In a polarized society, most people believe that those on the opposite side are there because they are ignorant. How sure are we of the truth of what we know
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I continue from where I left off in the last post.
We commence learning as we are born. I don't know how young children learn to talk, walk, and develop basic motor skills. The methods used by engineers trying to teach similar skills to machines may shed light on human learning methods. Maybe.
In robotics, end-effector position control is not easy. That's why factory robots are built very stiff relative to the force they exert. Thirty years ago, I had a PhD student working on automating rock bolters used in underground mines. The machines were hydraulic, and the final effector swayed almost like a fishing line as it approached the rock. It was impossible with the technology of that day to take the human out of the loop and place the final effector to the desired positions on the rock under computer control and stab the rock bolt.
If you want a more everyday example, consider this: we have no difficulty, even in darkness, in bringing the soup spoon from the plate to our mouths. This is no easy task. Eleanor (my granddaughter) is learning this trick these days. At first, she used to bring the spoon to her cheek then to her chin, but now she manages to find her mouth. So she instinctively solved the inverse kinematics problem.
Young children easily learn skills that automated robots have yet to master:
Putting the spoon in our mouths, not our ears (machines do the same thing by solving systems of inverse kinematic equations)
Learning to speak by imitating the sounds of those around us and correcting our mistakes according to their reaction (the so-called Human Reinforcement Learning method used by major language models today)
Recognize that our parents and other people can say different things and learn to reconcile conflicting statements and use it to our advantage (like Kalman Filters that combine different data and reach a single conclusion).
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I believe we use a method similar to Kalman Filtering when combining the data obtained from different sources. We do it unconsciously, just as we solve systems of inverse kinematic equations while bringing the soup spoon to our mouth.
Kalman Filters in our Brains
Referring to an article written by Rudolf Kalman in 1961, the method called Kalman filtering is used by engineers to produce predictions, and control signals based on these predictions, using measurements. Some of these measurements are allowed to be incorrect, some noisy, some discontinuous. While calculating the plane's altitude, for example, the autopilot on the plane combines the data from multiple sensors (eg radar altimeter, barometer, GPS and calculations from maps) and recalculates the position and altitude of the aircraft every second according to new data coming in and continues flying. Noisy signals are either used very little, or Kalman filtering completely ignores them. In contrast, trusted sensors are given more weight and have a greater impact on the outcome.
While the autopilot tries to reconcile the information from five sensors and find the right flight path, a human lives by reconciling data from tens or even hundreds of sources. We developed the Kalman filters in our brains when we lived in caves and were hunting mammoths. Researchers who study hunter-gatherer societies (for example, Page et al, 2017) point to the complexity of social relations in these societies. An individual living in such a society would perhaps have to be more adept at reading people's intentions than a modern city dweller. Since there was no social welfare, they had to take care of each other when they were sick, share their food when they were hungry, protect each other against wild animals or hostile groups, and for this they had to form relationships based on mutual trust. They would decide on whom and how much to trust, based on whatever information was available, even if information was incomplete or insufficient. The result of the wrong decision could be a fake comrade who stole your provisions and fled when you were injured. Those who knew how to make correct judgments about others by reading multiple signals were able to transfer their genes to future generations.
I'm sure our brain, which is much more complex than the Kalman filter, is much more adept at reconciling conflicting data.
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Metropoles and Small Towns
Türkiye is not the only country where rural and metropolitan people vote differently. For example, as the countries I know of, USA, UK and Australia are also similar. I don't think the others will be much different.
It is normal for villagers and urbanites, who are fed from different sources of information, to look at the world from different perspectives. Of course, there are always exceptions.
Different does not mean right nor wrong. In any case, there is no generic right or wrong for political choices. Choices that will increase the welfare of some segments of the society may impoverish others. Then the rightfulness or wrongfulness of your choice depends on the side you come from.
Both urban and rural children generally grow up thinking like their parents (for example, Okolikj, 2023, who states that 15-year-olds in Belgium think like their parents on many issues; or in the USA, it is seen that parents and children are similar in political preferences even though there are differences in other cultural issues, measured by Tedin, 1972). Preferences not ossified at a young age may change according to the interactions occurring after leaving home.
