Contradiction?
So a couple weeks ago Lucian pointed out a contradiction (of sorts) in my thinking where in one case I pointed out that you can’t trust your gut because the truth can easily go against our intuition. However, in another post I pointed out that we should trust our gut. I’ve mulled this over quite a bit and the wine is almost ready to serve. Here are my thoughts.
Gut is for taking Action – not for determining Truth
If we want to determine truth we must use a set of tools designed to keep our hunches / gut from biasing the conclusion. Experience teaches us that our current hunches are untrustworthy for determining truth because they could be built on information that is inaccurate. In many ways, I think this is why many people fall in love with detective stories. Good detectives are individuals who gather information and try not to act at all until all the information is in. In other words, though their initial hunches may be guiding their gathering of the information, they recognize that a hunch is not truth and discipline their minds to distinguish between the two. Our gut is a good guide if the information we currently have is accurate. However, our gut is a horrible guide in determining truth and for that we must use reason.
Gut and reason work together. Our gut informs us and drives us toward acting out on the information we have. Our reason calms us to gather more information and critically analyze it. In this way, our gut and reason are twins in the same system and both must be employed.
Scams Leverage the Gut against Reason
Scams work by shortening the time you have to make a decision and increasing the risk if you choose wrong. At that point your gut screams at you to accept the offer being made because the risk of rejecting it so that you can determine the truthfulness of what is being said is too high for comfort. By increasing the threat if you choose wrong, scams make you afraid to take the time to determine truth. During the interim your gut may be screaming at you to accept the offer. Is your gut right? Probably – if what is being said is true!
Religion has employed this system effectively in the past be threatening imminent social isolation, hell, wrath of God, plagues, disasters, conquering by an enemy nation, etc. if you do not either believe X or do Y. By saying the doom is imminent, the speaker is indicating that there is not enough time to determine the truthfulness of what is being said. As such, only the most courageous individuals will question it because they are the ones willing to take the risk to determine truth.
A Definition of Intelligence
The cool thing about this is that it gives a good way to rate a person’s intelligence. An intelligent person is someone who is faster than his peers at determining the truth. As such, this person’s gut and actions will be more accurate sooner than his or her peers because the information he or she possesses will be more accurate sooner.
The other cool thing is that this means intelligence can be learned by practice. By working your mind to be faster at determining the truth you can increase your ability to spot scams. At the same time you will decrease your anxiety in life because you will not easily fall victim to inaccurate threats.
And that’s how it works!
- Josh
Uhm, … I’m glad to have inspired You to write this post, Josh, but I’m afraid You didn’t understand my comment: all I said was that mhy own gut showed itsefl twice to be wrong (thankfully!). I gave the examples of two girls, about whom, when I met them, I was dead-positive I could never-ever feel anything for them (they looked physically to dull and un-attractive)… only to find myself a couple of years later powerfully attracted to each of them: to one physically, and to the other romantically.
I like what you have to say about intelligence that it can be learned. It’s interesting though that you say that someone with more intelligence might possess a more accurate “gut feeling”, I find it interesting b/c a more educated person or someone who uses more reason might be more cautious of their “gut”. But maybe since they are more cautious they might make better decisions. Good post Josh, happy to see you posting.
Lucian, I was primarily referring to a comment you once made on de-conversion about a post I made a while back where you called me out on a contradiction :) Sorry, I probably should have clarified.
Bonita,
I tend to think that intelligence is something that can be worked at, just like going to the gym. The mind, in many ways, is like a muscle. Continually working it out helps one develop good patterns of thinking that can reduce stress and help us look the world with a critical and insightful eye.
Now, obviously some people have mental issues or what-not, but I like to hold out hope until it is completely lost :)
I agree. It’s a good topic- “intelligence”- it interests me not only on the religious or superstitious level, but b/c I’m studying to be a teacher and think alot about intelligence and it’s corralation with other aspects of life such as Education. I also think alot about psychology and psychological states. Nice Post.