The Contrarian Principle

[Indefiance]

Hey all,  Just wrote something down and thought I would share it.  I haven't ever heard these particular ideas articulated before, but if you have then I would be interested to know.   I suppose you could call this an intuition which I explored in-depth and tried to dig out all the axioms and logical conclusions, and then present it in a way that the logic becomes inescapable.  I see a number of ways it could be wrong or over generalized, but I thought I would ask for feedback anyway.  Without further ado:

 

The Contrarian
Principle

1.  Individuals in a
society nearly universally agree that society itself is not optimal in some
fashion.   The specifics of their
disagreement with 'society' at large are irrelevant .

 

2.Since nearly all members of society agree to this
imperfection in some or many aspects, and readily agree that there is at least some
level of sub-par activity, they also implicitly must agree that to the precise
degree that society is imperfect or sub-par that at least some portion of societies
members must also be contributing to society in an imperfect or sub-par
fashion.  The more that is wrong, the more societies individual members must be wrong.

 

3.  There are nearly
infinite methods of being wrong or incorrect, and a limited and finite number
of ways to be correct.  For simplicity
sake, we may call these correct philosophies, or incorrect philosophies.  Reality is the final arbiter however, and the
level of incorrectness passed down will never supersede the person's ability to
survive because such a philosophy will be self-destructive and will not be
passed on to the next generation.

 

4.  Since the number
of  correct philosophies is finite, and
the number of incorrect philosophies for all intents and purposes infinite, the
number of correct philosophies is vanishingly small compared to the number of
incorrect.  Because of this, if given by
pure chance, almost all random philosophies will be nearly completely
incorrect.

 

5.  Because Most all
humans are given their personal philosophies based on pure chance from their
accident of birth locations and culture (far far more common than we would like
to admit),  we can virtually guarantee
that all members of society have incorrect in part or whole philosophies by
which they act upon.  The chances that
any one individual has a completely correct personal philosophy is also
virtually zero.   The chances are far greater for the majority of
societies individuals to have a completely incorrect personal philosophy where
said philosophy doesn't impair their ability to survive completely.

 

6. Since nearly all members of society agree that society is
sub-par, and because we can see that the likelihood of being right even in part
is vanishingly small, then all members of society implicitly must agree that
the majority of all societies members are wrong in whole or in part which is
what leads to the sub-par un-optimal behavior they take issue with.  They must further admit that the likelihood
of their own world-view being somehow 1 in 10 trillion and somehow completely correct
is next to impossible, and furthermore that is far more likely that they are
completely wrong on the vast majority of their beliefs along with everyone else.   

 

Conclusion:  Because of these deductions, I think it is fair
to conclude a few things.

- This line of reasoning invalidates nearly all religions, political parties, and cultures.

 -At any given point
in time, the majority opinions of society on any given subject are far more
likely to be wrong then correct. 

- Our own world-view must be the first suspect and receive
the most scrutiny since we are not somehow magically special or exempt from
logic, reason and evidence no matter how much we may wish it.

 -  Those who take a pro-active approach using
rigorous logic and appeal to reality through empirical evidence will greatly
improve their ability to discern the correct methods of conduct and by
extension their world-view and if consistent over time they will be more
in-line with correct philosophy i.e., truth. 

-In the past, only small minorities have done this, The vast
majority of people will never take this approach. (this is a different subject however).

  - This means, the likelihood
of finding 'Truth' in majority viewpoints is unlikely and close to impossible
as it concerns any field of endeavor that doesn't adhere to rigorous standards
of logic and empirical evidence. 

- Since political maneuvering as a general rule is
anti-logic and anti-evidence and more about human power structure's, the more
political an organization becomes, the less likely that it will be able to
recognize or implement truth.  This
includes all organizations, including ones originally based on the principles
of science. 

-Lastly,  This is the
contrarian viewpoint justified since it implies and supports the intuitive
notion that majority opinion is nearly always wrong, especially when logic and
evidence are not strictly adhered to and political maneuvering gets in the way.  It also clearly suggests that the best place
to look for truth is with the minority opinions, but always with a critical eye
even then.

[Guest darkskyabove]

Well done!

