Philosophy 105-1st Midterm: Chapters 1-3

what aspects make up System 1

-Requires low effort

-fast and automatic

-Have no mental control/ cant see how decisions are made

what aspects make up System 2

-Requires lots of effort and concentration

-slow and conscious decision making

-Have control over/ can comprehend how to think things through (not always)

why is elephant and rider better than horses and chariot?

horses represent fully controling the charriot

while the rider only have slight control over elephant, and needs to trick and lead it to get to the right destination

what is it called when systems one and two clash during a task?

a cognitive pitfall

what are the 7 main cognitive pitfalls?

-cognitive illusions

-evolutionary mismatch

-availability heuristic

-belief perseverance

-confirmation bias

-motivated reasoning

-Evidence primary effect

what are cognitive illusions?

-cognitive illusions are sensory/visual illusions where system 1 is tricked into believing something like an image that is not true, even if if the conscious system 2 is aware that the the other side is wrong.

-is tricky because despite knowing system 1 is wrong, since you have no control over system, you still cant change what your brain decides to see

what is evolutionary missmatch?

when a trait or signal necessary to keep early humans alive still remains but is no longer required for modern humans, can cause hindrances

-when we only had fire as light and no secure houses, it was dangerous for people to be outside, let alone in the dark, so the fear of the dark has stayed with some humans even if perfectly safe inside

what is the difference between a heuristic and an availability heuristic?

-A heuristic is simply a choice or shortcut that system one makes quickly to get away from putting effort into a decision

-availability heuristic is an example of a heuristic; it takes place in a specific situation where someone relies on whichever memories regarding that topic are more prevalent in their mind, or come to them first; acts as a less effortful shortcut to forming an opinion or bias.

what is availability heuristic

-runs off memories

- an example of a heuristic where someone relies on whichever memories regarding that topic come to them first; acts as a less effortful shortcut to forming an opinion or bias.

- relying on your system ones shortcut and what it believes to be true based off what you remember, instead of putting in effort to find correct and true information and basing your opinion off of that

what is the evidence primary effect?

how people tend to trust and believe evidence they heard first/ earlier than other evidence.

-Can affect reasonable decision making if person subconsciously chooses to believe in info learnt first over evidence that is more true

what is motivated reasoning

motivated by desire: to have what may not be true

choosing to believe (or continue to believe) something because you have a desire for it to be true, not because you have evidence saying its true. may be affected by other biases

-like a smoker who argues/ doesn’t care as much about the effects of smoking and is connected to how they think smoking isn’t that bad for them, because if they acknowledged that it was, they would have more reason to stop

what is belief perseverance?

tendency to stick to a belief even when there’s evidence disproving it

-I think my belief can be preserved despite evidence against it

what is confirmation bias?

someone putting more effort into finding evidence that confirms their own opinion and looks less at/ going against evidence connected to or confirming the opposite side

-I work hard to confirm my own bias

what are some similarities and differences between confirmation bias and belief preservation?

-they both connect to having the wrong mindset about your opinions/ are stubborn; and don’t attempt to understand or learn the full truth

-also, not only used with people who have the wrong opinion, but people whose opinions reflect the truth as well; like how someone with a correct idea on a subject can still disregard evidence proving the opposite side- which is bad because both sides can have things that are correct; nothing is ever black and white

-a difference is that belief preservation surrounds holding onto a belief even when there is evidence against it, while conformation bias goes a step further by using more effort to search for evidence proving your own point, while consciously fighting against acknowledging evidence from the other side

what is cognitive reflection?

Cognitive reflection is when you allow system 2 to reflect on system 1s behaviors and ideas, and put in effort to recognise when system one has made an error; fixing it and putting more effort into the decision

What are 3 aspects that are important to a mindset set towards reasoning well?

curiosity

thoroughness

openness

Explain the idea of curiosity in connection to a good reasoning mindset

-To have a true and unbiased opinion you have to have a full understanding of the situation and equal/ good evidence proving both sides.

-it can be hard for people to consciously explore both sides of an argument, so curiosity is important so someone has a desire to seek out and to learn about opinions and evidence from the other side just as much as their own-learn the truth

Explain the idea of thoroughness in connection to a good reasoning mindset

-when developing an opinion its important to critique opinions and search for evidence thoroughly on both sides, not just your own.

-being thorough when searching for evidence and opinions will help you find all the information needed about a situation to create an unbiased opinion

Explain the idea of openness in connection to a good reasoning mindset

-Openness is very important because of how the acts of being curious and thoroughly searching for evidence can sometimes lead to the end result that your initial view was incorrect compared to the other side.

it can be difficult to drop an old view, but once someone recognises that its good to believe the truth, its important to be open to switching to opinions that reflect the truth

what is a suspiciously unexpected set? (SUS)

-a sus occurs when someone list of evidence they have collected that proves their specific opinion are all too unrelated, or are too random and not properly connected

-chances are a couple or many of the pieces of evidence are incorrect or dont actually prove the desired opinion, but are hidden among other premises that work well

-show that proper evidence finding skills were not used when collecting evidence

-Like claiming that an argument is inductive when all the premises are quite random and dont build off of each other

what is it to have degrees of confidence?

-deciding how much confidence to have in evidence or an opinion-on a scale

as opposed to some things that are either yes or no (binary belief), a large amount of situations have a ton of evidence, with lots of information; various different opinions can be had from one topic

-with situations like this, you can choose to have different degrees of confidence with evidence of specific ideas- you don’t have to fully agree or disagree

-if something seems partly correct and incorrect, then you can choose to be partially confident that the view is true

what is accuracy in terms of degrees of confidence and beliefs?

-When having confidence in a belief its good to try to be as accurate as possible, based on how correct an opinion actually is- choose a correct confidence level based on what you know

-for example, you can be aware of a specific belief: which turns out to be false

-if you had a low amount of confidence in that belief, your view is correct because you didn’t believe something that was wrong-high accuracy

-if you had a high amount of confidence your opinion would be wrong because the opposite is true,(low accuracy) but its never too late to switch to the correct opinion

what is possibility freeze? what is a solution for it?

-The tendency to consider few possibilities, and then be overly confident in ones you have while disregarding/ not considering the many others

-This connects to the availability heuristic, similar to having confidence in memories; because you forget just how many possibilities there can really be, your mind leads you to think that the couple you do have are much more likely/realistic

-to counteract, just brainstorm a whole ton of solutions or possibilities!! even if they seem very unlikely it will give you a more realistic confidence in your original idea if you recognise many different possibilities

what are two questions to ask yourself that help with searching for evidence in an unbiased way?

-"What would it look like if the opposite side were true?”

-Encourages people to look at evidence from a different perspective, and can help realize if evidence being used for the original side actually proves the opposite view better; all apart of finding the truth

-”What observations don’t fit my view well?”

-As people are prone to only looking for evidence that proves their side, asking this can help to initiate looking closer at the other side, and consciously picking out evidence that fits the other side like you would tend to do for your own

what is decoupling

separating our previous degree of confidence about a claim when assessing new arguments or evidences about the same claim: look at all new info about any topic in a new light

-can do for evidence from both your side and the other side/ separate both positive and negative opinions

what is the bias blindspot?

-Believing that you arent biased for specific reasons, when its actually really difficult to tell if youre unbiased.

caused by introspection illusion, and can lead to biased opponent effect

-your brain is tricking you into thinking youre not biased when you really arent able to tell.

what two aspects contribute to the bias blindness?

introspection illusion

biased opponent effect

what is intospection illusion?

-The belief that we have the ability to tell when we are being biased (can look in on yourself; introspection), when in fact we usually cant

-causes someone to believe they are unbiased because they don’t feel they are being biased or are trying not to be; however it is ineffective.

-leads to biased opponent effect

what is the biased opponent effect

-Connecting to introspection illusion, the idea of believing that you have no bias and therefore automatically have the right answer; meaning if others dont agree with you they are automatically biased and in the wrong

-might be wrong but have convinced yourself you are right and everyone else is wrong!

why is it so hard to get rid of previous beliefs and stop being unbiased?

-your brain can trick you to be biased even when you don’t think you are, or dont want to be

-people think of beliefs like possessions that are apart of their personality and identity, so even after the hard work of deciding that you’re ok with changing your beliefs if necessary, its mentally hard to stop believing something that has determined your actions and ideas for a long time; like a habit

what is a restricted search for evidence?

when you don’t search for and obtain a full range of evidence from both sides of the argument

-leads to missing specific info from either side and the inability to create a reasonable opinion; connected to confirmation bias

what is optional stopping?

-When searching for evidence, determining randomly when you stop searching/ when you think you have enough to prove or disprove a side.

-Usually makes opinion inaccurate because you tend to search for more evidence to prove what you want to be true, and less for opposite side.

-then you think “wow the other side is bad! they have no good evidence at all!” when you didn’t search hard enough because you subconsciously didn’t actually want to find anything that would go against/ change your opinion

what is it to use a high standard of evidence?

-In connection to optional stopping, having the unconscious idea that the opposite side requires more/ higher quality evidence when compared to the evidence that caused you to support your original belief

-depending on how important the issue is, you need to determine how much evidence is required to prove that opinion and then stick to that scale no matter the side

-like a small/ unimportant topic doesn’t need that much evidence because there isn’t much to discuss anyway, while a more important topic requires a large search for evidence on both sides of the opinion

what is binary belief?

-When someone treats beliefs as if they can be either on or off, true or false but not in between. can be true sometimes for simple topics, but most of the time there are many things about each side that can be both wrong and right

-connects to the importance of degrees of confidence; you can believe things about either sides to a scale

what is the difference between binary belief and degrees of confidence?

