Why Facts Don't Change Minds (But Stories Do)
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- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2024
- Proponents of "facts and logic" think that anecdotes are useless. Here's why they're wrong.
Sources:
---Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right - Michael Brooks
---Facts Don't Care About Your Feelings - Ben Shapiro
---Metaphors We Live By - George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
---Minds Made for Stories - Thomas Newkirk
---Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think - George Lakoff
---Nervous States: Democracy and the Decline of Reason - William Davies
---Out of Our Minds - Sir Ken Robinson
---Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
---“Actually, Facts Do Care about Your Feelings” - Atticus Goldfinch; / actually-facts-do-care...
---“Feelings don’t care about your facts: Conservatives should tell more stories” - Brooke Conrad; hillsdalecolleg...
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Minds Made for Stories: amzn.to/3wf7xiK
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cat on lap starts at 11:54
My feelings care deeply about this fact!
Zoe is a Bond villain confirmed.
Thank you for the time stamp. Very important.
This timestamp is the entire reason I subbed to this channel.
Not watching the stuff before that then! All cats are beautiful!
cats: God's perfect killing machines
also cat's: "im baby"
*purrfect
also cats*
Zoologist, Desmond Morris wrote a book based on this premise: cats are wild animals when they step outside their homes and kittens while with their humans. It’s called Cat Watching and only takes a couple of hours to read.
@@marmadukescarlet7791 "only takes a couple of hours to read" turn that into a few hours for lazy ppl like me lol
@@marmadukescarlet7791 you think that's why she named her cat Desmond?
[Desmond continues to purr quite vociferously]
You have the greatest captioning on RUclips.
~discourse~
@@defensivekobra3873 when it's about Desmond the cat, it's Descourse.
...I'll see myself out.
Cattioning, if you will
I don't know. Critical Roles's "Eerily accurate cawing sounds" is also pretty good, but I haven't been paying attention to them very often so it might just be a single outstanding line.
I think that relationships change minds more than anything else. When you come to care about another human being you don't want them to be mistreated because of their race, religion, gender, etc. You don't want them to get hurt or die. Hearing that thousands of strangers died in a conflict in a far away country isn't as upsetting as hearing that your friend who lives in the same town that you do died from an accident or disease.
Absolutely - my grampy is very conservative and is unlikely to fully change his outlook on life, but in the last few years he's grown closer to people on benefits and trans people and suddenly is much more open to the ideas that people on benefits aren't all scroungers and that trans people are people.
Also to this point: it isn't quite as strong of a relationship but parasocial/fan relationships can also have this effect to a degree, which is one of many reasons why we say representation matters - basically while we logically know that the people on TV are actors playing a role, our dumb monkey brains can't tell the difference between a nice kind person on the TV and our nice kind neighbor and starts to think about them fondly.
@@swishyclang9175 The grandpa redemption arc. Nice.
Makes sense! Relationships are story- adjacent, they suit our brains iiib the sane way. But a good story helps you connect to people you can't have a relationship with
i agree with this take but there is the phenomenom of "having a black friend so i cant be racist" or "i have a black husband and/or a black child so i cant be racist". all forms of changing people's minds do have some amount it doesnt change the mind of wholly sadly.
but i still fully agree with you that relationships are probably our best bet. being exposed to all kinds of people and forming bonds as others in this thread have pointed out develops a lot of empathy and comraderie between unlikely people. i didnt think id relate to a white english teacher from appalachia but here we are
Hello, yes, here is a comment for engagement. A deep dive into "Thinking Fast and Slow" sounds amazing.
I second this
I nanosecond this!
++
++++
I’d watch that
Plot twist the cat was calculated to appeal to our feelings to make the video more comfortable to watch 🤔
Unlikely. You can't control cats.
I don't easily trust someone that doesn't hold a willing cat.
Felines don't care about the facts.
Zoe: now imagine 10 chairs. Easy peasy, right?
Me, already in tears: uhhh...
Now imagine 3+7i chairs~
Me who doesn't have a "mind's eye" I cannot imagine one
@@dolfuny I've only recently learned about this, and ever since, l've imagined something unique weekly to make sure l can imagine something that l didn't use memories for.
It's usually easy to imagine 5 chairs. When you have that, double the mental image. It's pretty easy when you use tricks. I think that I could have done the higher numbers if she just gave me a few minutes. There wasn't enough time to build mental chair group spreadsheets and size comparisons for proper scaling.
@@sadanyagci yeah I just can’t even picture one chair, I can’t really picture things visually for more than a few seconds lol 😅
Most important question: HOW MANY CATS DO YOU HAVE and what are their names, i need this for impassionate cold hard science
She also has a dog i think.
Oh and according to captions the one in this video is named Desmond.
@@shlok975 oh nice like Desmond from rdcworld1
To add a story to the point at 9:00 about adding human qualities to things that don't have them: There's a term used among coders called "rubber duck debugging" which usually involves talking through how code should work versus how it is working, and figuring out where the code is wrong (Edited to add: I forgot to finish this thought; typically people would talk to other people about the code, but a lot of times found that they'd start asking the question and finish by answering the question themselves, and started talking to inanimate objects instead to save time. The favorite object for this, as the name suggests, is the humble rubber duck) . This isn't quite that, but overwhelmingly the language we use when debugging does this "Well, the code should take these three numbers and order them biggest to smallest, but if two of the numbers are the same it gets confused and crashes." or "It runs smoothly most of the time, but it gets angry if you give it usernames over 32 characters" - we know that this is literally just something that was written by us and is a set of instructions that gets followed, but breaking it down in those human terms helps us with another "translation" if you will, from the cold machine instructions that aren't working to our brains actually understanding what the code is doing.