Now comes the hard part.

Re-write it so that you offend less people. You might not be too far off, but be careful: people are very touchy about long-held beliefs.

Although I agree, the problem with disseminating "truth" is that many people must override their conditioning just to examine it, much less embrace it. Sad, but true.

First, and foremost, I would suggest removing the part about invalidation of religion, etc. If your point is to preach to the choir, then leave it in. Anarchists/atheists do not need reminders of how religion and current trends are invalidated. It's the other side that needs work. Making sweeping generalizations about their beliefs is not prone to success.

The one glaring logical fallacy is the claim that, because majorities are usually wrong, minorities must be right. I think that qualifies as "either-or": they could easily both be wrong.

[Indefiance]

 

Well done!

Now comes the hard part.

Re-write it so that you offend less people. You might not be too far off, but be careful: people are very touchy about long-held beliefs.

Although I agree, the problem with disseminating "truth" is that many people must override their conditioning just to examine it, much less embrace it. Sad, but true.

First, and foremost, I would suggest removing the part about invalidation of religion, etc. If your point is to preach to the choir, then leave it in. Anarchists/atheists do not need reminders of how religion and current trends are invalidated. It's the other side that needs work. Making sweeping generalizations about their beliefs is not prone to success.

The one glaring logical fallacy is the claim that, because majorities are usually wrong, minorities must be right. I think that qualifies as "either-or": they could easily both be wrong.

 

 

Yeah, I guess I don't care if it offends people, but I see your point.  I may re-write that portion for general consumption, but I was trying to be somewhat rigourous and logical (disregarding emotional impact) myself although I admit I am still a student in that regard.  I have to agree as well that although it is 'suggested' it is not a proof of minority claims by any means, and its very true that both could be equally wrong.  Thanks for pointing that out.  I suppose It is more accurate to say that the minority of people who use logic and evidence to create their worldview is where to look for further truth vs. minorities in general.

[Indefiance]

Rewrote the Conclusions Section;  While couching my terms a bit more, I did not back down from the full implications.  See what you think:

 

 

 Conclusion:  Because of these deductions, It is fair to
conclude and provide some conjecture on a few things.

-This line of reasoning invalidates in whole or in part all
religions, political parties, and cultures.  The exact extent of invalidation is undetermined
here, but also irrelevant.  We can only
conclude that it is highly unlikely for any one organization or tradition to be
right and that we must apply some rigorous standards to find out exactly how
much they are wrong.

  -At any given point
in time, the majority opinions of society on any given subject are far more
likely to be wrong then correct. 

- Our own world-view must be the first suspect and receive
the most scrutiny since we are not somehow magically special or exempt from
logic, reason and evidence no matter how much we may wish it.  If we are to find truth, we must first clean
the lens we are looking through to insure that what we find isn't skewed by our
own incorrect beliefs.

 - Thus far, the only
known proven method of discerning truth is through the use of logic and
evidence. Therefore;  Those who take a
pro-active approach using rigorous logic and appeal to reality through
empirical evidence will greatly improve their ability to discern the correct
methods of conduct and by extension their world-view and, if consistent over
time, they will be more in-line with correct philosophy i.e., truth.  In the past, only small minorities have done
this consistently, The vast majority of people will never take this approach.

  - This means, the
likelihood of finding 'Truth' in majority viewpoints is unlikely and close to
impossible as it concerns any field of endeavor that doesn't adhere to rigorous
standards of logic and empirical evidence. 

- Since political maneuvering as a general rule is
anti-logic and anti-evidence and more about human power structure's, the more
political an organization becomes, the less likely that it will be able to
recognize or implement truth.  This includes
all organizations, including ones originally based on the principles of logic
and evidence. 

-Lastly,  This is the contrarian viewpoint justified
since it implies and supports the intuitive notion that majority opinion is
nearly always wrong, especially when logic and evidence are not strictly
adhered to and political maneuvering gets in the way.   It
also strongly suggests that if a man wishes to find truth The place to look is
with the small minority of those who will bow in the face of logic and evidence
and who will let go of the random grab-bag of conflicting beliefs they were
given by accident of birth.

