Metousiosis

Robert Burton‘s book entitled ”On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not” has finally made it onto my stack of books to read.  I am really looking forward to it as belief and cognitive dissonance are two of my favorite subjects.  The video below provides an excellent overview of the subject:

From YouTube Via Authors@Google:

Dr. Robert Burton visits Google’s Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his book “On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not.” This event took place on June 9, 2008, as part of the Authors@Google series.

In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know. He shows that the feeling of certainty we have when we “know” something comes from sources beyond our control and knowledge. In fact, certainty is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. Because this “feeling of knowing” seems like confirmation of knowledge, we tend to think of it as a product of reason. But an increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain, and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. The feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen.

~ by metousiosis on March 19, 2009.

Posted in Fallacy, Science, Skepticism
Tags: Authors@Google, Belief, cognitive dissonance, On Being Certain, Robert Burton