Carleas wrote:KT, there's a distinction between the rational justification of a belief and the causal explanation for a belief. We have to be able to talk about the latter.
Sure. And I don't have a clear solution for this. But 1) to whatever degree, this is also a social community so the two conversations running in parallel, it seems to me, ends up making this ad hom. 2) I think the discussion needs to be more concrete. Which belief? which means 'which conspiracy'?' We could also have the why do people believe authorities in general version, and go into that psychology, which obviously some conspiracy theorists and anyone believing in controversial for the mainstream opinions, also may do. I think both dicussions need to be careful because they end up being incredibly condescending and since the topic is general it's fairly easy to paint with broad strokes and nearly impossible to contradict.
In a sense the psychology i this thread, the diagnoses, have as much support for them as what critics say conspiracy theories have.
These hidden things must be happening in the minds of conspiracy theorists (in general or all of them). I see little qualification in the thread about how many this would apply to.
There is no evidence presented that these diagnoses are the case. The participants here know what is going on behind the scenes in other minds. (as in the other minds in the problem of other minds). Now the thread starts with the idea that each will share what led them out of believing in certain conspiracies. But it rapidly degenerating into why people believe in them period and/or what diagnoses can we make about conspiracy theorist's mental flaws.
It seems ironic in the extreme that people who are skeptics about conspiracy theories (except for Peter K regarding actual alien spacecraft since he does believe in that conspiracy theory) are drawing conclusions the way they are here. They see behind the veil.
Well, it asks how they lost their faith. How did you change your beliefs has quite a different openess. It does not presume the epistemology. The OP presumes that those who belief, belief because of faith, which would be a surprise, for example, to the many scientists in Architects and Engineers for Truth about 9/11 or for the whistleblower from NIST who approached the shoddy science he found and the pressure to accept that science by the body who came up with the official 'scientific' version of the event. Pehaps these people are wrong, but if they are wrong it seems likely to me it is not because they based their conclusions on faith, but rather there was something incomplete in their reasoning or data. Perhaps Peter K.'s conclusion about alien spacecraft is not based on faith, whether he is right or wrong.The OP asks about how people changed their minds, i.e. causal explanations for a change in belief.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:I do see the no true scotsman, but that seems different from the assertion that if isn't accepted it isn't true. Also that if it is not accepted then no one has good reasons to believe it. This presumes that any true theory will be confirmed. I think that is unfalsifiable. I think it also includes a lot of not demonstrated assumptions about society's openness to all ideas, regardless of how uncomfortable.
I do not mean to assert any of those. Let me try to be yet more precise.
In practical terms it becomes a theory about a conspiracy when it is accepted by people and that process is not rigorously scientific nor is it rigorously legal. Paradigmatic, political and power concentration (in media for example) issues play into this all the time. Some things get through. The assumption it seems to me is that true theories (or better, well justified theories) will be given a fair case and come to light. I think that is unfalsifiable.Given that, I'll say that a 'conspiracy theory' becomes a 'theory about a conspiracy' when the evidence about the fact claims at issue are supported by evidence sufficient to make their truth likely. They may in fact be either true or false, and they may even be more likely to be false than true, so long as their truth is supported by the available evidence.
You're conflating two things. Here you are saying that the conspiracy theory itself is falsifiable. I am saying that the implict and explicit claim that if it was true and also if the evidence was strong enough, it would become accepted. That is unfalsifiable. You can certainly point to conspiracy theories that were considered nuts and then became confirmed, and say, see even if it is extremely controversial it will come out. But that only shows (potentially, for example) that some get out.That's a very vague standard when worded precisely, and that's OK. There are borderline cases, and that's OK. But the fact that something changes from 'conspiracy theory' to not-a-conspiracy-theory with the introduction of evidence does not make the initial claim unfalsifiable: it can be falsified by looking at the evidence.
It seems to me you didn't respond to some things.....
I think this is implict in the title of the thread and the op, as mentioned with losing faith.You'll note that I didn't use the words "immature" or "irrational".
Further the other posters very much implied these things and as the OP writer your responses seemed to accept these as on topic answers. I put some effort into quoting things that clearly fit that type of diagnosis and similar ones.
I could, of course, start a thread with the topic:
What changed your mind about the possibility or the what you now perceive as a fact that governments can marginalize data, whistleblowers, differing opinions, evidence, etc. to such a degree that a well justified position stays out of the mainstream, potentially permanently?
Or when did you lose faith in unfalsifiable belief that if something is true and important it will become consensus opinion amongst experts?
But I think such threads - which I would assume you would consider valid, even if I must get in there and tease out a better wording - will degenerate and perhaps they should. I thin in a sense they should because they function in the community as ad hom threads. I am sure universities have done research where they take a full on sociological look at CT believers and I would not rule out such a thing, even if it could be perceiving as as insulting. At least there you are dealing with data, rather than what is happening in this thread which is people who participate in parallel threads get a chance to say that they are rational and the others are not, they are mature and have grown up and the others have not because of the categories of believers they fall into.