(those are simple examples off the top of my head, but this works well for most complex issues you'll run into.)
I’m not a coder but I can totally understand talking to objects to troubleshoot. My aloe plant is a very good listener!
As a software engineer I also found myself thinking about the way we abstract system design, describing it in a way that you could tell stories about to understand what it is supposed to be doing.
Code on a screen can be hard to glean all the meaning out of, pictures (diagrams) and stories like user flows, the way we describe the operation of the system...
Yeah. Interesting food for thought!
I would also add that code is also a means of telling a story about how the computer reacts (ought to react) to certain inputs. In reality there is,of course, no code or story, just binary switches. But the brain doesn't deal with all those 1's and 0's any better than visualising a trillion chairs, so we invent programming languages to help it stick in the mind with a story.
ive heard about this thanks to knowing an engineer and the normie equivalent to rubber duck debugging is typing something into google and realizing the answer just before searching it
Finishing my CS Degree next year and the most common phrase I hear when debugging intelisense errors is "Let's figure out why it's screaming at you". We treat the program as a living thing lol
All arguments that people make are 100% improved by holding an affectionate cat
I'm allergic to cats. If the improvement is turning an argument into a passive aggressive threat, sure. That's one way to win an argument. :)
This is a fact that I have strong feelings over
not if you are a bold British dude
Spectre agrees
I hope you never feel the need to apologize for your cat because the cat is SO GOOD.
The real superposition of cats is between being adorable and being in the way all the time, haha.
As a rule, I instantly fall in love with anyone that uses the phrase "superposition of cats" in an intelligent and clever way. So... yeah.
I, in highschool, had called Pathos "cheating".
I admitted Pathos worked, had even worked best, and I saw that as a shred of subhumanity that infected all.
I'm out of college now.
I feel that, I used to actively avoid using Pathos because it felt like I was distracting from my argument and acting manipulative to sell my ideas. Eventually though, I came to accept that you Cannot Convince Someone Without Emotional Appeals. Just spouting logical, statistically-proven arguments does nothing to convince people to Not be bigoted unless you can relate that to the person you're arguing with.
Had a guy argue that the best thing humans could do is to get rid of all emotion. I was like... wtf....
Oh no! I never went to college! And I felt that way in high school! I'm still struggling with how manipulative all this feels!
@@RaeIsGaee good point! I find it odd that whilst most poets and artists are lefties, it is the far right who are first to draw from the well of empathy and emotion when they have no logical arguments to make. We should always be asking "who will think of the children" as it is always the case that lefty policies do actually care about the children
@@aderyn7600 why did he care about it then? Hmm?
Why is she so ridiculously brilliant? An excellent, well-spoken professional educator who crafts effective arguments and writes clever, heartwarming poems to boot. And probably a little younger than me. What the hell am I doing with my life?
Just finding your own way. Nothing more to it. No shame in that :)
Erm, you're meant to be concentrating on the young lady presenting this video, not her cat.
@@nobbynoris Took me a bit to get that lmao.
@UCQmnDkP6KcJz6bC_JMUWT_g Fuck your genetics, logic is for everyone who isn't a lazy cunt
99,5% of people are morons, that's the metalogic of her video
"Rulings, not rules" is so good I'd love to recite it for my party when we play next.
I give you very enthusiastic permission to do so!
As a board game enthusiast and leftist, I too enjoyed this poem. Well done Zoe.
Zoe: "These things--these stories, these metaphors--these concrete images--are what affect us."
Cat: "Actually, it's me that affects you. I'm affecting you right now! And your audience! NOW THE ENTIRE WORLD CAN HEAR ME PURR."
Fussing affects moggies. Fuss the moggie more xxx
... we said, ascribing an entire narrative to the cat, in an attempt to understand it better.
When people start to share personal experience, I think it goes better when it's in person rather than online
When in person, people might try to listen and relate to the argument and try not to be rude, but when it's behind a screen, they start to think they're asking for pity...and people just don't care about others as much.
But even with logic and numbers, when the numbers go so huge it doesn't even mean anything.
So I feel like trying to make a argument with someone right now mostly goes like: My knowledge is greater than you, therefore I'm right.
To convince people, things really just need to be broken down into something comprehensible …like stories
Reading personal experiences (aside hearing them) also tend to be more effective if it is a part of a bigger discussion under the same umbrella of context, such as when experiences are cited in paragraphs of discussion in a magazine or a blog post. Personal experiences, I feel, are tools for communication by making the information become authentic and real. I think the reason why personal experiences are easily looked down upon is largely due to misusing that particular tool.
If reading an online comment only features personal experience in the text, without providing some measure of Logos and Ethos, it might be misinterpreted as, just like you said, as means for asking pity, in one form or another. In other cases, it makes readers feel the person citing the experience as the main standard for solution in an argument, thus ceasing other experiences from other people as irrelevant if it doesn't feel as powerful enough by comparison or something.
