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The Logical Phuckery of Rabbitholes
10 Plays2 months ago
A few things I learned about Untangling Rabbitholes
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Logical Rabbit Holes
00:00:18
Daithi Flannery
Hello and welcome to Philosophicary. Thanks for joining us here again. um Today I want to talk about the logical fuckery of rabbit holes. Have you ever been down a rabbit hole?
00:00:29
Daithi Flannery
I certainly have. i've been down a few. And I found it very hard to untangle how what I was hearing was not true. um Because oh they I always seem to have evidence. They always seem to be giving me evidence of of why these things that we're saying were true.
00:00:48
Daithi Flannery
And I couldn't really untangle how what I had heard might not be true because I'd seen the receipts apparently, I had evidence.
The Power of Selective Facts in Conspiracy Theories
00:00:56
Daithi Flannery
Back in 2008, lost my job due to the financial crash and ah came across a movie called Zeitgeist, a documentary.
00:01:08
Daithi Flannery
Now, this gave me explanations for how all this had happened and for how all this was the plan of ah like a cabal of people who were inventing money and controlling the world and it was all about control, that these people just wanted to control everybody and me and that's why it was all a fault. and Zeitgeist had some facts in it and these facts were given as evidence of the narrative that had been built up before that.
00:01:38
Daithi Flannery
Then you could look in the world and see that these facts were true and you're like, oh my God, that's true. as though that made everything that was said true.
00:01:49
Daithi Flannery
But as I said, I found it hard to untangle myself from these rabbit holes. I could found it hard to figure out why what I was hearing wasn't true, because here were the facts, here was the evidence.
Challenging Personal Beliefs with Psychology and Philosophy
00:02:04
Daithi Flannery
And then I went and I learned about psychology and logic and philosophy, and it gave me tools to untangle some of this stuff.
00:02:15
Daithi Flannery
And some of this stuff is hard to hear because you have to face that you've been wrong and nobody likes been wrong. but But really, we should like being wrong because it's better to learn out that learn now that you're wrong than where you were before that when you were wrong.
00:02:29
Daithi Flannery
you know So at least learning that you're wrong makes you kind of less wrong. but um but that's not how it appears to us and and we hate being wrong, we hate being told we're wrong or having to analyze our own thinking and figuring out it's wrong can be annoying too, especially when yeah when you really, really believe something to be true.
00:02:49
Daithi Flannery
I'm sure you can see how this is problematic in today's world with social media and the narratives and and I'm sure everybody can see that there's a growing, growing problem.
Understanding Fundamental Attribution Error
00:02:59
Daithi Flannery
um One of the things I learned was called the fundamental attribution error and this is something that we're all prone to doing and the fundamental attribution error is basically how we how we appraise our actions and how we appraise the actions of others and how we do that rather differently when we appraise our own actions we're really empathetic and understanding towards ourselves
00:03:24
Daithi Flannery
And when we appraise our own actions, it's because of the situation made me do this. And this is, these are the forces involved that made me do this. And this is why I did this. And it's because of this or that that made me do these actions. And when we appraise others, it's often, oh, that's because there's something inherently wrong in that person. That's because they're bad. That's because they're evil. That's because they're an asshole. or You know what I mean? that that we We fundamentally approach you to,
00:03:54
Daithi Flannery
issues differently. As an example, imagine imagine you're going to work. Imagine you had a bad morning. The kids were a nightmare. You woke up late. The hot water wasn't there yet. You have to have shower. You're 10 minutes late for work and you're going to be late for a meeting. You know you have a work. So you're racing down. You're racing through traffic. You're cutting in here. You're cutting across people. You're driving a little aggressively.
00:04:18
Daithi Flannery
And all the time in your head, it's like, I'm sorry. I'm late. It's not my fault. I can't. if The kids are a nightmare. It's like, I've got a meeting. I have to go. And it's all the situation is making me act like this. That's your justification to yourself.
00:04:32
Daithi Flannery
But then. Let's say a week goes by and you have a good morning. Kids were great that morning. You woke up early. You're 10 minutes ahead of schedule going to work. So you're nice and calm, lovely music on the radio.
00:04:46
Daithi Flannery
And somebody cuts across you and pulls in front of you and races onwards. And what comes to your head? What a freaking asshole. What a jerk. I can't believe they did that. It's like there's something inherently bad in that person that made them do that.
00:05:01
Daithi Flannery
ah you don't instantly think, oh, maybe they're late. Maybe they had a nightmare morning with the kids. we We don't give the other people the grace we give ourselves, you know.
