Category: General

So much to say, so hoping it isn’t paranoia…

So, the terrorism-related charges in New Zealand, eh?

Pretty nasty.

If I were a paranoid man I would be linking these charges with a whole host of other things going on in the background of what we pithily call a ‘democracy.’ Things such as revisions to our existing terrorism legislation, et al. If I were a worldly man I’d recall several of the Conspiracy Theories around the Oklahoma City Bombings, where it was claimed it was the BAFT who orchestrated the bombing (but failed to stop it) to salvage their reputation after the David Koresh ‘incident;’ certainly the police here do need some high profile ‘success’ (qualified or unqualified) to repair their falling reputation.

One of the problems with writing on Conspiracy Theories is that, eventually, something happens to you, or to your friends, that forces you to comment on recent events in a manner akin to a conspiracist. You lose the objectivity and rationality you have carefully cultivated and your quite interesting, erudite study becomes ‘yet another example of the loony left.’

So, for the time being, I’m leaving this issue alone. Friends and family know what I think. Anyway, why focus on the events of yesterday when there’s so much to catch up on?

Answers on a postcard.

10/17/2007

The Fortean Times Dictionary of the Damned – No. 17: Conspiracy Theory, FT223 (June 2007), p. 52-3

The second curiosity of the analysis above (such as it is) follows directly from the first, although it is less to do with conspiracy theories per se than with the reaction to them. Here we habitually see demonstrated what may be called the Law of Shallow Responses. This operates with remarkable consistency throughout fortean studies, although the tendency is perhaps even more marked, more entrenched, and more pointless among hard-core sceptics. Take, for example, this astonishing claim about mind-control techniques, which surfaced on the Internet (where else?) in the 1990s:

The idea is simple: to keep people ASLEEP just program the needed info to affect their brain WHILE THEY SLEEPI, which is their most receptive and vulnerable state anyway. Therefore, an antenna is essentially a mini-transmitter as well if it is made to oscillate by a suitable resonant frequency, by transmitting the carrier waves in the TV/FM range and MODULATING them in the form of ELF/ULF range, the objective can easily be accomplished. When a human body is lying down in a metal-spring matress, it is within inches of the metallic spring GRID (Insert images of the Planetary Energy Grid, here, if you will) created by the underlying network of springs. These springs are NATURAL ANTENNAS to any incoming electromagnetic waves, stray or directed. Consequently, while we are in the most profound sleep – in the DELTA RANGE – we are enfolded in the field of the metallic spring matrix of the matress, and are easy prey to Electromagnetic Wave Programming in an ideal state of receptivity indeed! ([sic] thoughout)

The idea was given a sympathetic hearing. A tiny contretemps ensued. The rational response – having kept the face straight for long enough – was to dismiss it as barking nonsense. Which it is, of course, but that’s not the point. Arguments over whether or not this kind of thing goes on, even can go on, and who’s behind it all, are as fruitless as ‘debates’ about the reality of ghosts, reincamation, alien abductions, leprechauns or the Loch Ness Monster. They are particularly worthless as a reaction to conspiracy theories because conspiracy theories are an expression of found significance. Their function is to provide or underwrite a structure of meaning; and they are bottomless, infinite and all-inclusive because they have to be, if they are to work as intended. …
In short, an approach to conspiracy theories that stays at the level of their plausibility is obeying the law of shallow responses. Conspiracy thinking is mythological (or ’magical’) thinking. Martin S Day has observed that “scientifically, [a myth] cannot be proved” and neither can it be “properly reconciled with phenomenological facts”, elaborating on Hans Georg Gadamer’s judgement that “the only good definition of myth is that myth neither requires nor includes any possible verification outside of itself.” Quite why looking beyond the verifiability of conspiracy theories (and of many other kinds of claim) has so often been neglected by forteans and sceptics alike is not entirely obvious, and is beyond our scope here. Forteans however may have Fort himself to blame, as broadly hinted above. Inflexible sceptics too may be presumed to be at the mercy of their own mythologies, consciously or otherwise.