The big thing is.. in order to convince someone that person has to want to learn and be open. You can't convince someone by proof of any sort.
@Don't worry, it's going to be alright in my experience, especially in terms of conflict management, if you try to push against and disprove the core of their argument, you probably won't get anywhere. You need to provide a piece of evidence that can add a new wrinkle to the issue that they hadn't considered yet. Essentially, don't go after the one position and hope to replace their 'facts' with yours, because all they have to do is say no. You need to fill in the details and context around that position. You're not arguing, you're presenting information around the core belief where they haven't considered things enough to know how to counter. That way, unless they are able to refute all of the new details in their head, there will be those little kernels of doubt where they can't really disprove something that also doesn't line up with their beliefs. This can work even if they can't be reasoned with on the core issue. It likely won't work over one argument, or even overnight, but it can make them question that maybe the world is not quite as it seems
I would say it's hard to feel a genuine connection with a person online if you don't agree with them. Because people online appear to be like figures rather than actual humans, atleast to me personally. It's hard to feel that they are actually being genuine if they don't usually provide any evidence for what they say. Add on top of that the fact that you think they are saying something wrong.
But I think this is a good thing because it's quite easy to fool somebody on the internet, so it's better to find if there are people who feel the same way or much better, people who seem to think different than the arguement presented.
So you can have a much more nuanced and informed opinion.
Unfortunately, it's not always possible.
I'm always impressed by your ability to focus even when cats interrupt your videos. If it were me, I would immediately get distracted and never finish filming.
Oh trust me, it happens. I just cut it out 😅
But I am getting very close to my Patreon goal where I'll start to upload blooper reels of all my cats' hijinks!
(They'll be for Patrons first, but I'll probably upload then here eventually, too)
and what about the anecdotal story about "i gained succees by my effort, so it must apply for everyone, and if you do not success, then is your fault for not trying enough" and just ignoring the FACTS based on tons of anecdotes, and evidence that for MOST people, just their "effort" wont make them have a better socioeconomic status????
Better compared to what exactly?
Is this comment written from zero sum game perspective where for someone to get better someone has to get worse?
@@TurningTesting i dont understand how my comment can be based on the "for someone to get better someone has to get worse"... im just saying there is people that thinks that because of their talent, they suceeded and that applies for everyone, when not everyone has the same opportunities for success, and by success it can be just having living wage, and if success means in this case a living wage, the "better socioeconomic status" can be compared from their previous status (lets say poverty)
@@pinaicanela222 oh, I was literally just trying to understand. Different people often understand same words differently. I'm taking a break from trying to explain to others what my definition of a word is, instead I try to understand what those words mean to speaker. By asking questions. Thank you for response. 🌼
It's survivor bias.
The most direct response is that you're pitting anecdote against anecdote. You're pitting one person's success story against another person's failure.
Both positions are invoking PATHOS to present a narrative or point. The position that then has "tons of anecdotes" and "evidence...for MOST people" is ultimately more convincing than the one that relies solely on its anecdote(s) because it provides a more-balanced entrée in light of the Rhetorical Triangle.
"Try enough and you'll be rich" operates on PATHOS alone.
"Poverty breeds more poverty" is a superior argument because of PATHOS as well as LOGOS. You have the experiences of the poor, you have many more discrete experiences to cite, and you have the numerical analysis condensing the anecdotes into understandable numerical values.
(And, in fact, when it comes to explaining the financial burden of poverty I levy my own expenses so as to merge the Pathos of anecdote with the Logos of raw mathematics into an argument that one cannot ignore on either Pathos or Logos alone. Which has the added benefit that to refute the case with their own anecdote they must present their own expenses...typically revealing that their anecdote is either false or at least grossly exaggerates the actual impact of their "effort".)
10:32 That is so true, as a person who used to be fairly interested in mathematics, i have a little anecdote of my own regarding that:
Most people find trigonometry very unintuitive, and disinteresting. I found it quite fun personally. My secret? I gave the symbols a bit of life.
I said "Oh sin likes to stay away from the corner, because its pointy and sharp."
"Cos thinks its superior so when you combine it you only get cos back, but sin wants to mingle so you get them both."
"Cos is negative so it just cant think of things as they are, it has to flip them."
And i made countless other little mental associations between cos and sin like this which made it super easy for me to recall the relations. Not because i had them memorized, but because the story was so interesting to me, how would i ever forget it?
But the thing is i never knew i did these things, until i was teaching trigonometry to someone, and then i realized oh hey what if we think of it this way, and all the little relations came out that i had never consciously thought of before.
WAIT please explain this sounds really interesting
I'm a philosopher, among other things - (seriously, they gave me a degree and everything,) - and I think it's incredibly important that people learn how rational argumentation works. That being said, I was a poet and a writer first, and I know, for absolutely certain, that human beings are emotional creatures above all else. It is one of our gifts as a species. Should folks learn how to construct and deconstruct reasoned arguments? Without doubt. But, anyone who tells you human beings are rational animals is either lying and/ or trying to sell you something. Always be suspect of any ideology predicated on the notion that human beings are rational creatures - it will inevitably lead to misery.
