It’s my descriptivist side playing up—my (I must admit) intuition is that when people say that some thesis is “obvious”, they mean that they reached this bottom line by … well, system 1 thinking. I don’t assume it means that the obvious thesis is actually correct, or even universally obvious. (For example, it’s obvious to me that human beings are evolved, but that’s because it’s a cached thought I have confidence in through system 2 thinking.)
I generally take ‘obvious’ to mean ‘follows from readily-available evidence or intuition, with little to no readily available evidence to contradict the idea’. The idea that compassion is universal fails on the second part of that. The definitions are close in practice, though, in that most peoples’ intuitions tend to take readily available contradictions into account… I think.
ETA: Oh, and ‘obviously false’ seems to me to be a bit of a different concept, or at least differently relevant, given that it’s easier to disprove something than to prove it. If someone says that something is obviously true, there’s room for non-obvious proofs that it’s not, but if something is obviously false (as ‘compassion is universal’ is), that’s generally a firm conclusion.
Yes, that makes sense—even if mine is a better description of usage, from the standpoint of someone categorizing beliefs, I imagine yours would be the better metric.
ETA: I’m not sure the caveat is required for “obviously false”, for two reasons.
Any substantive thesis (a category which includes most theses that are rejected as obviously false) requires less evidence to be roundly disconfirmed than it does to be confirmed.
As Yvain demonstrated in Talking Snakes, well-confirmed theories can be “obviously false”, by either of our definitions.
It’s true that it usually takes less effort to disabuse someone of an obviously-true falsity than to convince them of an obviously-false truth, but I don’t think you need a special theory to support that pattern.
I’ve been thinking about the obviously true/obviously false distinction some more, and I think I’ve figured out why they feel like two different concepts.
‘Obviously’, as I use it, is very close to ‘observably’. It’s obviously true that the sky is blue where I am right now, and obviously false that it’s orange, because I can see it. It’s obviously true that the sky is usually either blue, white, or grey during the day (post-sunrise, pre-sunset), because I’ve observed the sky many times during the day and seen those colors, and no others.
‘Apparently’, as I use it, is very similar to ‘obviously’, but refers to information inferred from observed facts. The sky is apparently never orange during the day, because I’ve personally observed the sky many times during the day and never seen it be that color. I understand that it can also be inferred from certain facts about the world (composition of the atmosphere and certain facts about how light behaves, I believe) that the sky will always appear blue on cloudless days, so that’s also apparently true.
‘Obviously false’ covers situations where the theory makes a prediction that is observably inaccurate, as this one did. ‘Apparently false’ covers situations where the theory makes a prediction that appears to be inaccurate given all the available information, but some of the information that’s available is questionable (I consider inferences questionable by default—if nothing else, it’s possible for some relevant state to have been overlooked; what if the composition of the atmosphere were to change for some reason?) or otherwise doesn’t completely rule out the possibility that the theory is true.
Important caveat: I do use those words interchangeably in conversation, partly because of the convention of avoiding repeating words too frequently and partly because it’s just easier—if I were to try to be that accurate every time I communicated, I’d run out of spoons(pdf) and not be able to communicate at all. Also, having to parse someone else’s words, when they aren’t using the terms the same way I do, can lead to temporary confusion. But when I’m thinking, they are naturally separate.
Yes, that makes sense—even if mine is a better description of usage, from the standpoint of someone categorizing beliefs, I imagine yours would be the better metric.
It also has the advantage of making it clear that the chance that the statement is accurate is dependent on the competence of the person making the statement—people who are more intelligent and/or have more experience in the relevant domain will consider more, and more accurate, evidence to be readily available, and may have better intuitions, even if they are sticking to system 1 thought.
ETA: I’m not sure the caveat is required for “obviously false”, for two reasons.
I suppose they don’t need different wordings, but they do feel like different concepts to me. *shrug* (As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I don’t think in words. This is not an uncommon side-effect of that.)
