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The Only Game in Town Fallacy

April 18, 2018

What Is the Only Game in Town Fallacy

Suppose we’re in my living room, watching TV. We suddenly hear a peculiar noise, one we have never heard before. We are completely baffled about its origin. “It must be a unicorn flying over the house,” I say. “Get out of here!” you reply. “Well, do you have another explanation?” I retort. You shake your head, at loss for words. “Then I’m right, it’s a unicorn,” I say. Welcome to the only game in town fallacy.

The only game in town fallacy is essentially a placeholder. It is not a valid argument, because it is nothing more but an ad hoc explanation. In other words, it’s something you come up with to simply avoid saying “I don’t know”. The idea of divinity is essentially nothing more but the only game in town fallacy. “God did it” – another version is “Aliens did it”.

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Simple Answers to Complex Problems: Mediocrity 101

February 20, 2018

Society

democracy, economy, education, idiocy, ignorance, responsibility, social media, society

Seeking simple answers to complex problems is to an extent part of human nature. Since the dawn of time, humans have had the need to find explanations to the grand mysteries surrounding them. And so thunder was the work of Zeus. Earthquakes occurred because titans were wrestling. As for seeing the moon mysteriously disappearing every now and then, that was a result of a hungry dragon. Right? Right?

Part of the issue of seeking simple answers to complex questions is related to human nature; particularly our relationship to time.

[Reflection] endows man with that thoughtfulness which so completely distinguishes his consciousness from that of the animal, and through which his whole behaviour on earth turns out so differently from that of his irrational brothers. He far surpasses them in power and in suffering. They live in the present alone; he lives at the same time in the future and the past. They satisfy the need of the moment; he provides by the most ingenious preparations for his future, nay, even for times that he cannot live to see. They are given up entirely to the impression of the moment, to the effect of the motive of perception; he is determined by abstract concepts independent of the present moment.
(Schopenhauer, Arthur. The World as Will and Representation. 1 st ed. 1958. Translated by E.F.J. Payne. New York: Dover, 1969. p 36)

But what does that mean, especially for our topic, that is the tendency to seek simple answers to complex problems?

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Self-Deception: Psychology and Meaning

February 16, 2018

Philosophy

citizen, ignorance, reason, responsibility, self-deception, society

Until recently, I lived with a certain false assumption: that people would want to know the truth. Furthermore, I used to think that once people discovered the truth (even accidentally) they would never be able to reject it. How can you hold an unjustified false belief, right? But recently, I realized that I was wrong. There are indeed people (who knows, maybe they are a majority) that prefer self-deception over truth.

In other words, such people prefer the beautiful lie instead of an ugly truth. Or, rather, they prefer to beautify the lie so that they don’t have to ponder on the possible qualitative attributes of the truth. Furthermore, I’ve discovered something incredible, which shouldn’t even be possible, according to philosophy and epistemology. Unlike what I mentioned above, there seem to be many people who can hold an unjustified false belief.

In plain English, they are capable of believing something that isn’t supported by evidence and is false (and, the implication is, they know it to be false). In other words, not only are they performing self-deception, but they do so knowingly and willingly.

Let’s take a closer look at this phenomenon – I’ll also throw in a story connecting Jesus and Donald Duck 😛

self-deception — Knowledge is justified true belief

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