I find this article more interesting from the perspective of, "here are the reasons we evolved emotions and other biases, they are actually quite useful in some situations, please stop thinking of them as inherently flawed". We should acknowledge that such lines of reasoning have their uses, but I don't think we should necessarily kowtow to them.
“If you fine-tune on the past with an optimisation model, and the future is not like the past, then that can be a big failure, as illustrated in the last financial crisis,” he explains. “In a world where you can calculate the risks, the rational way is to rely on statistics and probability theory. But in a world of uncertainty, not everything is known—the future may be different from the past—then statistics by itself cannot provide you with the best answer anymore.”
Hyperbolic discounting is a well-known cognitive bias, whereby people will instinctively prefer $50 now over $100 in a year’s time, even though that ultimately leads to a lesser reward. But while that may seem silly in a perfect economic model setting, imagine the scenario in the real world: If a friend offered you a sum of money now or double in twelve months time, you might well go ahead and take the money immediately on offer. After all, he could forget, or break his promise, or you could become less friendly. The many variables in the real world mean that it makes sense to hold on to whatever rewards we can quickly get our hands on.
"Facts on their own don’t tell you anything,” says Mercier. “It’s only paired with preferences, desires, with whatever gives you pleasure or pain, that can guide your behaviour. Even if you knew the facts perfectly, that still doesn’t tell you anything about what you should do.”
https://qz.com/922924/humans-werent-designed-to-be-rational-and-we-are-better-thinkers-for-it/amp/
Erm. I was summing up how many times I would need to reply No to Olivia Goldhill's begged questions. I lost count around the point where she was asserting certain brain damaged people have trouble making decisions.
ReplyDeleteBeing irrational in the context of love can take many forms, among them, believing in the beloved, despite their many faults and failings. We tolerate each other that we may be tolerated in our turn, building up karma credit against some jackpot fuckup in the future.
But comes a point where that line of credit is denied. Put your faith in God, if you wish. But let ol' Dan Weese tell you straight up: do not put your faith in other human beings.
Irrationality is dangerous. Dangerous to those around us, dangerous to ourselves.
We may always trust the French to pitifully maunder on about rationality and what it might mean. The French haven't heard a rational man speaking French since Diderot and it shows.
Humans are perfectly capable of reasoning: they just won't do it because reasoning is hard work. This keeps the gambling houses in business. Also songwriters, see second paragraph
Most people, as Da Vinci observed, let life just happen to them.
"Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present." - Eliot
Darwin
ReplyDeletearchive.org - The expression of the emotions in man and animals
I"m curious what David Amerland's take on this will be.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I agree. We are emotional beings and emotions do equate in our decision-making every single day. The question isn't whether emotions play a role, but how much of a role they play and is that role a net positive or a negative. Emotional decisions, I believe, are the domain of tyrants and despots, sociopaths and psychopaths. It's only when we inject logic or reasoning into our decision-making that we rise above the whims of demagoguery and enter a better state of society. It's why, for all it's faults, modern societies, governed by the rule of law, are more stable than those run on the impulses of monarchies or strictly controlled governments.
Jason ON Though I'm not religious, I find the contraposition of the seven deadly sins and heavenly virtues of interest.
ReplyDeleteThe sins are effectively emotions allowed to run amok, to self-serving purpose. The virtues are all other-serving.
en.m.wikipedia.org - Heuristic - Wikipedia
ReplyDelete"Unconvinced?" Nope
ReplyDelete"There’s an excellent real-world example of this: The financial crisis. Experts created sophisticated models and were confident that the events of the 2007 crisis were statistically impossible."
Thats only a real world example if all your priors started after 1998.
And the so called experts were being paid to say that by people selling junk options.
Im sure the assholes said tbe exact same thing 2 years ago when they decimated the new financial rules.