The Profound Limitations of Knowledge

The Profound Limitations of Knowledge
Praise for Works by Fred Leavitt
Contents
List of Figures
1 Introduction
	Notes
2 Beliefs
	Decisions about Beliefs
	Origins of Beliefs: I
	Persistence of Beliefs
	Other People Have Weird Beliefs
	Examples of False Belief Perseverance
	Reasons for Belief Perseverance
	Group Differences in Belief Perseverance
	Origins of Beliefs: II
	Notes
3 Philosophy
	Radical Skepticism
	The Burden of Proof
	Several Assumptions Underlie Almost All Claims to Knowledge
	Notes
4 Certainty, Likelihood, and Probability
	Notes
5 The Four Supposed Pillars of Knowledge
6 Pillar 1: A Priori Knowledge
	The Case for Innate Knowledge
	All the Above Is Irrelevant
	Notes
7 Pillar 2: Religious Faith
	The Origins of Religious Faith
	Why Are There So Many Religions?
	Religious Faith Is Beneficial
	Faith (of Others) Is Very Beneficial to Some
	Religious Leaders Have God’s Cell Phone Number
	Maybe They Had a Bad Connection
	Other People Also Get Messages from God
	So, Maybe Not So Beneficial
	The Persistence of Religious Faith
	Points to Ponder
	Faith Is Antithetical to Truth
	Notes
8 Leavitt Lied
9 Pillar 3: Reasoning
	Human Reasoning Is Imperfect
	Evolution and Reasoning: I
	Evolution and Reasoning: II
	Culture Influences Reasoning Style
	Metaphors Influence Reasoning
	Examples of (Considerably) Less than Optimal Reasoning
	Inductive Arguments
	Counter-Induction
	Inductive Inferences Are Ambiguous
	Formal Logic—Deductive Arguments
	Conclusions Often Come First
	We’ll Never Know If Our Tools of Reasoning Lead to Valid Conclusions
	Anything Can Be Proved
	Quantum Logic
	Reason Doesn’t Tell About the World
	Recap
	Notes
10 Reason and Science in Opposition
	The Rules of Logic Are Empirical and Fallible
	Notes
11 Pillar 4: Empiricism
	Imperfect Processing
	Research on Perception
	Empiricists Fight Back—Unsuccessfully
	Our Low Fidelity Memories
	Deception
	Motives to Deceive
	Means
	Opportunity
		Drugs
		Electrical Stimulation of the Brain
		Natural Selection
		FakeApp
		Secret Experiments
	“Knowledge” That Comes From Other Sources
		Individuals
		Corporate
		Governmental and Political
		The Media
		The Internet
		Historical
	Censorship
	Self-Deception
		How Honest Are You With Yourself?
	Science
		Scientists May Unconsciously Bias Results or Commit Deliberate Fraud
		Not Just Fraud
	Honest Science
		The Basic Observations May Be Wrong
		Miniscule Changes in Initial Conditions May Produce Huge Changes in Ultimate Observations
		The Data May Have Been Analyzed Incorrectly
		The Data May Not Be Replicable
		Observations Reported in Scientific Publications May Differ Considerably From Observations Over the Same Material That Go Unpublished
		Inferences: Part I
	Hard Sciences
		Quantum Mechanics
		The Single- and Double-Slit Experiment
		Unstable Elements and Watched Pots
		Pigeonholes and Pigeons
		Quantum Eraser
		Delayed-Choice
		Interpretations
		The Most Profound Discovery in the History of Science
		Many Worlds
		Beyond Quantum Mechanics
	Notes
12 Reason and Science in Almost One Voice
	Notes
13 Inferences Part II
	Mathematics, Science, and Everyday Life
	Notes
14 Recapitulation
	Note
15 Reasons for Resistance
	Resistance Is Futile
	A Priorists
	Non-deductivists
	Pragmatists
	Transcendentalists
	Vindicationists
	Conjecturalists
	Notes
16 Conclusions
	Solipsism
	There Is No God—Maybe
	Afterlife—Not Out of the Question
	On the Positive Side
	A Question You’ll Probably Never be Able to Answer: Are Things Pretty Much What They Seem?
	Worldviews of Prominent Physicists and Philosophers
	Convincing Travelogue
	How Should I Conduct My Life?
	Keep on Trucking
	Notes
17 Epilogue
	Notes
Appendix 1: Beliefs About the Future by Experts
Appendix 2: History Myths
Appendix 3: Scientific Facts and Theories That Were Once Believed but Are Now Considered False
Index
Back Matter