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I never got around to reading Thinking, Fast and Slow back in the day although I was kinda fooled by the book cover to thinking that this must be a profound, thought-through work:
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Wikipedia
Never judge a book by its cover, I keep forgetting, and in this case an elegant cover wrapped a not-so-interesting book. Replication crisis aside, its system 1 and system 2, Iâm not saying theyâre a useless model but Iâd still categorize both of those systems as similar to each other.
Both are the liâl monologue narrator in your head going âOK, two plus two is four. Seventeen times twenty four is, uh, well, hmm, seven times times six is one-oh-two, and that times four is four-oh-eightâ.
Iâm more interested in thoughts vs, uh, letâs call âem âemotionsâ. Thereâs also feelings and sensations and all kinds of stuff. The parts of our heads that âthe liâl narratorâ doesnât always know to consult or examine.
Not saying itâs only two halves; maybe thereâs three. Teresa of Ăvila spoke of seven rooms and Timothy Leary had the eight circuits. Itâs a whole tangle of yarn in there, thousands of threads. Every attempt to sort them is just a model.
One âleftâ, one ârightââbrain edition
Pretty much everyoneâespecially those who think this doesnât apply to themâhas this tendency to start by feeling something and then afterwards finding arguments in favor of that, kidding ourselves into thinking that we reasoned our way there in the first place, that the horse was properly in front of the cart and the dog was wagging the tail.
This has been on my mind a lot lately; both of my previous essays today touched on this; first how liberals can be so biased in favor of market capitalism that they think its flaws are good actually even when it very much isnât. Second, in an essay about AI punditry, I was tossin a liâl jab at the all-change-is-bad crowd, without being clear enough that that includes me, too. Thatâs absolutely a bias I have, that change and new things can be exhausting and that, when Iâm being self-reflective, I find myself having twisted my reasoning to âlogicallyâ try justify resistance to change thatâs more based on exhaustion or fear.
and for more on market shortcomings, see also:
The free market is an embarrassment
Many of us mightâve had someone in our lives who was sensitive to low blood sugar, whoâd get more easily angry or otherwise be more quick to find fault if what was really going on is that they hungry. Perhaps some of yâall have known someone who initially wasnât aware of this correlation, even to the point of refusing to believe it at first, and how much easier it was to be with them once they developed that awareness. Or like a liâl kid whoâs too tired to realize that theyâre tired, thatâs another example.
So I guess most grown-up people do know that reason isnât always reliable and that feelings sometimes have a bigger picture than what weâre consciously aware of.
But thatâs not how the discourse goes. Maybe itâs that in nerd spaces thereâs a liâl bit of over-belief in rationality and the reasoning mind, an over-trust in âthe liâl narratorâ, but ânerd spacesâ doesnât just rule computing; itâs all kinds of academia, economics, business, law, and politics.
Becoming more aware exactly how we decide things isnât done in a flash. Itâs a life-long process. But becoming aware that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, thatâs step one.
Becoming aware of your feelings doesnât mean becoming ruled by them. Itâs the opposite; the less aware you are of them the more theyâll wreck you without you knowing whatâs going on. Theyâre not always right, and making decisions should involve both thinking and feeling. But theyâre not always wrong and if you dontât know theyâre there, youâll mess yourself up. I keep needing to re-learn this lesson again and again and again.
Iâll guess Iâll have to start by making a list.