It’s my descriptivist side playing up—my (I must admit) intuition is that when people say that some thesis is “obvious”, they mean that they reached this bottom line by … well, system 1 thinking. I don’t assume it means that the obvious thesis is actually correct, or even universally obvious. (For example, it’s obvious to me that human beings are evolved, but that’s because it’s a cached thought I have confidence in through system 2 thinking.)
Actually, come to think: I know you’ve made a habit of reinterpreting pronouncements of “good” and “evil” in some contexts—do you have some gut feeling for “obvious” that contradicts my read?
I generally take ‘obvious’ to mean ‘follows from readily-available evidence or intuition, with little to no readily available evidence to contradict the idea’. The idea that compassion is universal fails on the second part of that. The definitions are close in practice, though, in that most peoples’ intuitions tend to take readily available contradictions into account… I think.
ETA: Oh, and ‘obviously false’ seems to me to be a bit of a different concept, or at least differently relevant, given that it’s easier to disprove something than to prove it. If someone says that something is obviously true, there’s room for non-obvious proofs that it’s not, but if something is obviously false (as ‘compassion is universal’ is), that’s generally a firm conclusion.
Yes, that makes sense—even if mine is a better description of usage, from the standpoint of someone categorizing beliefs, I imagine yours would be the better metric.
ETA: I’m not sure the caveat is required for “obviously false”, for two reasons.
Any substantive thesis (a category which includes most theses that are rejected as obviously false) requires less evidence to be roundly disconfirmed than it does to be confirmed.
As Yvain demonstrated in Talking Snakes, well-confirmed theories can be “obviously false”, by either of our definitions.
It’s true that it usually takes less effort to disabuse someone of an obviously-true falsity than to convince them of an obviously-false truth, but I don’t think you need a special theory to support that pattern.
I’ve been thinking about the obviously true/obviously false distinction some more, and I think I’ve figured out why they feel like two different concepts.
‘Obviously’, as I use it, is very close to ‘observably’. It’s obviously true that the sky is blue where I am right now, and obviously false that it’s orange, because I can see it. It’s obviously true that the sky is usually either blue, white, or grey during the day (post-sunrise, pre-sunset), because I’ve observed the sky many times during the day and seen those colors, and no others.
‘Apparently’, as I use it, is very similar to ‘obviously’, but refers to information inferred from observed facts. The sky is apparently never orange during the day, because I’ve personally observed the sky many times during the day and never seen it be that color. I understand that it can also be inferred from certain facts about the world (composition of the atmosphere and certain facts about how light behaves, I believe) that the sky will always appear blue on cloudless days, so that’s also apparently true.
‘Obviously false’ covers situations where the theory makes a prediction that is observably inaccurate, as this one did. ‘Apparently false’ covers situations where the theory makes a prediction that appears to be inaccurate given all the available information, but some of the information that’s available is questionable (I consider inferences questionable by default—if nothing else, it’s possible for some relevant state to have been overlooked; what if the composition of the atmosphere were to change for some reason?) or otherwise doesn’t completely rule out the possibility that the theory is true.
Important caveat: I do use those words interchangeably in conversation, partly because of the convention of avoiding repeating words too frequently and partly because it’s just easier—if I were to try to be that accurate every time I communicated, I’d run out of spoons(pdf) and not be able to communicate at all. Also, having to parse someone else’s words, when they aren’t using the terms the same way I do, can lead to temporary confusion. But when I’m thinking, they are naturally separate.
It also has the advantage of making it clear that the chance that the statement is accurate is dependent on the competence of the person making the statement—people who are more intelligent and/or have more experience in the relevant domain will consider more, and more accurate, evidence to be readily available, and may have better intuitions, even if they are sticking to system 1 thought.
I suppose they don’t need different wordings, but they do feel like different concepts to me. *shrug* (As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I don’t think in words. This is not an uncommon side-effect of that.)