00:05:12
Daithi Flannery
I remember hearing this. I remember the lecture that I was sitting and I heard it and it was, I instantly kind of wanted to push it away because I knew it was true and I knew it was, I did this. I was very guilty of this type of thinking.
00:05:25
Daithi Flannery
So i was like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. So you went away and have to analyze it. understanding this and kind of bringing it into yourself gives you a better view of the world. It gives you a better view of others and of yourself. You can be more empathetic to others. You can say, okay, maybe there's a situation or a context that made somebody act like that, that I don't understand. Um, and maybe it gets you to analyze your own thinking and take a bit more responsibility for your personal behavior. You know what I mean? To take a bit more control of your own agency.
00:05:59
Daithi Flannery
But, uh, but But that's one, the fundamental attribution
Exploring Affirming the Consequent Fallacy
00:06:02
Daithi Flannery
error. It's worth looking up. It's worth understanding. It really is. but Another one, and I see this as very prevalent, and maybe at the end you'll you'll understand and see it as prevalent too, and it's called affirming the consequent.
00:06:20
Daithi Flannery
Now, the the logical structure of an argument is like this. If P, then Q. P, therefore Q. So if P happens, Q always happens.
00:06:37
Daithi Flannery
P is happening. Conclusion. Q is happening.
00:06:45
Daithi Flannery
That's a logically valid structure of an argument. So if P, therefore Q is a premise. And P is another premise.
00:07:00
Daithi Flannery
Therefore, cue. Okay, so you can think of it like this. if
00:07:08
Daithi Flannery
If it rains, then the ground will be wet. It is raining. Conclusion, the ground is wet.
00:07:20
Daithi Flannery
Or if there's somebody at the door, my dog barks. There's somebody at the door. Conclusion. My dog is barking. Now.
00:07:36
Daithi Flannery
Where the fallacy happens here. Where affirming the consequent happens here. Is when you go. If P. Then Q. Q. Therefore P. So.
00:07:53
Daithi Flannery
If it's raining. The ground is wet. The ground is wet, therefore it is raining. If there's someone at the door, my dog barks.
00:08:07
Daithi Flannery
My dog is barking, therefore there's someone one at the door. Do you see how there's ah there's a sleight of hand here where where they sound logically valid, they seem logically valid, but they are not logically valid.
00:08:23
Daithi Flannery
They're guilty of a fallacy called affirming the consequence. And this is how that happens if
00:08:30
Daithi Flannery
If there's somebody at the door, my dog barks. My dog barks, therefore there's somebody at the door.
00:08:40
Daithi Flannery
But that doesn't follow from the original statement. The original statement says, if there's somebody at the door, the dog barks. It doesn't say, every time the dog barks, there's somebody at the door. And if you have a dog, you know that every time the dog barks doesn't mean there's somebody at the door.
00:08:56
Daithi Flannery
But if there is somebody at the door, of the dog will be barking. Okay, so like, um if it rains, the ground will be wet. The ground is wet, therefore it rained.
00:09:10
Daithi Flannery
Well, no, maybe sprinklers came on. You know, maybe someone was washing their car. Maybe there's other reasons for the ground to be wet, just like there might be other reasons for the dog to be barking.
00:09:22
Daithi Flannery
Do you see how this is ah this is tricking people into certainty, into a feeling of certainty? Um... Comedy plays with this a lot, this kind of subversion.
00:09:34
Daithi Flannery
And we all do it. And and it is funny. like if you If you see somebody with a wet patch on the front of their trousers, you can say, ah, if you peed your pants, you'd have a wet patch on the front of your trousers.
00:09:48
Daithi Flannery
You've got a wet patch on the front of your trousers, therefore you peed your pants. Ah, but we all know. Somebody people are likely to spill coffee under pants or maybe ah trying to force it on too high or or from the drinking fountain, this splash a bit of water on themselves.
00:10:04
Daithi Flannery
But we can make a joke out of it and say, act like they peed their pants, even though we know they don't. It's the same fallacy at play here. You know, the inference is going the wrong way around. You know, so if you peed your pants, you certainly would have a wet patch on your pants. And that can be certain.
00:10:22
Daithi Flannery
But just because you will have a wet pants on your pants, it cannot be therefore certain that you peed yourself. you know But you see how we play with these fallacies for jokes? And it's funny.
00:10:34
Daithi Flannery
but that But you can think how religions and and stuff have played with these as well. um If you imagine back in ancient Greece, and they had all the stories of Achilles and the Titans and the gods and all this, and then they went around and they actually found dinosaur bones.
00:10:51
Daithi Flannery
And for them, well, these dinosaur bones, they're are they're actually Zeus's leg. and That's what's happening here. that's That's Achilles' toe there. That's what that big bone is.
