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Someone said: > Unfortunately, most people are simple minded and are unable to separate their emotions from reason To which you answered: > Psychology seems to

Someone said: > Unfortunately, most people are simple minded and are unable to separate their emotions from reason To which you answered: > Psychology seems to point out that we all make emotional decisions first and then rationalize them You are saying 'we all make emotional decisions first and then rationalize them'. No we don't do it all equally. Yes, system one is active in all of us. It's emotional. System two, the 'rational' part, is activated on effort and really only for people above a certain intelligence level. People who are, for example, below 70 in IQ just can't think at a level of abstraction necessary to understand that there is a system one and system two. They are mostly dealing almost exclusively in system one. Some people manage to deal in system 2 much more. Generally, the smarter, the more they deal with that. I'm taking issue with saying 'we all' do it this way. Because that is clearly not true, given how some people solve problems using system 2 and others can't, they are simple minded. It's a tough pill to swallow, but it's there.

bumby 7y ago
>really only for people above a certain intelligence level What are you basing the claim that System 2 is only open to people above a certain intelligence threshold level on? That is certainly not one of the takeaways I had from Kahnemans work > Some people manage to deal in system 2 much more. Generally, the smarter, the more they deal with that. I think if you re-read Kahneman, you'll see he is actually in disagreement with this. He even states that he is unable to effectively guard against his System 1 biases. This is coming from a Nobel laureate at the forefront of the field. He certainly qualifies to be in the "smarter" category of humans and if anyone should be able to thwart System 1, I'd think it would be him. > I'm taking issue with saying 'we all' do it this way. The fact that we all do this is precisely the point of Kahneman's work that I relied on to make the claim. I wouldn't be surprised if there's degrees to the extent that it happens, but it's interesting to me that you think that degree hinges on someone's IQ. Is there any data to back up this hypothesis? It seems like there's a conflation of ideas here. I don't disagree that people have differing abilities of analytical ability. But this does not necessarily mean that higher levels of analytical ability negate the claim from Kahneman that our decisions are rooted in our emotional centers. This two points are not mutually exclusive. There appears to be at least some study into this: "One psychologist, Keith Stanovich, draws a distinction between two parts of System 2. One deals with slow and effortful thinking and demanding computation. Some people are better than others in this task, they are the individuals work cell [sic] in intelligence tests and are able to switch quickly and efficiently from one task to another. Yet such high intelligence does not make people immune to biases. Another ability is involved, what that psychologist labelled rationality and what Kahneman terms being engaged, which is distinct from intelligence as such." The argument you're making comes across as, "Yeah, of course those people are irrational and biased. But smart people are different." In my opinion, this is exactly the wrong take-away from Kahneman's work and it potentially opens one up to being even more biased. It reminds me of a conversation with magicians where they felt like scientists and PhDs are actually easier to fool because they were smart enough to rationalize any justification for an illusion (and believe it wholeheartedly) simply because they weren't as self-aware of their own fallibility. So if you were willing to modify the stance that "smart people are above these biases" to "smart are more likely to erroneously think they are above these biases" that might be closer to the mark although I have no idea if studies have confirmed that.
- 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
  Did you actually read the book? You say things that seem odd for someone who read the book cover to cover. I know a lot of people read a few pages or the intro... but not the whole thing. Your painting a false dichotomy and mischaracterizing my arguments to do so. I never said: "Yeah, of course those people are irrational and biased. But smart people are different." I never said smart people are above biases. And of course smart people can justify bias more. These aren't facts that contradict ANYTHING I said. You are working with black and white. I'm working in greys. The fact that you are painting my position as a scare crow makes me feel this is not dialectics but debate, you want to 'beat me'. I will post what I actually did say to so that your mischaracterization can stand out for what it is: "Sort of. We have system one and system two thinking. We all have system one. Some people have system two to a greater or lesser extent. It's a lot more complicated than 'decisions originate in our emotional centers... only justified... by our rational mind' Yes, to a degree that happens, but it's more than that or people wouldn't think or deliberate points in highly analytical manners." In his book he says we all have system 1. He says it's the star. He says he can't overcome his own biases. But NONE of that argues against my point: "We all lie. We are all hypocritical. There seems to be a threshold upon which someone is deemed a lier, hypocrite or simple minded. That we all do something doesn't mean that we all do it to the same degree. For some reason when talking about intelligence, people are uncomfortable with some being better endowed than others. I've noted that the people who are most uncomfortable with this reality are many times hyper aware of the difference in physical endowment between different individuals."
  - bumby 7y ago
    Yes, I've read the book cover to cover, most recently about three months ago. I actually try to read it every few years or so just to remind myself that we (especially myself) aren't as rational as we think. And with all due respect, I got the same impression about you referencing Kahneman but obviously drawing very different points from him and it's hard for me to tell where your conclusions tie into his because you haven't used any direct quotes or citations. But maybe our differing conclusions are just our own biases showing :) I was trying to be deliberately careful to word my responses to not make a personal attack but rather focus on the ideas you are portraying, and even then to make it clear that it's based on my interpretation of your ideas and leaving room for understanding that you may mean something different. I'm sorry if it came across differently. I am not trying to 'win an online argument', I was probing hoping to get greater insight into your position and, just as important, gain a better understanding of what your claim was based upon. To this extent, it seems to be based mainly on your own opinion as you didn't really point to any sources or professional opinion other than a vague aside to Kahneman. There's nothing wrong with that I suppose, but it doesn't really make for a strong or particularly interesting dialogue. I don't think I was creating a false dichotomy. If anything, I was doing the opposite by pointing out that our System 1 and 2 minds work in tandem. My previous post conceded that I wouldn't be surprised if the extent of biases on an individual level land on a spectrum, so I wouldn't characterize my position as "black or white". I certainly don't think people fall into classes of either "biased" or "rational", especially not based on IQ. Overall, I feel like you maybe missing the point from my original post; it wasn't about lying or about intelligence, it was about our own biases leading us think we are exceptionally rational when we are actually deeply emotionally driven beings. Similar to your statement about intelligence, this is something difficult for some to accept. This "irrationality" (for a lack of a better word) is regardless of IQ, as quoted above. I wasn't deliberately creating a straw man; I was just rephrasing what I thought your position was as an attempt of active listening. Bringing up intelligence comes across as apropos of nothing, which is probably why the conversation got derailed. It felt like the conversation was on two different tracks, with me trying to point to our emotional decisions often being misinterpreted as rational choice and you redirecting the conversation to intelligence which didn't seem particularly relevant. I kept the conversation going on the assumption that maybe I was missing your connection but after all this back and forth, it's not really any clearer. I'll try to paraphrase below, not to prove I'm "right" but to illuminate how the conversation came across to me. It certainly felt like we were having two different conversations: ME: People think we're more rational than they are, when in reality their decisions are rooted in emotions they aren't aware of YOU: We're all liars to an extent. It's hard for people to accept there's a spectrum of intelligence ME: Granted. But intelligence and biases are two separate issues that don't seem to be correlated. I don't understand the connection YOU: It's very nuanced. See Kahneman ME: [Quoting Kahneman] It seems like he supports the idea that we are biased by our emotions and that they are the root of our 'rational' decisions YOU: Yes, we're all biased. But we all have different levels of analytical ability ME: Some researchers [like this one], indicate analytical ability is not related to our level of System 1 bias YOU: Things aren't so black and white. See what I stated before

