(July 2, 2016 at 11:31 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:Quote:There's nothing you can do about emotions. Evie told me this just recently.
I think the world of Evie, but you're both wrong about this. You can do a lot about emotions, such as managing your reaction to them. By my attitude about people who label others isn't an emotion, it's a value judgement.
I just expressed myself badly. I think there is a lot of control we can have over our emotions and biases. I initially said that I think it's irrational to try to change what we cannot change. Surely that is reasonable. I then reiterated and oversimplified my own point and expressed it badly the second time.
My position on this matter is the one I get from Daniel Kahneman from his widely influencial book Thinking Fast and Slow. Here is Steven Pinker summarizing his posion I think quite well
Steven Pinker Wrote:I've called Daniel Kahneman the world's most influential living psychologist and I believe that is true. He pretty much created the field of behavioural economics and has revolutionised large parts of cognitive psychology and social psychology. His central message could not be more important, namely, that human reason left to its own devices is apt to engage in a number of fallacies and systematic errors, so if we want to make better decisions in our personal lives and as a society, we ought to be aware of these biases and seek workarounds. That's a powerful and important discovery.
Here's a short 6 minute interview with him Daniel Khaneman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4zSc2lYl60
Daniel Kahneman Wrote:We think, each of us, that we're much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it's the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we've already made the decision.
Finally, and most importantly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow