| ▲ | nine_k 5 hours ago | |
> they should more or less discount their personal observations, reasoning, and experience when it goes counter to the data. OK, I look at two objects [1] and posit that object B is larger than object A. I see it with my very eyes, I directly experience this feeling of largeness and smallness. How dare any data, any calipers or rulers (must be oppressive rulers!) tell me that my perception is wrong, and the sizes are equal? The whole thing is based on the idea that seeing with one's own eyes is somehow not interpretation, but unadulterated truth. This is, unfortunately, not exactly so. No matter who you ask, Buddhist practitioners or cognitive scientists, anyone who paid attention to the problem know that "direct experience" is not very direct. Tools to rectify biases in perception exist, and statistics (when properly implemented) are one such tool. But accepting one's own bias is psychologically hard; it's much easier to think that all these other people have a bias, or several. (It's an important part of growing up though.) | ||