bumby 7y ago

>really only for people above a certain intelligence level What are you basing the claim that System 2 is only open to people above a certain intelligence threshold level on? That is certainly not one of the takeaways I had from Kahnemans work > Some people manage to deal in system 2 much more. Generally, the smarter, the more they deal with that. I think if you re-read Kahneman, you'll see he is actually in disagreement with this. He even states that he is unable to effectively guard against his System 1 biases. This is coming from a Nobel laureate at the forefront of the field. He certainly qualifies to be in the "smarter" category of humans and if anyone should be able to thwart System 1, I'd think it would be him. > I'm taking issue with saying 'we all' do it this way. The fact that we all do this is precisely the point of Kahneman's work that I relied on to make the claim. I wouldn't be surprised if there's degrees to the extent that it happens, but it's interesting to me that you think that degree hinges on someone's IQ. Is there any data to back up this hypothesis? It seems like there's a conflation of ideas here. I don't disagree that people have differing abilities of analytical ability. But this does not necessarily mean that higher levels of analytical ability negate the claim from Kahneman that our decisions are rooted in our emotional centers. This two points are not mutually exclusive. There appears to be at least some study into this: "One psychologist, Keith Stanovich, draws a distinction between two parts of System 2. One deals with slow and effortful thinking and demanding computation. Some people are better than others in this task, they are the individuals work cell [sic] in intelligence tests and are able to switch quickly and efficiently from one task to another. Yet such high intelligence does not make people immune to biases. Another ability is involved, what that psychologist labelled rationality and what Kahneman terms being engaged, which is distinct from intelligence as such." The argument you're making comes across as, "Yeah, of course those people are irrational and biased. But smart people are different." In my opinion, this is exactly the wrong take-away from Kahneman's work and it potentially opens one up to being even more biased. It reminds me of a conversation with magicians where they felt like scientists and PhDs are actually easier to fool because they were smart enough to rationalize any justification for an illusion (and believe it wholeheartedly) simply because they weren't as self-aware of their own fallibility. So if you were willing to modify the stance that "smart people are above these biases" to "smart are more likely to erroneously think they are above these biases" that might be closer to the mark although I have no idea if studies have confirmed that.

