Skeptical Connections – Episode 16

Episode 16 of the Skeptical Connections podcast features Charlie McAlpin’s Thinking Twice (“How the MRFF Became the Antichrist”), Kevin Keith’s Skeptical Ethics (“The Ethics of Being Irrational, Part 2 – Religious Justifications for Law and Policy”), and a new installment of Hello, Squidocto (“Humanity is an Asteroid”).

Skeptical Connections – Episode 15

Episode 15 of the Skeptical Connections podcast features a Hello, Squidocto segment (“Everyday Anchoring”), the first of a new series of installments for Kevin Keith’s Skeptical Ethics (“The Ethics of Being Irrational, Part 1 – Irrational Beliefs and the Definition of Ethics”), and the SC debut of “Wikipediatrician” Susan Gerbic with a look at opportunities for grassroots skeptical activism (“Overview – Beyond the Choir”).

Skeptical Connections – Episode 14

Episode 14 of the Skeptical Connections podcast features my piece “The Naming of (Shared) Experiences,” along with a Hello, Squidocto segment (“Show Your Work, Skeptic!”), Kevin Keith’s Skeptical Ethics (“Arguments and Asymmetry”), and Leighann Lord’s The Urban Erma (“Coloring Outside the Lines”).

The Naming of (Shared) Experiences

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Self-Reliance, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius.” We could easily spend a day or two debating the truth of the statement, but one interesting question it raises is what happens when we don’t recognize or attempt to communicate about a widely shared internal experience.

Mind Hacks‘ Tom Stafford recently wrote a column for BBC Future in which he explores autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR—a set of pleasurable physical sensations that come with focus on often mundane things. Evidently, millions of people have sought out boring YouTube videos in an effort to induce the feeling, which until a few years ago lacked not merely scientific attention but even a name.

Presumably the feeling has existed for all of human history. Each person discovered the experience, treasured it or ignored it, and kept the feeling to themselves. That there wasn’t a name for it until 2010 suggests that most people who had this feeling hadn’t talked about it. It’s amazing that it got this far without getting a name. In scientific terms, it didn’t exist.

Stafford goes on to draw a parallel with the slow scientific recognition of the phenomenon of meteorites, “the process of myth becoming fact,” but suggests that the online age has democratized this process:

Discussion among ordinary people on the internet provided validation that the unnamed feeling was a shared one. Suddenly many individuals who might have thought of themselves as unusual were able to recognise that they were a single group, with a common experience.

There’s a range of rich discussions to be had here. What is the cultural or epistemological value of having a (scientific) name attached to a phenomenon? How does naming something, or learning its name, alter our experience of the thing—or conflate a broader spectrum of actual individual experiences into something more mythologized? Are all names created equal? Does “skepticism,” to take one example, by any other name smell as sweet? What costs and benefits does the term have in communicating principles, defining goals, building community, and staking territory? (This seems particularly relevant right now, when the definition of skepticism and the delineation of its appropriate scope are once again being publicly debated.)

More personally, what experiences and perceptions does each of us carry and assume to be unique to our own self and circumstances, and what mechanisms exist for determining this?

I’ll leave it there, other than to recommend that you research “qualia” if you have a great deal of time on your hands. I have my own thoughts on the issue—but you wouldn’t understand.

Video: Critical Thinking in Education panel, NECSS 2012

The video for the “Critical Thinking in Education” panel from the 2012 Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (featuring me, D.J. Grothe, and Meghan Groome) has now been posted and is available for viewing:

Skeptical Connections – Episode 13

Episode 13 of the Skeptical Connections podcast is out, and features me discussing “Triskadekaphobia,” Kevin Keith’s Skeptical Ethics (“False Models and Policy Prescriptions”), a Hello, Squidocto segment (“So So Difficult”), and Part 2 of a conversation with mathematician and author John Allen Paulos (“Mathematical Literacy, Storytelling and Outreach”).

Skeptical Connections – Episode 12

Episode 12 of the Skeptical Connections podcast is out, and features Charlie McAlpin’s Thinking Twice (“Values of a Skeptic: Curiosity”), Kevin Keith’s Skeptical Ethics (“False Models and Policy Prescriptions”), a Hello, Squidocto segment (“But Were Afraid to Ask”), and Part 1 of a conversation with mathematician and author John Allen Paulos (“Mathematical Literacy, Storytelling and Outreach”).