Great video, by the way. You were worried about your content before. You shouldn't be. You're knocking it out of the park. (I know, I know, it's difficult to be one's self, unselfconsciously, after one is given a compliment of this nature. So, just forget I said anything and keep on being yourself. ;) )
I'm just curious, what idealogies were you referring to in this paragraph? Thanks
@@Thundersz Interesting question. There are a number of ideologies that are predicated on the foundational principle that humans are rational actors. Capitalism, especially the radical Free Market variety fits the bill pretty well. Any system that relies on people acting in their own "best interest" - whatever that happens to mean any given time, is basing its idea of success on folks being rational above all else. But I wonder, have you not observed the world around you to see if the statement fits, for yourself? If not, maybe you should. It will be more informative than anything I could explain here. Look at the systems surrounding you, examine their ideologies, then ask if - for that system to work - it requires people to be "rational actors" (The quotes are there to distinguish between what is often bandied about in political/ economic debates and someone who makes a living in the theater who just happens to be very logical.😉 )
@@tessarnold7597 I think I just disagree with you that a system or idealogy predicated on people being rational actors is a bad thing, I think people acting in their "best interest" is neutral, as that interest could have overall bad or good results.
The 2 systems I could think of were government and business, as it's in your best interest to earn the most money, and in government case, what will provide the most virtue. (Sadly due to corruption a lot of the time, it's a select group's best interest.)
Regardless of the fact that these systems require people being rational actors, for a society to function they need these 2 things, nor do I think they result in misery despite it's flaws. the only reason I believe we've come so far as a society is due to it.
While this does lead to alienation and emotional damage (sometimes). it's the only system that meaningfully addresses the trade of value and goods, which is required for a society to thrive imo.
If theres another system or idealogy that addresses these issues or ideas in a better way, I would go for it, but I haven't seen it yet.
Also another thing too, what systems or idealogies aren't predicated on people being rational actors, and how do they avoid the same pitfalls capitalism has? Sorry if this is too much.
@@Thundersz I'd ask you to justify the statement about best interests being neutral. Outside of that, well, it takes all kinds to make a world.
As an English tutor for school-aged kids, I literally squealed with delight when you brought up the rhetorical triangle! As a math tutor for school-aged kids, George Lakoff's quote on math and metaphor also brought me great joy. Thank you for making such an insightful and concise video. Also, thank you for Desmond footage 🐱
I was honesty shocked by the fact that there's no mid-roll ads
I'm incredibly happy I've found your videos and just want to express that real quick!
I'm a college senior majoring in English and English Education at one of those schools known for being quick paced and stressful on students. I was set the graduate right before the summer, but in the last 2 or 3 months I developed adult-onset tourette's. I put everything on pause as I instead learn how to function under stress now that I don't have full say over my voice and body. My ability to build momentum while doing even mildly stressful activities has been slashed. Writing and learning can be pretty hard when your hands decide to snap every 10-30 seconds.
What fueled a lot of my ambition to be an educator are the joys of the learning process and discussion of ideas. Now I can't really be calm or relaxed or even confident while doing any of that and the joys are much harder to find.
All that is to say: your videos make me feel like I used to when doing academics. It's the same feeling of thought and ideas and learning I've missed getting to partake in. It's like if I loved PBJ sandwhiches but found out I was allergic to peanuts, but you've come with a magic jar of peanut butter that is exactly the same as before but won't kill me if I lick it. That's a strange metaphor but the only one that I can think of that works.
Thank you so much for this content :)
I so desperately want to make an Anderson Cooper joke, but can’t bring myself to take away from the sincerity, and meaningfulness of this comment.
Much love from one prospective English teacher to another.
Nah, that seems accurate.
Hecc, I don't know why I feel like there's a paradigm shift in my understanding of the world, but there seems to be one. Though gotta ask, how do you think people without pathos in their arguments get people to change their mi- actually, that ties in with that Counter Arguments series "how to change minds, from 12 angry men". Go check that out for something a little less deep than this, if pathos really needs to happen for a compelling mind changing ideas.
"To deny the centrality of narrative is to deny our own nature" - thank you for that! The finest framing for always owning your position relative to the facts, expressing your biases with humility and curiosity, and, as the man said, getting things... said.
"Rulings, not rules" struck my heart slightly.
facts fall from the firmament
and flit among my feelings
failing to fix afresh
"Anecdotes may not be the best data, but they are the best way to actually communicate--to really connect with another person. And isn't that what conversations are all about?" This. Right here. And it really is important to remember both halves of this: minding the quality of your evidence and knowing how to share the meaning of that evidence with others.
Also, "Thinking Fast and Slow" is one of my favorite books!! I would love to see you talk about it!
"There are no good sequels, it's just a fact, facts don't care about your feeli-"
This video: * *exists* *
"Okay maybe there ARE good sequels"
What about Shrek 2?
@@unouni2548Facts don't care about Shrek 2 >:[
Missed chance for me to say "Facts don't care about your Shrekts", F
What about the Empire Strikes Back?
Terminator 2._. Aliens.._
The power of myth is something we all need to reckon with. The stories we weave into the foundation of our knowledge have lifelong ramifications.
Thanks for keeping your cats in the video, they are lovely and clearly adore you. God bless and god speed.
