Josh Cahoon has brought up the deep subject of *why* we believe what
we believe.
> Why do you believe what you do? Why do I? We'd all like to believe that we
> have arrived at the conclusions most tenable after dispassionate logical
> analyses. I'm sure we all realize that there are other factors that play into
> the formation of our beliefs, but most of us still feel that logic and reason
> play a large role. What would we do with if we found out that reason is a
> minor factor?
Reason is* a minor factor! We obtain our initial beliefs in any given area
by various processes that I don't want to go into at this time. But soon,
a new belief---say on whether schools should be publicly or privately
funded---will obtain from an entire gestalt very quickly calculated by
your brain. The issue will almost instantly be filtered by all the
other beliefs and experiences that you've had. Reason will have nothing
to do with it. Your initial "take" is what is most likely to evolve
within a few seconds into permanent belief.
The role of reason---for the very few who actually hold internal debates
----is to expose your new belief to a variety of well formulated logical
attacks based on your other beliefs and upon a huge number of memes
lodged in your mind. Should any of these logical attacks or memes begin
to seriously apply, or if through further thought you discover
inconsistencies in your total view, then you can begin to employ
reason to seek a consistent final version. Our public debates simply
amplify this same process.
> There are several lines of evidence that are pushing me toward considering
> this possibility. One idea, not new to most on this list, I'm sure, is that
> free will is an illusion, and that all our behavior/beliefs are simply the
> outcomes of the laws of physics.
That has utterly nothing to do with the discussion at hand (IMO).
> The recent presidential election snafu also gave me pause in considering why
> we believe what we do.
Very good. I'd pay real money to be able to open a magic envelop and read
the correct percentage of those who contribute to this list who had the
very same experience as you relate. I certainly did.
> I don't see any particular consonance between conservative or Republican
> thought and not wanting recounts, on the one hand, and liberal or
> Democratic thought and wanting recounts, on the other.
Yes! Quite so.
> Yet it's my impression that a large majority of people who had opinions as to
> whether recounts should be undertaken had the opinion that was most likely to
> aid their favored candidate's election.
Of course.
> I wanted Gore to win. I wanted recounts. I thought I wanted recounts because
> that seemed the fairest way to resolve such a close count. But maybe the fact
> that I wanted Gore to win was a much more important factor in determining my
> position on recounts. Maybe preference for Gore or Bush was the most important
> factor in determining why all of us had the positions we did regarding recounts.
That is exactly so. Recall my description of the belief formation mechanism
above. In this case, human brains watching television or whatever took an
instantaneous snapshot of the whole issue. Except for just a few of us who
had prior experience with recounts or the recount issue, (certainly not me)
the immediate result in our brains was mismatch: few entries---experiences,
prior beliefs, or memes---were encountered. We were thus relatively free
to conjecture a new belief, and only afterwards AND ONLY IF WE WERE AMONG
THAT SPECIAL SUBSET OF PEOPLE did we subject our new belief to true rational
analysis (based again on memes and vague political theories that we adhere
to in general).
So, now that we were free to *conjecture* a new belief, guess what? We
immediately seized upon the belief that was most emotionally compelling,
to wit, the one that favored our own candidate in a highly charged election.
> That seems a rather troubling prospect.
I don't think that it's anything new :-) Not only that, but given the
necessity for speed that our brains had to have in our evolutionary past,
and also the definite advantages for speed now, it *has* to work that way.
Our emotions are too integral a part of our reasoning process (see Antonio
Damiaso "Descartes Error", or Joseph LeDoux "The Emotional Brain") for us
to entertain the idea that they can be dispensed with at the present time.
> I wanted Gore to win. I wanted recounts. I thought I wanted recounts because
> that seemed the fairest way to resolve such a close count. But maybe the fact
> that I wanted Gore to win...
Join the very small club of those people who will occasionally say something
that could be used by their political antagonists. "See?", one of those
idiots might shout, "some of those Gore supporters even *admit* that they
just wanted Gore to win, and that's why they want the recounts!". Precisely
the same argument would be equally true if the political polarity of the last
two sentences was reversed.
It's entirely possible that you have a judicial temperament. What is really
annoying and even frightening is how many jurists---not to mention laymen
on this very list---hardly understand what we are talking about. So
tightly integrated are their emotions in their thoughts AT ALL TIMES
that they literally begin to suspect that we are playing games, or
are being pretty sneaky in some way that they don't fully understand.
A judicial temperament allows one at times to come to a conclusion
that is at total odds with one's ideals and at total odds with one's
feelings. It actually hurts to admit the new decision.
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:03 MDT