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How blindly do you trust superior entities?

How blindly do you trust superior entities?

  • Not at all

    Votes: 2 11.8%
  • Very little

    Votes: 3 17.6%
  • Slightly

    Votes: 8 47.1%
  • A good amount

    Votes: 4 23.5%
  • Completely

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    17

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,986
How blindly do you trust superior entities?

How much time and effort will you put in to change your mind to match what a superior entity output?

I'll clarify the poll options here:
  1. Not at all. I only trust the superior entities in as much as they agree with what I believe, perceive, ...
  2. Very little. I only trust the superior entities if I can come to understand and change my mind to agree with them.
  3. Slightly. If I cannot understand or change my mind to agree with what the entity says, I will tentatively give the entity the benefit of the doubt, given that some sanity checks are passed. I will try to come around, but if upon further investigation, I still disagree, then I will no longer give the entity the benefit of the doubt.
  4. A good amount. I will give the entity the benefit of the doubt, and will continually search for ways to modify my understanding, perception, etc. to come to their point of view. However, if after a long amount of time, I cannot understand, perceive, ... what the superior entity does, I will revert to my own positions.
  5. Completely. I will give complete authority in the appropriate domain to the superior entity. I will try my best to modify my own thinking to match the entity's. This could be a life long pursuit.

I am asking this in a very abstract sense. If the answer is that it depends on what the entity is, how it is superior, and what is meant by the word "blind", then please expound. What are the critical factors that would change your answer? IOW, if the answer is "it depends", then what does it depend on, and how do these factors incluence the amount of trust?

Presuppositions:
1) You genuinely believe the entity in question is superior in a particular domain.
2) The statements from the entity (whether it is advice, instruction, answers, or whatever) do not make sense to you.
3) Trust in this case is meant regarding the veracity of the output of the superior entity. There may be situations where despite lacking veracity, you still act in accordance with what the superior entity outputs.

---------
To give an idea on how abstract the question is meant to be, I will give some concrete examples to show a variety of specifics I believe the question can cover.

Scenario 1:
The use of a calculator or computing device to calculations. How blindly to you trust the answers spit out?

Scenario 2:
Someone that you, yourself, believe to be more wise and worldly gives you advise about a situation where you believe (s)he has superior judgement. How blindly do you trust him/her?

Scenario 3:
An alien comes to Earth and explains how to create world transforming technologies (specifically in space travel and inter-species communication).

Scenario 4:
Someone that you know is better at processing emotions gives you advice about how to handle an emotional situation.

Scenario 5:
Someone you know to be more knowledgeable about a particular field tells you some facts about the field.

Scenario 6:
Someone you believe to be significantly better informed about medical issues (perhaps a doctor or nurse) gives you medical advice.

Scenario 7:
Someone significantly more knowledgeable and experienced in business, finance, and money gives you financial advice.

Scenario 8:
A health advisory board, that you have come to trust, puts out advice on diet.

Scenario 9:
A science advisory board, that you have come to trust, puts out a booklet about what it believes is true about a subject.

Scenario 10:
Someone you believe to be more spiritually aware and wise in that sense gives you advice in matters of the spirituality.

Scenario 11:
A source of spiritual doctrine (perhaps a pastor or biblical scholar reading from the Bible, a rabi quoting the Torah or Talmud, or a guru quoting the Gitas or the Vedas, or a Mullah quoting the Quran), that you have come to trust, tells you what ought to be done for spiritual reasons.

Scenario 12:
An organization that makes food, that you trust to make good food, gives you food to eat.

Scenario 13:
A mechanic you trust, and you believe knows more about cars than you, tells you what needs to be done with your car.

Scenario 14:
An organization you trust to make "ingredients" for your work gives you a product that it claims meets certain specifications.

I am sure you can come up with more scenarios.
 
Last edited:

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
I only trust in the judeo-christian God because of the history recorded in the bible, the progressive relationship with humankind beginning originally with the Israelites/Jews and then with the incarnation as Jesus and life among humankind that relationship changing or at least being properly revealed as embracing everyone.

I may have reason to believe in the existence of God besides all that but what I'd mean by God would be something different and I may believe in God's existence but I would not believe in God or trust God.
 

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,986
I only trust in the judeo-christian God because of the history recorded in the bible, the progressive relationship with humankind beginning originally with the Israelites/Jews and then with the incarnation as Jesus and life among humankind that relationship changing or at least being properly revealed as embracing everyone.

I may have reason to believe in the existence of God besides all that but what I'd mean by God would be something different and I may believe in God's existence but I would not believe in God or trust God.

What about other scenarios? Like trusting a computational device's computations, the ingredients of things used for work, medical advice, financial advice, etc.?

What are the key features that make you more trusting in one scenario vs. another? Or are you equally trusting in all the scenarios that the abstract question may cover?
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
What about other scenarios? Like trusting a computational device's computations, the ingredients of things used for work, medical advice, financial advice, etc.?

What are the key features that make you more trusting in one scenario vs. another? Or are you equally trusting in all the scenarios that the abstract question may cover?

