Hi Paul. We agree that reflection is more than day-dreaming even though day-dreaming involves one aspect of of reflection: it’s conscious, but not deliberate part.

Day-dreaming seems most similar to (and may just be an instance of) what I call “rumination” in the paper. I mention mind-wandering as an example.

Hi Paul. There may have been a day when I was tempted to agree with the view you articulated in that comment. However, my current view of theists (and atheists) is less extreme. As we say in the paper, reflective thinking predicted slightly higher odds of apostasy. And the apostates performed only slightly better on reflection tests (than everyone else), if I recall correctly. That is compatible with marginal rather than categorical or even characteristic differences in reflective thinking between theists and atheists. That is, I don’t think we can classify all theists as reflexive and all atheists as reflective; we can’t even say that these contrasting reasoning styles characterize each group. Rather, I’d expect the distributions of reflective thinking for each group to mostly overlap with a relatively small gap in their means.

Are atheists more reflective? Sure they are! They are not bound by the shackles of theistic custom, dogma and tradition.Keep up your good work, Dr. Byrd! I appreciate it, immensely.

I am not familiar with what Kevin Currie-Knight has said that is relevant here. Feel free to point us to it (as well as your remark that you referred to). A few searches on Google Scholar didn’t return any obvious candidates.

It may not be beyond what I have in mind than different. I am not sure that reflection must be abstract or concrete, warm or cool, bright or shadowy. People like me think of reflection as involving two things: stepping back from our initial impulse and consciously considering reasons (for/against that or an alternative impulse).

Hi Jim! From the post: “In a recent project in which we—among other things—tested four identical surveys on multiple platforms (see the image at the top of the post)….” We’ll post the preprint as soon as it’s ready.

Here’s the link to the preprint (Byrd 2023), with an improved visualization of the same difference(s) in data quality (one of the earliest figures in the short paper): https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/y8sdm

Indeed. We reflect on very (very!) little of what we perceive and think.

The other path to follow is: what of this data we “consciously” choose to filter, moral or not? What of the data entering our eyes is turned into something we can see? What of it is there but ignored by the human algorithm? I don’t mean aliens. I mean we literally ignore most of the light and sound spectrum. Then there’s dark, matter, gravity, etc.

I see. So reflection is more like garbage sorting, on that view. What I like about that analogy is that it fits with the idea that all thoughts begin pre-reflectively and can then be processed more reflectively, depending on various factors (e.g., perhaps free will). One processed reflectively, we might reject some of the pre-reflective thoughts (like garbage), but keep or endorse other pre-reflective thought (sort of like recycling). So thoughts may begin like a single-stream of material that gets can be sorted into waste and recyclable material.

What I meant is, in short, if we take Sartre’s pre-reflective cogito and call that garbage collection, reflection could be “free will” or something that I haven’t considered. Reflection is the chance to choose which data is garbage.

Thank you for bearing with my coronapacted dialogue.

Without hearing more, nothing comes to mind.

I bore myself. What would you say about it?

Well that’s an interesting analogy. Feel free to say more!

I had another thought on this that I’d like to have on the record. Self-relfelction is like garbage collection.

Thanks for the perspective and the kind words, Nathaniel!

Aside: I can neither confirm nor deny that I am not a bot. I often want to be a bot, and many of my officemates have told me that I work like a bot, but I have yet to undergo Turing testing. ????

It seems like we think rather similarly; I hope you are not a bot. I find reflection to be of the utmost importance.

To subjectively and concretely define virtue and reflection, I’ll simply state how I consider them. I like Aristotle’s model of virtue. Virtue is moderation. Reflection is to self-consciously consider one’s environment and actions.

Reflection is not inherently good or bad, it’s like running a computer program. The mind wants to believe it’s doing something novel, putting together ideas. Realistically, the brain is running the “human” algorithm, which is a quite flawed model. I believe this to be a separate discussion.

Thankfully, our definition of virtue saves us in answering your question. Processing information requires energy. If the amount of energy used to process the information is excessive or lacking, the processor will not function correctly (regardless of the algorithm).

To put it another way, if we believe that the continuation of the self is inherently virtuous, one must moderate. The only way I know to moderate is to reflect. The only lesson I got from War and Peace was that in times of uncertainty, the bast action is inaction. I’m not sure about Tolstoy’s stance on Aristotle.

Thank you for putting so much on your site.

I see. There are empiricists who find teleology compatible with their empiricism. Here’s one: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/purpose-driven-life

I wish you and the choir well!

