Why do we think what we think?
I was just thinking about the Jonathan Swift statement, "You do not reason a man out of something he was not reasoned into." As a first reaction this might allow us to engage in a little bout of ego building and personal arrogance. We are all quite certain that our own positions and believes are founded upon sound reasoning and a firm grasp of reality. I know that I'm convinced that all of my firmly held idealogical comittments come from a combinantion of real world evidence and impartial reasoning. Probably most of us feel the same way. Considering the variety of opinions and positions, however, some of us must be deluded.
When I look at the ideaologies of Communism I shake my head and think, "How could an educated thinker like Marx have been such a fool?" When I look at Islamists blowing up innocent people I think to myself, "How can over a billion people have been taken in by such an obvious self serving snake oil salesman as Mohammed?" I have no doubt that other people look at my system of believes and respond the same way. So, are we going to be able to figure out who is right and who is wrong; who's ideas are based upon rational tinking and who is just a pseudo intellectual fool. Probably not! At least not in a way that will yield common agreement.
What I would like to do, however, is talk about why seemingly rational, and intelligent people - people with a great deal of integrity - on both sides of a particular issue, can have ideas that appear so blatently absurd to the other side. The thing that brought me to this investigation was some recent reading in the areas of Psychology and Hypnotism.
Apparently, in a state of trance, it is possible to "program" a person's subconsious so that he or she will carry out actions at a later time without knowing the source or motivation for that action. When someone who has been hynotised to do such a thing is asked why he did it, he will usually try to provide some kind of sensible explanation that has nothing to do with the real reason.
So it seems to me that we have to ask ourselves, "are most of our behaviors, believes, and idealogies based in the pre-rational. Is the sublime structure of intellectual constructs that we live by, are proud of, and regard as being the essential thruths of our existence, simply the guilding upon a set of more basic, programed, learned, indoctrinated, or emotion based set of motivations. Are these motivations working in our subconsious and are they disguised in several layers of intricate rationalizations before making their appearance in the domain of the conscious.
It is quite possible that those who's idealogies are "right" in the sense that they are sound, consistent and in parallel with emperical reality are motivated to those idealogies by emotional, environmental and experiential reasons that are much more basic and simplistic and that come unknowingly from deep within the subconsious. Are we all just creatures who justify ourselves to each other and to ourselves with rationalizations that have been carefully taylored to mesh with that part of society that we wish to be respected in, who's values we have accepted, and of which we wish to be a part? The social groupings of which we want to be a part could be political, religious, atheist, activist or simply anti social and revolutionary. Even the anti-social and revolutionary can be recognized by their uniforms.
The conclusion that I have reached, is that we all, without knowing it, manufacture the reality that we want for more basic and prerational reasons. So our reason is not the primary motivator for our actions; but rather, the majority of time, this grand, respected, and admired attribute of mankind is simply the handmaiden of a purpose of which it is not even aware.
When I look at the ideaologies of Communism I shake my head and think, "How could an educated thinker like Marx have been such a fool?" When I look at Islamists blowing up innocent people I think to myself, "How can over a billion people have been taken in by such an obvious self serving snake oil salesman as Mohammed?" I have no doubt that other people look at my system of believes and respond the same way. So, are we going to be able to figure out who is right and who is wrong; who's ideas are based upon rational tinking and who is just a pseudo intellectual fool. Probably not! At least not in a way that will yield common agreement.
What I would like to do, however, is talk about why seemingly rational, and intelligent people - people with a great deal of integrity - on both sides of a particular issue, can have ideas that appear so blatently absurd to the other side. The thing that brought me to this investigation was some recent reading in the areas of Psychology and Hypnotism.
Apparently, in a state of trance, it is possible to "program" a person's subconsious so that he or she will carry out actions at a later time without knowing the source or motivation for that action. When someone who has been hynotised to do such a thing is asked why he did it, he will usually try to provide some kind of sensible explanation that has nothing to do with the real reason.
So it seems to me that we have to ask ourselves, "are most of our behaviors, believes, and idealogies based in the pre-rational. Is the sublime structure of intellectual constructs that we live by, are proud of, and regard as being the essential thruths of our existence, simply the guilding upon a set of more basic, programed, learned, indoctrinated, or emotion based set of motivations. Are these motivations working in our subconsious and are they disguised in several layers of intricate rationalizations before making their appearance in the domain of the conscious.
It is quite possible that those who's idealogies are "right" in the sense that they are sound, consistent and in parallel with emperical reality are motivated to those idealogies by emotional, environmental and experiential reasons that are much more basic and simplistic and that come unknowingly from deep within the subconsious. Are we all just creatures who justify ourselves to each other and to ourselves with rationalizations that have been carefully taylored to mesh with that part of society that we wish to be respected in, who's values we have accepted, and of which we wish to be a part? The social groupings of which we want to be a part could be political, religious, atheist, activist or simply anti social and revolutionary. Even the anti-social and revolutionary can be recognized by their uniforms.
The conclusion that I have reached, is that we all, without knowing it, manufacture the reality that we want for more basic and prerational reasons. So our reason is not the primary motivator for our actions; but rather, the majority of time, this grand, respected, and admired attribute of mankind is simply the handmaiden of a purpose of which it is not even aware.
posted by Tilo Reber at 6:10 PM
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