How can we be sure this is reality?

[Angrboda]

I think I finally understand Brian's psychology tonight. Legendary psychologist Daniel Kahneman has a new book out, Thinking Fast and Slow (which I haven't read, but have had explained to me). According to his latest research, humans use two separate cognitive systems or strategies for dealing with the world. One fast, and one slow. The majority of the time we resort to the fast system, because, well it's fast. If we always relied on the slow system, we'd never be able to respond to the vast majority of stimuli in the time frame in which a response is needed. The fast system is characterized by making quick, approximate but frequently useful, if not accurate, responses. The slow system is all about taking the time to think through the details of the problem in question, using reason and logic, and perhaps some original thought, to produce a deep understanding of the question. The fast system is more geared towards substituting rules of thumb and pragmatic responses. The fast system is strongly geared toward pattern matching, as it prefers to use canned responses, as applying them is very fast. One of its strategies toward this end is, if a problem doesn't match one of its current templates, it will attempt to "recast" and "retranslate" the problem into a pattern it does recognize, regardless of how much distortion of the original problem is required to make the translated form fit the existing template. Once the template is matched, even if by an imperfect translation, a response is generated based on that template. Naturally, if the distortion required to match the template is significant, the response generated will be significantly mismatched to the actual problem and result in significant error. The greater the distortion, the less practical and effective the result. Even so, because of the nature of behavior and environment, even many of these imperfect solutions "work" well enough to get us by, and generally, nobody is the wiser. (Probably in part due to most people doing the same thing; with everybody generating system 1 responses, there's nobody left to say, "hey, that's distorted.")

I think most can fill in the details from here with regard to Brian. He doesn't do a lot of deep, system 2 thinking, so the bulk of his responses are generated by system 1, the fast system. Unfortunately, many of the questions generated on a forum like this require system 2 thinking to develop an effective and practical response to them (such as this discussion). I could go into more detail, but for lack of a better way of putting it, Brian seems largely stuck in system 1 thinking, doling out replies which are based on a limited set of templates. Any time he's faced with a novel question requiring system 2 thinking, his system 1 swoops in, retranslates the question into something it understands, and vomits out a more or less canned response. Ultimately Brian isn't either at fault, or likely even aware it is happening; the choice of system 1 is made in the absence of system 2 triggers, and isn't really consciously controlled; his system 1 thinking grabs the problem, translates it to fit a template, and generates a response based on the template, without his attentional systems being even given the opportunity to consider anything else.

This is probably why it's so frustrating, because he's obviously not aware of how he is "systematically misunderstanding the question," and those debating him are unable to see how it's possible that someone of average intelligence could so consistently miss the boat. My prudence and religious teachings counsel me not to continue banging my head on behaviors of people like Brian, rather than the psychology, but I'm human too, and have the same desires to get through to such people. I so want there to be some way to break through and make him see, just as in arguing with a theist whose illogic and delusion you wish you could "break through" to make them see it for what it is. Ultimately though, I think it's a fool's errand. But I could be wrong. Something has to be responsible for the growing secularization of the world, and I suppose it makes as much sense to attribute it to millions of little victories as to the few big ones.

(Btw, this is all speculation on my part, so take it with the grain of salt it deserves. It does seem to fit, though, doesn't it?)