Binary belief- the idea that you can only fully believe an opinion or not at all

Degrees of confidence- understanding that each side of an argument can include many points that can be both right or wrong-on a scale

-choosing a specific level of confidence for a belief based on the truth of the claim/ the evidence you have for it. If something seems to have truth but be slightly questionable, you don’t have to choose fully yes or no; but can be somewhere in the middle.

What are the three stages of gathering new evidence?

searching stage

evaluation stage

updating stage

go in-depth on the what happens during the three stages (search, evaluate, update) of the process of finding new evidence?

searching stage-Look thoroughly at both sides of the argument and discover all the possible info about a situation

evaluate- using the nonbiased evidence you have gathered, create an opinion that reflects the truth of the situation

update-as time moves on go back to your opinion and continue searching and evaluating new evidence so your opinion can continue to remain correct

What is an inference?

Believing something new based off of beliefs/ opinions you already know

what makes up an argument?

A group of inferences

What makes up an inference?

premises and one or a couple conclusions

What is a premise?

-A statement that supports/ leads to the intended conclusion/ idea someone is trying to prove in an argument

What is a conclusion?

Our belief/ the stating of the idea we support

-many conclusions along with the ideas that support them(premises) together make up our evidence/ beliefs/ideas for an argument

what are two factors of a quality inference/ a strong argument?

-The premises are true

-The premises properly connect to, support, and prove the conclusion( high suppositional strength)

What is suppositional strength?

-How strongly a premise proves the conclusion/ how strong their connection is

The better the premise proves and connects to the conclusion/ desired belief, the more suppositionally strong the argument is

What does it mean if a specific premise is implicate?

-a claim that seems obvious to some so may be taken as common knowledge in an argument,

taken for granted and not mentioned.

-however it might not be common knowledge for everyone and can cause confusion in an argument

what does it mean if a premise entails its conclusion

-It means if this specific premise is true it also guarantees the truth of the conclusion- deductive

-Highest suppositional strength, because the premise fully proves the conclusion

example- P1-right now the sky is blue and it is light out 

C1-It is daytime

What is a deductive argument?

An argument that uses premises that entail/ guarantee the conclusion

-is more rare because its hard to find ideas that fully guarantee the conclusion

-Is easy to find ideas(premises) that would prove the conclusion if they were true, but more difficult to find premises and information that are in fact true.

What is an inductive argument?

When the premises have the opportunity to prove the conclusion, but it doesn’t guarantee the connection to the conclusion the way a deductive argument does; doesn't automatically confirm truth of conclusion

-used more commonly in daily life

-Is easier for finding true and correct information, but it is more difficult to connect the ideas to the conclusion you want to prove.

What types of baseline beliefs support premises?

-Direct perceptual beliefs: i can see something obvious so it is true; the thing on the table is an apple

-Self evident beliefs: so true and correct its absurd; sweden is a country

what is standard form, and what type of labels does it use to avoid confusion?

-Standard form is a way of organising the premises and conclusions of an inference/ argument.

-makes the argument easier to understand as it clearly labels all the aspects of an argument

P1- the first premise 

C1- the first conclusion 

P1/ C1 by deduct/ induct- shows if the argument was used deductively or inductively

What does it mean to use the principal of charity?

-Identifying the best and most realistic intended version of a person’s argument, despite errors they might make or a lack of clarity

-Involves identifying implicit premises they may not have mentioned that hinder their argument for others

-and asking if their argument is inductive or deductive (finding out if the conclusion is guaranteed will help you figure out whether to examine the truth of premises or their connections to the conclusion)

Comes with desire to identify the truth

what do you do when reconstructing?

break down argument and rebuild it in standard form to make it easier to understand and see each step and how they lead to the conclusion

what is the meaning of ambiguity and three main aspects of it?

Having confusion in a sentence because of misusing or mistaken English, or from a lack of specification when writing

3 examples-

lexical ambiguity

bare plurals

syntactic ambiguity 

What is lexical ambiguity?

Confusion because of two different words that have the same spelling and pronunciation

• bat- baseball bat or animal?

• Stool- chair with no back or poop😂

What is bare plurals

confusion in a sentence because of missing the determiner word, or a word that expresses how many of one thing are being talked about. 

___moose are evil

All, some, few, many moose are evil

what is syntactic ambiguity?

a sentence that could have two or more meanings because of being unclear or a lack of punctuation

newspaper: man shoots neighbor with machete

what is vagueness?

language used imprecisely

-can have borderline cases where one word doesn’t seem to apply to an object or idea, but also doesn’t not apply

-a stool, mountain, or puppy for example

What is generality?

When a word encompasses many different ideas or objects

plant is more general than tree

what is the sharp boarders fallacy

believing that anything real or useful cannot have borderline cases

-untrue; friendship and family are both examples of borderline cases but both very important/ meaningful