Avoidance of self- & other-deception in proofs

[Zeta-Flux]

cheesehead,

Thank you for your reply. I hope I will be able to expand my first post while answering some of the concerns you brought up.

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Eyewitness testimony has been shown to be the least reliable category of evidence in court cases.

Absolutely. I remember hearing about a rape case, where the woman positively ID'ed the raper. Years later DNA evidence cleared his name, and the woman apologized for being mistaken, and (I think) they wrote a book together about the episode.

If I'm reading you correctly, you are asking what religion does in the face of unreliability of eye-witness testimonies. Again, just to be clear, I can only respond with regards to my own faith tradition.

As an opening, I would ask the following: What do courts do to mitigate mistaken eye-witnesses? Why do they continue to allow them? Granting that eyewitness testimony is the least reliable (which I imagine you are correct about), we must first realize that there are other forms of evidence that are not permissible at all in court cases. First-hand witness testimony has its admissibility to its credit.

One mitigating factor is that the defense can question the witness. Another is that the testimony is judged by a group of people (the jury) and by a man trained in the law (the judge). Another is that the witnesses motives can be examined, and there are legal penalties for lying. Some of these same factors apply to the case in question.

But not all eye-witness testimony has the same strength in a courtroom. For example, if someone sees you rob a store at the dead of night vs. seeing you rob it in the middle of the day, there is quite a difference, due to the lighting differences. When bearing testimony of issues we are not trained in (such as the height, build, color of clothing, etc... of a criminal) our descriptions are prone to mistakes as we are not trained to consider those aspects, especially from impressions from small amounts of time. But when bearing testimony on things we are knowledgeable about (like eating dinner at a certain time, to establish the time of an event, and it is a regular occurrence) there is bound to be less fallibility. Another thing that can mitigate fallibility is if there is more than one witness to the event. A rape victim, alone, experiencing an enormous amount of stress and emotional defilement, even with the close proximity of the criminal cannot bear a testimony similar to a room full of observers of, say, a shoplifting.

Similarly, the example I gave had a large number of witnesses. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses..." might ring a bell.

Other considerations similarly apply. One is free to apply other rational tests to the witnesses. If you can think of any aspect of eye-witness testimony that specifically concerns you (with regards to reliability) I will try to describe methods that my religion (or at least, I personally) uses to mitigate deception.

A scientific study may be inspired by eyewitness reports. Various aspects of eyewitnessing has been studied in experiments. But eyewitness testimony itself is never acceptable as scientific proof. As an extremely simple example, there are optical illusions (e.g., mirages) which people perceive as something other than what they really are.

And similarly, the witness of our apostles is not taken as proof. It is taken as an evidence for further investigations.

That said, I think you are going a little off-topic with this comment. We are not talking about proving things. We are talking about avoiding deception. There is not a double implication between the two items, as I understand it.

You believe and trust them. Such belief and trust in subjective testimony makes one susceptible to deception (intentional or otherwise), when compared to objective evidence.

Of course. I believe and trust my wife to be faithful to me. That makes me susceptible to deception. But if I give up the trust, I simply could not have the same relationship with her. I tried to mitigate my susceptibility by (among other things) picking the best spouse I could, whom I truly believe will be faithful to me (and I to her) throughout our lives.

That said, I don't expect anyone reading my posts to simply believe and trust these men's witnesses without further affirmation and reason for trust. My trust may make me susceptible to deception, but it wasn't easily earned.

When you write "They are eye witnesses to His resurrection", do you mean that there are currently-living persons who eye-witnessed Christ's resurrection? Or are any of those 15, persons who lived in the past but not now?

Currently living.

Exactly what type of objective evidence is there that any of the 15 eye-witnessed a resurrection?

What do you accept as objective?

First, how is the experimental hypothesis formed?

I'm not sure I understand the context of your question. Can you rephrase it if I don't answer it below?

So, it depends upon an individual's ability to learn, and upon an individual's ability to form a basis for deciding whether some hypothesis is correct? What if the individual misunderstands?

Yes to the first. (I suppose that is why we don't preach to animals, for example.) If the person misunderstands, I suppose that they have a twisted view of the experiment, and just like a scientist who does the experiment incorrectly, will come to a different end.

What are the objective definitions of "being true" and of "good and right"?

Interesting question. In the context of this discussion I think something along the lines of: avoiding deception/lying, teaching against breaking your word, staying faithful to spouses, encouraging education and advancement, leading to greater intelligence, etc...

