Friday, November 01, 2019

Society for the Prevention of Dunning-Kruger

A fool is he who thinks that what he knows is without mystery. --Dávila

It's no doubt accurate to say that everyone is subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect (heretofore DK). The problem is, there is an inverse relationship between its effects and awareness of its presence: in other words, the less we know, the more we think we know.

Now, we all like to think we're immune to the effect, but it seems to me that it is built into the nature of things. Literally. For as we've discussed before, it is only possible to know anything about anything because we cannot know everything about a single thing.

In other words, our finite intelligence is, as it were, an echo of God's infinite intelligence. That being the case, one could define God as the one being who necessarily doesn't suffer from DK but makes it inevitable (or in-Eve-ate-apple) for the rest of us. Awareness of this principle makes a man humble. Denial of it makes a man proud. See Genesis 3 for details. Indeed, you could say that DK is merely a form of idolatry (or maybe vice versa).

Is there more DK these days than in the past? The answer may surprise you. But first I have to think about it.

I was about to say there is more of it, but it's much like trying to determine if there is more greed, cowardice, lust, or envy than in the past. All we can say is that these are all permanent features of human nature, so they will always be present to one degree or another. We do, however, agree with Sr. Dávila that

Modern stupidities are more irritating than ancient stupidities because their proselytes try to justify them in the name of reason.

Modern sophisticates like to imagine that people of the past were immersed in a religious worldview that caused them to think they knew much more than they did -- in other words, that religion is just a cover for ignorance. But again, the temptation to idolatry is ineradicable, such that we have any number of ideologies (or better, ideolatries) that serve the same function, e.g., scientism, Marxism, Darwinism, and all the rest.

Science? Please. We love science, but to think that it can provide any kind of comprehensive explanation of the world is the purest DK. No one can can be a great scientist -- or thinker at any rate -- who is only a scientist. Consider:

--To believe that science is enough is the most naïve of superstitions.

--Nothing proves more the limits of science than the scientist’s opinions about any topic that is not strictly related to his profession.

--Stupidity appropriates with diabolical skill what science invents.

--Being only falsifiable, a scientific thesis is never certain but is merely current.

--What is capable of being measured is minor.

Exaggerate much? No, not at all, because Science, when it finishes explaining everything, but being unable to explain the consciousness that creates it, will not have explained anything.

In other words, once you've reduced to the world to a calculation or quantity, you'll still have to account for the calculator and quantifier. And there is -- literally -- an infinite distance between the two. This distance is -- literally -- unbridgeable from the bottom up. Conversely, from the top down it is not only explicable but even necessary, in the sense that it is necessary for the Creator to create.

Which is another way of talking about the complementary principles of immanence and transcendence. Scientism imagines the world can be intelligible without intelligence, which is to say, immanent without transcendence. But if intelligence isn't transcendent, it isn't intelligence, precisely.

Or, put it this way: if there is no transcendence -- no vertical inscape hatch -- then all statements are ultimately tautologies. To take an obvious example, if we are explained by our genes, then we couldn't explain our genes. Rather, the explanation would be genetically caused and therefore circular.

Only recourse to transcendence accounts for both the continuities and discontinuities of the world. Again, from the bottom up -- from any materialistic standpoint -- intelligence and intelligibility, mind and matter, must be discontinuous. And if they are purely discontinuous, then there is no accounting for knowledge. Knowledge could only be an illusion of continuity, just a projection of our own psychic categories. Taken to the extreme, it would mean we can know everything about nothing. Terminal DK.

In truth, there are real continuities and discontinuities built into the nature of things, the former being radial, the latter circumferential. Imagine a circle with a point at the center: ʘ. That's God (or Creator) at the center, world (creation) at the periphery. However, there are multiple worlds, e.g., metaphysics, physics, chemistry, biology, et al. As such, we have to imagine a series of concentric circles, each corresponding to a particular world.

But there is also continuity, which can be conceptualized by imagining an arrow (or arrows) emanating from the center. And guess what: you -- your soul -- is one of those arrows, precisely. This is what it means to be in the image and likeness of the Creator (the center), and why we can have real knowledge of the other circles. Each circle discloses truth, but only because they are linked (via the arrows) to the Center.

DK prevention, right there.

15 comments:

julie said...

Of the people I know, many of the most intelligent are also the most humble; that is, they readily admit when they don't know something, and are usually even aware that they don't know how they know many of the things they do know. Their greater intelligence has revealed to them an inkling of the vastness of what they don't and can't know. But they know it is in God's hands - it goes back to the center - and so the unknown is bearable and not generally a cause for fear.

Conversely, there are others (mercifully few), who not only don't seem to know what they know all that well, but can't wait to share their superior knowledge in any and every field. They fancy themselves experts at law, medicine, and everything else, and will not hear anything to contradict themselves. They seem to think they can understand everything, while yet having a grasp on very little.

