Why Do Humans Reason?

[amykat]

Last July, opening the Edge Seminar, "The New Science of Morality", Jonathan Haidt digressed to talk about two recently-published papers in Behavioral and Brain Sciences which he believed were "so important that the abstracts from them should be posted in psychology departments all over the country."

One of the papers "Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory," published by Behavioral and Brain Sciences, was by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. 

"The article,” Haidt said, "is a review of a puzzle that has bedeviled researchers in cognitive psychology and social cognition for a long time. The puzzle is, why are humans so amazingly bad at reasoning in some contexts, and so amazingly good in others?"

"Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments. That's why they call it The Argumentative Theory of Reasoning. So, as they put it, "The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things."

"Now, the authors point out that we can and do re-use our reasoning abilities. We're sitting here at a conference. We're reasoning together. We can re-use our argumentative reasoning for other purposes. But even there, it shows the marks of its heritage. Even there, our thought processes tend towards confirmation of our own ideas. Science works very well as a social process, when we can come together and find flaws in each other's reasoning. We can't find the problems in our own reasoning very well. But, that's what other people are for, is to criticize us. And together, we hope the truth comes out."

.......

And Jonathan Haidt says the “the article is one of my favorite papers of the last ten years. I believe that they have solved one of the most important and longstanding puzzles in psychology: why are we so good at reasoning in some cases, but so hopelessly biased in others? Once I read their paper, I saw the argumentative function" of reasoning everywhere — particularly in the reasoning of people I disagreed with, but also occasionally even in myself. They're on to a very powerful idea with many social and educational ramifications."

 

https://www.edge.org/conversation/hugo_mercier-the-argumentative-theory#

 

Here you will find the article "The Argumentative Theory" which is very easy to read, as well as video lecture which is great.

 

I believe this explains a lot about the phenomenon known as Trump, and many discussions we have on TV about life here vs back at home, people's personal relationship issues and inability to see them and many other things,  and those things are all discussed in the video.  Maybe if people are more aware of this information they can become better at finding solutions for themselves or seeking information in more than just similar places. Overall, it is a good argument simply for having this forum and a place to discuss ideas and to be challenged by other people's ideas and criticisms.

 

 

[pgrahmm]

The Charge of the Light Brigade

1
Half a league, half a league,
    Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.

2
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
    Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
    Rode the six hundred.

3
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
    Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
    Rode the six hundred.

4
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
    All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
    Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
    Not the six hundred.

5
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
    Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
    Left of six hundred.

6
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
    All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade,
    Noble six hundred.

Apparently - some didn't.....RIP

The rest of us are here on retirement visas....

[swissie]

Very academic. Needs to be boiled down to essentials:

 

To "reason" and therefore to approach the world based on "Cause and Effect" is cumbersome.

- Far easier to adopt some religious believes, making it unnecessary to bother with this  "reason /  cause and effect" hokus pokus.

The concept of "religion", instead of "reason" has worked quite well for humanity for the last 2000 years. Hasn't it ?
Cheers. 

[rogeroc]

5 hours ago, swissie said:

Very academic. Needs to be boiled down to essentials:

 

To "reason" and therefore to approach the world based on "Cause and Effect" is cumbersome.

- Far easier to adopt some religious believes, making it unnecessary to bother with this  "reason /  cause and effect" hokus pokus.

The concept of "religion", instead of "reason" has worked quite well for humanity for the last 2000 years. Hasn't it ?
Cheers. 

 

No definitely not because there is still far too much dreadful inhumanity and because so many are unreasonable.