Came for the insight, stayed for the poetry (and the narrative in the cat action)
"The economists accuse those, to whom the enunciation of their atrocious villainies communicates a thrill of horror, of being sentimentalists. It may be so: I willingly confess to having some tincture of sentimentalism in me, God be thanked! Ever since the French Revolution brought this leaning of thought into ill repute -- and not altogether undeservedly, I must admit, true, beautiful, and good as that great movement was -- it has been the tradition to picture sentimentalists as persons incapable of *LOGICAL* thought and unwilling to look *FACTS* in the eyes.(emphasis added) This tradition may be classed with the French tradition that an Englishman says godam at every second sentence, the English tradition that an American talks about "Britishers," and the American tradition that a Frenchman carries forms of etiquette to an inconvenient extreme; in short, with all those traditions which survive simply because the men who use their eyes and ears are few and far between(...) But what after all is sentimentalism? It is an _ism_ , a doctrine, namely, the doctrine that great respect should be paid to the natural judgments of the sensible heart. This is what sentimentalism precisely is; and I entreat the reader to consider whether to contemn it is not of all blasphemies the most degrading."
-Charles S. Peirce
Evolutionary Love
Published in The Monist, vol. 3, pp. 176-200 (1893)
CS Peirce is a famous for his facts and logics btw
Definitely interested in a deep dive on “Thinking Fast and Slow”
When I heard the "battle with cancer" bit, I was so hoping to see an image from the edutainment anime "Cells At Work", which *does* use that exact metaphor in the episodes about cancer.
Kitty adores you, that is a fact.
As an anthropologist, a lot of my work relies on stories. When you're trying to tap into the human experience there's literally no other way to get the kind of answers you're looking for besides asking people to talk about themselves. Even so as a 'social science' I've had several of my colleagues in the 'hard' sciences say that they don't know how anthropologists function since our research seems so anecdotal and lacking in 'objective, hard facts' as they see it. But as you've so strongly put it in your video, that attitude is flawed and ignores the story telling in their own work. I've done a video on my own channel about anecdotal data but it's a topic I feel like I need to go back to at some point because there's just so much to be said on the subject.
It's also because the questions being studied are so very different. Their expectation that you use "hard facts" in your work is like the joke in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" where a supercomputer determines that the meaning of life is "42."
Well, that's why you get things like a large scale theory of a famous researcher being wrong because some girls of a tribe she studied found it funny to lie to her.
@@TravistheGREAT03 Yeah because that happened. Totally.
Fool!
When did that happen? Tell me a story.
Ahh, the content of this video is just *chef hand kiss*. Facts are facts, but stories and anecdotes has so much to do with how we process those facts, and integrate them into our worldview.
Also, I really enjoy you recording while the cat is meandering through the frame. While I love the high production value of channels like Philosophy Tube and Contrapoints, recording around a cat and not cutting and resetting for the sake of a pristine facade gives this video a very casual, down-to-earth vibe I greatly enjoyed. :)
Offering for the algorithm, but also part 1 really made me think about the way chuds are obsessed with the enlightenment and how weird that is, so I'm excited to watch this one!
Also, having the same garment in multiple colours is actually extremely cool.
lets get those user engagement metrics up
I found you only recently through your grammarly video. I'm really glad the algorithm placed that video in front of me, cause it was great, and all your other videos have been just as great, if not even better (just like this one). Keep up the good work!
Emotions Importance.
Aslo Hug Importance.
Somewhere in Los Angeles, Matthew Mercer just blinked, glancing around as though somebody said his name. Nobody's there.
Thanks for this, I had an argument with a guy a few months ago where they claimed their argument was based on pure logic and "completely unbiased" sources and statistics, and my argument was apparently not only wrong but also I was apparently mentally inferior because I was "emotionally invested" in the topic despite providing evidence for all my arguments in addition to emotion, at no point did he address my logic or facts, it was literally "oh, you have emotion about this topic and aren't completely cold and detached, so everything you say is automatically contaminated and wrong by default." I also picked holes in his supposedly "objective" data and showed where it could be biased or could he interpreted differently to him, instead of countering this or admitting it, he completely ignored the issues raised and instead called me "emotional" again, as if that proved what I said wrong by itself.
Fantastic video series. The last quote, from Minds Made for Stories made me think of a good way of dealing with “objective” “rational people”, which is the fact that the scientific method was devised as a way to escape from the ways in which our minds interpret reality and are prone to detect patterns and explanations where they don’t apply. So the very way in which we can systematically investigate the universe in its many possibilities is partially detached from the way in which we relate personally to it.
Thanks for that. And I really want that Kahneman deep dive now that you offered it!
Although I clearly can’t argue with the fact that we are hardwired to respond to anecdotes and stories, I still believe we shouldn’t rely on them at all. Being aware of our biases means that we should try to reduce them, not helplessly embrace them
I’m glad I found this comment!
Too many children in the comment section to engage with this thought.
Without stories and anecdotes you wouldn't do anything. It's so hard wired that you would just end your life or become a vegetable. There is value in trying, but not everything needs to be cold logic. People who solely rely on it are often the most delusional.
You deny your own human nature as a storyteller, and thereforr, will never convince anyone who doesn't already share your ideological and cultural alignment.
Funny. You're the only childish one I've seen so far.
From the perspective of both a storyteller and avid speaker, I must say that this is one of my favorite videos of yours!
I'll be sharing this for sure and be reading those books.
Thank you for your hard work!
I'm HERE for that cat content! That cat cares about your feelings too!
