People don't think rationally & WHY they think the way they do(my rambling thoughts)
06-25-2018, 06:13 PM
A common misconception is that people generally think rationally/logically. That is, people think things through, and come to a conclusion after debating with themselves. However from what I've observed and read this seems to clearly be untrue; people almost certainly come to a conclusion first, and reading r/K among other things leads me to believe this conclusion come from biological instinct, and then rationalise why they decided that after the fact. The smarter they are the more sophisticated the rationalisation. A big reason people continue to believe they think logically is I believe they're scared to open themselves up to the possibility they have much less free will than they think.
Texas Arcane actually has a plausible sounding conspiracy theory that Homo Sapiens actually does not think, and the small part of us which does is basically Neanderthal genes.
Roughly speaking, I know this misconception to be untrue, because especially in New Zealand, if I do try to think things through and try to fact-find/come to logical conclusions, especially in social situations, I'd be told I was "overthinking things" or "needed to go with the flow". It would also be considered autistic- and actually, one of the biggest traits about autism is how "hyper-logical" they are. That's what people tell non-autists about how to understand autistic people. But if you think it through it doesn't make sense. How can people be "hyper-logical"? You can't be more logical than logical. The answer is people generally aren't logical and autists are less non-logical.
What lead me to really think about this was rewatching these videos by Veritasium(a popular science youtuber, especially back in the day). If you're not interested in those topics, you don't have to click them, it's roughly what it says on the tin.
In the first video, he explains the flaws of science/physics educational videos. People don't actually learn generally, they watch the videos and it basically cements their preconceived notions. The lesson is you actually have to challenge those misconceptions to further true learning. A conclusion I got from it years ago is that physics in his opinion is particularly counter-intuitive and you have to learn it right to get rid of your misconceptions.
When I rewatched it now I came to a different conclusion; people have flawed notions about everything, it's just physics has a right-or-wrong framework that's really easy to corner people and call people out when they're wrong. Thus, it can give the impression physics is "counter-intuitive". But realistically to me a lot of things are counter-intuitive and people just don't realise it because they haven't been called out on it.
In the second video, he explains at length how scientific studies have major flaws. But the conclusion he gives at 11:08 is really interesting. He says "What gets me is the thought that even trying our best to figure out what's true, using our most sophisticated and rigorous mathematical tools: peer review, and standards of practice, we still get it wrong so often. So how frequently do we delude ourselves when we're not using the scientific method? As flawed as our science is it is far and away more reliable than any other way of knowing we have."
When I watched it originally, I came to the naive conclusion: we don't really know much. However, what's really interesting is Veritasium actually seems relatively logical and tries to fact-find, however his progressive bias is leaking. He spent 10 minutes talking about the major flaws of science and the scientific method for knowing things, yet his conclusion is certainty it's the best method without explaining why. Logically speaking, if you've spent that long disparaging science and not saying a single positive, surely you must be open to the possibility science is not necessarily the best method. Which leads me to believe many people, progressives more so, tend to view science as their religion.
Jordan Peterson and Carl Jung has talked about a "collective unconscious"- that is something everyone knows without needing to learn about it. For instance, a fear of snakes. But also many other Jungian archetypes. I think something like this might be at play for why people think the way they do.
Virtually every progressive over a certain intelligence(ie, 100 IQ) claims to cherish science, rationality, often athiesm, etc. (If they are dumber than that, then they can't really think anyway, so their opinions don't matter) I believe the reason is this. Progressives do not have an "instinct"(which I will describe later), which lets them know things. People in general also don't think logically. Progressives are proven to have lower empathy(ability to understand others/realise their differences in opinion) and lower threat sensitivity/pattern recognition, and they assume everyone is like this also, so for someone like that, it only makes sense to believe in "Science". They also lean more narcissistic and thus delusional, so they cannot easily be persuaded to believe that the science they are believing in is more like a religion, nor that they are illogical. This is compounded by the fact that the loudest anti-science conservatives/people in general are dumb, so it feels like an easy slam dunk.
Conservatives have a deep instinct to value morality, tradition, in-group loyalty, religious values, family values, etc. This seems to be really similar to Carl Jung's collective unconscious. This manifests in middling IQ conservatives to describe their views as "common sense"- although conservatives have higher empathy than progressives, they still don't realise that progressives do not have the same instincts they do. Thus they tend to write off progressives as crazy and/or immoral, which arguably they are, but the point is conservatives imagine progressives have those instincts and ignore them, but it seems more likely they don't have these instincts. I think r/K explains it somewhat- the K selected conservative has a strong evolutionary pressure to have a stronger grip on reality. The "common sense" conservative views I've come to realise are more right than the "rational, scientific" progressive views.
The problem with "common sense" to describe your views is how illogical it is. People who are conservative aren't actually right as such because people aren't logical and don't think things through. They only happen to be right because evo psych reasons, conservatives have greater selection pressure to match reality. Thus, if the "common sense" conservatives are actually wrong, it's so easy for them to be blindsided. This is also relatively apparent in societal shifts- as society shifts more progressive, them being herd animals are also affected, and "common sense" also shifts. However what is right-or-wrong does not shift, so clearly the common sense method has some major flaws.
So what is the way to go about the world? A key thing to remember is that according to r/K is progressives are strongly inclined to, likely subconsciously, lie and deceive you. A lot of common sense conservatives realise this, but aren't smart enough to realise or articulate why.
The other thing is pattern recognition and being able to be cornered if wrong. PUA seems much more accurate than social science, which is a big part I'm a big fan of Roosh and Krauser's work. Redpill views on sexuality beats the media/societal narrative. Alternative health(Paleo, clean eating, intensity training, weights) has been years/decades ahead of the mainstream. Even many conspiracy theories have been proven to be true(of course, no credit is given to them- before it's proven the conspiracy theorists are thought to be crazy, after it's proven then people would say "everyone knew that"). So think clearly and learn to try and recognise patterns. And try to think things logically and ask why things are the way they are.
