[lbo-talk] No evidence

[Charles Brown]

CB: My opinion is the uniqueness of human "wiring" is to think symbolically.
And the essential quality of symbolic thinking is that it is inherently
social thinking, as it involves conventions and arbitrary
signifier-signified links that are of social origin. The symbol is actually
"illogical" in that it identifies two things that are not identical, for
example the series of sounds "d-o-g" with the animal canine. Nonetheless,
symbolic thinking somehow, allows an enormous explosion in the individual's
ability to share the experience and thoughts of other members of the
species.
Non-human animals think logically and rationally, but they are not able to
share as many experiences , as much empirical material, so they don't have
as many generalizations from which to make logical deductions. Also, without
language ,the individuals can't share their reasonings with each other as
readily. Animals have to rely a lot more on imitating each other's actions,
actions they directly observe. So, they have relatively impoverished logical
chains of thinking though not necessarily faulty.
For American humans to equate Hussein and Bin Laden is logical in a way in
that it maintains a simple consistency. Bad=Bad. The fundamental principle
of  formal logic is non-contradiction, tautology. In this case , it is sort
of sympathetic magic , too - like begets like.

From: andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>

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. -clip-