This was honestly the most thought provoking topic I've ever listened to. Even the previous video has altered my perspective on a lot of things in life. I appreciate you bringing this kind of discussion to the forefront. More people need to see this and think twice about their own perspectives. Like you quoted, it's against human nature to take the feelings and personal experiences out of the equation. Simply put, no matter how you slice it, "perspective" and "facts" are intrinsically linked. We're all human, after all.
is that a RPG reference in your poem? Now you are speaking my language!
I really appreciate the close captions. Thank you for making your videos accessible.
Time bound mortals, yes of course I'm one of those people...
I watched this one with captions and I just want to say I appreciate the little bits of humor added in them, like *mumbles confidently*
I have been devoting a lot of thought to what I've been calling "story culture" for a while now, and hearing your (very researched) take was amazing. I will definitely be thinking more on your points. This is my 3rd video of yours watched, and I'm struggling to rank you below my other favorite thinkers like Thomas Sowell and Jordan Peterson. (Obviously different messages there, but its more the process I care about)
Your English background serves you well with these - each quote you pull is more perfectly placed into your story than the last. I really appreciate how you use them to serve you, it's what puts you over the top for me; other modern thinkers talk big but don't have the facts(?) to back it up. I'm a Software Engineer, and have found many of my "smartest" peers are the ones who use their resources (usually Google) to the fullest. You have proven that again for me here.
Again, color me impressed. I will be doing the "RUclips things" on your new videos in hopes to help spread this gospel
Yes. When trial jurors don't understand the "facts" (like days worth of scientific boring data) they fall back on personal stories and experiences, which is why a good lawyer has to tell a good story while including the evidence/facts before the biases take over. Thanks Zoe for making my brain think
Somehow my to-read-list on Goodreads grows every time i watch one of your videos.
Hahaha glad I'm not alone :))
theyre just like my kitty......i had to rehome him right before the pandemic..... thank you for letting them stay in the video, it was really nice to see another sweet cuddly baby and hear almost identical purrs
this was really helpful in making me rethink my methods in trying to convince my antivax mother that
1) vaccines don't cause autism
2) autism is genetic, genetics is the only thing that can "cause" autism
and 3) autism is actually not a bad thing anyway
and obviously, her only proof that they do is entirely anecdotal evidence
As a person of a certain age from the UK I find the US "Math" incredibly disconcerting. This is a fascinating video by the way. I can't help but feel that the video could have been titled "The problem with Facts over Felines"
"A world without felines would be literally inhuman..."
This is such an important and overlooked aspect in modern day discord. I often say that facts don't matter unless someone cares about it. And to care is to feel! That's why the best "science communicators" are all great story tellers.
Btw, I just love your concept of writing and reading poetry for your patreons!
Girl, I'm not clicking away even if your video were an English 101 lesson. You have a soothing tone and your pacing is excellent. I'd probably listen to you read a phone book 😂
What a sweet kitty!!! (And such a strong purr
I would definitely love a deep-dive on 'Thinking Fast and Slow'!
Agreed. Everything I know about it comes from a friend that’s really into self help books and calls everything mind blowing/life changing. But this is one is his favorite and I’d like to actually know why.
It is a great book.
I think that one thing that is often forgotten is that anecdotes aren't evidence, but they are examples, and it was perfectly reasonable to use examples to explain what your evidence means. The problem comes when there isn't evidence to back those anecdotes up and we, as humans, are bad at telling those stories that are supported from those that aren't.
Would love to see a deep dive into Thinking Fast and Slow, heard a ton about it but have never seen anybody go too in depth into it with your level of, shall we say, performative tact.
I agree with you up to the very last part, everything you said was logical and made sense (well, almost everything). But then you said that we shouldn’t base our decisions on facts, and that’s where I don’t get where you’re coming from. Of cause, if you’re a public speaker trying to convince your audience of what you’re trying to say, feelings do matter, I’d even say they might be the most important part of convincing someone. But we’re strongly biased, like you also mentioned, and this isn’t made any better by relying on our feelings when making decisions. Things are oftentimes counterintuitive, especially in science, relying on stories and feeling wouldn’t get us anywhere. Things that already are well understood can be more easily understood if they are presented in a story, but in order to understand new things one could dream up all kinds of stories leading to all kinds of different conclusions. The only way is to try our best to overcome any and all cognitive bias by looking at the facts and just the facts. Multiple people need to look over the same data in oder to control each other and even out any bias that might still be present.
Maybe I’m looking at this from too much of a science perspective, but I still believe that we should try our best to base our decisions on facts rather than feelings, especially regarding big decisions.
I would also enjoy a deep dive into thinking fast and slow
Gosh this makes so much sense I love it! You don't understand the number 1000000, but you get a better understanding with an anecdote/story. It also makes sense why I've been utilizing ethos and pathos when approaching politics recently, and why it doesn't seem wrong. Been a while since I've written and read, but this really feels enlightening to have english and arts in my engineering brain.
I don't disagree with her, but I think it's a horrible cynical world view, where emotions rule over facts and storytelling wins elections. (Brexit)
I prefer the 'facts don't care about feelings' because it gives me hope that we can handle climate change and global inequality in a sane way.
What a cute fuzzy kitty
Ethos: having Infinite Jest, The Silmarillion, and Ulysses on the shelf.
