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People who believe that they make all their decisions rationally are delusional. I say this with confidence because there is a large amount of research showing

by araneae 16y ago

People who believe that they make all their decisions rationally are delusional. I say this with confidence because there is a large amount of research showing that people make decisions with a good deal of input- if not entirely- from the non-conscious parts of their brain. In fact, there are some people that argue that our conscious brains don't make decisions at all, they merely rationalize it post facto. (This goes too far, for me) The classic example of this are the split brain studies, where they would show one half of a person's brain a sign that said "stand up." The patient would stand up. Then they would ask the other half of the brain (the one that was capable of speaking; in most humans, only one half of the brain can) why they stood up, and they would be completely convinced it was because they wanted to get a drink or water, or go to the bathroom. That said, I'm pretty much the most gung-ho person on reason I know. The reason for this is that, like someone mentioned on a blog post on here, intuition is not transferable. If someone wants to convince me of anything at all, they're going to have to make reasoned arguments, not emotional ones.

_delirium 16y ago
The reason for this is that, like someone mentioned on a blog post on here, intuition is not transferable. If someone wants to convince me of anything at all, they're going to have to make reasoned arguments, not emotional ones. Hmm, I'm not as sure on that one. Aren't there studies that show that convincing people via logical argument is just about the least effective possible means of persuasion? Politicians might be seen as something like professional intuition-transferrers: they want you to come around to their way of thinking, and they don't stick to only using rational arguments as the primary way of making that happen. Even in philosophy, arguments by analogy often seem aimed at least partly aimed at transferring intuition, by mapping a situation to one where that you hope your reader has the intuition you want.

by araneae 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

The reason for this is that, like someone mentioned on a blog post on here, intuition is not transferable. If someone wants to convince me of anything at all, they're going to have to make reasoned arguments, not emotional ones. Hmm, I'm not as sure on that one. Aren't there studies that show that convincing people via logical argument is just about the least effective possible means of persuasion? Politicians might be seen as something like professional intuition-transferrers: they want you to come around to their way of thinking, and they don't stick to only using rational arguments as the primary way of making that happen. Even in philosophy, arguments by analogy often seem aimed at least partly aimed at transferring intuition, by mapping a situation to one where that you hope your reader has the intuition you want.