All over the world, those living in small towns, where opportunities for interacting with others are limited, tend to be more conservative. With less chance to engage in other discourses, they are more inclined to continue to think not unlike their parents and ultimately transfer these views to their own children.
I do not think that social media tools will change this situation, because on social media platforms, people come together with those who think like them, and they do not have a serious exchange of views with those who have different opinions.
Saying that urban people have more opportunities to change their minds does not mean that everyone living in big cities is open to new ideas. Also, not every new idea is right. In today's world with a wide variety of tools available for manipulating public opinion, sometimes being open to new ideas may not be a beneficial trait for a society. The conservatism of the provinces then becomes an element of stability and defense in such situations.
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What is the Truth?
Four types of truth may be of interest in our context:
Issues that humanity has resolved in the past and which are no longer argued, but which I personally do not know.
Propositions that can be proven to be true or false if and when sufficient material evidence is collected. Some people may even be claiming that they have such evidence but their claim may not be generally shared.
Theoretically resolvable by scientific research, but it is difficult or even impossible to carry out this research.
Propositions that cannot be proven true or false by observations or experimentation.
Type 1
The first type is the easiest. Since we can access the knowledge warehouse of humanity from our home computer, personal effort is sufficient to resolve them.
Type 2
The second kind of propositions/questions are the most troublesome ones. Troublesome because by appropriate research it is possible to arrive at a correct conclusion, but it is not easy for an individual to do this research.
Examples
What is the protection of the COVID vaccines, what is the risk?
Does someone who has had COVID-19 still need to be vaccinated?
Or, on a more political issue, who broke the Kahkovka dam in Ukraine and why?
Or, if the world continues to burn fossil fuels at the current rate, what will be the effects on the climate, water resources, agricultural economy of Australia or Turkey?
Or how much more could the US government debt increase?
The last two questions, the effects of climate change and the US debt cap, are a little different because the definitive answers will only be learned by experience. At the moment, only scenario and risk analysis can be done.
There are those with good answers to other questions; either because they are first-hand witnesses or they found the evidence by research. But they do not disclose. This creates good grist for the rumour mills. Those who don't know, make it up; some of those who know, lie; some tell the truth; and some deliberately try to deflect the subject by starting with half-truths. None of this is surprising, because massive fortunes depend on the answers to these questions.
Type 3
The third type of issues are those who are best discussed over a cartoon of beer. Otherwise, they are also a waste of time.
Examples of Type 3 Questions
Why do some of the far-right (almost all) in the US and some leftists in Turkey share the same views on Putin? Or,
Are individual freedoms more important or social duties?
Is there any other life in the universe?
Other than wasting your time, there is no harm in discussing these issues as long as you accept that the truth cannot be discovered by arguing.
Type 4
For Type 4 propositions, the answer is not only unknown but also not knowable.
Example for a Type 4 Question
Some suggested that the last pandemic was a scourge of the world entity Gaia (or God), in response to raging capitalist growth (or rampant immorality). It is not enough to indicate that a virus spread the pandemic, because for proponents of such arguments, the virus is the tool that the world (or God) has chosen to inflict this punishment. They might acknowledge that the God acts in mysterious ways.
So how do we find the truth for knowable questions?
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Fountains of our Knowledge
I will try to explain how we decide on truth by comparing that function of our brain to a Kalman filter. I'll relate my own experience. You may have more effective methods.
First, there must be a model in mind. My first model is probably what I learned from my parents as a child.
Some may have in their minds a model capable of explaining everything, such as Einstein's Unified Field Theory. The model in my head is eclectic. Sometimes there can even be contradictory models co-existing in my head.
A model or a template is essential; otherwise you will not know what to do with the data you acquire and at best would become a know-it-all smart alec.
I take the model or models in my mind seriously, but I am always open to the possibility of revision or wholesale change as new data come in.
Just as the Kalman filter uses sensor data to update models, I am constantly collecting data to update the models in my head. I'm picky. I only have time for people and publications where I can get new interesting information.
