Cognitive islands and runaway echo chambers: problems for epistemic dependence on experts

Abstract

I propose to study one problem for epistemic dependence on experts: how to locate experts on what I will call cognitive islands. Cognitive islands are those domains for knowledge in which expertise is required to evaluate other experts. They exist under two conditions: first, that there is no test for expertise available to the inexpert; and second, that the domain is not linked to another domain with such a test. Cognitive islands are the places where we have the fewest resources for evaluating experts, which makes our expert dependences particularly risky. Some have argued that cognitive islands lead to the complete unusability of expert testimony: that anybody who needs expert advice on a cognitive island will be entirely unable to find it. I argue against this radical form of pessimism, but propose a more moderate alternative. I demonstrate that we have some resources for finding experts on cognitive islands, but that cognitive islands leave us vulnerable to an epistemic trap which I will call runaway echo chambers. In a runaway echo chamber, our inexpertise may lead us to pick out bad experts, which will simply reinforce our mistaken beliefs and sensibilities.Let's presume that cognitive independence is largely a fool's errand, and that modern cognitive life depends on trusting others -to fill in evidence, to corroborate and discorroborate our beliefs, to think through what we do not have the training or time to comprehend for ourselves (Hardwig 1985;Nguyen 2011). As Annette Baier puts it, our epistemic situation makes us trust other people, and trust makes us vulnerable (Baier 1986).Let's also presume that, as Elijah Millgram says, the diversity and specialization of modern scientific knowledge has sharply increased our degree of epistemic vulnerability.

Epistemic Communities under Active Inference

“…Echo-chambers tie people with similar views together, and tend to actively work against the engagement with, and assessment and evaluation of, external sources (e.g., information provided by members of the outgroup) [43,49]. Echo-chambers can become epistemically vulnerable when members can no longer assess whether an information is true or not [49,52]. Similarly, only having access to a few sources limits how much information can be gathered, and relevant sources of evidence may fall through the gaps [50,53].…”

A sociedade contemporânea à luz da ética informacional

“…Uma implicação ética deste contexto propiciado pela sociedade da informação é que mesmo que o usuário de uma rede social tenha acesso às informações diferentes daquilo que acredita, o reforço positivo causado pela repetição e popularidade de sua própria visão de mundo fomenta os erros indutivos tais como mencionados. Conforme defende Nguyen (2018), em uma bolha epistêmica deixamos de ter acesso às informações fora dela, enquanto que em uma câmara de eco deixamos de ter confiança em tais informações, apesar de poder, eventualmente, acessá-las. A realidade, portanto, é que a vasta maioria das informações sequer aparecerá à frente deste usuário.…”

Bosnia and Herzegovina Terra Incognita in the Academia of Europe

“…They can also assess an expert's degree of expertise, especially in those situations where different legitimate experts disagree. [7] Secondly, they are separated from other scientific spaces by a false presentation of the situation, which usually aims to get experts from abroad. Typically, standards are formed here for party-political ties that usually do not have a common character with neighboring areas.…”