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Laurens Posts: 2995Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:24 pmLocation: Norwich UK
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I have a couple of books on critical thinking - which show how people can be wrong by exposing the flaws in reasoning that people tend towards, however I would like some books on why (from a neurological/evolutionary standpoint) we are so prone to being wrong, and to believing wrong things.
Can anyone make any suggestions as to good books to read on this topic?
Thanks.
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Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:03 pm |
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Anachronous Rex Posts: 2008Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2010 4:07 pmLocation: Kansas City, MO
Gender: Male
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Our prefrontal lobes are too small. Much too small. That's a problem of the birth canal, I'm very sorry to say for those that like their birth canals... tight. -C. Hitchens.
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Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:52 pm |
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Frenger Posts: 831Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2011 12:50 pmLocation: Derby, UK
Gender: Male
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Laurens wrote:I have a couple of books on critical thinking - which show how people can be wrong by exposing the flaws in reasoning that people tend towards, however I would like some books on why (from a neurological/evolutionary standpoint) we are so prone to being wrong, and to believing wrong things.
Can anyone make any suggestions as to good books to read on this topic?
Thanks. An amazing book I read recently was "Incognito" by David Eagleman. It is probably a little simple but it works as a great introduction and there are some good brain experiments in it as well. It's very well written too. I would recommend that, seems perfect for what you're asking.
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Fri Feb 10, 2012 10:07 am |
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It's not a book, but I think it's a succinct summary of some of the irrationalities we are wired to hold and why they were advantageous in terms of evolution by psychology professor James E. Alcock : http://www.csicop.org/si/show/belief_engineI quote the first sub-topic here, because in my opinion that is the best part of article:
The Learning Unit
The learning unit is the key to understanding the belief engine. It is tied to the physical architecture of the brain and nervous system; and by its very nature, we are condemned to a virtually automatic process of magical thinking. "Magical thinking" is the interpreting of two closely occurring events as though one caused the other, without any concern for the causal link. For example, if you believe that crossing your fingers brought you good fortune, you have associated the act of finger-crossing with the subsequent welcome event and imputed a causal link between the two.
Our brain and nervous system have evolved over millions of years. It is important to recognize that natural selection does not select directly on the basis of reason or truth; it selects for reproductive success. Nothing in our cerebral apparatus gives any particular status to truth. Consider a rabbit in the tall grass, and grant for a moment a modicum of conscious and logical intellect to it. It detects a rustling in the tall grass, and having in the past learned that this occasionally signals the presence of a hungry fox, the rabbit wonders if there really is a fox this time or if a gust of wind caused the grass to rustle. It awaits more conclusive evidence. Although motivated by a search for truth, that rabbit does not live long. Compare the late rabbit to the rabbit that responds to the rustle with a strong autonomic nervous-system reaction and runs away as fast as it can. It is more likely to live and reproduce. So, seeking truth does not always promote survival, and fleeing on the basis of erroneous belief is not always such a bad thing to do. However, while this avoidance strategy may succeed in the forest, it may be quite dangerous to pursue in the nuclear age.
The learning unit is set up in such a way as to learn very quickly from the association of two significant events , such as touching a hot stove and feeling pain. It is set up so that significant pairings produce a lasting effect, while nonpairings of the same two events are not nearly so influential. If a child were to touch a stove once and be burned, then if the child were to touch it again without being burned, the association between pain and stove would not automatically be unlearned. This basic asymmetry , pairing of two stimuli has an important effect, while presenting the stimuli unpaired (that is, individually) has a much lesser effect , is important for survival.
This asymmetry in learning also underlies much of the error that colors our thinking about events that occur together from time to time. Humans are very poor at accurately judging the relationship between events that only sometimes co-occur. For example, if we think of Uncle Harry, and then he telephones us a few minutes later, this might seem to demand some explanation in terms of telepathy or precognition. However, we can only properly evaluate the co-occurrence of these two events if we also consider the number of times that we thought of Harry and he did not call, or we did not think of him but he called anyway. These latter circumstances , these nonpairings , have little impact on our learning system. Because we are overly influenced by pairings of significant events, we can come to infer an association, and even a causal one, between two events even if there is none. Thus, dreams may correspond with subsequent events only every so often by chance, and yet this pairing may have a dramatic effect on belief. Or we feel a cold coming on, take vitamin C, and then when the cold does not get to be too bad we infer a causal link. The world around us abounds with coincidental occurrences, some of which are meaningful but the vast majority of which are not. This provides a fertile ground for the growth of fallacious beliefs. We readily learn that associations exist between events, even when they do not. We are often led by co-occurring events to infer that the one that occurred first somehow caused the one that succeeded it.
We are all even more prone to error when rare or emotionally laden events are involved. We are always looking for causal explanations, and we tend to infer causality even when none exists. You might be puzzled or even distressed if you heard a loud noise in your living room but could find no source for it.
Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny.
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Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:42 am |
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Inferno Posts: 2298Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:36 pmLocation: Vienna, Austria
Gender: Cake
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"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed." ― Friedrich Nietzsche
"I shall achieve my objectives through the power... of Science!" --LessWrong
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Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:19 pm |
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Dragan Glas Posts: 3214Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:55 amLocation: Ireland
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"The Word of God is the Creation we behold and it is in this Word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man."The Age Of Reason
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Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:19 pm |
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Gila Guerilla Posts: 13Joined: Thu May 03, 2012 3:29 am
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I don't know if this video by Dan Dennet would be of any interest to you. I found it to be of interest to me:- Good Reasons for "Believing" in God - Dan Dennett, AAI 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvJZQwy9dvE
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Mon May 21, 2012 3:19 am |
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I'm not certain this question even needs an answer. It's amazing that we can do any sort of logical reasoning at all. That we don't do it perfectly seems only natural...