Is there any objective evidence to corroborate that belief?

Again, I would ask what you consider objective evidence. For example, would you consider your experiences with your mother as objective evidence that your mother loves you? For something to be objective does it have to be repeatable? Clarifying what you take to be objective will definitely help me answer your question.

So, this depends on an individual's ability to pray? Are there objective standards for such prayer?

I listed a few earlier in the thread. You must believe you are asking sincerely (which, depending on what you mean by objective, might qualify). Certain intentions in your words must occur (i.e. you should probably ask if it is correct). etc...

So, the individual monitors him/herself for bodily sensations or perceptions, but not with any objective measurement? Is a thermometer used to measure warmth?

As I believe your questions are serious I will answer them. If by objective you mean measurable by outside observers; I do not believe we currently have the technology to do that. I'm not entirely sure if the warmth is purely physical.

But that said, I think you are misunderstanding the claim. Let me present an analogy that, while imperfect, may clarify.

Analogy: Scientist Adam tells you that if you look at a paper he hands you, cross-eyed, you will see a 3-dimensional picture. He explains some scientific concepts, some of which you understand, about how it works. You look at the paper and no image appears. But Scientist Adam is a trustworthy friend of yours, so you try again. After agonizing over the paper, one day a picture appears!

Is your experience objective? Were you prone to deception due to your trust in your friend? Did you really see a picture? Should you have avoided the entire experiment because of the possibility of deception? How can you mitigate the possibility that you were hallucinating when you thought you saw the picture? etc...

Hopefully this analogy will help you frame questions about my experiment that you believe will address the issue of self deception.

Zeta-Flux,

You have not yet described any method of avoiding deception!

I apologize for not being entirely clear on that point. I thought, for example, the word "multiple" in front of "eye-witness" would have been read in that context. Also, I think I see now better where you want to take this thread.

All you've described are recommendations for coming to some sorts of conclusions, and/or avoiding dissention. Not one of them avoids deception. As a simple example, the individual is, apparently, free to interpret any bodily sensation or perception as being an "answer by the Holy Ghost" rather than as being, for instance, warmth produced by digestion of a preceding meal, or even a product of mental illness.

I've personally, along with other individuals including a psychiatrist, witnessed a person sincerely testifying to having seen "Mary, mother of Jesus" in a room earlier that day. That room was in a portion of a hospital reserved for patients with mental illness, with locked entrance and egress being controlled by medical personnel. (The point is not that my eyewitness testimony is reliable; it's that mental hallucinations can be interpreted, completely sincerely by the person experiencing them, as being religious experiences.)

I see nothing in your above descriptions that rules out testimony by a mentally-ill (as we would now judge in the 21st century) person about a hallucination. How does your religion distinguish between reality and unreality?

There are a number of possibilities that my method did not rule out, including hallucination. Would you like me to address that specifically? Any other possibilities that come to your mind that I didn't describe specific methods we use to avoid?

[retina]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

I hope I will be able to expand my first post while answering some of the concerns you brought up...

<snip lots of words>

Search for "scientific method" and learn about forming a hypothesis. Then learn about creating well formed tests to confirm/reject the hypothesis.

Let's not beat around the bush here, I think this discussion is clearly going to go deep into religious territory. So rather than pretend that it is about something else, here is my take:

Many people fall victim to the age old line "Have faith and you will understand". To me, the word "faith" is a direct synonym for "the right mindset to willingly allow self deception". Having faith is the cornerstone of all religions because of lack of supporting evidence that can stand up to the "scientific method". What is a religion without faith? It has nothing to fall back on, so keeping the faith (i.e. self-deception) is very important to a religion for it to survive.

I note that there is no description from Zeta-Flux at all that says how Zeta-Flux has tried to avoid self deception. Instead Zeta-Flux tried to cast back the pointing finger by saying that even scientists can also become victim to self-deception. Well, of course they can, they are human also.

But for the broader picture we do have the scientific method, to help us if we choose to use it. It is not always easy to apply the method and many scientist will fail to properly formulate hypotheses and tests. But that is why there is peer review, so that errors can be pointed out and tests modified etc. There are many cases of self deceived scientists rejecting test results because of their bias to try to prove some preconceived notion. But through the force of peer review these "errors" are found, suitable admonishment apportioned, and everybody moves on. Sensible scientists don't hold on to ideas and notions simply because they like them, they will test and adjust the models (regardless of how much they might not want to) to allow them to fit the experimental data.

