Philosophy Study Questions

PHI 101C HW6 10/18/2012 Qiansongzi Chen 1. How might the constructive spirit of your perceptions play a role in what you pick up while youre walking at night through a graveyard tell to be visited by spirits of the dead? Constructive perception is in part something that our minds manu featureure. Thus what we perceive is determined, non only by what our look and ears and other senses detect, but alike by what we know, what we expect, what we believe, and what our physiological state is.Just because something seems or feels real doesnt mean that it is real. 2. What atomic number 18 some of the factors that could influence the verity of your memory of an event that happened three years ago? Our memories argon too constructive and easily influenced by al cardinal sorts of factors stress, expectation, belief, and the introduction of new information. Added to all this is the selectivity of memory. We selectively remember certain things and send away others, directting up a rec all bias. No wonder the recall of eyewitness is often un real. 3.Lets say that an incredible coincidence occurs in your life, and your friend argues that the odds against the occurrences argon so astronomical that the only explanation must be a para median(prenominal) one. What is wrong with this argument? Just because something seems not so realistic, doesnt mean it can only be apologizeed by paranormal formers. Its an example of the appeal to ignorance. Just because you cant show that the unreal or paranormal explanation is false doesnt mean that it is true. Unfortunately, although this conclude is logically fallacious, it is psychologically compelling. 4.How is it possible for the prophecies of Nostradamus to appear to be highly entire and yet not be? Prophecies of Nostradamus can be highly sinless when they forestall very general and broad things, when they predict a particular(prenominal) thing, it usually fails to be accurate. Also, people tent to only notice the things prophecies predict and turn out to be true, and ignore the things turn out to be false. 5. What is the principle that explicates how much trust we should put in private know as reliable evidence? Its reasonable to accept personal experience as reliable evidence only if theres no reason to doubt its reliability.Personal experience just principally cannot fix the effectiveness of a interposition beyond a reasonable doubt. 6. What is stay bias? How does it affect our thinking? Not only do we bestow a crap a slantency to ignore and misinterpret evidence that conflicts with our own views we also have tendency to look for and recognize only evidence that confirms them. We tend to look for confirming rather than disconfirming evidence, even though the latter(prenominal) can often be far more revealing. 7. What is the availability fracture? How does it affect our thinking?The availability error occurs when people base their judgments on evidence thats vivid or memorable instead of reliable or trustworthy. 8. How do confirmation bias and the availability error go past to superstitious beliefs? The availability error not only leads us to ignore the relevant evidence, it also leads us to ignore relevant hypotheses. For any set of data, it is, in principle, possible to construct any number of divergent hypotheses to key out for the data. In practice, however, it is often difficult to come up with many different hypotheses.As a result, we often end up choosing among only those hypotheses that come to mind, that are available. In the case of unusual phenomena, the only explanations that come to mind are often supernatural or paranormal ones. Many people take the inability to come up with a natural or normal explanation for something as proof that it is supernatural or paranormal. How else can you explain it? they often ask. 9. What is the argument from unnecessary restrictions? How can it be used to tenderloin supernatural or paranormal claims?Unnecessary restriction also called untenable design, because the phenomena observed are more limited or restricted than one would expect if the supposition were true. To be acceptable, a hypothesis must harmonize the data this means not only that the hypothesis must explain tha data, but also that the data explained must be consistent with what the hypothesis predicts. If the hypothesis makes predictions that are not borne out by the data, there is reason to doubt the hypothesis. 10. What is the representativeness heuristic? How does it affect our thinking?We sometimes led astray by the representative heuristic, the rule of thumb that like goes with like. And we are generally poor judges of probabilities and randomness, which leads us to erroneously believe that an event could not possibly be a mere coincidence. 11. Why cant personal experience alone establish the effectiveness of a interference? Case studies alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reaso nable doubt. The reality is that personal experience alone generally cannot establish the effectiveness of a treatment beyond a reasonable doubt, but controlled scientific studies. 2. What is the placebo effect? A peculiar fact about people is that sometimes even if they are given a treatment thats inactive or bogus, theyll respond with an improvement in the way they feel. This response , called the placebo effect, is not all in the mind, it can train both psychological and physiological changes. What exactly is behind this effect isnt clear, but many experts say it depends on suggestibility, operant conditioning (previous experience with healing act), expectation, and other factors.