Making Sense
March 7, 2019 11:24 PM Subscribe
I seem to remember, as I was growing up, that people talked of the "Theory of Gravity." Between then and now, I believe it has become the "Law of Gravity." I'm thinking about things that should be incontrovertible logic. Looking at the political turmoil, the vaccination debates and conspiracy theories, I wonder if there are people who simply do not agree with principles like 1+1=2 or A follows B.
I see in the news all the time that people object to something, in part, because they feel it has been imposed on them and that is enough of a reason for them to reject the apparent logic of it. But are there brains that work this way, not because something is being imposed on them but because their logic just doesn't find it logical?
I see in the news all the time that people object to something, in part, because they feel it has been imposed on them and that is enough of a reason for them to reject the apparent logic of it. But are there brains that work this way, not because something is being imposed on them but because their logic just doesn't find it logical?
I read a book in the last couple years called The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, by Will Storr, and each chapter finds the author with a different person or group of people who cannot be persuaded by evidence that contradicts their view. Young Earthers, Holocaust Deniers, that sort of thing, but also Dogmatic Skeptics, the sort who have whole shelves of Richard Dawkins and count themselves as being the most logical, least emotional thinkers. It's a book of journalism, but Storr talks a bit about modern psychological research which finds that this sort of self-delusion is incredibly normal. It's pleasantly Jon-Ronson-like reading with a heavy ladle of pop science added in.
Between that and a dozen different books I've read as a result of the You Are Not So Smart podcast about self-delusion in human brains (to the point that I'm not sure where Unpersuadables ends and some other books begin), it basically amounts to what we believe is logical thinking is substantially, majorly, emotional thinking which our logical brains justify to ourselves as being logical. So, those people, like us people are not illogical thinkers, and I've never read in any of my reading about people who are not able to use the sort of pure logic you mention, only that there's a whole lot, a staggering amount of rationalization that people do without their own awareness.
In one book, I'll have to think about which, there's mention of a study on some people with a particular brain injury that damages their emotional attachment to everything; as a result they are purely logical thinkers and they weigh the pros and cons of any decision and make their choice...sometimes. The problem these genuine Vulcans have is that they are paralyzed by decisions we make without effort thanks to our emotional thinking. They can't decide between putting on a red tie and a blue tie because those ties are logically of equal weight; anyone else would make that decision as a reflex (and justify the choice to themselves later as though the chosen tie is somehow logically superior).
One book that was perhaps among the most eye-opening was psychologist Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, which is about how we make moral decisions, and he defines morals more expansively than we otherwise might. Emotional thinking (as described in "You Are Not So Smart" and "Unpersuadables") is what he describes as moral thinking, and it's made deep in our minds, well below the rational mind that we think is making the choices. Recoding our morality is possible, but it can't be done with logic, it has to be done by a kind of experience or by emotional persuasion. That book is a followup to his book (I haven't read yet) called The Happiness Hypothesis, which is more about these two minds within us.
And I'm brought back to the old saying, apparently by Jonathan Swift in 1721, that "Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired." Which is more modernly worded as "You cannot reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into."
posted by Sunburnt at 1:37 AM on March 8, 2019 [14 favorites]
Between that and a dozen different books I've read as a result of the You Are Not So Smart podcast about self-delusion in human brains (to the point that I'm not sure where Unpersuadables ends and some other books begin), it basically amounts to what we believe is logical thinking is substantially, majorly, emotional thinking which our logical brains justify to ourselves as being logical. So, those people, like us people are not illogical thinkers, and I've never read in any of my reading about people who are not able to use the sort of pure logic you mention, only that there's a whole lot, a staggering amount of rationalization that people do without their own awareness.
In one book, I'll have to think about which, there's mention of a study on some people with a particular brain injury that damages their emotional attachment to everything; as a result they are purely logical thinkers and they weigh the pros and cons of any decision and make their choice...sometimes. The problem these genuine Vulcans have is that they are paralyzed by decisions we make without effort thanks to our emotional thinking. They can't decide between putting on a red tie and a blue tie because those ties are logically of equal weight; anyone else would make that decision as a reflex (and justify the choice to themselves later as though the chosen tie is somehow logically superior).
One book that was perhaps among the most eye-opening was psychologist Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, which is about how we make moral decisions, and he defines morals more expansively than we otherwise might. Emotional thinking (as described in "You Are Not So Smart" and "Unpersuadables") is what he describes as moral thinking, and it's made deep in our minds, well below the rational mind that we think is making the choices. Recoding our morality is possible, but it can't be done with logic, it has to be done by a kind of experience or by emotional persuasion. That book is a followup to his book (I haven't read yet) called The Happiness Hypothesis, which is more about these two minds within us.
