cassandra’s paradox
DESCRIPTION
Lesson material on prediction and the Human Sciences for IB Theory of KnowledgeTRANSCRIPT
Myth and Human Behaviour
Can Myth enlighten our understanding of Human Sciences?
What is (a) myth? definitions
A purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions of events, and embodying some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena OED
A story.... offering an explanation of some fact or phenomenon; story with a veiled meaning Chambers
"A myth, in its simplest definition, is a story with a meaning attached to it other than it seems to have at first; and the fact that it has such a meaning is generally marked by some of its circumstances being extraordinary……...“ John Ruskin
Myth (continued)
Myth and Anthropology True myth may be defined as the reduction to narrative
shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially Robert Graves
Myth and Semiology Can anything be myth? Yes, I believe so, for the
universe is infinitely suggestive. Each object in the world can pass from a closed, silent existence to a state where it speaks Roland Barthes, Mythologies
Cassandra’s paradox
The most beautiful of Priam’s daughters
Apollo fell in love with her and granted her the
gift of prophecy
She did not return his love
Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one
would ever believe her prophecies
At the fall of Troy
If only she had not been cursed
She would have been believed
And ………..
And of course Troy would have been saved And we would have been saved the film
What if? If she had the gift of foresight.... Surely she would have known the
consequences... and she would not have been raped by Ajax,
and killed by Clytemnestra
But then of course...
She knew!
So did she have a choice?
C’est écrit là-haut!
How did they meet? By chance, like everyone else.
What were they called? What does that matter to
you? Where were they coming from? From the
nearest place. Where were they going? Who knows
where they were going? What were they saying?
The master was silent and Jacques was saying that
his captain in the army used say that all the good
and bad that happens to us down here on earth
was already written up there.
Oedipus He knew (because of a
prophecy) theat he would kill his father and marry his mother
To what extent did his knowledge of the prophecy affect his behaviour and choices?
Why does he punish himself?
Why does he blind himself as a punishment?
The Oedipus effect.
“ …… the oracle played a most important role in
the sequence of events which led to the fulfilment
of its prophecy. … For a time I thought that the
existence of the Oedipus effect distinguished the
social from the natural sciences. But in biology, too
—even in molecular biology—expectations often
play a role in bringing about what has been
expected. ”
Karl Popper
Self fulfilling prophecy - psychology. A person who expects people to be friendly, may
smile more and thus receive more smiles
A person expecting to be lucky, may enter many more competitions and thus increase their chances of winning.
Children randomly allocated to a group labelled ‘bright’ did better in an experiment than a similar group labelled ‘less bright’
BUT you may also do your utmost to ensure a prediction made by a psychologist does not happen!
Self fulfilling prophecy - Economics Told that a bank was in trouble, people rushed
to take out their money thereby causing the bank to fail.
Bear and Bull markets – expectations of market rises and falls tend to make them rise or fall.
Predictions of depression make people behave in a way which (at least) hastens it
Placebo and Nocebo A patient given a pill expects it to make him
better (placebo) and often does
In a classic nocebo experiment conducted in the early 1980s volunteers were told that a mild electrical current would pass through their head, and although no electrical current was used, two-thirds of the volunteers complained of a headache after the experiment.
Particularity of human sciences Man is the subject and the student Compare Martian as student
The car engines
malfunction when
the lights go red!
Wir verstehen!
Wir verstehen
Wir verstehen
Wir verstehen
The “verstehen” position Understanding from the inside
“A man who lacks common intelligence can be a physicist of genius but not even a mediocre historian”
Isaiah Berlin Compare:
Why a leaf flies in the wind
Why a man flies from a mob
Let us remember however,
Confirmation bias
Question(er) bias
Difficulties in measurement
Observation of people may affect their behaviour
Problem of (no) controlled experiments
Human sciences often affected by moral issues
Limitations on willingness to experiment
Human science laws suggest the ‘probable’
Uncomfortable with falsification
Do we trust predictions?
If the apple will fall to the ground
The weather forecast
A forecast of future economic growth
The future portrayed in a Sci-Fi novel
What I tell you will happen at the end of the
lesson
And lastly
What decisions do we make and how do we behave faced with predictions? (Oedipus and Cassandra)
You are told you have 6 months to live – what decisions do you take?
The prediction turns out to be false........