The point of "facts don't care about your feelings", is more centered on the idea that even if we change someone's mind via ethos and pathos, if we are emotionally moved by a narrative or testimony....that doesn't mean that change in world view is nessesarily correct or grounded in any sort of objectivity.
The phrase is a "push back" to reclaim "logos", facts and information into the discourse, which has been relegated to the sidelines in culture in many respects.
That's a very, uh, generous reading of the phrase. The person who coined the term, Ben Shapiro, regularly ignores the facts as presented by the experts on said subjects, instead frequently relying instead on arguments based on fear, or on oversimplifying a complex topic. He's not making any real statement by saying "facts don't care about your feelings," he's just trying to shut people up and present himself as some kind of authority.
The only thing he's pushing back against is people with better and more nuanced arguments than him.
@@HimanXK I do think how one views the phrase might divide us across ideological lines.
I disagree with much of your comment, but it isn't a hill I find worth dieing on.
Yes. As a political activist on the Left, I have found that mostly, the least effective means to persuade someone is to start reeling off facts. Also, a bit of a side-note but here like a lot of other youtubers recently, you use the word 'unexplainable'. I know language is malleable and meanings change over time, but I'm curious, is this an indication that the word 'inexplicable' is dying?. I notice it a lot. Lastly, apropos of your erudite argument here, I was always led to believe that Maths is a human attempt at a non-denotative language (which still makes it 'like' language), in the same way that Weber summarised Sociology as an attempt at 'value-free perception'. Cheers from Blighty. Love the channel, and the cats too :) pps Count any of the comments here as up for commentary on your upcoming q@a
From my (admittedly limited) worldview, I see that "inexplicable" and "unexplainable" have different connotations; the former is used more to express disbelief and astonishment, while the latter is used more to neutrally express that we do not yet have the ability to know the "why" in a certain situation.
@@tylerphuoc2653 Hi Tyler. Yes, it did cross my mind that there might be a nuanced difference in the terms. I suppose I should google it. It's just that, in my probably more limited view than your own, I can't really remember people using the word 'unexplainable' much until quite recently. My observation was precisely borne from curiosity. I appreciate any answer to that impulse. So thanks.
You are an activist.. you are trying to convince people for a living.. maybe instead you should live your life first and let them come to their own conclusions. Lead by example if you must.
@@hgzmatt Hi there. I don't do activism 'for a living', I do it voluntarily. As a lifelong socialist and someone who adheres to Marx's theory of Historical Materialism, and to his dictum that "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it", I'd say, as a 57 year old, that I'm both living my best life, and leading by example. Thanks for your concern though.
The quality of these videos are SO HIGH it's really incredible
Thanks! I'm definitely still learning, but I feel like I improve with every video!
Much love 💖
This was a very good video and I'm DEFINITELY gonna check out 'Minds Made for Stories', but also thank you for keeping your cat in the shot, what a big sweet bobo
Anecdotes and stories and feelings are very effective in persuading someone in a discussion. But that is precisely the fact, why we should avoid them, when debating. In my opinion, debate should not be about transferring your own biases onto someone else, but lay out the facts, so that they can come to their own conclusion. Using feelings in this context is kind of like playing dirty.
I think the main reason you see it differently is because you are focused on rhetoric, which is focused on persuading people (where feelings are a very effective tool) where as these, let's call them 'anecdote-haters' are more about debate, which strives to be objective.
yet if you rely solely on facts, you will never make effective communication
rely solely on feelings, you will create an echo chamber
the conclusion is use both, not abandon one over the other
even though using both also has its flaws, it lets you translate facts into an understandable statement in feelings, rather than a vague non-visualizable concept
take this:
"1 thousand people died due to this"
and add this:
"that is like what is likely the size of your entire neighborhood several times over"
only using one lacks the full understandable picture, it means to miss critical info on perspective
also i point you to 15:03 and the next panel as well
and, sorry for this many comments, but in trying to be purely objective and shutting down your feelings, you start to feel as if your feelings arent getting in the way
but the second you think your feelings arent affecting you, is the exact second they take over and get in the way
Just...make sure you don't read "The Mice & The Piano" and instantly become a theist. There's also "The Mice & The Octet" and "The Mice & The Mechanical Piano" which contradict that, making literally nothing true. Tell stories, then fact-check them. Also, be aware that some people's ability to produce and assess analogies are better than others. A few times I found that I reconstituted some people's ones and made some of my own that fit and worked SO well. Ah, Arts & Crafters from Baldi's Basics? I figured out such symbolism from it, just randomly.
Please do a deep dive on Thinking Fast and Slow, my copy is so marked up from using it in a bunch of my undergrad work. I've had my copy since high school and it seems like I get something different/new from it each time I read it - I'd love to hear your thoughts on it
I’ve only seen the title and I already agree. Knowing people who have been through the things you’d otherwise disagree on is the best way to change a mind. It’s humanization
It's like you filmed my daily interactions with my cat...
(I'm on my partner's account ruining their algorithm)
I wrote a big long comment about learning that theres no historical evidence of my religious origin story and having a bit of a crisis about it because of the facts vs worldview thing. But then accidentally closed the window and lost it all. Now I'm just going to thank you for being able to articulate the idea that stories are there to help us connect, they are not literal. Which I've been trying to keep in mind as I think about how to have interesting conversations instead of arguments.
