Are you understood?

[the_tortoise]

However, most people think that their own bias is unquestionable, so obvious that it does not need to be stated. That presumption then short-circuits any processing of facts or logic that might prove otherwise.

Yes, I agree sometimes this is so.

The Oatmeal did a comic strip about "core beliefs" that I think touches on a possible aspect of what I think you're talking about:

You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you - The Oatmeal

I don't think it is that simple in every case of disagreement, though; I think there can be a number of different reasons someone might not be swayable to a different perspective...

The person seen as illogical or stubbornly biased may not understand the information required to have any other viewpoint (some things require a huge amount of specialist knowledge to properly understand...not everyone is a geneticist, or a teriary care physician practicing whatever obscure subspecialty might actually give a person the required scientific literacy and obscure, very uncommon knowledge necessary to understand a complex but controversial issue when that issue being argued about involves something that has both physiological and behavioural/ psychological/sociological components) and not everyone is capable of explaining complicated things in simple ways (I'm certainly not!);

Sometimes there actually is no single right or "best" answer....this is where emotions, values, beliefs, and goals tend to come in (you could call this bias)...;

Often it's an issue of semantics and epistemology -- how are you defining words or categorizing things (this becomes an issue of "worldview" if you "zoom out" [think camera lens])...people disagree fundamentally because if where they draw truly arbitrary boundaries between categories or definitions...the actual things remain whatever they are, the issue is how they are conceptualized and how all the conceptualizations are organized and defined -- if you are arguing with someone who cannot even see/understand your conceptual model/paradigm, that may be the main issue (you could call this "bias", too);

And I think anyone can come across this way if they feel strongly about an issue or have been having the same argument about it for years or decades, facing the same arguments from people they don't know how to reach...emotions and inability to find words can make a person just state their position in frustration, unable to provide argument or having no idea where to begin ....an argument is only "good" if it makes sense to the person it is made to, imo...and it can be very hard to figure out what people think and don't, what they do and don't understand, what words will make sense -- and for me personally it is very hard to figure out if people just don't understand what I'm saying or do understand it but disagree with it....communication seems to be hard for everyone; And on a forum for autistic people (arguably every single person with ASD has at least mild pragmatic language impairment -- or difference -- I see both "impairment" and "difference" as equally valid, personally) despite our common experiences, well, we're all (or mostly) people who have some kind of communication difficulty to begin with...even if that is not so, when we speak to each other vs with neurotypicals, we are still diverse individuals beyond our autism and once you get outside the realm of shared experiences that are easier to understand without difficulty then bridging those differences becomes no easier than with NT's...

I think most often people just aren't aware that more data exists that they are not aware of...we aren't taught to question ourselves and others in thoughtful ways growing up or in mainstream culture, we aren't encouraged generally to consider how we don't know how much we don't know, and not everyone is curious about the things that might broaden their perspective, make them more flexible in their beliefs and viewpoints -- not even when they are extremely emotional and see whatever issue as important, the curiosity may not be there (and again, I think we all have things we aren't good at and sometimes even with curiosity people won't get it for any number of reasons - there are a lot of things I will never be able to understand)

Please forgive rambling. Also please forgive me if all I have managed to do is say the same thing (which may not make sense at all; as a failing of mine - not explaining what I mean coherently) over and over in a lectury-seeming way. Just my thoughts.

 

[Shevek]

Yes, I agree sometimes this is so.

The Oatmeal did a comic strip about "core beliefs" that I think touches on a possible aspect of what I think you're talking about:

You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you - The Oatmeal

I don't think it is that simple in every case of disagreement, though; I think there can be a number of different reasons someone might not be swayable to a different perspective...

The person seen as illogical or stubbornly biased may not understand the information required to have any other viewpoint (some things require a huge amount of specialist knowledge to properly understand...not everyone is a geneticist, or a teriary care physician practicing whatever obscure subspecialty might actually give a person the required scientific literacy and obscure, very uncommon knowledge necessary to understand a complex but controversial issue when that issue being argued about involves something that has both physiological and behavioural/ psychological/sociological components) and not everyone is capable of explaining complicated things in simple ways (I'm certainly not!);

Sometimes there actually is no single right or "best" answer....this is where emotions, values, beliefs, and goals tend to come in (you could call this bias)...;

Often it's an issue of semantics and epistemology -- how are you defining words or categorizing things (this becomes an issue of "worldview" if you "zoom out" [think camera lens])...people disagree fundamentally because if where they draw truly arbitrary boundaries between categories or definitions...the actual things remain whatever they are, the issue is how they are conceptualized and how all the conceptualizations are organized and defined -- if you are arguing with someone who cannot even see/understand your conceptual model/paradigm, that may be the main issue (you could call this "bias", too);

And I think anyone can come across this way if they feel strongly about an issue or have been having the same argument about it for years or decades, facing the same arguments from people they don't know how to reach...emotions and inability to find words can make a person just state their position in frustration, unable to provide argument or having no idea where to begin ....an argument is only "good" if it makes sense to the person it is made to, imo...and it can be very hard to figure out what people think and don't, what they do and don't understand, what words will make sense -- and for me personally it is very hard to figure out if people just don't understand what I'm saying or do understand it but disagree with it....communication seems to be hard for everyone; And on a forum for autistic people (arguably every single person with ASD has at least mild pragmatic language impairment -- or difference -- I see both "impairment" and "difference" as equally valid, personally) despite our common experiences, well, we're all (or mostly) people who have some kind of communication difficulty to begin with...even if that is not so, when we speak to each other vs with neurotypicals, we are still diverse individuals beyond our autism and once you get outside the realm of shared experiences that are easier to understand without difficulty then bridging those differences becomes no easier than with NT's...

I think most often people just aren't aware that more data exists that they are not aware of...we aren't taught to question ourselves and others in thoughtful ways growing up or in mainstream culture, we aren't encouraged generally to consider how we don't know how much we don't know, and not everyone is curious about the things that might broaden their perspective, make them more flexible in their beliefs and viewpoints -- not even when they are extremely emotional and see whatever issue as important, the curiosity may not be there (and again, I think we all have things we aren't good at and sometimes even with curiosity people won't get it for any number of reasons - there are a lot of things I will never be able to understand)

Please forgive rambling. Also please forgive me if all I have managed to do is say the same thing (which may not make sense at all; as a failing of mine - not explaining what I mean coherently) over and over in a lectury-seeming way. Just my thoughts.

That's an interesting expansion. I would argue that for a "born liberal" George Washington having false teeth from slaves is harder to accept than for a conservative. For people who see life as primarily survival of the fittest, seeing others who are worse off is confirmation of their superiority. The genetic filter I postulate governs the acceptability of many ideas and bits of data.

That's a good point about some people just not having the mental capacity to understand some concepts. We are always feeding children simple, idealized versions of life to practice on until they have had some practice and are more hardened to trauma. There's also a lot of Dunning-Kruger syndrome around, hand in hand with the imperative to at least think we understand a situation lest we be frozen in indecision. That leads to the general assumption that things that one can't understand as being irrelevant, or just sophist imaginations.

There are also "fixed beliefs" arising from heavy propaganda, as seen in some highly religious families, and the permanent attachment sports fans may develop to some team. Bad information plus repetition can even be fatal, as with Anorexia, where people have starved to death thinking they were too fat.

I grew up where emotions were all treated with quarantine, and I had to figure things out on my own. Even into my 40s, I was so ruled by logic that when my wife and I received a letter accusing us of being fascists in one paragraph, and communists in another, I just thought they cancelled out. My partner was less sanguine.