I also sing in the UU choir…

Hi Marvin,

Thanks for sharing this. Is the idea that mechanisms are teleological? If so, that would provide another way to distinguish mechanisms from none mechanisms: one is teleological and others are not. One potential problem with a teleological view would be whether and how it squares with empiricism—some empiricism find teleology to be non-empirical/natural and thereby anathema.

From my limited readings in neuroscience, I understand that evolution has hardwired some successful behaviors, while also providing intelligence to allow ad hoc adaptation to a changing environment.

An ad hoc adaptation may be to come up with a method to deal with something new.

Thanks for clarifying, John! And thanks for your great paper with Ellerton and Kinkead! Glad you linked to the YouTube version of the paper’s video. I could find it only on the paper’s webpage. I will see about embedding the video soon.

Yes, the claim “may be caused by shifting poles” as written is an inductive claim – our paper focused exclusively on deductive claims. FYI, we are now working on a follow-up paper, exploring the different types of inductive denialist claims and a critical thinking response. Stay tuned…

BTW, Nick, please feel free to embed our video abstract :-)
https://youtu.be/XAp1Foj7BzY

I wonder if you could lay out the steps of that reductio.

Why should something being difficult for formalize or controversial make it non-cognitive? That is practically a reductio.

You mention that ethics seems significant. Carnap can agree: it’s non-cognitively significant. But that’s not a metric of progress. And most ethicists don’t even agree with that claim.

Unless and until ethicists can agree on a common metric of progress (analogous to science’s well-confirmed generalizations), it is unclear how to formalize ethics (like Carnap does for epistemology) and thereby track its progress.

So even if ethics seems important, it cannot — by its own lights, in its current form — be formalized so precisely as Carnap’s view of philosophy and cannot make progress the way that Carnap’s view of philosophy can. So if formalism and progress matter to you, then you might have two reasons to prefer Carnap’s version of philosophy to what ethicists offer.

I have never been able to understand the jump from “claims that matter” to “they must be empirically verifiable.” Ethics is a good example. I can’t think of an empirical test that would show a certain action to be immoral, but it seems like ethical claims matter a great deal. Honestly, in reading Carnap all I can think is that his work is a post hoc rationalization for the conviction that science can explain everything. But why, no matter how clever his system is, should I buy this?

So both of us made lots of claims about philosophy or science, but only one of us offers textual evidence from philosophy and science. I think it’s pretty clear where the burden lies and who isn’t bearing that burden.

You really do not understand Popper nor logic and its value to philosophy. You did not even mention it in your article.

I sign off with this.

1. Where does Popper say that today’s unfalsified claims are true? And how does Popper’s view show that Science can do without philosophy? You’ve named what is to be shown, but you’ve not shown it.
2. So you’re no longer claiming that “philosophy has logic for its claim to truth”. That might help eliminate the seeming contradiction.

1. Falsifiability means what is true today may not be in the future. So it assumes and goes beyond verification. And you should know Popper has an evolutionary notion of truth. But all these confirm my initial claim that science is self-regulating.
2. Logic distinguishes philosophy from leperchauns. And it is logic that legitimizes philosophy’s claims for meanings, aesthetics, the profound.

Interesting. The kind of continuity that Quine and Carnap would endorse would not include claims to external realism or free will — if those are supposed to be claims about metaphysical reality. Perhaps you have a different kind of continuity in mind than Quine’s or Carnap‘s.

If by ‘elaborate on’ you mean I’ve given reasons to think that your claims are either false or contradictory, then I suppose I’ve elaborated on your points.
1. Where does Popper say that falsifiability means verification?
2. How is “philosophy has logic for its claim to truth” consistent with “truth is not logic’s job”? Unless more is said, your two claims seem to constitute a contradiction.

There are many other foundational philosophical and scientific stances that are not empirical. Our society emphasizes the empirical largely because of its material and acquisitive focus. If our values included an appropriate balance of inner life, including arts, aesthetics, and the realms of pure spirit and pure thought, we might be more accepting of the unempirical foundations of knowledge.

I think you mean, “this author knows neither his science nor his philosophy well,” n’est-ce pas?

All you did was elaborate on the points I’ve made.
1. Falsifiability means verification.
2. Truth is not logic’s job but it ain’t the monopoly of science either.

1. Where does Popper argue that science can verify its claims? I’ve only read Popper argue the opposite. E.g., “The falsification of the prediction shows that the explicans is false, yet the reverse of this does not hold: it is incorrect and grossly misleading to think that we can interpret the ‘verification’ of the prediction as ‘verifying’ the explicans or even a part of it. For a true prediction may easily have been validly deduced from an explicans that is false.” (Objective Knowledge, Appendix).

2. How exactly does logic confer truth for philosophy? Validity only confers truth on a conclusion when premises are true. But logic doesn’t itself confer truth on premises.