What is the function of the brain? I’ve been trying to collect information on the idea that we over-estimate the ability of human reason to tell us what is true, and that is because reason highest function is social, not intellectual. Here are a few things I have found:
When people with an incorrect view were introduced to the correct view, a vast proportion doubled down on their wrong opinion and thenceforth refused to budge. I am slightly haunted by this study because of how much it says about us human beings. We like to think of ourselves as reasonable, rational types. After all, you rarely meet someone who confesses to being unreasonable and irrational. But we do not really know ourselves, and if reason and rationalism alone drove us then we would be something else entirely. While we are sometimes motivated by reason, we are also fueled by pride, jealousy and much more.
In describing Enigma of Reason, by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, this webpage indicates:
[R]eason is an adaptive mechanism designed to help humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment – and that it has nothing to do with facts at all.
Reason, say Mercier and Sperber, evolved to help us justify ourselves and to convince others, which is essential for cooperation and communication. According to the two scientists, “the normal conditions for the use of reason are social, and more specifically dialogic. Outside of this environment, there is no guarantee that reasoning acts for the benefits of the reasoner.”
According Mercier and Sperber, habits of mind that seem irrational from an “intellectualist” point of view, prove shrewd when seen from a social “inter-actionist” perspective.
From Goodreads, which offers excerpts from The Enigma of Reason:
“The fact that people are good at evaluating others’ reasons is the nail in the coffin of the intellectualist approach. It means that people have the ability to reason objectively, rejecting weak arguments and accepting strong ones, but that they do not use these skills on the reasons they produce. The apparent weaknesses of reason production are not cognitive failures; they are cognitive features.”
“[T]wo major features of the production of reasons: it is biased— people overwhelmingly find reasons that support their previous beliefs— and it is lazy— people do not carefully scrutinize their own reasons. Combined, these two traits spell disaster for the lone reasoner. As she reasons, she finds more and more arguments for her views, most of them judged to be good enough. These reasons increase her confidence and lead her to extreme positions.”
“It is based, however, on a convenient fiction: most reasons are after-the-fact rationalizations. Still, this fictional use of reasons plays a central role in human interactions, from the most trivial to the most dramatic.”
“As Popper put it, “In searching for the truth, it may be our best plan to start by criticizing our most cherished beliefs.”
Whereas reason is commonly viewed as the use of logic, or at least some system of rules to expand and improve our knowledge and our decisions, we argue that reason is much more opportunistic and eclectic and is not bound to formal norms. The main role of logic in reasoning, we suggest, may well be a rhetorical one: logic helps simplify and schematize intuitive arguments, highlighting and often exaggerating their force. So, why did reason evolve? What does it provide, over and above what is provided by more ordinary forms of inference, that could have been of special value to humans and to humans alone? To answer, we adopt a much broader perspective. Reason, we argue, has two main functions: that of producing reasons for justifying oneself, and that of producing arguments to convince others. These two functions rely on the same kinds of reasons and are closely related.”
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion … draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate
Descartes was the most forceful of reason’s many advocates. Reason has also had many, often passionate, detractors. Its efficacy has been questioned. Its arrogance has been denounced. The religious reformer Martin Luther was particularly scathing: “Reason is by nature a harmful whore. But she shall not harm me, if only I resist her. Ah, but she is so comely and glittering.… See to it that you hold reason in check and do not follow her beautiful cogitations. Throw dirt in her face and make her ugly.”
We began this book with a double enigma, the second part of which was: How come humans are not better at reasoning, not able to come, through reasoning, to nearly universal agreement among themselves? It looks like now we might have overexplained why different people’s reasons should fail to converge on the same conclusion and ended up with the opposite problem: If the reason module is geared to the retrospective use of reasons for justification, how can it be used prospectively to reason? How come humans are capable of reasoning at all, and, at times, quite well?”
A speaker typically wants not only to be understood but also to be believed (or obeyed), to have, in other terms, some influence on her audience. A hearer typically wants not just to understand what the speaker means but, in so doing, to learn something about the world.”
Humans reason when they are trying to convince others or when others are trying to convince them. Solitary reasoning occurs, it seems, in anticipation or rehashing of discussions with others and perhaps also when one finds oneself holding incompatible ideas and engages in a kind of discussion with oneself.”
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”
Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross, who suggest that people are generally content with the first reason they stumble upon,5 or David Perkins, who asserts that many arguments make only “superficial sense.
I haven’t read Think Again, by Adam Grant, but it is on my list based on this description at the book website:
Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We think too much like preachers defending our sacred beliefs, prosecutors proving the other side wrong, and politicians campaigning for approval–and too little like scientists searching for truth. Intelligence is no cure, and it can even be a curse: being good at thinking can make us worse at rethinking. The brighter we are, the blinder to our own limitations we can become.
