I bet pigeons recognize same sex marriage.

>> ^Payback:

I bet pigeons recognize same sex marriage.


So its for the birds then?

Turns out having superstitions and religions don't separate us from other animals, it just makes us more like them.

Turns out having superstitions can actually improve your golfing, motor dexterity, and memory: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/21/7/1014.short

I wish they'd also talked about pigeons' ability to discriminate types of art. Much more fun, and more interesting from a cognitive perspective, because it suggests concept formation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1334394/

You could almost say that superstition is like the Pavlov's dog experiment in humans.

>> ^RedSky:

You could almost say that superstition is like the Pavlov's dog experiment in humans.


mmmm... not so sure about that. I think Pavlov's experiment shows a response to a certain kind of stimulus (i.e. ringing a bell). Superstition is more like certain behaviors/actions triggering a reward (real or imagined), if I'm not mistaken. Which I often am...

Pavlov's dogs were trained to salivate because a certain sensory experience was always, every time, followed by them being fed, so it was a reasonable observation and reaction. Superstition is the irrational connection of an actual or potential effect and an imagined cause, which then governs future behaviour.

>> ^Gallowflak:

Pavlov's dogs were trained to salivate because a certain sensory experience was always, every time, followed by them being fed, so it was a reasonable observation and reaction. Superstition is the irrational connection of an actual or potential effect and an imagined cause, which then governs future behaviour.


Hope is irrational as well. There are many cases for irrationality, rationally speaking of course, err wait.

If superstition is a pattern detection failure. Does that make it a learning disability?

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^Gallowflak:
Pavlov's dogs were trained to salivate because a certain sensory experience was always, every time, followed by them being fed, so it was a reasonable observation and reaction. Superstition is the irrational connection of an actual or potential effect and an imagined cause, which then governs future behaviour.

Hope is irrational as well. There are many cases for irrationality, rationally speaking of course, err wait.


Do you actually think that is true; that hope is irrational? I would contend that, depending on the statistical probability of the outcome that you are hopeful for, hope is almost a default position because no one can entirely know what the future holds, so in that way, there always is hope.

I would also contend that individual hopes might be irrational, but not hope as a concept itself.

Just wanted to clarify what you meant. Obviously the hope that I'll see my dead mother again in an afterlife is an irrational hope but is the hope that I'll get the promotion that I applied for also/equally irrational?

Hope is an a positive position of bias. There is no certainty that unknown things will end up satisfying hopes. Bias is irrational. Being agnostic to uncertainty is the logical/reasonable stance to the unknown or unknowable. So hope, the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best, is irrational.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^Gallowflak:
Pavlov's dogs were trained to salivate because a certain sensory experience was always, every time, followed by them being fed, so it was a reasonable observation and reaction. Superstition is the irrational connection of an actual or potential effect and an imagined cause, which then governs future behaviour.

Hope is irrational as well. There are many cases for irrationality, rationally speaking of course, err wait.

Do you actually think that is true; that hope is irrational? I would contend that, depending on the statistical probability of the outcome that you are hopeful for, hope is almost a default position because no one can entirely know what the future holds, so in that way, there always is hope.
I would also contend that individual hopes might be irrational, but not hope as a concept itself.
Just wanted to clarify what you meant. Obviously the hope that I'll see my dead mother again in an afterlife is an irrational hope but is the hope that I'll get the promotion that I applied for also/equally irrational?

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Hope is an a positive position of bias. There is no certainty that unknown things will end up satisfying hopes. Bias is irrational. Being agnostic to uncertainty is the logical/reasonable stance to the unknown or unknowable. So hope, the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best, is irrational.


We’re talking about two different things then. You’re talking about the expected outcome of the hopeful events occurrence not matching initial expectation, and I’m talking about the desire for the event to occur regardless of whether or not expectation meets reality.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Hope is an a positive position of bias. There is no certainty that unknown things will end up satisfying hopes. Bias is irrational. Being agnostic to uncertainty is the logical/reasonable stance to the unknown or unknowable. So hope, the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best, is irrational.

We’re talking about two different things then. You’re talking about the expected outcome of the hopeful events occurrence not matching initial expectation, and I’m talking about the desire for the event to occur regardless of whether or not expectation meets reality.


Almost certainly, then, desire can't be seen as rational. Wanting gravitation to exist some other way, and hoping that it could isn't rational.

Using reason can't always get you to an answer. For example, the famous Buridan's ass example. There is a ass between 2 exact piles of hay. He is hungry, and wishes to eat the hay. Which pile of hay should he choose, more over, which one will he choose? Using only reason, and leaving it to no deus ex machina ( like making a random choice), choose for him. While I do wish to be a man of reason, I have to admit to myself that most times, I am not, and for many questions I will never have an answer.

I think most human choices are emotional rather than rational. We then use post-rationalization to justify our behavior. Why is eating meat any better than eating plants? Well, since we like meat more than veggi, we are quick to find answers to support ourselves. But our justifications leave wanting most times, and would really restrict us to eating nothing composed of biological matter if we fleshed out all of our conclusions to the logical ends. I am just ranting now, sorry. I love morality, rationality, and philosophy so much I hijack things

As a Christian, I put my hope in Jesus. I don't worry about situations and outcomes, nor do I fear for the future. I don't worry about death, or material things, or whether I am going to have "enough". I simply live in the moment, and dedicate that to God. I know that God is working to bring all things in my life to a good outcome. And funnily enough it always turns out that way. Hope isn't a denial of reality, it is an affirmation of it, and just as importantly, an absence of fear.

Yes, but how do you feel about pigeons?

>> ^shinyblurry:

As a Christian, I put my hope in Jesus. I don't worry about situations and outcomes, nor do I fear for the future. I don't worry about death, or material things, or whether I am going to have "enough". I simply live in the moment, and dedicate that to God. I know that God is working to bring all things in my life to a good outcome. And funnily enough it always turns out that way. Hope isn't a denial of reality, it is an affirmation of it, and just as importantly, an absence of fear.

>> ^entr0py:

If superstition is a pattern detection failure. Does that make it a learning disability?


What is being discussed here is indeed a pattern recognition / learning failure. You're overfitting to sparse data.

I think superstition in general is even less grounded in reality. Something like a black cat crossing your path -- people don't believe that is bad luck because one or two happenstance bad events. MAYBE the first guy who came up with that superstition had something like that happen to him, but I'm betting that's not the case.

STEPHEN FRY FOR POPE

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