[Guest darkskyabove]

Yes, I think the revised conclusion is written better. And yes, telling the truth will always offend someone.

What I like most about the whole project is how you've stated things that I've accepted for some time, but have not formally structured. Me being highly contrary in nature.

I am unsure how much this idea has been explored in prior writings, but the thought occurs that most all problems in the world can be traced to either, majority opinion, or, politicians claiming majority opinion. That does not mean that every majority opinion is wrong, but the ones that are wreak havoc with the strength of a majority.

Conventional wisdom be damned; power to the contrarians!

[Skreimey]

Hello indefiance, I like the idea of putting a contrarian viewpoint into writing. I think it's a useful worldview (I made some decent returns in the market by contrarian investing [or at least before HFT algos and QE took over the market]). Here's my criticism of your argument.

 

Premises 1-3 look sound to me.

Premise 4 links human decision making with the mere possibility of such decision being made. I don't think human thinking is entirely random and follows some sort of Gaussian distribution of all possible viewpoints.

Premise 5: complex != random. There are reasons (at lease perceived) for human action, so I don't think we can gloss over the bulk of decision making as completely chance. Furthermore, by what evidence do we agree to the assertion that all people are partially or completely mistaken in their philosophies? I agree, but I think there should be some evidence to support this statement (ie: X% of the world population believes in fallacy Y, therefore most people are at least partially mistaken). Furthermore, we would need a clear definition of what "right" is. The book on philosophy has yet to be closed, so this may not even be possible. Perhaps it would be better to say, "integrated with reality." I think it would be much easier to prove that there are very common beliefs which are completely unsupported by empirical evidence (omnipotent invisible friends control complicated events and influence human action, governments are the only way to get certain services, solar cells and wind farms could easily replace coal and nuclear power).

Premise 6: Why must people agree that most people are wrong? Does it make sense that a person must admit that their worldview is almost certainly mistaken . . . I mean, people I've met seem to almost always believe that their viewpoint is correct (otherwise, why would they adopt it?). How often have you willingly chosen a belief which you knew with a high level of certainty was incorrect?

I think that the majority of the population does have flawed worldviews, but I think if you posit those six points as a proof, they should be supported by evidence.

[Pepin]

1.  Individuals in a society nearly universally agree that society itself is not optimal in some fashion.   The specifics of their disagreement with 'society' at large are irrelevant .

Definitions are needed just to make sure that people reading your argument are on the same terms.

If society is a collection of individuals, then what does it mean to say that "individuals in a collection of individuals nearly universally agree that the collection of individuals act in an non-optimal fashion"? Does it follow that agreement on the non-optimal functioning of society is a validation that society operates in a non-optimal fashion?

I think it might be good to specify that the specifics of the disagreement are irrelevant to the theory you are presenting, as your theory presents that any disagreement can be resolved through an appeal to objective truth. I am not sure if it makes sense to put this statement here.

2.Since nearly all members of society agree to this imperfection in some or many aspects, and hereadily agree that there is at least some level of sub-par activity, they also implicitly must agree that to the precise degree that society is imperfect or sub-par that at least some portion of societies members must also be contributing to society in an imperfect or sub-par fashion.  The more that is wrong, the more societies individual members must be wrong.

The first sentence is I believe is a repetition of the first premise, which  makes the reading a little awkward. The focus on "they" gets a little confusing because you are kind of juggling to concepts in a one premise.

3.  There are nearly infinite methods of being wrong or incorrect, and a limited and finite number of ways to be correct.  For simplicity sake, we may call these correct philosophies, or incorrect philosophies.  Reality is the final arbiter however, and the level of incorrectness passed down will never supersede the person's ability to survive because such a philosophy will be self-destructive and will not be passed on to the next generation.

This could use a lot of simplification, as the statements being put forward are more likely to confuse someone than to convince them. The concluding statement is really difficult to interpret.

Don't misunderstand my criticism, I am pretty sure that I understand and agree with what you are saying, but people outside philosophical circles aren't likely to see any connection between the statements being made.

4.  Since the number of  correct philosophies is finite, and the number of incorrect philosophies for all intents and purposes infinite, the number of correct philosophies is vanishingly small compared to the number of incorrect.  Because of this, if given by pure chance, almost all random philosophies will be nearly completely incorrect.