I do seek corroborating evidence most of the time, when I was younger I had terrible problems with math because I never trusted my working out and not always the answers which calculators would provide either, I also couldnt remember standard equations or times tables too and for some pretty deep philosophical reasons too but that didnt matter then, or now pretty much.

Medical advice and financial advice I'd look for second opinions when I can, although in the main I trust the expertise of people who have worked in their field and have expertise that they can display through conversation. I think you have to have a degree of trust in those situations, without being incautious or attributing miraculous powers, because you will naturally, usually have less perfect knowledge than those professionals you're interacting with.
 

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,986
I do seek corroborating evidence most of the time, when I was younger I had terrible problems with math because I never trusted my working out and not always the answers which calculators would provide either, I also couldnt remember standard equations or times tables too and for some pretty deep philosophical reasons too but that didnt matter then, or now pretty much.

Medical advice and financial advice I'd look for second opinions when I can, although in the main I trust the expertise of people who have worked in their field and have expertise that they can display through conversation. I think you have to have a degree of trust in those situations, without being incautious or attributing miraculous powers, because you will naturally, usually have less perfect knowledge than those professionals you're interacting with.

What are the salient differences between trust in these cases and trust in the case of the bible? Or do you follow the same process in all these cases?
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
What are the salient differences between trust in these cases and trust in the case of the bible? Or do you follow the same process in all these cases?

I'd say it is similar, although the archetypes or provided from earlier in life, the family usually if you're fortunate for the trust relationship with God. It is different you're right.
 

RaptorWizard

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A good amount since we must mix wonder with skepticism as we cannot immediately assume everything we perceive is true but however we also cannot immediately assume that everything we perceive is not true so we kind of have to wiegh the pros and the cons euqally on the scale of truth to discern the good from the bad.
 
W

WhoCares

Guest
I cannot place a calculator in the same position as a spiritual entity. One you can crosschck the answers while the other has few checks and balances that are measurable. For one, the jeopardy of the outcome is low, the other could be massive. So my degree of willingness to trust or follow one over the other is variable and dependant upon the specific advice and and circumstances at hand.

I am not a natural leader though, I prefer to follow. At the same time I am always very critical and skeptical of any leadership. Thinking about it now though, my decisions about whom to trust and when boil down to nothing more than the irrationality of how I feel about it in the moment. There is very little that is rational about me to be honest. Intense levels of paranoia dominate my thinking and cloud my judgement. I am sure I should be living a better life than I do right now but I am trapped by the limitations of my own mind. I. That respect a wise being would be a welcome addition to my acquaintance.
 

ygolo

My termites win
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
5,986
I'd say it is similar, although the archetypes or provided from earlier in life, the family usually if you're fortunate for the trust relationship with God. It is different you're right.

Could you expand on the archetypes notion? I did not really follow what you meant here.
 
G

Glycerine

Guest
Only very little to slightly because everything is subject to human error, IMO.
 
W

WALMART

Guest
I don't, during work meetings I would constantly speak up on anything I disagreed with to whatever result, I don't really care much about being wrong, just as I don't care if they think they are right.



Though my most recent direct supervisor had earned my trust in his decision making, and I would be more cautious about speaking up in front of him, I'd noticed.




This is to say that I do not not share vision with superiors when the vision warrants it.
 

sprinkles

Mojibake
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Slightly.

But I must have some notion that this entity is actually superior.
i.e. I need a way to know that the entity actually knows more than me in a metacognative sense. If I know enough to fact check the entity on its knowledge, then why would I need to trust it? Yet, if I need to trust it because it is a superior entity, I need to know that it is a superior entity somehow.

I have to be able to do some kind of sanity check.
 

EJCC

The Devil of TypoC
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I answered "a good amount", but I should have answered "slightly". It all depends on my conception of them as superior, whether I would notice if they were in error, etc. I do tend to trust superior entities by default, but what varies is how quickly they lose my trust. It's very, very dependent on the situation.
 

UniqueMixture

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Yes. But I'm not sure I follow the relevance.

They're not inherently better or worse. Thinking in those terms is damaging to self esteem and stifles self improvement.
 

skylights

i love
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I think the way the question is phrased is going to bias the results...

I don't know that I can really give an overall estimate of how much I trust all entities. It depends on my competence in the area in question, it depends on my trust of the entity, it depends on the significance of the information, and it depends on how quickly I need to rely on that information. Most of the time I also rely on my intuition to tell me if something is near correct or not, especially with numbers.

Scenario 1:
The use of a calculator or computing device to calculations. How blindly to you trust the answers spit out?

What kind of calculation? The less I can do it in my head, the more I'm going to have to trust the computer. Are my final answers in the right ballpark? Intuition will generally help me there. What am I going to use it for? Does my job rely on this?

Scenario 2:
Someone that you, yourself, believe to be more wise and worldly gives you advise about a situation where you believe (s)he has superior judgement. How blindly do you trust him/her?

Depends on the gravity of the situation. If I don't have much to lose, I'll probably go with what they've said, or if it seems like a bad idea I'll just go with my own impulse. If it's a very serious situation, I'll keep collecting information from lots of sources and cross-check.

