Like NN, I decided to take a different tack. I now rely exclusively on Tarot to make all my decisions!
tal
Is logic really the best way to decide things?
by mankkeli 11 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
dgp
the use of logic as the supreme (or only valid) way of figuring things out requires that you consciously know and mull over, verbalize and theorize about, everything in life. The part of your brain that is verbal and can construct logical arguments is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the processing power your brain has. The rest of it is constantly taking in data, summarizing it and drawing conclusions and laying down memories (or not) and suggesting responses. The study of how to manipulate those responses (marketing is one branch of this) is fascinating, and certainly someone who has more knowledge of how the unconscious human mind works will have great power over large swathes of humanity - so there is danger that if you follow a solely intuitive approach, you open yourself up to abuse and manipulation. But...
Yes. In my humble opinion, this is why people want to give up their logic and have the answers given to them. They don't stop to think that this is the way you put yourself in somebody else's hands, and this other person often does not have your interest in mind.
Think of catching a ball. One way to do it would be to have someone throw it to you, note down the approximate mass, momentum, distance from the centre of mass of the earth, air pressure and wind resistance, etc., and use quadratic equations to figure out where the ball will land, and then put your hand out. Perfectly logical, and if you do it right it will tell you precisely where to put your hand, every time (if you mess up a step in the calculations you could be off by a mile, though, but moving on...). Because computers are better at working with complicated math than our conscious mind is, we are programming robots to catch balls by doing the equations involved. But, we have another alternative. We have specialized areas within our brains that can quickly figure out where stuff that's being thrown at us is going to land, and we can just use that ability that we have. Granted, someone who has a deep knowledge of how that part of our brain works can set up optical illusions, and we'll never catch a ball they throw (or we'll put our hand where they want us to put it, thinking we're doing the right thing). Not understanding and using advanced mathematics opens us up to manipulation, but also allows us to make decisions in everyday life 100's of times faster than we otherwise would be able to do. It's a tradeoff. And the tradeoff makes sense because when someone throws you a ball, knowing where to put your hand 3 hours from now is no good, you need to know now. And so it is with many decisions in life - any decision can often be better than no decision, and computing power costs energy as well as time, so decisions that use shortcuts, imperfect-but-often-good-enough heuristics, etc. end up wired into the human brain. And the same is true with an emotional reaction as is true with catching a ball - very often, our emotions serve us well in making decisions.
This is a false alternative. Do the test yourself: have a ball thrown and see if you have the time to do the calculations you suggested. Obviously you don't. But then, if the ball came to your right, would you do the illogical thing and extend the left hand?
Wouldn't you know that your human physical limits wouldn't give you time to do such calculations, and then wouldn't do them?
Now, if you had thousands of balls thrown at you and you could summarize all the factors into one single equation that could be fed to your brain and converted into an action in the split second it would take for you to catch the ball, you would catch the ball.
On the other hand, would you ilogically kill the fun in catching the ball, namely being able to catch it with uncertainty about where it is going?
Even though those emotional or intuitive decision-making processes are sometimes wrong in systematic ways that can be exploited, they use the full range and power of human thinking abilities
If I had only used my intuition and gone with your good prose, I wouldn't have noticed the fundamental mistake in this statement: you're saying that "emotional" is also different from "logical". When you're in love, it's very logical to go after the person you love. If you're thirsty, it's only logical to find water. It's also logical to build all the things that will get you tap water.
But let's go with your assumption and say that "emotional and intuitive", on the one hand, is opposed to "logical", on the other. Then you're wrong on your own terms: "emotional or intuitive decision-making processes" DO NOT "use the full range and power of human thinking abilities".
This last part of my post does not intend to be disrespectful, at all. But this post reminds me of those old Merry Melodies cartoons featuring Foghorn Leghorn and Egghead.