I'm glad you're addressing these rhetorical tools. Ben Shapiro - Mr. "Facts and Logic" - spends very little of his time in facts or logic. Instead, he argues using math problems where every last variable is pulled directly from his posterior. When your "If" condition is flawed, the "Then" must also be flawed.
...anyone else nervous when submitting a comment to an English prof?
Except he can cite his statistics and where they come from...not his posterior
A pastor once told me that information engages our brains, but stories engage our hearts. If you really want to reach people, tell stories
Great video Zoe
Zoe: sees need to point out that it's not an English 101 while taking our abiity to speak English at a half-decent level for granted
Also Zoe: here have some Greek words instead!
they're english words borrowed from ancient greek
Yes, this! I think there is something to be said around "judgements" as well, which is coming up in a book i'm reading about music criticism, ways of creating knowledge other than the scientific method which has come to dominate all other epistimology
“This world ain’t just...ma-ma-ma made of facts”-Bloc Party
As an electrical engineer I'm so happy to see this video. The best professors in my course always use some sort of narrative cohesion to explain fact and to me is the most important thing to do. I do not need to know only how stuff are made, the story behind brings the reasons, the problems and the connection between arguments. Facts need feelings to be explained.
Imperial Measurements are pathos, metric is logos.
1 foot: "about as long as a foot" -- 1 meter: "one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle"
1 inch: "about the distance between my thumb and forefinger when i hold them apart comfortably" -- 1 centimeter: "1 billionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole along a great circle"
1 pound: "enough rice/salt/whatever to be useful" -- 1 kilogram: "originally the mass of a particular platinum/iridium cylinder in maryland, now defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the Planck constant h to be 6.62607015×10−34 when expressed in the unit J⋅s, which is equal to kg⋅m2⋅s−1, where the metre and the second are defined in terms of c (the speed of light) and ΔνCs (a specific atomic transition frequency)"
1 pint: "about as much water as i want to drink at a time" -- 1 liter: "the volume of water with mass equal to a kilogram within 30 ppm"
and my favorites:
0 degrees Fahrenheit: you're gonna be cold
100 degrees Fahrenheit: you're gonna be hot
0 degrees Celsius: you're gonna be a bit chilly
100 degrees Celsuis: you're gonna be dead
There is absolutely no difference.. and I'm a metric user. It's all about convenience. I do find it charming to measure things based on the length of my feet or arms.. versus some abstract standard. Even then I often refer to a ruler as measurement... if something is roughly 30cm long. It's less abstract.
I love your videos so much! Your my new favorite RUclips keep doing your thing it’s amazing !
One day that cat will have his own RUclips channel. So much purring 😍
Mogstagram needed
I think that a lot of times when ppl like that bring up facts they choose either biased studies or manipulate the information to prove their point. Great video and i love ur cat i hope u two are staying happy safe and healthy
"Anecdotes" is a good Joanna Newsom song. Everyone should go listen to when they're done with this video.
18:30 i wouldn't've thought prose poetry could just about bring me to tears. this did. this is so damn important.
I learned this selling cars and I love how it’s being presented in such a useful context. Nobody cares about the HP on the car, they care about how it makes them look, how it makes them feel. The best salesmen form relationships first and sell cars second.
Thank you for this very simple layout of a very complex problem- it is sorely needed.
The thing is, the people who say facts don't care about your feelings aren't even talking facts, they're cherrypicking studies or just plain making shit up. I know facts don't automatically convince us the way feelings do, but I have hope for human reason when it comes to the important things like believing vaccines are our saving grace and don't cause autism. We just need to teach people critical thinking in schools.
No offence as I know you're an English teacher but I wish some of the time being used to teach rhetoric could be carved out to teach critical reasoning skills. I mean basic but indispensable stuff you would only do these days in a philosophy elective, like what propositions and inferences are, learning how to map and evaluate arguments and identifying logical fallacies.
I'm aware humans are inherently prone to be convinced by emotional appeals, and that will never go away, and I don't think that's wholly a bad thing.
But I'm a strong believer that everything is nature and nurture, and most of us are taught in school, if implicitly by omission of critical elements of a well-rounded education, that persuasivess is more important than substance. For instance, my school had four hours of compulsory English a week for four years in which we learnt about two years worth of content yet I only learnt how to critically disect an argument because I ended up taking this niche elective two classes a week for a semester. It's engrained into our collective zeitgeist. But I think it's possible to tip the scales to reach a bit more of a balance. I really do think that we can change how we think to a greater extent than many do.
Don't get more wrong, I adore the arts. Really what I'm arguing is nothing to do with them though. People need to have the toolkit to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to advertising, fake news, idiots online etc., and even their own rationalisations and incongruencies.
I just really fear that our kids are not being equipped with that.
" _You can certainly try,_ / and _I'll allow it,_ " and someone is a _Critical Role_ fan, aren't we? Totally understandable. And yes, we love your purring machine.
"You can certainly try"... "I'll allow it"... do you, perchance, watch Critical Role?
Yes, I absolutely love Desmond. Such purring! 😺
Cats don't care about your facts.
I do think bringing up the dangers of anecdotal evidence is pretty critical when anecdotes are in direct opposition to evidence (as is often the case in medicine in particular) especially BECAUSE they are so much more powerful. It’s all about context and a general understanding that our brains don’t actually care that much about truth.