CP Quiz in Progress

Recap: Accuracy

Inaccurate Accurate
• All Jews are orthodox • Some Jews are orthodox
• 2+2=5 • 2+2=4
Recap: Consistency

Inconsistent Consistent
• All people have left the room; • Almost all people have left the
John is still in the room room; John is still in the room.
• Babies are less than 5 years old. OR All people have left the
John is an 85 year old baby. room; John (the cat) is still in the
room.
• John is an 85 year old baby
(where baby is someone who
needs constant care)
Recap: Types of Inconsistency
• Two statements are inconsistent if both cannot be true at the same
time.
• Contradictory statements: If one is true, the other must be false.
• Example: The house is not all blue; The house is all blue
• Contrary statements: Both can NOT be true at the same time; but
both can be false at the same time.
• Example: House is all green; House is all blue (inconsistent but
contrary, since house can be white).
Recap: Consistency
• Some inconsistencies are okay and accepted
• In theology: Dilemma of God’s omnipotence and human free will
• In Physics: Many assumptions of quantum mechanics: for example
light is both a wave and a particle (and it being a wave/particle
depends on your observation); electrons can be at two places at once;
Schrodinger's cat is both dead and alive
• In poetics: My home is not my home.
Correctness and Clarity
• My three favorite things are eating my family and not using commas.
• Seen on a book which was environmentally friendly, “Manufacturing
process of this book conforms to environmental regulation of the
country of origin. It is made of a naturally recyclable product of wood
pulp.” (Book was printed in China, it was made of paper.
Environmentally friendly?)
• Brown eggs being sold as “organic”
Recap: Completeness
• A mathematical system of whole numbers, and all arithmetic
functions is incomplete;
• Because answer of 2/3 cannot be derived within that system
• “Our children are lagging behind in education because they are not
educated in their own language”
• Conclusion requires: “Children not educated in their own language lag
behind” but not given in the argument.
 BARRIERS TO
CRITICAL THINKING
EGOCENTRISM
• Inability to understand the there are other
ways of being in the world
• Inability to see world from the perspective of
others
• Thinking that you are the only game in town!
• Inability to separate subjective schemas
from objective reality
• Ranges from ordinary rude, arrogant
behavior in everyday life to complete
inability to empathize
 WHY ARE
WE
EGOCENTR
IC?

• Every human is egocentric to some extant

• Adults are generally less egocentric
• In childhood – important to develop
theory of mind
• Differentiate between self from other.
• From big eye to little eye.
 SELF-SERVING
BIAS

• You get an A for an essay and

you attribute it to your own
awesomeness! (internal
attribution)
• You get a C on an essay and you
attribute it to your professor not
having explained what they
wanted well enough. (external
attribution).
 • Results from two instincts: Self
preservation and Self enhancement
• Protects against low self esteem
SELF- • Reduces stress
• Impact of culture: Collectivist vs.
SERVING Individualist
BIAS • Impact of gender: Men are more
egocentric
• Impact of mental health: Depressed
persons are less self serving
SOCIOCENTRIS
M
SOCIO-
CENTRIS
M

• Sociocentric thought is the native human tendency to see

the world from a narrow and biased group-centered
perspective, to operate within the world through subjective
and partial group beliefs, group influences, group rules,
group think, group interests.
Conformity to
the norms of
one’s group:
peers, family,
friends, caste,
religious group

SOCIO-CENTRISM
HERD ANIMALS
• Beginning at a very young age humans begin to
internalize the mores and folkways of the groups to
which they belong. They begin “fitting in” to groups,
from no choice of their own, but out of instinct and in
order to survive.
• Due to an innate need to be accepted and esteemed
by others, to be validated, humans operate largely as
members of various groups through the whole of
their lives.