I believe that you are trying to say is that a philosophical argument based on guessing, is almost always going to be wrong, because of the odds of being correct through guessing is infinitely small.

5.  Because Most all humans are given their personal philosophies based on pure chance from their accident of birth locations and culture (far far more common than we would like to admit),  we can virtually guarantee that all members of society have incorrect in part or whole philosophies by which they act upon.  The chances that any one individual has a completely correct personal philosophy is also virtually zero.   The chances are far greater for the majority of societies individuals to have a completely incorrect personal philosophy where said philosophy doesn't impair their ability to survive completely.

The first sentence I believe can be eliminated. Here you are applying the principal of chance/guessing to individuals.

6. Since nearly all members of society agree that society is sub-par, and because we can see that the likelihood of being right even in part is vanishingly small, then all members of society implicitly must agree that the majority of all societies members are wrong in whole or in part which is what leads to the sub-par un-optimal behavior they take issue with.  They must further admit that the likelihood of their own world-view being somehow 1 in 10 trillion and somehow completely correct is next to impossible, and furthermore that is far more likely that they are completely wrong on the vast majority of their beliefs along with everyone else.

The repetition of what has already been stated is not needed. I think the wording is also very odd. It is something I can certainly relate to, because when I start formulating theories, I tend to start writing in a similar way. The issue with writing in such a way is that other people tend to have quite a difficult time understanding it. Most people have a difficult time understanding this form of writing, which is why I'd suggest simplifying and condensing your premises. "UPB: The Book" is a good example of this in that it is able to condense the entire argument into seven or eight short statements, and much of the book is an expansion and proof of each premise.

With all of my emphasis on clarify, I really hope what I am trying to get across was clear.

[Indefiance]

Hey thanks for the feedback all.. Don't have tons of time to reply but will do my best.  First off, I re-wrote the main points trying to address the criticism here and I think its clearer?  Let me know if this works better. 

 

 

Hello indefiance, I like the idea of putting a contrarian viewpoint into writing. I think it's a useful worldview (I made some decent returns in the market by contrarian investing [or at least before HFT algos and QE took over the market]). Here's my criticism of your argument.

Premises 1-3 look sound to me.

 

Cool. I think those were the most important.   I elaborated on them a bit in the new version, but let me know if it helped or hindered.

 

 

Premise 4 links human decision making with the mere possibility of such decision being made. I don't think human thinking is entirely random and follows some sort of Gaussian distribution of all possible viewpoints.

 

Nor do I.  Its a bit difficult to try to be brief and not create misinterpretations.  I tried to imply in a couple spots that human thinking will be naturally walled in by our survival mechanism and survival needs.  A 100% wrong world-view gets weeded out pretty quickly since it kills the user and never gets passed on.  Above this lowest common denominator however is still a possibly infinite variation of incorrect thinking.

 

 

Premise 5: complex != random. 

 

 

Hmmm,,, this is trickier.  But see if you agree with the new version posted above.  If I understand what you're taking issue with I think I have incorporated the 'evidence' in the premise.  Its sort of like UPB, in that we judge the person by the principle they use themselves.  Very loopy and self-referential.  Namely: if the person agrees that society is not perfect then they must also agree that if majority opinion held the answers and all the power in the world to make those answers happen, then we should be in heaven already. Why isn't this utopia?  i.e., the answers can't be with the majority since there is obviously something drastically wrong.  Then if they claim its a utopia after-all they are just intellectually dishonest and we can ignore them as a troll.

 

 

 

Premise 6: Why must people agree that most people are wrong?

 

 

I believe it is strongly implied, and perhaps logically demanded should they accept the premise, "Society is not perfect".  Perfect may be too strong a word here though.  Maybe even if they accept the premise, "Society could be improved."   If they accept that society is not perfect or at the very least doesn't have all the answers, and by extension the majority of society and their world views, then they must at least agree that at least some portion of their own world view is probably suspect.  It really depends on how much they think society is doing wrong which is why the chain of logic starts with that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Indefiance]

1. Things aren't
perfect, far from it:  Most Individuals
in a society agree that society itself is not optimal in some fashion.   The specifics of their disagreement with
society at large are irrelevant, they must only agree with this statement,
"Things aren't perfect within society."

