Your Are Not Right
To reason is crap. There, I said it. To reason is shit. Fuck, I like it. Today’s article is going to be provocative and, assuming I overcome the deepest indifference, I prevent strong criticism. But I have to say it: reasoning-is-shit.
You will surely tell me that reasoning is what distinguishes human beings from other animals; and it probably is, although a scientist would probably have some subtleties to provide. But hey, not important now. The point is that it distinguishes us positively from other animals, but it also does so in negative; because let’s face it, the problem is that we don’t know how to reason.
So, we do reason since we are born, we do to survive, we do to get what we want and to understand the things that happen around us. We do to convince others. The question is we do in a resulting way: to “convince” we use “vince” more than “con” (Latin “vince, vincere” means to win). Now maybe I have said a shit, but nevermind, you understand me. So we only reason to get something, and the course and the quality of reasoning do not matter. We make obvious logical mistakes every time we open our mouths. I am thinking that there are probably a lot of them in this text, but hey, writing is free and easy today.
Cognitive dissonances
When we reason, when we try to win that discussion that we actually don’t care a fuck about -the discussion, not winning, we really care about winning- when we make decisions, when we try to make introspection, in all those moments, our brain wants to feel good. Our brain is very bastard and does not like to suffer. He wants to feel at ease, he wants to be right, anyway, even if he is deceiving himself. Coming to the conclusion of what we have always believed is not true, or that our attitude is not consistent with our ideas, is very hard. This is why many times we commit ourselves to avoid having to accept the harsh truth, or we change our actions to accommodate our beliefs. And that affects our reasoning; we are not properly rational, we do not follow the laws of logic, we fall into … yes, cognitive biases and fallacious thinking.
Cognitive biases
Because our brain wants to feel good, comfortable, in harmony, and since it has no fucking desire to analyze all the data at your fingertips, it uses to stay alone with a certain part of them. Some types:
- Confirmation bias: We see positively the data that confirm our belief while we receive with distaste or directly ignore what could put into doubt our ideas.
- Illusory correlation: We tend to find causes-effect where there isn’t, without supporting data: the Sun is rising because the rooster sings.
- Group illusion: We also have a tendency to group the facts that are actually random in streaks, so we believe that we have more chances to get a six in a dice roll if it has been long since the last one.
- Apophenia: This is for pure survival, we see patterns where they are not. We hear a loud noise and we shrink, although there is no real data that indicates that something is going to happen.
- Selective observation bias: You know, when the menstruation does not come, do not stop seeing pregnant women.
- Self-justification bias: Need to explain it?
There are many more and it is not my intention to make a psychology treatise now but … see how the mind lies? And just to be honest: many times we know that we are lying. Or we intuit it…
The fallacious thought: also known as “I do not lose this discussion”
Do you know when someone gives you an argument whose logic seems irrefutable but you have a feeling that tells you that there is something wrong? It is because the logic is irrefutable. The problem is that it is based on hypotheses that are false or partially true. Welcome to the world of fallacies, where the facts are malleable at our convenience.
Here everything works. Is this guy really telling me I’m not right? What will know who was in jail and is nothing more than a criminal? Besides, I have a cousin, who is a scientist, that have said that this climate change… in fact, in my city it is the same heat as always, how he says that the world temperature is rising… nonsense.
The previous paragraph is a set of nonsense in the form of fallacies that has made me suffer a lot while writing it. Not because I had a hard time thinking about them… but precisely because of the opposite. Wow, I’m good at it. We are all good at them. And this is a problem. But that’s life. Some types of fallacies we hear every day:
- Ad hominem (from Latin “versus the man”): if I can not refute your reasoning, I discredit you personally creating the false conclusion that, since you are discredited, you cannot be right. It also has the opposite version, based on the good prestige of someone who thinks the same to support your own opinion.
- Hasty Generalization: I take the first data I find and infer that, in general, it must occur in the same way.
- The middle ground fallacy: you say the sky is blue, I say it’s yellow, so it must be green. This is the fallacy of consensus, when you hear “we are going to look for a consensus solution” start to fear: there will probably be a Frankenstein that will not be, by far, the most rational option.
- Cherry-picking: This consist of taking only some of the facts, the ones than convey to your reasoning. It’s very used by children when they tell adults what has happened… you know, they say something like It felt down and it broke… and then you ask ok, but what were you doing?. Ops.
- Red herring: It consists of sidetracking the attention of others with a topic that is not directly related to the main discussion. This car is great, once I went by it to the lake and saw some beautiful swans and spent the night watching the stars with mom. It was marvellous… Ok, but the car is fast or not?
And I could keep talking about fallacies, but it hits me and my brain says that I should not write more to not bore you or… something like that. Anyway.
So be careful with what you think. Be careful with what others think. Because if you pay attention, you will detect this kind of dissonance and fallacies in each and every one of the conversations of your life. And nothing will ever be as before…