10/15/2007

A piece of thesis

By and large, whenever we hear that someone believes that an event came about due to a conspiracy we think that they are somewhat naively believing in a Conspiracy Theory and that they have made some ‘wrong move’ epistemically. We do, I think, treat the term ‘Conspiracy Theory’ in a pejorative sense. The Inference to Conspiracy, whereby we explain events with reference to a Conspiracy, underlies the intuition that Conspiracy Theories, per se, are bad. It is because we take the Inference to Conspiracy to be (usually) unwarranted that we treat the term Conspiracy Theory as a pejorative.The Inference to Conspiracy is a version of the Inference to Any Old Explanation, the so-called ‘Just So’ Fallacy. However, for a proper understanding of how and why the Inference to Conspiracy should be treated, prima facie, as a fallacy we should admit to two senses of the term ‘Conspiracy Theory.’The first is what I call the ‘General.’ The term `Conspiracy Theory’ is sometimes used in connection with any event with an associated Conspiracy. We can tell two different Conspiracy Theory stories about the assassination of JFK. One is the Official View which is that it was a conspiracy on the part of the KGB and Lee Harvey Oswald whilst the other is the Unofficial View, that the American Government and the CIA conspired to kill President Kennedy. Thus some Conspiracy Theories are warranted, and we recognise this fact by admitting to there being explanations of events in History that rest upon the fact that cabals conspired and that many of the theories about such conspiracies, such as those surrounding the Trotksy Trials of the 1930s, turned out to be good.In this version the pejorative form of ‘Conspiracy Theory’ is any explanation that makes reference to a Conspiracy that is not taken to be the best inference. If Lee Harvey Oswald and agents of the KGB conspired to kill President Kennedy, then surely this is an example of a conspiracy. However, this is not contentious; this is an accepted part of the historical record. It is the Official View; the view formed by the Warren Commission who investigated the assassination. The Unofficial View, the Conspiracy Theory in the pejorative sense, is that the American Government was somehow responsible for the death of JFK.Official and Unofficial are not the most helpful of terms here. The Official View here means literally that; it is the view held by the officials, the supposed experts or authorities invested by the Government of the United States of America, to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. This Official View also happens to be the explanation accepted by most of the researchers and historians of the period. Sometimes, however, the Official View will not accord with the work of historians and researchers and the Official View may not be the consensus view at all. This leads me on to my second sense of the term ‘Conspiracy Theory,’ the Unofficial.Sometimes the term `Conspiracy Theory’ is only used in connection with an explanation that runs counter to the Official View [Needs a rewrite; really we should be talking about consensus views rather than in the terminology of the Official. This might just be because we need to have chapters 1 and 2 finished before this section can be truly tight]. The Official View is the explanation of the event that we take to be the best; it is the Inference to the Best Explanation. Sometimes we do not refer to such Official Views as Conspiracy Theories; the attacks of 9/11 were of a conspiratorial kind but the purported explanation which implicates Al Qaeda in the attack is not labeled a Conspiracy Theory. In this sense we reserve the label ‘Conspiracy Theory’ for the claim that the attacks were perpetrated by the American Government. This explanation, unwarrantedly referring as it does to conspiratorial activity is labeled a Conspiracy Theory as it goes against the Official View, which is to say that it flies against the best inference and is an example of an Inference to Any Old Explanation.Take the Trotsky Trials. In the 1930s the Russian State places Trotsky and his associates on trial for treason. Whilst the defendants protest their innocence the trials render guilty verdicts and they are sentenced to death. Some people are suspicious; the trials may well have been orchestrated show trials, rendering guilty verdicts because that is what Joseph Stalin wanted, but the Kremlin denies this and claims proper judicial procedure was adhered to. American and Britain agree but the Dewey Commission, who investigate the trials, comes to another verdict; the trials were for show after all and Trotsky and his comrades could never have had any other verdict than guilty. At this time, 1938, the proponents of the Dewey Commission are labelled ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ and yet, in 1952, they were vindicated. The trials had been for show, the Official View was a cover-up and what was taken to be a Conspiracy Theory was actually the explanation after all.

09/18/2007

Permalink to the 95bFM interview

Listen to it here. My speech defect seems awfully prevalent (to my ears) but it all sounds intelligible and intelligent, which is good.

09/13/2007

The Monday Wire Interview, 95bFM

An article about me and the JREF Scholarship appeared in Te Waha Nui last week. You can read it here.

Anyway, I was interviewed[1] yesterday by José Barbosa of the ‘The Monday Wire,’ 95bFM’s current affairs/news show. It’s a pre-record for Monday’s (the 10th) show, so break out your old transistor radio and set your alarms to ‘Fun!’

Oh, that was a bad paraphrase of ‘The Simpsons.’ I’ll slink off now.

—

1. I’m curious to hear how I sound; it was all improv-ed and I had no idea whatsoever what the next question was going to be. I suspect that I probably sounded more strident about some matters than I am and that other times I probably could have make stronger claims than I actually did. Oh well, Monday will out.

09/06/2007

A Case Study in Critical Thinking: The North Head Conspiracy Theory

On Thursday I enter the wide world of corporate speaking gigs with a talk to a group of underwriters at Vero. Yay, verily, I am involved with professional development and yay, verily, I’m somewhat conflicted by the notion.I’m not a friend of Capitalism.I got the gig because one of my Continuing Education students works for Vero and thought my style would work; some challenging intellectual footwrok, a little light humour and a whole lot of love (well, no love; that would break certain ethical boundaries). I’m basing the talk on two other pieces I wrote; a critical thinking primer I gave to the librarians at the University of Auckland a few years back (when we were trying to dissuade the Library from trying to teach their own critical thinking skills programme; that’s a long story in itself) and a paper I presented at a conference a few years back, although the rewrites have almost made it into a new work.All of which is meant to explain the lack of real updates on this site; the testimony work is getting bigger and more involving in re the actual thesis and what started out as a mere paper will likely become a very important chapter in the final product. I think I may have a kind of solution to a tricky philosophical problem in re internal notions of justified belief and external notions of knowledge. A large part of my thesis will revolve around explicating the ‘Inference to Any Old Explanation’ fallacy, which is, I believe, the reason why we are so (rightfully) dismissive of claims of Conspiracy. People often make faulty inferences because they are inadequately informed or they trust unreliable sources, and testimony is a case where trusting an unreliable source can lead to having what appears to be a justified belief. The coherence of your existing beliefs affects what new beliefs you are likely to take on board and this is going to also make you more or less likely to trust particular testifiers. If you believe that the government is conspiring against you, then someone who agrees with your assessment and tells a story about how the government is conspiring is likely to be someone you are going to trust, moreso than me.

09/03/2007