“Disclaimer: I don’t actually expect this to work with high confidence, because this sort of person might not actually be able to do a sincere inquiry.”
well exactly… If the person were thinking rationally enough to contemplate that argument, they really wouldn’t need it.
I have never successfully converted a religious person to atheism, but my ex-girlfriend did. I am a more rational person than her, I know more philosophy, I have earnestly tried many times, she just did this once, etc. How did she do it? The person in question was male and his religion forbade him from sex outside marriage. Most people are mostly ruled by their emotions.
well exactly… If the person were thinking rationally enough to contemplate that argument, they really wouldn’t need it.
My working model of this person was that the person has rehearsed emotional and argumentative defenses to protect their belief, or belief in belief, and that the person had the ability to be reasonably rational in other domains where they weren’t trying to be irrational. It therefore seemed to me that one strategy (while still dicey) to attempt to unconvince such a person would be to come up with an argument which is both:
Solid (Fooling/manipulating them into thinking the truth is bad cognitive citizenship, and won’t work anyway because their defenses will find the weakness in the argument.)
Not the same shape as the argument their defenses are expecting.
Roko: How is your working model of the person different from mine?
My working model of a religious person such as the above is that they assess any argument first and foremost on the basis “will accepting this argument cause me to have to abandon my religious belief?”. If yes, execute “search for least implausible counterargument”.
As such, no rational argument whose conclusion obviously leads to the abandonment of religion will work. However, rational arguments that can be accepted on the spot without obviously threatening religion, and which lead via hard-to-predict emotional channels to the weakening and defeat of that belief might work. It is my suspicion that persuading someone to change their mind on a really important issue almost always works like this.
“she just did this once, etc. How did she do it? ”
By appealing to a non-rational or irrational argument that would lead the person to adopt rationality.
Arguing rationally with a person who isn’t rational that they should take up the process is a waste of time. If it would work, it wouldn’t be necessary. It’s easy to say what course should be taken with a rational person, because rational thought is all alike. Irrational thought patterns can be nearly anything, so there’s no way to specify an argument that will convince everyone. You’d need to construct an argument that each person is specifically vulnerable to.
The problem is that you often don’t know until you actually start arguing with them that they are irrational or just confused and misled.
George H Smith has a pretty good essay about arguing with people to convert them to rationality, ” Atheism and the Virtue of Reasonableness”. For example, he advocates the “Presumption of Rationality”—you should always presume your adversary is rational until he demostrates otherwise. I don’t know if the essay is on-line or not, I read it as the second chapter of “Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies.”
Irrational thought patterns can be nearly anything, so there’s no way to specify an argument that will convince everyone. You’d need to construct an argument that each person is specifically vulnerable to.
Irrational thought patterns can be nearly anything, but of course they strongly tend to form around standard human cognitive biases. This saves a great deal of time.
“Disclaimer: I don’t actually expect this to work with high confidence, because this sort of person might not actually be able to do a sincere inquiry.”
well exactly… If the person were thinking rationally enough to contemplate that argument, they really wouldn’t need it.
I have never successfully converted a religious person to atheism, but my ex-girlfriend did. I am a more rational person than her, I know more philosophy, I have earnestly tried many times, she just did this once, etc. How did she do it? The person in question was male and his religion forbade him from sex outside marriage. Most people are mostly ruled by their emotions.
My working model of this person was that the person has rehearsed emotional and argumentative defenses to protect their belief, or belief in belief, and that the person had the ability to be reasonably rational in other domains where they weren’t trying to be irrational. It therefore seemed to me that one strategy (while still dicey) to attempt to unconvince such a person would be to come up with an argument which is both:
Solid (Fooling/manipulating them into thinking the truth is bad cognitive citizenship, and won’t work anyway because their defenses will find the weakness in the argument.)
Not the same shape as the argument their defenses are expecting.
Roko: How is your working model of the person different from mine?
My working model of a religious person such as the above is that they assess any argument first and foremost on the basis “will accepting this argument cause me to have to abandon my religious belief?”. If yes, execute “search for least implausible counterargument”.
As such, no rational argument whose conclusion obviously leads to the abandonment of religion will work. However, rational arguments that can be accepted on the spot without obviously threatening religion, and which lead via hard-to-predict emotional channels to the weakening and defeat of that belief might work. It is my suspicion that persuading someone to change their mind on a really important issue almost always works like this.
“she just did this once, etc. How did she do it? ”
By appealing to a non-rational or irrational argument that would lead the person to adopt rationality.
Arguing rationally with a person who isn’t rational that they should take up the process is a waste of time. If it would work, it wouldn’t be necessary. It’s easy to say what course should be taken with a rational person, because rational thought is all alike. Irrational thought patterns can be nearly anything, so there’s no way to specify an argument that will convince everyone. You’d need to construct an argument that each person is specifically vulnerable to.
The problem is that you often don’t know until you actually start arguing with them that they are irrational or just confused and misled.
George H Smith has a pretty good essay about arguing with people to convert them to rationality, ” Atheism and the Virtue of Reasonableness”. For example, he advocates the “Presumption of Rationality”—you should always presume your adversary is rational until he demostrates otherwise. I don’t know if the essay is on-line or not, I read it as the second chapter of “Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies.”
Irrational thought patterns can be nearly anything, but of course they strongly tend to form around standard human cognitive biases. This saves a great deal of time.
“Most people are mostly ruled by their emotions.”
To be more specific, most men, for a considerable portion of their lives, are mostly ruled by their sex drives.