Notes

He says Credulous——> bad direct and indirect consequences. So he advocates we can’t be credulous cause disastrous. I argue that he’s exaggerating and his method of duty doesnt work just by saying we can’t be credulous at all since it’s bad. I suggest that we need to be credulous to not be credulous. All of this relates to the complexity of the human mind that he failed to consider.
Humans are rational and emotional beings and will not fall prey to his 3 points, will figure out how to not be credulous by their rationality emotionality and by being credulous.


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When Clifford makes the network argument, he overlooks that a human cares about different things in various degrees. For example, I do not care about today’s weather if I’m staying indoors, so if I’m told by my trustworthy friend that it’s raining today, I’ll believe it without minding. However, I would care if I’m going outside, and naturally I would seek evidence for the weather. So, we are not credulous with beliefs aboUt things we care about. Its reasonable to assume that if the shipowner cared about the lives of the people on the ship, he would mind wether his belief about his ship was justified. Thus, the unjustified beliefs only make part of our ‘unimportant’ section of our network of beliefs assuming it’s true our beliefs form a network. This is (Include that once it becomes linked to things that matter to us, the hole will be naturally patched; also other ppl dif cares so it’s fine,also we rational and know whats important ,)

An issue arises when the unimportant unjustified belief in one person is spread to others which may rely on that belief for something important to them. This issue was raised in Clifford’s social good argument. Here, he overlooks the human’s rationality and ability of self control. I believe we can assume most human beings are rational and reflective enough to know that actions have consequences and that humanity has common care of morality. Thus, often, people would not mindlessly perform the action of spreading around their uncertain belief of a certain topic. We have self control to keep it private. Even if the unjustified belief is spread, people who care about that particular topic would eventually doubt or seek evidence for it because humans are diverse and care about different things. ( include this will patch up holes. The chain of spread is often broken.
Eg. when I have litter on me and I throw it on the ground because if I don’t, I’ll get sick since I’m allergic and need to do something more important. but obviously not everyone will throw a chocolate bar on the sidewalk.)
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Social:
Eg . Adult transmit to children that they hit them because they love them. Some children may pass that down to next gen, but many will realize that they don’t want to do the same towards their children because they didn’t feel loved when they were beat.


Habit: care
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Now, even if we shut our mouth, we cannot determine which information is umi,portent now but becomes important later, and we didn’t keep quiet those time, thus there is still possible risk of unjustified beliefs causing delayed a bad consequences that we couldn’t prevent if we couldn’t patch the holes in time. I argue that this risk is actually needed for society to function and isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I call this that you need to experience consequences of credulous believing in order to not be credulous. It’s not being credulous is the cause of bad consequences, so we cannot be credulous, but it’s that bad consequences causes the need and want of being not credulous. Clifford overlooked how humans learn what not to do. E.g when you tell you child to not eat the cocoa powder because it’s bitter, although she believes you and understand the concept of bitterness, she is tempted by the smell and does not actually comprehend what the bitterness of cocoa powder is like unless she tries it. Only after trying it will she learn not to eat cocoa powder in the future. Thus not being credulous is a learning experience, and humans need to be credulous and face possible consequences to learn to want to be not credulous. Similarly, this also applies to Clifford’s habit argument such that habits are changed when one wants to change.unless we are the bearer of the consequences or actively feels the devastation of them, we won’t care to be not credulous.

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When you teach your kid about the effects of credulity, if they simply follow the rule, they are essentially breaking the rule by not questioning the rule. If they want to believe the rule, they would go test out the Clifford 3 arguments.



Humans are complex and constantly fixing itself. His arguments only show one side of humanity
Thus we are constantly patching our holes and fixing our habits, but why not have not holes in the first place, well… we need to make mistakes first.
He underestimated our ability of making things work.
certainly true the 3 points make in many cases, its Not as exaggerated or disatrous like Clifford put it cause ppl naturally can figure themselves out but first they need to be credulous. So it’s not that believing credulously puts things at stake, bcus ppl are complex beings that will figure themselves out , and you experience credulity to aid figuring things out.