to be aware of them. In the … Continue reading “Article 8”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-110","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":925,"href":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/110\/revisions\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/barneysplace.net\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}