#246 Robert Burton: On Being Certain

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter SubscribeStar: https://www.subscribestar.com/the-dissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT Anchor (podcast): https://anchor.fm/thedissenter Dr. Robert A. Burton graduated from Yale University and the University of California at San Francisco medical school, where he also completed his neurology residency. At age thirty-three, he was appointed chief of the Division of Neurology at UCSF Medical Center at Mt. Zion, where he subsequently became Associate Chief of the Department of Neurosciences. His books include On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not, A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind; What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves, and three critically acclaimed novels. He has also written essays, book reviews and op-ed pieces for the New York Times, Salon.com, Aeon, and Nautilus. In this episode, we focus on some of the main topics of Dr. Burton’s books. We talk about the feelings of knowing, certainty, familiarity, clarity of thought, and déjà vu that we have. We also refer to phenomena like moral dumbfounding and post-hoc rationalization. We discuss the problem with our view of how reason and rationality work, and how we are mistaken about how our own thinking works. We also talk about how different people see the world in different ways, our individual differences, and how religiosity is not going away anytime soon. We refer to the placebo effect, and also to how scientists have to be careful about how their own intuitions might affect how they study the human mind. We end up by discussing a possible way to improve the way we think, through a process of cultural evolution. -- Follow Dr. Burton’s work: Personal website: http://bit.ly/2KXY88E Articles on Aeon: http://bit.ly/2Z8wEqD Other articles: http://bit.ly/2L2F1tS On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not: https://amzn.to/2zguWEl A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves: https://amzn.to/2L2F6ha -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RUI BELEZA, ANTÓNIO CUNHA, CHANTEL GELINAS, JERRY MULLER, FRANCIS FORDE, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BRIAN RIVERA, ADRIANO ANDRADE, YEVHEN BODRENKO, SERGIU CODREANU, ADAM BJERRE, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, AIRES ALMEIDA, BERNARDO SEIXAS, HERBERT GINTIS, RUTGER VOS, RICARDO VLADIMIRO, BO WINEGARD, JOHN CONNORS, ADAM KESSEL, AND VEGA GIDEY! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, ROSEY, AND JIM FRANK!