4ntonius8lock 7y ago
Did you actually read the book? You say things that seem odd for someone who read the book cover to cover. I know a lot of people read a few pages or the intro... but not the whole thing. Your painting a false dichotomy and mischaracterizing my arguments to do so. I never said: "Yeah, of course those people are irrational and biased. But smart people are different." I never said smart people are above biases. And of course smart people can justify bias more. These aren't facts that contradict ANYTHING I said. You are working with black and white. I'm working in greys. The fact that you are painting my position as a scare crow makes me feel this is not dialectics but debate, you want to 'beat me'. I will post what I actually did say to so that your mischaracterization can stand out for what it is: "Sort of. We have system one and system two thinking. We all have system one. Some people have system two to a greater or lesser extent. It's a lot more complicated than 'decisions originate in our emotional centers... only justified... by our rational mind' Yes, to a degree that happens, but it's more than that or people wouldn't think or deliberate points in highly analytical manners." In his book he says we all have system 1. He says it's the star. He says he can't overcome his own biases. But NONE of that argues against my point: "We all lie. We are all hypocritical. There seems to be a threshold upon which someone is deemed a lier, hypocrite or simple minded. That we all do something doesn't mean that we all do it to the same degree. For some reason when talking about intelligence, people are uncomfortable with some being better endowed than others. I've noted that the people who are most uncomfortable with this reality are many times hyper aware of the difference in physical endowment between different individuals."
- bumby 7y ago
  Yes, I've read the book cover to cover, most recently about three months ago. I actually try to read it every few years or so just to remind myself that we (especially myself) aren't as rational as we think. And with all due respect, I got the same impression about you referencing Kahneman but obviously drawing very different points from him and it's hard for me to tell where your conclusions tie into his because you haven't used any direct quotes or citations. But maybe our differing conclusions are just our own biases showing :) I was trying to be deliberately careful to word my responses to not make a personal attack but rather focus on the ideas you are portraying, and even then to make it clear that it's based on my interpretation of your ideas and leaving room for understanding that you may mean something different. I'm sorry if it came across differently. I am not trying to 'win an online argument', I was probing hoping to get greater insight into your position and, just as important, gain a better understanding of what your claim was based upon. To this extent, it seems to be based mainly on your own opinion as you didn't really point to any sources or professional opinion other than a vague aside to Kahneman. There's nothing wrong with that I suppose, but it doesn't really make for a strong or particularly interesting dialogue. I don't think I was creating a false dichotomy. If anything, I was doing the opposite by pointing out that our System 1 and 2 minds work in tandem. My previous post conceded that I wouldn't be surprised if the extent of biases on an individual level land on a spectrum, so I wouldn't characterize my position as "black or white". I certainly don't think people fall into classes of either "biased" or "rational", especially not based on IQ. Overall, I feel like you maybe missing the point from my original post; it wasn't about lying or about intelligence, it was about our own biases leading us think we are exceptionally rational when we are actually deeply emotionally driven beings. Similar to your statement about intelligence, this is something difficult for some to accept. This "irrationality" (for a lack of a better word) is regardless of IQ, as quoted above. I wasn't deliberately creating a straw man; I was just rephrasing what I thought your position was as an attempt of active listening. Bringing up intelligence comes across as apropos of nothing, which is probably why the conversation got derailed. It felt like the conversation was on two different tracks, with me trying to point to our emotional decisions often being misinterpreted as rational choice and you redirecting the conversation to intelligence which didn't seem particularly relevant. I kept the conversation going on the assumption that maybe I was missing your connection but after all this back and forth, it's not really any clearer. I'll try to paraphrase below, not to prove I'm "right" but to illuminate how the conversation came across to me. It certainly felt like we were having two different conversations: ME: People think we're more rational than they are, when in reality their decisions are rooted in emotions they aren't aware of YOU: We're all liars to an extent. It's hard for people to accept there's a spectrum of intelligence ME: Granted. But intelligence and biases are two separate issues that don't seem to be correlated. I don't understand the connection YOU: It's very nuanced. See Kahneman ME: [Quoting Kahneman] It seems like he supports the idea that we are biased by our emotions and that they are the root of our 'rational' decisions YOU: Yes, we're all biased. But we all have different levels of analytical ability ME: Some researchers [like this one], indicate analytical ability is not related to our level of System 1 bias YOU: Things aren't so black and white. See what I stated before