Why People Claim Chains Of Deduction Don't Work For Human Issues

[PairTheBoard]

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Some people, like me, resist any urge to make up their mind before carefully examining the points involved. Pair The Board calls them boring. But for me the alternative is worse. Having a bunch of conflicting ideas about the world (though it may take some deep thought to see the conflict) and then going on to make a fool of yourself by claiming the chain of reasoning necessary to see those conflicts contains serious flaws. Just so that you can desperately hold on to those ill thought out ideas.


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Have you made up your mind about this? Or is this another one of your ill thought out ideas for which you have failed to carefully examine all the points involved and where you are now stuck with making a fool of yourself by claiming the chain of reasoning necessary to see the conflicts in your idea contains serious flaws?

PairTheBoard

[Shandrax]

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But after many discussions on this and other forums, I now realize that there is another reason people resist the idea that logical arguments, such as those that expose contradictions in a person's worldview, are strong (if imperfect) impetuses to make people change their minds. Its not that people don't want to admit their weakness in logic. Rather it is because people hate to change their minds. Minds that for the most part were originally made up based on gut feelings. Without regard to whether it contradicted a gut feeling on another issue.

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There is another reason (which might be closely related though) and that is that people don't like to give in to the same guy all the time. In a discussion it's usually one person who uses logic to support his arguments while all the other people usually use intuition. Now if they always bow to mister wise guy, it will hurt their ego and since they cannot argue on his level, they try to to find a way to get around this dilemma - they simply refuse to believe in logic which makes them look even more stupid than before.

[Borodog]

David,

Of course.

[Lestat]

I think there's a lot of truth to this. But there are still some people who have formed an opinion/belief about something without realizing there is a contradiction with another belief. Sometimes this is from not thinking hard enough about the subject. Sometimes it's not knowing what to think about. I was guilty of this regarding the death penalty. Pretty embarrassing for such an important subject, I admit. But flawless logic doesn't come naturally to everyone. That's why I continue to post here, hoping that there are others like me who will come around when shown the right way to think about something. The rest are as you say. They're just not going to move away from their gut feeling.

[ALawPoker]

I think a lot of it comes from belief in the self, or I guess you could say "self-righteousness" (though that sounds a little harsher than what I mean). People often don't honestly care about economic policies or whatever it is they're arguing as much as they care about the fact that their thoughts are so very important and worthwhile.

Some people have a hard time seeing the value in honest logic so they don't get much satisfaction from merely thinking clearly, and if they can just convince themselves that a certain longstanding assumption of theirs (which they've already designated as "important") is correct and justified, then they'll be happier than if they actually came to a more objectively sound understanding of some concept.

[ALawPoker]

I think things would be better if schools encouraged good reasoning over good regurgitation. There isn't as much reward for "one logical extension of FDR's policy, in my opinion, is..." as there is for "it happened on January 26th, 1947... you're 100% right." So you can say we get conditioned to wanting to be "right" rather than just wanting to openly analyze some issue for whatever it might prove to be worth to us. There has to be a "right," so people will be more concerned with finding a means to some answer rather than a more reasonable stance that might leave them dangling somewhere undecided (which is where they probably should be).

I think schools are hesitant to give strong rewards to "logical" ability because it doesn't necessarily prove that the student is working hard (and probably because "it's not fair" in a lot of peoples' eyes that people with more natural ability get an edge... cause it's not like that's exactly the case everywhere in life outside of school or anything). But so what. The harm done by letting smart kids get by with less effort and more reliance on their reasoning ability is, I think, much less detrimental than the harm of encouraging everyone to think poorly.

Geography and spelling bees are common academic competitions. Oh wow, you locked your kid in a room for 4 years and taught him the art of spelling words. He will never get laid. Congratulations.

Have a logic bee of some sort. Reward kids for using their natural ability once in a while. The real world is not a regurgitation contest.

[Zeno]

The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds. - Will Durant

[CrayZee]

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But after many discussions on this and other forums, I now realize that there is another reason people resist the idea that logical arguments, such as those that expose contradictions in a person's worldview, are strong (if imperfect) impetuses to make people change their minds. Its not that people don't want to admit their weakness in logic. Rather it is because people hate to change their minds. Minds that for the most part were originally made up based on gut feelings. Without regard to whether it contradicted a gut feeling on another issue.


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Sounds like you discovered cognitive dissonance on your own. Inconsistencies in belief doesn't feel particularly good. Most people would rather have things align consistently with their worldview regardless of contrary evidence.

When it comes to the "small stuff," it's okay that cognitive dissonance takes hold so you can move forward unabated.

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Some people, like me, resist any urge to make up their mind before carefully examining the points involved. Pair The Board calls them boring. But for me the alternative is worse. Having a bunch of conflicting ideas about the world (though it may take some deep thought to see the conflict) and then going on to make a fool of yourself by claiming the chain of reasoning necessary to see those conflicts contains serious flaws. Just so that you can desperately hold on to those ill thought out ideas.

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Better to have a probabilistic belief on things rather than absolute. So, in effect, you aren't really absolutely making up your mind on many things, but rather current knowledge aligns best with a certain perspective. When the data changes, your belief follows accordingly. It's okay to lean in a certain direction at any given time.

It's also okay to be wrong on things as long as you're willing to change course. Us humans are wrong and biased all the time, no big deal. A healthy, balanced ego helps, too, i.e., confidence is good, arrogance and insecurity are not. A tough tight rope walk act for most people.