WHY ARE WE SOCIOCENTRIC

 At the same time, humans do not naturally
develop skills of group critique – the ability to
determine group practices that make sense to
accept, those that need modification, and
those that should be wholeheartedly rejected.
Due to the credulity of the uncultivated mind,
WHY ARE from a very young age, humans largely
WE uncritically accept the beliefs of family, school,
SOCIOCEN religion, peers, government, clubs and
organizations, indeed any group in which they
TRIC become members.
MULTIPLE SIDES OF HUMAN MIND

Rationality

Emotion

Egocentrism Sociocentrism
• Banality of Evil: Obedience to authority
underlies most human disasters
• “The essence of totalitarian government,
and perhaps the nature of every
bureaucracy, is to make functionaries and
mere cogs in the administrative
machinery out of men, and thus to
dehumanize them.” Arendt
• Stanley Milgram's Experiment

MIND-LESS CONFORMITY
 • “It’s true because we believe it.”
• “It’s true because we want to believe it.”
•  “It’s true because it is in our vested
EXERCISE interest to believe it.”
• “It’s true because we have always
believed it.”
 • The logic of group interest, of getting the most
for the group without regard to the rights and
needs of others, of protecting its biased
LOGICS OF interests, forwarding its partial agendas.
SOCIOCENTRI • The logic of group conformity - defines the
SM intricate inner workings of the group, ensures
that everyone coexists in the group in
accordance with its customs, conventions, rules,
taboos, morays, laws.
ASSUMPTIONS
ASSUMPTIONS
• Assuming the truth of a questionable claim
• Not all assumptions are bad
• Hypothesis are assumption too! But you can question them
• Theories are assumption, backed by evidence, not yet proven
false (Popper).
STEREOTYPING
WHY WE STEREOTYPE?
• We are pattern recognizing machines
• It is important for survival
• That is how we do science
Power of symbols
• We recognize symbols and
attribute meaning to it
 • Not all stereotypes are bad
STEREOTY
• Brand Recognition is a stereotype
PING too!
STEREOTYPING GONE AMOCK!

01 02 03 04
People with UK/US People of UK/US Knowledge/truth Experience of Post-
accent are are better than produced in these colonialism
perceived as others countries is
superior or more superior
educated
HOW
STEREOTYPES
EFFECT US?
•STEREOTYPE THREAT
•Women who were told that
“women generally perform worse
on math tests” before a test,
performed worse than the
women who were not told
anything.
•Subconscious Biases reduce our
performance (Valian)
HOW STEREOTYPES EFFECT US?

DISCRIMINATION
•People of ethnic minorities,
with visible religious markers
and women are less likely to be
hired or promoted, even when
resume looks the same.
•Women are paid 80% of what
men are paid, for the same
amount of work
 WISHFUL
THINKING
 • We can wish something true!
• NOT ALL WISHFUL THINKING IS
BAD.
• Confidence Game
WISHFUL • Placebo Effect
THINKING • Power of Prayer
 WASTE, WATER USAGE, CARBON FOOT PRINT
• Washing our car daily
• Leaving the tap open while brushing teeth
• Shower more than 10 minutes
• Throwing away electronics and plastics
• WHERE DOES OUR WASTE GO?

WISHFUL THINKING:
ANTHROPOCENTRISM
RELATIVISM
Relativism

Right and
There is no
wrong is a
absolute right
matter of
or wrong
opinion
 • A Statement of FACT is different from
Statement of VALUE
• 2+2=4
RELATIVIS • E = mc2
M • Slavery is Evil
• Men and women, black and white are
created equal
 TO EACH, THEIR OWN
Are we entitled to our own subjective truths?
Pro-life, or Pro- Choice?
Meat-eater, or vegetarian?
Halal, or anything goes?
Cover head, or take it off?

SUBJECTIVISM
 CULTURAL
RELATIVISM
CULTURAL RELATIVISM

1 2 3 4
Value They are based These So, UNIVERSAL
judgements are on conditional conditional TRUTHS are
not based on an responses responses differ impossible
inherent truth in cultures
PROBLEMS WITH RELATIVISM
• Slavery was part of traditional
cultures, so it was ok for people to
own slaves at that time.
• Our parents regularly spanked us, but
it was ok, because we only recently
discovered that corporeal
punishment is bad.
• I am a US-citizen of Japanese
descent. How should I feel about
Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Questions?