The difference with faith is that we are given a "truth" and told that is the only answer. Applying tests is merely a cover story to try to prove the already given "truth". And often if the test fails to prove such "truth" then reject reject reject and ignore because the "truth" is still "correct" because we have faith.

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by retina

Many people fall victim to the age old line "Have faith and you will understand". To me, the word "faith" is a direct synonym for "the right mindset to willingly allow self deception". Having faith is the cornerstone of all religions because of lack of supporting evidence that can stand up to the "scientific method". What is a religion without faith? It has nothing to fall back on, so keeping the faith (i.e. self-deception) is very important to a religion for it to survive.

I can understand where you are coming from with this. I imagine that many of the religious people you know have espoused such a mindset. I myself have heard it many times. However, I would ask that you not project that mindset to all religious people.

I note that there is no description from Zeta-Flux at all that says how Zeta-Flux has tried to avoid self deception. Instead Zeta-Flux tried to cast back the pointing finger by saying that even scientists can also become victim to self-deception. Well, of course they can, they are human also.

I re-read all of my posts, and couldn't find any time when I said that scientists can also become victims of self-deception. I don't recall ever using such an idea to justify religionists being self-deceived. If I just missed where I did so, please accept my apology as it was unintentional. On the other hand, if you cannot point out where I did so, I would ask you to retract your accusations.

That said, let me give some context. My first post was introducing some of the basic ways people in my faith come to certain beliefs. cheesehead mentioned some of the ways those methods may lead to deception, and in my second post I tried to address some of those issues. Your claim that I did not describe any methods of avoiding deception is incorrect. I mention just a few here: (1) not relying on single, dead, eye-witness accounts alone, (2) having multiple living eye-witnesses, who have earned trust, and are not in it for the money (3) repeating experiments, to confirm the result, etc... I imagine that cheesehead will bring up other possible ways of deception that I did not address, which is (I think) the point of this thread, and I will try to explain my personal methods afor mitigating the deception.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

I re-read all of my posts, and couldn't find any time when I said that scientists can also become victims of self-deception. I don't recall ever using such an idea to justify religionists being self-deceived. If I just missed where I did so, please accept my apology as it was unintentional. On the other hand, if you cannot point out where I did so, I would ask you to retract your accusations.

Actually not really an accusation, but more if an observation. This is what made me say that:

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

Analogy: Scientist Adam tells you that if you look at a paper he hands you, cross-eyed, you will see a 3-dimensional picture. He explains some scientific concepts, some of which you understand, about how it works. You look at the paper and no image appears. But Scientist Adam is a trustworthy friend of yours, so you try again. After agonizing over the paper, one day a picture appears!

Is your experience objective? Were you prone to deception due to your trust in your friend? Did you really see a picture? Should you have avoided the entire experiment because of the possibility of deception? How can you mitigate the possibility that you were hallucinating when you thought you saw the picture? etc...

And indeed I agree with what you said. That experiment you describe is not done well. It is very much open to self deception. And any sensible scientist would discount it quickly without bothering to read much into it. This is something the scientific method can solve.

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

That said, let me give some context. My first post was introducing some of the basic ways people in my faith come to certain beliefs. cheesehead mentioned some of the ways those methods may lead to deception, and in my second post I tried to address some of those issues. Your claim that I did not describe any methods of avoiding deception is incorrect. I mention just a few here: (1) not relying on single, dead, eye-witness accounts alone, (2) having multiple living eye-witnesses, who have earned trust, and are not in it for the money (3) repeating experiments, to confirm the result, etc... I imagine that cheesehead will bring up other possible ways of deception that I did not address, which is (I think) the point of this thread, and I will try to explain my personal methods afor mitigating the deception.

But none of those show how you mitigate self-deception. None of those are properly done "experiments" that follow the scientific method. I urge you to read about how to apply proper testing procedures to eliminate human bias and preconceptions. But please understand that I am not accusing you of anything, I myself also fall prey to this sort of biased testing. It is very hard to avoid and takes a lot of effort to properly eliminate such biases.

The scientific method is not an easy thing to do. One cannot simply say "I know how to do it" and go ahead and prove some result. It requires proper reviews and independent verifications etc. One cannot just say "I proved it to myself and that is enough for me", it must also be clear to every rational observer and independent tester that the result is correct.