Everyone is prone to DK, it's true, but in this as in most things, some are more rooted in it than others.

Anonymous said...

I think what Bobs point is, is that 80% of scientists were once Christians back in the not too distant past. Today it’s down to 3%, by some measures. And these supposed ‘best and brightests’ are leading humanity into all kinds of uncharted territory bereft of any kind of spiritual guidance.

My point is (er, I mean question): Where is the line between personal responsibility and social responsibility?

julie said...

This can't be making things any better. How is anyone supposed to develop intellectual humility if they've been told all their lives they're Good Enough, Smart Enough, etc. etc., and also quite often have put in a lot of work which seems like it should matter (thinking of all the extra requirements beyond grades kids seem to need to get into college these days), only to reach adulthood in a state of advanced education-inflicted ignorance? Granted, young people rarely if ever know how dumb they really are, but they used to come by it more or less naturally.

More than that, they've grown up in a culture that tells them ordinary isn't good enough, they are supposed to Change the World. It's a generation of Gretas; God help us all...

River Cocytus said...

To make it clear, DK can happen where one is forced to account for knowledge. It takes some skill to express what is known tacitly, explicitly -- and it is made worse where difficult concepts are taught by rote and where simple concepts are not drilled at all. To get a good taste of DK, just look at the comments in Youtube for games and music; there are thousands of people who are convinced that 'x' is [superlative] and in many cases even have complicated explanations (defended on the grounds of subjectivity) as to why these things are so.

There does however seem to be a difference between DK which is 'error in expression that results in the seeming magnification of what is known' and DK which is 'repeating the result of knowledge without the knowledge.'

The origins of the IQ test are pretty much the former, where as a rudimentary measure of competence it works fine, but it is made to bear and explain things it cannot (for it is not based on the necessary knowledge of human intelligence to be effective at that.) A lot of engineering falls into this trap and I'm certain robotics and 'AI' today are full of DK, a sign of it being claims of 'intelligence' and 'world shaking deepfakes' that are mostly just a collection of curated images where an AI produces results based on pre-curated data whose results are again curated. Most inputs and outputs are garbage, and the 'AI' doesn't really know that.

The latter case is common where people acquire some ability in language and proceed to use it to express things they don't understand. Yet, of course, some of us by necessity think out loud -- nevertheless, it's like people claiming 'Science is Real' without understanding what the scientific method is, what the presuppositions behind the possibility of an intelligible cosmos are, the arguments *against* a total knowledge from the scientific method (De Maistre and Polanyi to name two) and so on. It is an object of faith unworthy of worship, ergo as Bob said, it is identical to an idol. (They have mouths, but cannot speak! Ears, but cannot hear!)

A third type that comes to mind is the academic type, where (and this is the case for many modern 'philosophers') jargon and complex explanations are woven to attempt to tease out knowledge that doesn't really exist, because there is a sense, a feeling, a strong visceral desire - that some knowledge be there. The smartest of these know there isn't knowledge, and like their sophist ancestors, will use the classic trick of equivocation to make people think they (both the reader and the writer) understand something they don't. (Aristotle claims that equivocation - that is, using the same word in arguments but switching the sense at will to make conclusions 'seem' to work - is the first trick of sophistry.)

Yet, my feeling about DK as a whole is that it's the problem of expressing knowledge more than having it, that is at stake. I do think we can have certainty in the intuitive and natural sense, but translating that certain understanding into an unequivocal statement? A monstrous task of poet and prose-writer alike.

Anonymous said...

Good Evening Esteemed Bloggers All:

Here is my daily deposit of manure. I am a DK Wunderkind, so DK it hurts, a DK poster-child. You should believe nothing I write. Thank you.

Anonymous asked "Where is the line between personal responsibility and social responsibility?"
I thought there was only personal responsibility, because all we can control is our ourselves. Does that help? No?

DK seems to be measured largely by what people say, but seeing as that people will say anything and everything, it is best to assess DK by a person's actions.

I had a friend who was a driving instructor and touted her abilities, and then I take a ride with her and find out she is making California stops and Arizona right turns, and if you've driven in those states you know what those are. Not good.

Another friend grows "the best pot you've ever smoked." I copped an eighth and right off the bat realized his herb was not the best had ever smoked.

A woman I met in the supermarket stated she was so talented at lovemaking that once you'd been with her everyone else would pale in comparison. So I took her up on it and although it was good, I'd had better. I didn't say as much.

Well there you have it, my stash of idiocy for today. Please feel free to insult me, I deserve it.

-Heaving Bosom

Anonymous said...