Texas Arcane actually has a plausible sounding conspiracy theory that Homo Sapiens actually does not think, and the small part of us which does is basically Neanderthal genes.
Roughly speaking, I know this misconception to be untrue, because especially in New Zealand, if I do try to think things through and try to fact-find/come to logical conclusions, especially in social situations, I'd be told I was "overthinking things" or "needed to go with the flow". It would also be considered autistic- and actually, one of the biggest traits about autism is how "hyper-logical" they are. That's what people tell non-autists about how to understand autistic people. But if you think it through it doesn't make sense. How can people be "hyper-logical"? You can't be more logical than logical. The answer is people generally aren't logical and autists are less non-logical.
What lead me to really think about this was rewatching these videos by Veritasium(a popular science youtuber, especially back in the day). If you're not interested in those topics, you don't have to click them, it's roughly what it says on the tin.
In the first video, he explains the flaws of science/physics educational videos. People don't actually learn generally, they watch the videos and it basically cements their preconceived notions. The lesson is you actually have to challenge those misconceptions to further true learning. A conclusion I got from it years ago is that physics in his opinion is particularly counter-intuitive and you have to learn it right to get rid of your misconceptions.
When I rewatched it now I came to a different conclusion; people have flawed notions about everything, it's just physics has a right-or-wrong framework that's really easy to corner people and call people out when they're wrong. Thus, it can give the impression physics is "counter-intuitive". But realistically to me a lot of things are counter-intuitive and people just don't realise it because they haven't been called out on it.
In the second video, he explains at length how scientific studies have major flaws. But the conclusion he gives at 11:08 is really interesting. He says "What gets me is the thought that even trying our best to figure out what's true, using our most sophisticated and rigorous mathematical tools: peer review, and standards of practice, we still get it wrong so often. So how frequently do we delude ourselves when we're not using the scientific method? As flawed as our science is it is far and away more reliable than any other way of knowing we have."
When I watched it originally, I came to the naive conclusion: we don't really know much. However, what's really interesting is Veritasium actually seems relatively logical and tries to fact-find, however his progressive bias is leaking. He spent 10 minutes talking about the major flaws of science and the scientific method for knowing things, yet his conclusion is certainty it's the best method without explaining why. Logically speaking, if you've spent that long disparaging science and not saying a single positive, surely you must be open to the possibility science is not necessarily the best method. Which leads me to believe many people, progressives more so, tend to view science as their religion.
Jordan Peterson and Carl Jung has talked about a "collective unconscious"- that is something everyone knows without needing to learn about it. For instance, a fear of snakes. But also many other Jungian archetypes. I think something like this might be at play for why people think the way they do.
Virtually every progressive over a certain intelligence(ie, 100 IQ) claims to cherish science, rationality, often athiesm, etc. (If they are dumber than that, then they can't really think anyway, so their opinions don't matter) I believe the reason is this. Progressives do not have an "instinct"(which I will describe later), which lets them know things. People in general also don't think logically. Progressives are proven to have lower empathy(ability to understand others/realise their differences in opinion) and lower threat sensitivity/pattern recognition, and they assume everyone is like this also, so for someone like that, it only makes sense to believe in "Science". They also lean more narcissistic and thus delusional, so they cannot easily be persuaded to believe that the science they are believing in is more like a religion, nor that they are illogical. This is compounded by the fact that the loudest anti-science conservatives/people in general are dumb, so it feels like an easy slam dunk.
Conservatives have a deep instinct to value morality, tradition, in-group loyalty, religious values, family values, etc. This seems to be really similar to Carl Jung's collective unconscious. This manifests in middling IQ conservatives to describe their views as "common sense"- although conservatives have higher empathy than progressives, they still don't realise that progressives do not have the same instincts they do. Thus they tend to write off progressives as crazy and/or immoral, which arguably they are, but the point is conservatives imagine progressives have those instincts and ignore them, but it seems more likely they don't have these instincts. I think r/K explains it somewhat- the K selected conservative has a strong evolutionary pressure to have a stronger grip on reality. The "common sense" conservative views I've come to realise are more right than the "rational, scientific" progressive views.
The problem with "common sense" to describe your views is how illogical it is. People who are conservative aren't actually right as such because people aren't logical and don't think things through. They only happen to be right because evo psych reasons, conservatives have greater selection pressure to match reality. Thus, if the "common sense" conservatives are actually wrong, it's so easy for them to be blindsided. This is also relatively apparent in societal shifts- as society shifts more progressive, them being herd animals are also affected, and "common sense" also shifts. However what is right-or-wrong does not shift, so clearly the common sense method has some major flaws.
So what is the way to go about the world? A key thing to remember is that according to r/K is progressives are strongly inclined to, likely subconsciously, lie and deceive you. A lot of common sense conservatives realise this, but aren't smart enough to realise or articulate why.
The other thing is pattern recognition and being able to be cornered if wrong. PUA seems much more accurate than social science, which is a big part I'm a big fan of Roosh and Krauser's work. Redpill views on sexuality beats the media/societal narrative. Alternative health(Paleo, clean eating, intensity training, weights) has been years/decades ahead of the mainstream. Even many conspiracy theories have been proven to be true(of course, no credit is given to them- before it's proven the conspiracy theorists are thought to be crazy, after it's proven then people would say "everyone knew that"). So think clearly and learn to try and recognise patterns. And try to think things logically and ask why things are the way they are.