[Zeta-Flux]

This is what made me say that...

I'm still not sure where you are getting that I said a scientist was self-deceived. *shrug*

And indeed I agree with what you said. That experiment you describe is not done well. It is very much open to self deception. And any sensible scientist would discount it quickly without bothering to read much into it. This is something the scientific method can solve.

I outlined the experiment for the sake of brevity (in an already rather long post). Feel free to add details to the point where it meets the standards you believe should be set for such an experiment.

That said, feel free to point out places where the person is inappropriately opening themselves up to deception, and we can discuss how to mitigate such deception (and what the corresponding methods should be in the religious case). I imagine that one such place you have already mentioned: being clear about the procedures and expected results of the experiment. I hope you understand I only shortened that part to be brief.

Cheers,
Zeta-Flux

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by CRGreathouse

Because math demands a higher standard of proof than science.

But the question is about self-deception. Mathematicians have the same psychological motives and means for self-deception as folks in other fields.

I'd agree that the nature of math seems to present a higher barrier to deception, or at least a lower barrier to its detection, than many other fields. But over and over, math has had discoveries or inventions of concepts previously not thought possible: square roots of negative numbers; before that: negative numbers themselves; before even that: zero as a number. In each case, it could be argued that earlier mathematicians had assumed (self-deceived?) that such things did not exist, but then one or more folks came up with an idea demonstrating how it was possible to rationally and productively think about the previously-unthinkable.

There could be some analogy with physical cases, in that invention of new mathematical tools, just as with the invention of the telescope (whose 400th anniversary of first use for astronomical viewing is being celebrated in this International Year of Astronomy 2009) allowed conscious perception of previously-unnoticed instances of assumption (self-deception). With the telescope, there were at least two manners of exposing previous self-deception: detection of previously-unseeable phenomena (e.g., phases of Venus), and magnification of details previously ignored or explained-away (e.g., imperfection of the Moon's surface).

[retina]

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

I'm still not sure where you are getting that I said a scientist was self-deceived. *shrug*

The scientist you describe did not conduct a proper experiment. The scientist simply told the test subject (paraphrasing) "This is what you will see if you try hard enough". That is not science, that is indoctrination, and the scientist is just deceiving him/herself to think it was a proper test (that is, unless they are doing some sort of psychology experiment). I don't put scientists on any sort of high moral ground, they are humans with biases and preconceptions etc. just like the rest of us.

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

I outlined the experiment for the sake of brevity (in an already rather long post). Feel free to add details to the point where it meets the standards you believe should be set for such an experiment.

Use the scientific method.

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

That said, feel free to point out places where the person is inappropriately opening themselves up to deception, and we can discuss how to mitigate such deception (and what the corresponding methods should be in the religious case). I imagine that one such place you have already mentioned: being clear about the procedures and expected results of the experiment.

Use the scientific method.

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

I hope you understand I only shortened that part to be brief.

Okay, perhaps I read too much into it, but maybe that is for the best because it allowed me to point out that scientists (as humans) can also be self deceived.

Proper testing methods are HARD. And getting it right is VERY HARD. And making it scrupulous with full disclosure (a prerequisite of the scientific method) and VERY VERY HARD. Self deception is easy to be hidden in the experiment/test results without our knowledge. No matter how hard we might try to eliminate it, we must always assume the possibility that it exists. We must constantly question our results with an eye to finding a mistake. We must allow others to question our results to point out things we overlooked.

[cheesehead]

Zeta-Flux,

Thanks to you, too.

I'll have to respond in chunks -- can't do it all in one sitting. :-)

Originally Posted by Zeta-Flux

If I'm reading you correctly, you are asking what religion does in the face of unreliability of eye-witness testimonies.

Yes, plus I was commenting on the fact that you led off your list with that particular category of evidence rather than, e.g., physical evidence.

Again, just to be clear, I can only respond with regards to my own faith tradition.

Yes, but I think that there would be only minor (with regard to our subject matter) details that differed between various religions.

Granting that eyewitness testimony is the least reliable (which I imagine you are correct about), we must first realize that there are other forms of evidence that are not permissible at all in court cases.

... such as hearsay evidence in particular. Some common evidence offered to support religious assertions consists of hearsay.

BTW, before I forget, let me note that there are fundamental differences between the sorts of legal proof considered valid in court and the sorts of evidence considered valid in the context of science. A court case is about a confrontation, and reaching a definite conclusion. Science is about determining truths about nature, which often is not confrontational and doesn't presume that there even can be a definite conclusion about any particular case. So there's a limit to what legal analogies apply to our discussion.