When you follow a limited number of publications, in time you get to know them better. An example is Claire Berlinski (Cosmopolitan Globalist), who I subscribe to from Substack and who sometimes writes on Turkey. I thought she was reliable until a few days ago when she immediately blamed Russia the day after the dam explosion in Ukraine and accused those who think otherwise as being Putin’s trolls. This was too soon to be so sure of one’s truth I thought. Around the same time, Tucker Carlson blamed Ukraine and Zelensky with conviction on Twitter Spaces. I will continue to watch both, but with some reservations. The Kalman filter can also use biased sensor data if the direction and amount of bias is known.
I can't watch channels or read articles that keep repeating themselves. Even if I agree with the content, I get bored.
I'm trying to record news items that I find interesting. This has become much easier. I use Obsidian as my notebook.
To give some context to the above notes, I conclude by listing the sources of information I use these days, click: My News Feeds.
References
Okolikj, M., Hooghe, M. Political congruence between adolescence and their parents: evidence from a quasi-experimental local elections in the city of Ghent (Belgium). Acta Polit 58, 101–117 (2023).
Page AE, Chaudhary N, Viguier S, Dyble M, Thompson J, Smith D, Salali GD, Mace R, Migliano AB. Hunter-Gatherer Social Networks and Reproductive Success. Sci Rep. 2017 Apr 25;7(1):1153.
Tedin, K. L. (1974). The Influence of Parents on the Political Attitudes of Adolescents. The American Political Science Review, 68(4), 1579–1592.
ICYMI
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Fox News
MSU Professor reportedly forced her class to fund a movement controlled by herself. Six hundred students taking Amy Wisner’s Business Marketing course were asked to subscribe at $99 each to “Rebellion Community”, which is a leftist and radical feminist web site. The web site was founded by the lecturer herself and she probably controlled how the funds were spent. Apparently, the university refunded the students and sacked the lecturer. This means of course the university ended up indirectly having funded the web site. I have two questions about this:
How did the Michigan State Authority Quality Control miss one of its professors taxing her students on her personal whim? In our university, I needed to get special dispensation if students taking my course needed to pay for a component of the course even for a legitimate item, e.g. field trip expenses, the idea being that the tuition fee should cover all expenses.
I have subscription to Guardian and New York Times. Why did neither newpaper report on this?
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BBC Future
Gender made little difference for people living 9,000 years ago in Çatalhöyük, in modern-day Turkey: men and women had identical diets and did similar kinds of work. So what changed? History points to patriarchy beginning not with agriculture, work that requires physical strength, but with those in power. “Person power is the key to power in general,” explains anthropologist James Scott. The elites in the first states needed people to produce resources for them and to defend the state. Women were expected to focus on having more babies and were eventually pushed into the domestic shadows.
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Whose Body, Dorothy L Sayers
I just finished a novel by Dorothy Sayers, a contemporary of Agatha Christie: Whose Body? Written in 1923, it was her first book. I like period books. They provide good insights to that time. The year 1923 seems subjectively a very old time to me, but it was only 50 years before our university years. Another fifty years have passed since college. This implies that some events that seem like yesterday to me seem like ancient history to today's youth.
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Diary
The weather was fine last Wednesday. I thought I'd take a bike ride to Bulimba creek. I took the bike path that goes by the Freeway, looking for the path to Bulimba Creek.
After pedaling south for three kilometers, I left the freeway.
After the traffic lights, I found the Bulimba Creek.
This is a picture of Bulimba Creek. The weather was dry last week, yet the creek was full.
Bridge over the creek:
This is flood plains. The bars on the rod would show the water height.
I went back home close to dark. I thought I took more pictures, but this was it on my phone.
In reality there are lots of people who don't what they don't know but have strong opinion about everything fed by the post truth era social media!
This post with the previous one was a thought provoking exercise for me. I have to read all once more to properly comprehend. Thank you, Halim! I would like add one quote that perfectly fits this topic:
"Only a few know, how much one must know to know how little one knows."
-- Werner Heisenberg (1901 - 1976)