Free Thinking ?

[Gankfest]

There is a debate going on in a gaming forum that I'm apart of that has to do with Free Thinking(Freewill) and why people come to different conclusions. Now personally I think this is more of a stupidity argument rather than a Free Thinking, but I'll present it here to get some outside information.

 

The argument is pretty much this:

 

If you take two people and give them an article about something, why do they come to different conclusions with the exact same information.

 

For example:

 

I give two separate people the exact same information on Man Made global warming. The information is factual proof that global warming exists. Now one person reads the information and believes the information to be true, while the other reads the information and doesn't find the information to be true.

 

Why does this happen...?

 

In this situation we can say most likely there are 3rd party influences hindering thought process. Say the person who believes in global warming has a better education and understands the material better. Maybe the person that doesn't believe in global warming had a bad experience with scientist, and is letting his emotions cloud his judgement. There is a lot of factors at play like genetics, and you can fathom up a lot of 3rd party influences.

 

We're past determined probability, 3rd party influences, and are looking more into the thought process itself.

 

Take the same global warming situation, but say the 2 people are identical twins, have the exact same life experience and education. It seems probable that they would both agree, since they're exactly the same(Same as we are going to get for the sake of the argument.), it seems most likely that they would come to the same conclusion every time. Say they don't, and one believes in global warming while the other doesn't. There isn't any 3rd party influences that are effecting the thought process, so it's most likely that the thought process is being corrupted within. The question really comes down to where are thoughts stored and compiled in the brain. Why is the logic being corrupted of the person not believing in global warming. Is there some form of neuron damage etc...

 

This is where we run into a wall. We all understand how the brain works, but none of us majored in neuroscience either. We just don't know how to investigate this further, and would like a little outside help.

 

I tried to explain this the best I can, but if any clarification is needed. I will do my best to sum up any information needed.

 

It really comes down to Aumann's Agreement Theorem

Edited March 4, 2014 by Gankfest

[iNow]

If you take two people and give them an article about something, why do they come to different conclusions with the exact same information.

It's a complex dance between nature (biological predispositions), nurture (past experience), and circumstance.

 

 

For example:

 

I give two separate people the exact same information on Man Made global warming. The information is factual proof that global warming exists. Now one person reads the information and believes the information to be true, while the other reads the information and doesn't find the information to be true.

 

Why does this happen...?

Selective perception bias and confirmation bias both immediately come to mind, but it really could be any of these (or even some combination of them): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

[Marshalscienceguy]

There is a debate going on in a gaming forum that I'm apart of that has to do with Free Thinking(Freewill) and why people come to different conclusions. Now personally I think this is more of a stupidity argument rather than a Free Thinking, but I'll present it here to get some outside information.

 

The argument is pretty much this:

 

If you take two people and give them an article about something, why do they come to different conclusions with the exact same information.

 

For example:

 

I give two separate people the exact same information on Man Made global warming. The information is factual proof that global warming exists. Now one person reads the information and believes the information to be true, while the other reads the information and doesn't find the information to be true.

 

Why does this happen...?

 

In this situation we can say most likely there are 3rd party influences hindering thought process. Say the person who believes in global warming has a better education and understands the material better. Maybe the person that doesn't believe in global warming had a bad experience with scientist, and is letting his emotions cloud his judgement. There is a lot of factors at play like genetics, and you can fathom up a lot of 3rd party influences.

 

We're past determined probability, 3rd party influences, and are looking more into the thought process itself.

 

Take the same global warming situation, but say the 2 people are identical twins, have the exact same life experience and education. It seems probable that they would both agree, since they're exactly the same(Same as we are going to get for the sake of the argument.), it seems most likely that they would come to the same conclusion every time. Say they don't, and one believes in global warming while the other doesn't. There isn't any 3rd party influences that are effecting the thought process, so it's most likely that the thought process is being corrupted within. The question really comes down to where are thoughts stored and compiled in the brain. Why is the logic being corrupted of the person not believing in global warming. Is there some form of neuron damage etc...

 

This is where we run into a wall. We all understand how the brain works, but none of us majored in neuroscience either. We just don't know how to investigate this further, and would like a little outside help.

 

I tried to explain this the best I can, but if any clarification is needed. I will do my best to sum up any information needed.

 

It really comes down to Aumann's Agreement Theorem

There could be several different possibilities to a single action. So saying "There is always only one right answer" is not always right. a person can leave the house at 8 AM every morning to go to school so people might assume she is going to school but she can one day not go to school but based on what always happens you will assume its that. When people are working on a problem people guess which possibility is going to happen. Lets say there is 100 horses running a race. Everyone bets on which horse is going to win. Now even if you go by statistics there is still a possibility that horse you bet on might lose for whatever reason. So its not like things are absolutely certain. Multiple people might be guessing of different possibility's to the same outcome and they might all be accurate in which of those conclusions are possible but not all of those conclusions are going to necessarily happen at that point. You can say A, B, D, C, E, or F might happen and you even if they are all equally possible outcomes only ONE is going to happen at a time. So NO simply choosing B in a list of probable outcomes does not make you a moron. Even if B does not necessarily happen.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Marshalscienceguy