Rational Thought: Not all it’s cracked up to be.

In my post entitled Intuitive Thought I mentioned that rational thought is slow and arduous. I also mentioned in Spinoza’s Conjecture that vague or confusing information is processed in a portion of the brain that also processes pain and disgust. Rational thought, it seems, is not all it’s cracked up to be. In fact we …

Share

Rules of Thought

We are innately intuitive thinkers inclined toward making all sorts of cognitive errors as we muddle through our lives. The consequences in many cases are benign enough; however, I dare say that many an interpersonal conflict stems from such thinking. However, the consequences of this type of thinking can be huge in some circumstances. For …

Share

Global Consequences of Cognitive Biases

My previous posts addressed several common cognitive biases while briefly touching on their subsequent consequences.  In review, the Fundamental Attribution Error leads us to make hasty and often erroneous conclusions about others’ personal attributes based on our superficial observations.  Generally such conclusions are in fact erroneous because we lack a sufficient understanding of the situational …

Share

Spinoza’s Conjecture

Last week I discussed fundamental attribution error, leaving confirmation bias and Spinoza’s Conjuncture left to explore.  Today I’m going to delve into the latter.  Benedict Spinoza, a 17th-century Dutch philosopher, wrote with great insight that “mere comprehension of a statement entails the tacit acceptance of its being true, whereas disbelief requires a subsequent process of …

Share