And I'm brought back to the old saying, apparently by Jonathan Swift in 1721, that "Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired." Which is more modernly worded as "You cannot reason people out of positions they didn’t reason themselves into."
posted by Sunburnt at 1:37 AM on March 8, 2019 [14 favorites]
Terrence Howard, the actor has some pretty weird ideas about math, including that 1x1=2. He's trying to patent his system of Terryology so he can share the proof with the world.
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/terrence-howards-dangerous-mind-37057/
posted by askmehow at 4:08 AM on March 8, 2019
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/terrence-howards-dangerous-mind-37057/
posted by askmehow at 4:08 AM on March 8, 2019
IRT to your main question Sunburnt's answer was fantastic except for one small mistake which I've corrected below.
I was perplexed by your mention of the Law of Gravity so I went looking and found this which is an excellent brief explainer of scientific theory vs law.
posted by Awfki at 4:10 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]
... emotional thinking which ourI've recently been reading a lot about meditation and the surrounding science and secular buddhism. I've read many statements that sum up as, our minds are nothing like we think they are. There's not one mind in your brain that's in control, looking at things and making decisions. There are lots of subconscious processes and then riding on top is a consciousness who's primary function seems to be to make up and believe a coherent story to justify the actions of the subprocesses. Rationality isn't necessarily a trait that evolution would select and we really need to dispense with the idea that we're rational. I think we can be, but it's not our default state.logicalbrains justify to ourselves...
I was perplexed by your mention of the Law of Gravity so I went looking and found this which is an excellent brief explainer of scientific theory vs law.
posted by Awfki at 4:10 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]
I am wondering if you are trying to distinguish between people who are incapable of reasoning (e.g., unable to agree that 1+1=2) or unable to reason logically about social problems (we know vaccines do not cause autism, get your darn vaccines already). I think there are fewer people in the former category than the latter.
Be careful with "incontrovertible logic" because in logic there is always the disjunction (the "or" statement.) Adding a disjunction clause can make holding any position "logical" while not being true. Logical validity and truth are not the same thing. An argument is valid if its logic is consistent, independent of the truth of its premises. It is only sound if the premises are true. Much of the debate about people "reasoning" about social problems, is not about logic but about the propositions they believe to be true.
posted by turtlefu at 5:28 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]
Be careful with "incontrovertible logic" because in logic there is always the disjunction (the "or" statement.) Adding a disjunction clause can make holding any position "logical" while not being true. Logical validity and truth are not the same thing. An argument is valid if its logic is consistent, independent of the truth of its premises. It is only sound if the premises are true. Much of the debate about people "reasoning" about social problems, is not about logic but about the propositions they believe to be true.
posted by turtlefu at 5:28 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]
The logician Graham Priest does research on dialetheism ("the view that some contradictions are true") and paraconsistent logic ("logic that tries to work out how we might formally understand treating some propositions as being both true and false at the same time.")
posted by thelonius at 5:37 AM on March 8, 2019
posted by thelonius at 5:37 AM on March 8, 2019
There are lots of subconscious processes and then riding on top is a consciousness who's primary function seems to be to make up and believe a coherent story to justify the actions of the subprocesses.
Seems to me that one of the most pernicious coherent stories the damn thing makes up is the one about its own continuous existence. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred we'd do the same thing even if we hadn't bothered bringing an "I" into its customarily fleeting existence in order to seek its approval; the overwhelming bulk of human behaviour is purely habitual.
It further seems to me that this very same continuous-existence Just So story is the hook upon which so many people hang a vast and tangled hairball of consequential Just So stories about souls, afterlives, heaven, hell and reincarnation as well as a rat king of dissatisfactions and insecurities about assorted features of the bodies we were born with.
And yet every day I meet people who show every sign of behaving as if their own consciousness's continuous existence was as in-principle self-evident as B follows A or 1+1=2. It's Dunning-Kruger all the way down with this species.
posted by flabdablet at 6:42 AM on March 8, 2019
Seems to me that one of the most pernicious coherent stories the damn thing makes up is the one about its own continuous existence. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred we'd do the same thing even if we hadn't bothered bringing an "I" into its customarily fleeting existence in order to seek its approval; the overwhelming bulk of human behaviour is purely habitual.