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Mon May 21, 2012 8:46 am |
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Your Funny Uncle Posts: 556Joined: Sat May 22, 2010 11:38 amLocation: UK
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“I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.” - Isaac Asimov
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Mon May 21, 2012 9:29 am |
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Laurens Posts: 2995Joined: Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:24 pmLocation: Norwich UK
Gender: Male
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Your Funny Uncle wrote:You might want to try Supersense by Bruce Hood. I did get this book a while ago. Its definitely interesting, but I don't like his style of writing. There was a specific passage in which he basically says 'if you're already a sceptic then you probably shouldn't (wouldn't?) be reading this book' or something along those lines, which put me off a little. The actual science was fascinating, but I couldn't get through it because of the way he seemed to discourage various readers other than his target audience. Also he seems to celebrate superstition as being something wonderfully and marvellously human - which whilst it is true that it is something we all share as humans, I do not think it is something worth celebrating for the amount of trouble it gets us into.
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Thu May 24, 2012 7:43 am |
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Inferno Posts: 2298Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:36 pmLocation: Vienna, Austria
Gender: Cake
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There was just a brilliant article in the German March edition of GEO magazine. GEO magazine, 2012, Aus Fehlern lernen - Vom Wert falscher Entscheidungen, 3/2012, P.136-149 Sadly, it's not available in English. If you want, I can scan it in and send it to you via e-mail. In German though, like I said...
"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed." ― Friedrich Nietzsche
"I shall achieve my objectives through the power... of Science!" --LessWrong
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Sun Jun 03, 2012 10:37 am |
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Dragan Glas Posts: 3214Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 1:55 amLocation: Ireland
Gender: Male
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Greetings, Another possibility is Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast by Lewis Wolpert. Also, Why We Believe In God(s) by Thompson and Aukofer. Kindest regards, James
"The Word of God is the Creation we behold and it is in this Word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man."The Age Of Reason
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Sun Jun 03, 2012 11:49 am |
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XenophanesPosts: 54Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 10:35 am
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I think you could look into the neurological reasons or evolutionary reasons, but actually the most important point is philsophical. Every concious being has a point of view, thid means they interpret the world. Humans are fallible not because they evolved to be fallible, but because they are concious. For instance, just say we located all the biases we could in the human mind and we could eliminate them somehow. this would not make us infallible. This is is because the future is unknown and humans have what Popper called an horizon of expectations, beyond that horizon he is blind, and within that horizon he is taking the risk of accepitng what he believs as true. Science is a way, maybe, of mitigating error, but mot eradicating it. Another argument for this is that even if you are infallible, you can not predict what specific knowledge you will have iin future, because then you would already have it now. this means that there are things you can never know, and are therefore open to error.
Read Poppers interesting essay "on the sources of error"
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Fri Apr 17, 2015 11:48 am |
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I don't know if I can recommend a book but I'll give you some good advice.My advise is look for evidence before you accept an idea.There are things being taught today as truth that do not have real evidence to back it up and if you focus on evidence then you'll be able to tell what is right and what is wrong.
It is OK to hold out on something until enough evidence is presented,don't be so quick to accept things so quickly,take your time and look for evidence.Yes it can be time consuming but it is really the only way to discover truth.Also because I'm a Christian if you're looking for evidence God is real then I would say salvation through Jesus is the greatest proof I know of that God is real.I feel like I could fill up whole threads with evidence for God but IMO salvation by Jesus is the greatest proof and evidence to me.
You see Christianity is not like religion where you join a religion and change yourself,no,you are not a Christian until you are saved by Jesus,until then going to church will do you no good at all,you'd be surprised how many people go to hell even though they went to church.So I would go to Jesus and seek him until you know he has saved you and you'll know when it happens and you'll have proof he is real.
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Sun Apr 19, 2015 6:44 am |
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hackenslash Posts: 2439Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:43 pm
Gender: Cake
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I'm looking for books on how to commit necromancy on long-dead threads with idiotic navel-gazing fuckwittery. Got anything like that?
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Sun Apr 19, 2015 10:05 am |
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The human brain is divided into two hemispheres and from a general perspective the left one deals with logic and the right one deals with emotion But this is academic to the more important fact that we are as much emotional beings as logical ones. This would explain why it is easy to engage in emotional reasoning and so conflate objective truth with subjective truth. And why cognitive dissonance is possible. And why it is possible to be entirely or predominantly logical about some things and entirely or predominantly emotional about other things. We are not Vulcans and never will be no matter how logical we may either want to be or actually are. So rather than deny emotion or emotional thinking what one should do is limit it to where it is actually necessary. So I for example apply emotion when reading literature or listening to music as those are activities which require emotional responses. But when it comes to understanding physics or maths I put emotion to one side and use logic instead for those are subjects which require that approach. And so the knack is in knowing which to use and when. Recommended book : How The Mind Works : Steven Pinker
A MIND IS LIKE A PARACHUTE : IT DOES NOT WORK UNLESS IT IS OPEN
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Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:45 pm |
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XenophanesPosts: 54Joined: Fri Apr 17, 2015 10:35 am
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hackenslash wrote:I'm looking for books on how to commit necromancy on long-dead threads with idiotic navel-gazing fuckwittery. Got anything like that? No books But there is an interesting resource here: memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=619
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Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:50 pm |
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hackenslash Posts: 2439Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:43 pm
Gender: Cake
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 Nice one.
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Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:55 pm |
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redPosts: 142Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2015 9:11 am
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hackenslash wrote:I'm looking for books on how to commit necromancy on long-dead threads with idiotic navel-gazing fuckwittery. Got anything like that? Necromancy for Beginners Kindle Edition by Donna Flynn
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Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:28 am |
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