Diane
19-03-2008, 04:15 PM
So far, this new journal (http://www.springerlink.com/content/t146803h235l/?p=c7eb3e1ac1e8428bb9700947c4d9b90f&pi=0) is open access. It is Aussie, it seems... I'm only part way through the introductory article (http://www.springerlink.com/content/04x51m73l7l13252/fulltext.html) arguing the need for yet another journal, and already I'm sold - it touches on the broad topics of rationality, autonomy and morality.
Excerpt: Automatic actions are effortless, ballistic (uninterruptible once initiated) and typically unconsciously initiated; that is, they are not made in response to conscious reasons of ours but are instead more like reflexes, triggered by features of the situation in which we find ourselves. In the influential terminology introduced by Stanovich [18], automatic actions are system 1 processes, not slow, effortful, conscious and deliberative system 2 processes. System 1 processes are evolutionarily more ancient; they are the kind of cognitive process we share with many other animals, whereas system 2 processes are the kind distinctive of us. If we are rational animals, and that is what distinguishes us, it is only inasmuch as we deploy system 2 processes that this is true. The threatening finding from social psychology is not that we often deploy system 1 processes; it is that these are by far the more common. The overwhelming majority of human actions are caused by automatic mental processes [2]. In the light of the sciences of the mind, our claim to be rational animals suddenly looks somewhat shaky.
Worse is to come. Even when we do deploy system 2 processes, the rationality of our thought is less than we might have hoped. The evidence for this claim comes largely from cognitive psychology, especially work in the heuristics and biases traditions. Heuristics are mental short cuts and rules of thumb that we deploy, usually without realizing we are doing so; biases are the ways in which we weight the significance of information in making judgments. There is a huge mass of evidence showing that when we assess arguments or make decisions, we deploy such heuristics and biases, often in ways that mislead us. I shall mention only a few of the ways in which we assess information badly.
Human beings are pervasively subject to the confirmation bias, a systematic tendency to search for evidence that supports a hypothesis we are entertaining, rather than evidence that refutes it, and to interpret ambiguous evidence so that it supports our hypothesis [15].
One will find discussed in it the pitfall of belief in the supernatural, the damage done to our species by the repressed memory cult (that seems to have died away of late), and much much more, many echoes of what we've discussed here lately.
Enjoy.
One more thing, thank you to Mo at Neurophilosophy (http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2008/03/neurosexism_the_neuroenhanceme.php) for a post about this, which is how I found it.
Excerpt: Automatic actions are effortless, ballistic (uninterruptible once initiated) and typically unconsciously initiated; that is, they are not made in response to conscious reasons of ours but are instead more like reflexes, triggered by features of the situation in which we find ourselves. In the influential terminology introduced by Stanovich [18], automatic actions are system 1 processes, not slow, effortful, conscious and deliberative system 2 processes. System 1 processes are evolutionarily more ancient; they are the kind of cognitive process we share with many other animals, whereas system 2 processes are the kind distinctive of us. If we are rational animals, and that is what distinguishes us, it is only inasmuch as we deploy system 2 processes that this is true. The threatening finding from social psychology is not that we often deploy system 1 processes; it is that these are by far the more common. The overwhelming majority of human actions are caused by automatic mental processes [2]. In the light of the sciences of the mind, our claim to be rational animals suddenly looks somewhat shaky.
Worse is to come. Even when we do deploy system 2 processes, the rationality of our thought is less than we might have hoped. The evidence for this claim comes largely from cognitive psychology, especially work in the heuristics and biases traditions. Heuristics are mental short cuts and rules of thumb that we deploy, usually without realizing we are doing so; biases are the ways in which we weight the significance of information in making judgments. There is a huge mass of evidence showing that when we assess arguments or make decisions, we deploy such heuristics and biases, often in ways that mislead us. I shall mention only a few of the ways in which we assess information badly.
Human beings are pervasively subject to the confirmation bias, a systematic tendency to search for evidence that supports a hypothesis we are entertaining, rather than evidence that refutes it, and to interpret ambiguous evidence so that it supports our hypothesis [15].
One will find discussed in it the pitfall of belief in the supernatural, the damage done to our species by the repressed memory cult (that seems to have died away of late), and much much more, many echoes of what we've discussed here lately.
Enjoy.
One more thing, thank you to Mo at Neurophilosophy (http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2008/03/neurosexism_the_neuroenhanceme.php) for a post about this, which is how I found it.