Thinking very carefully about problems can be an extremely powerful way to answer questions or make predictions. But there are some problems for which our non-conscious processing systems produce superior results.
Our non-conscious systems primarily work using pattern recognition. Through a combination of genetic pre-programming and repeated exposure, your brain learns to label instances of things in the world as "dangerous" or "not dangerous", "food" or "not food", "person" or "not person", ...
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prediction
Keeping Ideas at a Distance Using Probability
We often talk about ideas by using phrases like "I believe X." But what do we mean when we say that we "believe" in an idea? Do we mean that we have 100% confidence that the idea is true?
Let's hope not. Even statements that we all would say we very strongly believe, like "tomorrow the sun will rise", and "I am not a robot" we should not assign 100% probability to. While we can be very, very, very certain that the sun will rise tomorrow and that our brains are not computers, we cannot be abso...
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Agencies Are Not Agents
People will often debate questions like "why did the U.S. invade Iraq?" One group claims it was due to a fear of nuclear weapons. Another group claims that the action was oil related. Yet another claims that George Bush had a vendetta against Saddam. But proposed answers like these often seem to assume something that isn't likely to be true: that there was a single reason why this action occurred. It is in fact not even clear that there was one predominant or overarching reason.
The actions o...
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