Heaving Bosom,
Dunno Heaving Bosom. Being DK means never having to admit you’re stupid. When your own logic is flawless, your own principles perfection, your own shit don’t stink, maybe it’s time for a time out. Or not. The ignorant feeling is kinda pleasant.

As we all know, DKs are easily conditioned by the crafty. The crafty then get to rewrite the Bible, the Constitution, history of the Founders, corporate rules, etc. without any debate or pushback, evil-laughing all the way to the bank.

I thought there was only personal responsibility, because all we can control is our ourselves.

Dunno again. There are like, literally thousands of texts out there about how to control others without them even knowing it. Genghis Khan was a master. He got others to see it as their own personal responsibility to launch heads over city walls lest Genghis get mad and launch their own head instead.

Me, I don’t worry much about sacking cities for another mans gain. I worry about this high tech chemistry set my mom got me for my birthday. It can do genetic engineering. After I dipped my ants in the green liquid they’re sporting little helmets and building trebuchets. With the yellow liquid I’d hoped my cats would acquire a soul so I could see them in heaven after I die. Instead they’re growing kinda big and starting to look at me funny. I’m not sure if they should be selling these kinds of toys.

julie said...

Interesting - not a peep from an "anon" since Saturday. Now that 8chan is back under a new name, they must have more important things to do.

Anonymous said...

Hello All:

Anonymous at 9:12, I would like to have your chemistry set after you are done using it...I can think of a million uses for it. Also, I sense you have been wronged by corporate culture and are feeling bitter about that. Am I mistaken?

If you have been, I feel your pain. I wrote a lengthy satire titled "I am a Functioning Cog" to chronicle the de-personalization and mariginalization I experienced inside the colossal machinery of a large corporation. I've since moved on, but ouch, that hurt.

I don't knock capitalism, but shoot its every girl for herself out there....there's no free lunch. And things can get ugly.

Julie, I did not post since Saturday due to the arrival a baby great-granddaughter and I got a little busy. She's a cutie!

Seldom to I skip a day dropping some anonymous comment on this blog. Can you tell me more about 8chan please? Do they need trolling? 'Cause that is what I do, baby. Ciao Julie, Love Ya Lots!! You da Bomb, the Best:)

-Amelia


Anonymous said...

anon is dead. You don't need to know the details.

The new topic is "Cognitive bias: Why are Indians usually Hindu, Mexicans usually Catholic, and Miamians usually Whatever?"

Discuss.

julie said...

Well, it was a nice thought anyway...

Anonymous said...

Hey Anon 10:17! I live in Miami, and I'm a whatever! I mean, I'll go into any church if I'm invited to go with friends. I enjoy all kinds of services, in fact I never met a service I didn't like, except once with some Unitarians.

But, how did you know about Miamians? I live here and didn't know that. Impressive!

-Juanita

Anonymous said...

Amelia,
First sorry about the "dead" comment. I thought it was you.
Second, congratulations on your new great-granddaughter.

Third, about functioning cogs. I was quite happy being a functioning cog. I could hide inside my own little cubicle (sometimes even a real office room but that’s our little secret) and work as hard as I wanted and nobody would be the wiser.

But I suffered from DK. I am an anon and I’m a DK. Devious others were the real kind of smart and not the fake kind. I was soon discovered and quickly removed with the ground salted behind me. I learned that nobody in today’s corporate world can work their ass off without a corporate sponsor. Far too threatening. At least in my former business.

I was weaned on capitalism. I was raised on it. All of my former churches were capitalist. You’d send in your seed money, the preacher would buy a new jet, and the sight of it soaring overhead would make you want to go out and get your own damned money.

But then I started entertaining the notions that while there’s always a ying-n-yang between empathy and sociopathy, personal responsibility and social responsibility, probably other stuff, that capitalism could be broken. They told me it could never happen, yet here it is.

So I ask you. Are blessings from Jesus given, earned, taken, or just grifted? I would ask Julie but she just says over and over that “everybody always done it”. I don't know what that means. Are blessings from Jesus gotten anyway you can?

About my chemistry set, I put some of the yellow liquid on my whatsit and hooboy. I’m gonna be a porn star!

River Cocytus said...

you get exactly the blessings you want in the end. Or just read 'the Fisherman's Wife', I think the fairy tale is called.

If you grift them, you might find they have the quality of a grift, rather than a gift. He will not be mocked!

Christina M said...

I like the last two paragraphs. They remind me of an art display I saw about a week ago in a photo. The display took up a huge room in floor space. At the near end of the room were hundreds of shoes, all pointing in the same direction facing the camera. The shoes were all at different distances from the far wall. Attached to each shoe was a red string, and all the strings stretched taunt across the floor space and were attached to a single point at the far end of the room.

Christina M said...
This comment has been removed by the author.

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