It further seems to me that this very same continuous-existence Just So story is the hook upon which so many people hang a vast and tangled hairball of consequential Just So stories about souls, afterlives, heaven, hell and reincarnation as well as a rat king of dissatisfactions and insecurities about assorted features of the bodies we were born with.
And yet every day I meet people who show every sign of behaving as if their own consciousness's continuous existence was as in-principle self-evident as B follows A or 1+1=2. It's Dunning-Kruger all the way down with this species.
posted by flabdablet at 6:42 AM on March 8, 2019
I don't think most believers in fringe theories are anti-logic or have fundamentally different reasoning skills, especially if by "logic" you mean "just-so stories that resemble logic to our excitable primate brains."
As you say, these folks don't trust traditional authority and build their arguments on faulty premises. Their theories may be convoluted and terrible, and environment and personality shapes what they consider logical, but for better or worse they have a similar cognitive toolbox to the rest of us.
Most of us struggle with the metacognitive skills that allow us to identify our biases and fallacies.
Sort of adjacent to this topic, you might enjoy danah boyd's recent essays on media literacy, especially this one.
posted by toastedcheese at 6:45 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]
As you say, these folks don't trust traditional authority and build their arguments on faulty premises. Their theories may be convoluted and terrible, and environment and personality shapes what they consider logical, but for better or worse they have a similar cognitive toolbox to the rest of us.
Most of us struggle with the metacognitive skills that allow us to identify our biases and fallacies.
Sort of adjacent to this topic, you might enjoy danah boyd's recent essays on media literacy, especially this one.
posted by toastedcheese at 6:45 AM on March 8, 2019 [2 favorites]
> Is Gravity a Theory or a Law?
That link is broke for me.
posted by dgeiser13 at 7:28 AM on March 8, 2019
That link is broke for me.
posted by dgeiser13 at 7:28 AM on March 8, 2019
The link is here: https://thehappyscientist.com/content/when-does-theory-become-law.
And it's a good explanation of law vs. theory.
A law is a sufficiently-uniformly-observed phenomenon that scientists feel comfortable describing the circumstances in which it occurs with high confidence. Laws are going to change only when old observations are found to have been unreliable or new observations become inconsistent with old observations.
A theory is an explanation of why observed phenomena (including but not limited to laws) happen. The same law can and will change its related theory as science advances. Newton didn't have Einstein's theories of curved spacetime. Mendel didn't have modern molecular genetics or phenotype insights, etc.
posted by MattD at 8:52 AM on March 8, 2019
And it's a good explanation of law vs. theory.
A law is a sufficiently-uniformly-observed phenomenon that scientists feel comfortable describing the circumstances in which it occurs with high confidence. Laws are going to change only when old observations are found to have been unreliable or new observations become inconsistent with old observations.
A theory is an explanation of why observed phenomena (including but not limited to laws) happen. The same law can and will change its related theory as science advances. Newton didn't have Einstein's theories of curved spacetime. Mendel didn't have modern molecular genetics or phenotype insights, etc.
posted by MattD at 8:52 AM on March 8, 2019
I'm old (over 70) and was always taught it was the Law of Gravity. illustrated with the cartoon of an apple falling on Isaac Newton's head. It was the theory of evolution, but I was taught that evolution was a proven thing, and being raised Catholic did not conflict with this. I did not think that "theory" meant possibly not true.
posted by mermayd at 8:52 AM on March 8, 2019
posted by mermayd at 8:52 AM on March 8, 2019
Perhaps this discussion is relevant. Here's an excerpt:
"The way that scientists use the word 'theory' is a little different than how it is commonly used in the lay public," said Jaime Tanner, a professor of biology at Marlboro College. "Most people use the word 'theory' to mean an idea or hunch that someone has, but in science the word 'theory' refers to the way that we interpret facts."posted by alex1965 at 9:28 AM on March 8, 2019
A Law can be proven, typically mathematically such that all variables are accounted for.
A Theory can be observed, and 'proven' to be 'true' but lacks the proof of near absolute certainty because there is some unknown variable or force that is unaccounted for (even if that force is predictable, it may not have yet been observed and proven to actually exist).
All that being said, it was 'observed' that the earth must be the center of the universe, given the available information being used to make that determination. In today's mathematical driven proofs, there would undoubtedly have been someone standing around pointing out all the missing factors in making such a determination. But still, those that challenged Earth as center were branded heretics.
posted by rich at 9:32 AM on March 8, 2019 [1 favorite]
A Theory can be observed, and 'proven' to be 'true' but lacks the proof of near absolute certainty because there is some unknown variable or force that is unaccounted for (even if that force is predictable, it may not have yet been observed and proven to actually exist).
