[lbo-talk] Re: No evidence...

[andie nachgeborenen]

No, actually, I think we are not wired for logic. We
are can be trained by brute force into thinking
logically -- this is what I used to do to students who
hated it, and it is the main effect of grad or law
school, the ability to reason logically in a partial
and limited way,a t least if one makes the effort. But
it's not natural. When I used to car about these
things, I read the work of Daniel Kahneman (a recent
Nobel prizewinner in econ) and Amos Twersky, Philip
Jphnson-Laird, and I actually had a class with Robert
Nisbet of Nisbett and Ross, all of whom in different
ways did empirical studies of huamn reasoning that
showed we do not think in logic or probability theory,
statistical reasoning is alien to us, etc. Miles is
right that the research suggests we think in schemas
and frames. 

His just-so story (all evolutionary stories are
just-so stories) is probably right, that thsi is
optimization; it may be faster than logic, and allows
for the sort of crude associations (river - food) that
were useful back in the Pleistocene or whenever we
evolved our cognitive capacity. Nothing musch probably
rested on thea bility to do multiple steps of
intricate reasoning very fast. (Nietzsche's theory, in
The Geneaology of Morals, that this is a product of
class society, a defense mechanism of slaves who have
to think fast because they can't use force, is worth
thinking about!)

The problems is that we have the cognitive equipment
of hunter-gathering primates, useful for getting by on
the African veldt of 1 million BC, in a complex modern
society full of Hellfire missiles and hijackable
airplanes. Consequently we tend not to be smart in the
way we need to be. This, btw, =is why the Chomsky
technique of overwhelming people with arguments and
information does not work, but only irritates people.
I have a hell of a time making myself remember this
and act accordingly.

jks

 

--- joanna bujes <jbujes at covad.net> wrote:
> Justing writes:
> 
> "We are obviously not wired for logic."
> 
> Sure we are, or we couldn't do it. Trouble is, it
> gives us cold comfort. 
> What gives real comfort is the feeling that we are
> part of a large and 
> powerful group in whose bosom we can safely thrive.
> For example, U.S. 
> imperialism. As a result, we are satisfied with
> lumping all the bad guys 
> together and then deducing causal relationships
> between them: Hussein, 
> bad; Al-Queda, bad; Husseing = Al-Queda. I would
> hardly call this 
> thinking, but it seems to serve most.
> 
> Joanna
> 
> 
> ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

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