00:11:03
Daithi Flannery
well There definitely was giants. Look, there's proof. So it's something like, if mythical gods were real, then we would find large bones.
00:11:14
Daithi Flannery
We have found large bones. Therefore, the mythical gods are real. You see how this this this little sleight of hand can build certainty and can compound certainty that isn't actually true.
00:11:30
Daithi Flannery
You know, it's just build, it's you the narrative is built first. And then you get these facts, which are actually facts in the world. There definitely was big bones found. But they did not make certain that there was mythical gods.
00:11:48
Daithi Flannery
You know, but it felt to the people who were finding them and the people who were told this and then they were showing the bones and they're like, see, it's definitely real.
Societal Narratives and Misunderstanding
00:12:00
Daithi Flannery
Another way you can think of this, you remember when we used to tell ghost stories when were kids and we'd all be sitting around in the dark and somebody would have a torch up on their face? they'd be telling the story about the axe murderer who escaped from the asylum and he went around this very town killing people with his axe and every time he'd go into family homes they'd hear a knock three times and then the axe murderer would go in and kill them all and then somebody would do the knock and everybody would my god that's a knock and for a moment we were fooled into certainty that the knock
00:12:38
Daithi Flannery
meant the axe murderer was at the door because we had been filled in with the narrative and then we were given the fact there really was a knock but that didn't make certain what was placed before that.
00:12:50
Daithi Flannery
The inference was the wrong way around. Do you see? Am I making sense? I hope I am. um
00:13:02
Daithi Flannery
You can imagine working in an office okay and let's say There was a story going around about a guy or a girl and it said, oh, they never wash themselves. They're incontinent and they soil themselves all the time. they smell and they're dirty.
00:13:22
Daithi Flannery
And then that person goes to the sink. Let's say they're a prone to putting the spoon under the tap and it splashes and it happens every time. And next thing they're walking away from the sink and they have the wet patch on their trousers The people who've been previously filled in with this narrative, they'll look at that and they see that as confirming what they've already heard. Oh God, look at them wetting themselves.
00:13:48
Daithi Flannery
Oh, they're disgusting, that's rotten. It's not a joke anymore. you know? Because people actually believe it. this this is This is problematic in our society today, that people actually believe in these things and it's just not funny anymore.
00:14:06
Daithi Flannery
It's just not funny. um Now, I don't want to go attacking people for being wrong. I don't want to have a battle of facts where, you know, we try to overwhelm each other with facts because facts can be used to stitch bullshit stories together, as I hope I've explained here.
Media's Role in Exploiting Logical Fallacies
00:14:30
Daithi Flannery
um But that's a really, really important fallacy to learn about. It's called affirming the consequent. And if you learn about it and then you analyze your own thinking with this knowledge, with this structure of arguments, then you'll see that a lot of the inferences are going the wrong way around.
00:14:56
Daithi Flannery
and you can untangle yourselves from a lot of that. As I said, religions have used this.
00:15:05
Daithi Flannery
Social media knows us so much better. You think social media doesn't understand these structures, the algorithms that outrage us all the time? You know, it fill them in with a narrative and then give them something that seems to confirm that narrative.
00:15:20
Daithi Flannery
And then people are even more outraged and they engage even more with whatever content you're putting out there. It's a problem. And you think bad actors from from other places that maybe want to cause disruption in the society, you think they don't know how these logical structures work and how people can be fooled into certainty.
00:15:40
Daithi Flannery
It can cause civil disobedience, civil civil unrest, how it can cause infighting amongst people because people think they're right. People think they have proof. People think they're their certainty is valid.
00:15:56
Daithi Flannery
When it's simply not. You know, the they these narratives, that that they give simplicity where in truth there is complexity.
00:16:07
Daithi Flannery
There's complexity that's often beyond our understanding or comprehension. And all we can do is make the best out of it while always being in a place of uncertainty and ambiguity that we we know what we know, but that that that doesn't make everything certain when it comes to narratives, you know.
00:16:26
Daithi Flannery
And that that has to be guarded against. And learning logic in this way can really help that. It can really help that. Okay, so I think i've I've gone on enough.
00:16:38
Daithi Flannery
I hope I've transmitted something useful here. So the two things to look into yourselves if you're interested in this kind of thing. The first one is the fundamental attribution error.
00:16:50
Daithi Flannery
And the second one is the logical structure of arguments and the fallacy being affirming the consequent. um Okay, thank you folks. Thanks for listening. Please like, share, subscribe, etc. All that other stuff. Thank you.