 

2. If the Majority
had all the answers or even most of them we would be in heaven already:  If an individual agrees that things are not
perfect within society,  they also
implicitly must agree that to the precise degree that society is imperfect that
an equal portion of societies members and their majority viewpoints must also
be contributing to society in an imperfect fashion.  The more that a member finds wrong, the more they
should agree that societies individual members and majority viewpoints must be
wrong.  If things aren't perfect, there
must be a reason, and that reason must be that the individuals comprising
society are wrong by some undetermined degree. 

 

3.Its infinitely
easier to be incorrect than correct: 
There are nearly infinite methods of being wrong or incorrect, and a
limited and finite number of ways to be correct.  Infinity divided by anything but itself is
itself infinite.  Suffice it to say that
its far easier to be wrong when an active intelligence doesn't become involved.  Because of this all randomly given world-views
will be almost always wrong when that world view is unexamined and taken
uncritically.

 

4. Take nothing on
faith, the physical world requires rational thought:  Because the potential to be wrong far
outweighs the potential to be right, it is
only through an active intelligence's intervention examining possible
outcomes using logic and empiricism, 
that an individual's world-view and subsequent actions become closer in
line with reality  i.e., The Truth.   Accepting majority opinion on faith,
unexamined, is a guarantee that one will have at least in part a potentially crippling
world-view inhibiting growth and development.

 

5. Herds are
political, not rational, and humans are herd animals:   Humans are herd animals, whose life depends on
to a great extent the help of their neighbors. 
Herds are political.  Political maneuvering
is not based on logic or evidence.  This
means that over time groups which become heavily politicized get further and
further from reality in their view points and opinions so long as these
opinions do not become completely self-destructive. 

 

6. Summation: Since nearly all members of society agree that
society is sub-par, and because we can see that the likelihood of being
randomly right even in part is vanishingly small, then all members of society
implicitly must agree that the majority of all societies members are wrong in
whole or in part which is what leads to the sub-par, un-optimal behavior that
they take issue with. If even partially reasonable they will further admit that
the likelihood of their own world-view being somehow 1 in 10 trillion and
somehow completely correct is next to impossible, and furthermore that is far
more likely that they are completely wrong on the vast majority of their
beliefs right along with everyone else. 

[Indefiance]

 

 

Definitions are needed just to make sure that people reading your argument are on the same terms.

 

 

 

This is true, but actually on reading your re-wording the meaning didn't get lost, and I have no other way to address the concept of 'society' without being overly simplistic.  I realize society is a construct, and not real in the sense that a physical thing is, but I think the same argument could be made about many 'emergent' properties.  Society is an emergent property of a group of humans isn't it?

 

 

As for the rest, I took your critique and really tried to simplify things down and ignore too many extraneous concepts.  Let me know if you think it is an improvement.

 

[Skreimey]

I like the changes you made. I think that you've bridged any logical gaps in the first post and made a good defense for what stayed.

Now the real fun is in application of the theory. How can we use this belief that the majority of people hold incorrect views on a given subject to affect real world decisions that we make? Also, would it be possible to expand the theory to include which subjects majority views are more likely to be mistaken about and to what degree? For example, I think most people realize that a dense object will fall to Earth when dropped, though they probably have a limited understanding of why. On the other hand, most mainstream economists' predictions (typically widely adopted by the public) are wrong the majority of the time. Maybe we could say something about the complexity of an subject and the likelihood of accurate predictions by the majority. Let me know what you think.

[WhoBobWhatPants]

 

Great post, very well written, though the statement: " if a man wishes to find truth The place to look iswith the small minority of those who will bow in the face of logic and evidence" seems problematic. Since the number of people who believe a claim is irrelevant to its truth, you shouldn't look to minority groups, or any groups/etc to "find truth;" reason and evidence alone should be sufficient, do you agree?Also, you might want to be a bit more specific about what you mean by "their personal philosophies," it seems a bit too ambigious.