So forgetting everything you said and I said, do you think telling people the 'general' facts about peak oil is enough to effect change?

How we (actually how "they") Model our Models

Nate,
It's not simply about discounting the future,
it's also about discounting models of the far off future.

To give you an example, if a climatologist told us that based on his models, a hurricane is coming tomorrow, we would tend to give that warning serious weight.

On the other hand, if a climatologist told us that based on his models, a hurricane is coming two weeks from now on Thursday at 5:00 PM, we would tend to give that far into the future warning very little weight because we know out of experience that models of the far off future tend to be wrong.

The same cognitive phenomenon applies to Hubbert's curves except that "we" on the TOD board do not view a Hubbert's model the same as does a member of the general population. To "them" it's just another easily discountable model of the far off future. To us, it is a well studied and thus very close to the heart model of what scientifically must unfold even if the timing is a bit off.

So the cognition problem is not just that of discounting the future.
It's also about discounting models of the future.

dtbks: - I agree with you on this. In my experience the greatest intellectual defect of the human race is inability to unthink an already existing viewpoint. But bear in mind that some people are a bit better at it than others. Individual differences are substantial and important.

But in confidence-shattering times of crisis, when belief systems start to break down, more people at last (too late) can do this unthinking. And yet still many will just not make it and die of brain-strain.

Hi Folks,

Ah excellent - Kuhn at last! There is also another less heard about chap called Jaques Ellul, (The Technological Society. Trans. John Wilkinson. New York: Knopf, 1964. etc) who wrote about humankind's fascination with technology - ways of doing as ways of being - I paraphrase him here, but I think you get the point. Also Zigmunt Bauman's 'Modernity and the Holocaust' also points out the dangers inherent in the ability of technology to distance humans from the reality/consequences of their actions. This ties in with Milgrams 'Perils of obedience' experiment. I agree that cognition comes into the equation, if only to become cognizant of how embedded in 'some-thing' or 'some-reality' one already is...

Also the focus on the brain is a very western bias (from Descartes et al), whereas eastern philosophy put the centre of cognition as the heart, and more recent scientific research has begun to give credence to this: "In essence, it appeared that the heart was affecting intelligence and awareness."(From: http://www.heartmath.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&It...)

Lastly, the new science of epigenetics may well put paid to a lot of Darwinian determinism, (that is the concept of the chemical environment surrounding genes changing both the genome and its function as opposed to purely selection of inherited/mutated traits/characteristics) (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/ghostgenes.shtml & http://www.nature.com/nature/supplements/insights/epigenetics/index.html)

L,
Sid.