Scenario 3:
An alien comes to Earth and explains how to create world transforming technologies (specifically in space travel and inter-species communication).

Try it. What's there to lose?

Scenario 4:
Someone that you know is better at processing emotions gives you advice about how to handle an emotional situation.

I do not delegate emotional authority, except to a few people very close to me who really understand how I operate.

Scenario 5:
Someone you know to be more knowledgeable about a particular field tells you some facts about the field.

Run it by logic; if reasonable, keep the info, if not, discard. Check it later on Wikipedia out of curiosity regardless.

Scenario 6:
Someone you believe to be significantly better informed about medical issues (perhaps a doctor or nurse) gives you medical advice.

I generally do delegate to doctors. The attitude of most doctors is not trifling towards human life, and they have little to gain by giving me bad information.


And so on. It always depends. I do a lot of Ne-Fi assessment, I guess. Ne to see if information seems to fit in with the rest of the world-matrix and Fi to see if people seem trustworthy.
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
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I cannot place a calculator in the same position as a spiritual entity. One you can crosschck the answers while the other has few checks and balances that are measurable. For one, the jeopardy of the outcome is low, the other could be massive. So my degree of willingness to trust or follow one over the other is variable and dependant upon the specific advice and and circumstances at hand.

This was my thought as well. There are machines and processes that spit out the right answer as long as nothing is broken, and this answer is verifiable through other means. I have a lot of trust in processes and machines that seem to be established on sound principles. For example, I trust my car to operate consistently rather than running me into a tree, I've flown in airplanes, I use electrical devices without fearing to be electrocuted as long as I don't use them in the bathtub (or some other working conditions we all know), I trust the refrigerator to keep my food unspoiled for eating, I trust medicine I buy at the store to work as directed within its normal range of behavior, etc. We all trust a lot of processes and items implicitly, once we get a sense of how they work and can weigh them as effectual from experience.

This is very different from a human being's opinion of spirituality, kind of on the opposite end, as spirituality cannot be "proven' at all or established as operating under a specific sense of principles. Instead we have different philosophies, and the most we can do is judge them historically (if they make any historical claims) or in terms of outcome if they presuppose a particular process to generate a particular conclusion.

For me, I actually do handle these two very different items similarly, though, in terms of principle. I first establish how trustworthy it is --are the principles consistent, do things work as claimed -- and then I weigh it accordingly. It's just that physical processes, machines, and the like are naturally far more trustworthy; people are fuzzier in both their behavior and knowledge, and their beliefs cannot be tested as strongly as to whether they work or not, as there are always exceptions, misunderstandings, contextual factors, etc.

What happens when I evaluate people? I guess at best I judge the veracity of the person; Are they consistent? Do they normally show good understanding of the world? can they reasonably predict outcome correctly? What is their own judging process like -- are they trying to test their own ideas too? Have I know them to lie in the past? Or make mistakes? What do their lives look like? What is it the outcome of their own choices, typically? This gives me an idea of the person's general accuracy and insight and sincerity levels, and helps me establish trust.

Note that even if I believe someone is typically trustworthy as well as wise, it doesn't mean they are infallible. I can give a person more credit if they have an established track record, and if I believe there is no way for me to confirm or deny their suppositions myself -- there is no good way to "test" them -- but typically if something seems to be outside of the normal range of behavior or claim, I'll typically test the idea rather than trusting it. As soon as there is an inconsistency, then I now have a question/doubt about it that I need to do something with.
 

greenfairy

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The answers vary widely. Slightly is an approximation. If I feel qualified to know or figure out something, I will trust myself first, taking outside information and perspectives into account, and then let other people persuade me otherwise. If I know very little about something or have no interest, I will give "superior entities" the benefit of the doubt. I never have blind or complete trust in anything though (or anyone). Even if I go with what someone or something says, I will verify with other knowledgeable people that that source has credibility and that what they say makes sense. Any source can lose my trust.

I'm more inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt in practical areas, like science, technology, and money management. Things like philosophy, spirituality, religion, and ethics I feel as qualified as anyone else to have an opinion. I feel confident with ideas but not facts. (And subjective, personal things it would be appropriate to decide on one's own.)
 

ygolo

My termites win
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They're not inherently better or worse. Thinking in those terms is damaging to self esteem and stifles self improvement.

I did say "entity", which may or may not be a person. But even with people, I think it is pretty clear that some people are better at some things than others. When I said "superior" I meant only in relation to a particular domain of activity.

I think the way the question is phrased is going to bias the results...
Every question biases the results. How would you have preferred it phrased?

I don't know that I can really give an overall estimate of how much I trust all entities. It depends on my competence in the area in question, it depends on my trust of the entity, it depends on the significance of the information, and it depends on how quickly I need to rely on that information. Most of the time I also rely on my intuition to tell me if something is near correct or not, especially with numbers.
Can you unpack this a little? How does your own competence the area in question affect how much you trust? Are you talking about trust in the entity as a whole (not just competence in a particular domain)? How does the significance and time frame affect how much you trust?

It seems from the specific scenarios, what you perceive to be a potential for loss is important, and that the greater the potential for loss, the less you will trust. Is this right?
 
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