All scientific findings are provisional, subject to revision upon further investigation. Perhaps this would be analogous to having all legal conclusions automatically and perpetually subject to further appeal, with no upper limit on the level of appeal, no statute of limitations and no limitation upon who can involve themselves in such appeals.

I have to pause now; will continue later.

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by retina

The scientist you describe did not conduct a proper experiment.

I agree. He was trying to help a friend see a stereogram. Maybe I should have called him "Friend A" instead of "Scientist A". I merely used "Scientist" to convey the fact that he understood the principles of stereograms, and thus could explain them to his friend. Sorry for the confusion.

Proper testing methods are HARD. And getting it right is VERY HARD. And making it scrupulous with full disclosure (a prerequisite of the scientific method) and VERY VERY HARD. Self deception is easy to be hidden in the experiment/test results without our knowledge. No matter how hard we might try to eliminate it, we must always assume the possibility that it exists. We must constantly question our results with an eye to finding a mistake. We must allow others to question our results to point out things we overlooked.

I agree. Absolutely agree.

I would point out though that there is a point at which progress trumps eliminating self-deception. There is a point at which we take it on faith that scientists performed a fairly accurate experiment. As you say, we continue to realize we might be mistaken, and if reasons appear we might even retry the experiment, and if the claim is fantastic then we might not take it on faith at all but require repeated experimental verification (and take it on faith that those repeated experiments were done fairly accurately). But at some point we have to admit that we are convinced of the result, and put the "making it scrupulous" on the back-burner. This happens in mathematics all the time, when we don't write out papers using only the axioms of ZFC (if we are working in that universe) but use short-hand. Repeated exposure to mathematics makes us believe that we have enough skill to interpret the short-hand correctly (or even, without the shorthand, the use of the rules of logic). This opens us up to self-deception, but it is also allows progress.

[Xyzzy]

We got lost right about the part where it was stated that there are 15 living eyewitnesses to the resurrection.

Did we read that wrong? Did they perhaps have a "vision" of it, or maybe a "dream"?

[Zeta-Flux]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Zeta-Flux,
I'll have to respond in chunks -- can't do it all in one sitting. :-)

That's good. It will give you more time to ponder how to respond. You might have noticed I took a day to process your post to give it the attention is needed. :)

Yes, plus I was commenting on the fact that you led off your list with that particular category of evidence rather than, e.g., physical evidence.

Hmmm... I'll think about this a while. I do believe there is physical evidence available for certain religious claims, and maybe I'll present that later.

Yes, but I think that there would be only minor (with regard to our subject matter) details that differed between various religions.

My experience with other religions has led me to the opposite conclusion. That might become more apparent as we discuss further.

... such as hearsay evidence in particular. Some common evidence offered to support religious assertions consists of hearsay.

I don't know what you want me to do with this statement. I agree of course (and am tempted to point out that hearsay is presented as evidence for a number of other assertions as well--but I won't give in. :-) ).

BTW, before I forget, let me note that there are fundamental differences between the sorts of legal proof considered valid in court and the sorts of evidence considered valid in the context of science. A court case is about a confrontation, and reaching a definite conclusion. Science is about determining truths about nature, which often is not confrontational and doesn't presume that there even can be a definite conclusion about any particular case. So there's a limit to what legal analogies apply to our discussion.

I wanted to make this point myself, so thank you for presenting it. I would add that similarly religion is about living in harmony with the universe and other humans in particular, which means that certain analogies will break down in that context too.

All scientific findings are provisional, subject to revision upon further investigation. Perhaps this would be analogous to having all legal conclusions automatically and perpetually subject to further appeal, with no upper limit on the level of appeal, no statute of limitations and no limitation upon who can involve themselves in such appeals.

Here is where my religion differs from many others. All of our religious findings, at least in my opinion (and at least in this mortal world) are similarly provisional. We believe in continuing enlightenment and expansion and progression. We believe that our understanding of principles can develop, just as scientific theories develop. This is also why I won't judge someone as evil who tries the experiment (I only outlined) and doesn't get the same answer I did. I only know what the result has been in my case, and I've repeated the experiment, but it is possible I'm doing it wrong and am willing to discuss my experiences/results.

I have to pause now; will continue later.

Til then.