All that being said, it was 'observed' that the earth must be the center of the universe, given the available information being used to make that determination. In today's mathematical driven proofs, there would undoubtedly have been someone standing around pointing out all the missing factors in making such a determination. But still, those that challenged Earth as center were branded heretics.
posted by rich at 9:32 AM on March 8, 2019 [1 favorite]
The theory part of gravitation, as I always understood it, was the Theory of Universal Gravitation. Newton proposed that the theory would apply the same everywhere in the universe. Any idiot can and will observe simple gravity, which describes the gravitation of the Earth, alone, at ground level, but Newton observed how gravity's force varies with the mass of planets, how it becomes diminishes as the distance from a planet (or other mass) increases, and so on.
Einstein came along and his Theories of General and Special Relativity went on to majorly alter the universality of Newton's theory, but for a giant slice of the universe, Newton's theory is adequate to predict the movement of arrows and throw balls, planets, spacecraft, and people. GPS, on the other hand, doesn't work well without a heavy dose of Einstein's work.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:17 AM on March 8, 2019
Einstein came along and his Theories of General and Special Relativity went on to majorly alter the universality of Newton's theory, but for a giant slice of the universe, Newton's theory is adequate to predict the movement of arrows and throw balls, planets, spacecraft, and people. GPS, on the other hand, doesn't work well without a heavy dose of Einstein's work.
posted by Sunburnt at 10:17 AM on March 8, 2019
Response by poster: Although I used the comparison of theory vs. law to attempt to explain what I wanted to say, and I appreciate the interpretations, I am more focused on the part of the question that tries to understand different ways of thinking. IOW, how some people on opposite sides of something don't understand why the other doesn't see it as apparently soup-bone simple. It reminds me of a painting I saw in college of three people seeing the same skyline; a man, a woman and a child, and the artist depicts how all three of them are seeing a different reality. Each of their reality is true for them and I was trying to understand why.
posted by CollectiveMind at 10:57 AM on March 8, 2019
posted by CollectiveMind at 10:57 AM on March 8, 2019
Typically because people will gravitate to evidence that supports what they already believe or think and then actively (many times subconsciously) avoid and/or ignore sources of information that can potentially upset that.
That way, there is a preponderance of evidence on the support side (whether or not it is the same source evidence repeated from multiple places, and regardless of the veracity of such evidence ; eg say the same lie over enough times and people will believe it).
Meanwhile, actively avoiding other sources does two things; first, it limits the frequency that the basic belief is challenged. Second, any challenges are done in an environment with an outsized counter-argument against it, therefor challenging its credibility.
It's like having a vote of 30 people and 2 people say, correctly, something is not true, and give factual evidence. Meanwhile the other 28 say it is true and point to eachother and say - see? how can it be untrue if the 27 other people say it's true?
posted by rich at 11:38 AM on March 8, 2019
That way, there is a preponderance of evidence on the support side (whether or not it is the same source evidence repeated from multiple places, and regardless of the veracity of such evidence ; eg say the same lie over enough times and people will believe it).
Meanwhile, actively avoiding other sources does two things; first, it limits the frequency that the basic belief is challenged. Second, any challenges are done in an environment with an outsized counter-argument against it, therefor challenging its credibility.
It's like having a vote of 30 people and 2 people say, correctly, something is not true, and give factual evidence. Meanwhile the other 28 say it is true and point to eachother and say - see? how can it be untrue if the 27 other people say it's true?
posted by rich at 11:38 AM on March 8, 2019
Confirmation bias may be a concept relevant to your question.
posted by heatherlogan at 5:34 PM on March 8, 2019
posted by heatherlogan at 5:34 PM on March 8, 2019
I'm not sure there is an underlying logical intuition that causes most people to arrive at similar conclusions. I've come to think that truth is largely manufactured. That's okay when you trust the process, as we tend to trust scientific processes, but when as a society we don't, you start to see people doubting basic facts. Frankly, I think you could publish an article tomorrow stating that 1+1 does not really equal 2, and find that many people choose to believe that's right.
posted by xammerboy at 9:29 PM on March 8, 2019
posted by xammerboy at 9:29 PM on March 8, 2019
As a followup to my post above, about "Unpersuadables," I just found out that the book is also published as "[The] Heretics" with the same subtitle.
posted by Sunburnt at 12:35 AM on March 12, 2019
posted by Sunburnt at 12:35 AM on March 12, 2019
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posted by CollectiveMind at 11:24 PM on March 7, 2019