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Reason Seen More As a Weapon Than a Path To Truth
mdsolar writes with this excerpt from the NY Times:
"For centuries thinkers have assumed that the uniquely human capacity for reasoning has existed to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in the search for truth. Rationality allowed a solitary thinker to blaze a path to philosophical, moral and scientific enlightenment. Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we'll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena."
Interesting, insightful and informative moderation tags may help in avoiding the worst of the caveman-type reasoning battles on slashdot.
So now that we have the internet and the evolutionary push for reasoning and rationality is gone - what do you think will happen?
God made our mind for reason!
I dare you to tell Hiro that Reason is not a weapon... :)
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
And here I figured reasoning ability would give you a survival advantage. Otherwise some idiot "wins" an argument with faulty reasoning and kills the whole tribe. Then again that seems to be happening on a larger scale with our entire species so maybe the idiots killed off everyone else long ago for arguing too much.
Certainly one of the evolutionary benefits of reasoning could be to win debates. On the other hand problem solving certainly plays part. I can picture a cave-man saying "remember when we hunted those mammoths near the cliffs and one fell down. It was an easy kill, and nobody got hurt. Lets drive the mammoths towards the cliff again"! As the article says, the "winning debate" comes to the fore more in larger groups - and people started off in small hunter-gatherer tribes. Also there are two types of debate - the academic debate where people knowledgable in the field evaluate arguments and the sort of debate that two politicians have on TV. In the first case reason is very important. In the second case dissembling - not answering questions - and implying things that they know are wrong are more important. A slick presentation of a lie would easily convince most of the viewing population over a rigorous, boring argument for the truth.
No, it isn't.
It figures; the media wonks want to attack the practice of 'reason' since it interferes with their manipulations.
Well; they can shove their tiny little minds and mouths up their copious arseholes...Reason is a tool that us clever people use to counter Idiots; especially the vocal paid-for astroturfing idiots who pop up everywhere doing what they are paid to do; destroy debate critical of their paymasters.
So; having given this article some reasoned consideration; I say 'screw all you media types; just because you are mentally incapable of using reason to make good decisions you will not stop me doing so. And the most satisfying reasoned action we will take is to tell you to fuck off... repeatedly."
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
In my introduction to logic class, I remember that one of the first things the professor said was that the course should be retitled 'How to lose friends and win arguments.'
I expected a link to The Onion. Truth is stranger than fic^H^H^H satire.
You know, I wonder if this is also driving internet trolling, since trolls can vacate a logical "win" at will. Trolls can additionally create false arenas in which people can rack up meaningless "wins".
Perhaps trolling is just the system balancing itself. There is an overabundance of people who cannot resist the urge to correct another person, which creates a natural predator-prey relationship for trolls.
Researchers are blinded by their above average intelligence into thinking that other people respond to "reason".
Arguments are won by the person(s) with the loudest voices, and failing that - the biggest sticks. This is called "politics", but it also travels under other guises like "religion", "nationalism", "sports fanaticism", etc. If you want evidence you merely have to look at human history, or even current events in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, etc. A lot of "reasoning" is going on there.
If you want a good insight into how the human brain works and responds to arguments, I suggest reading the first few chapters of Mein Kampf. No, not all the stupid babble about the superior German race and the Jew Hate, but the first few chapters take a powerful, honest and insightful exploration as to what we humans really are and how we "reason".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"Such is the weakness of our reason; most often it serves only to justify our own beliefs." [from La Gloire de mon Père, my translation]
Having read that from Pagnol (and it's now my favourite quote), I'm not surprised that it was a French team who came up with this theory -- Pagnol was one of the most important figures in French literature of his era.
Pagnol's original context is no less relevant today than it was at the time: he was referring to how the local teacher and the local priest where he grew up were both very well educated, very intelligent people, yet their conclusions were almost diametrically opposed. I think the parallel to modern life is clear....
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Well, actually, this is kind of obvious. When you realise that all our petty little philosophical differences arise from the fact that we start with different assumptions which we have little or no proof for, you generally come to the conclusion that "reason" is just a tool for us to beat each other over the head with and ignore the fundamental issues in favour of a feeling of elitist superiority.
But to realise this and agree to disagree is contrary to our evolutionary programming... So, let the games begin:
[troll] (Not 'fundamentalist')Religion is equally valid with atheism/naturalism because the only difference it has with (strong)atheism/naturalism lies in its fundamental assumptions. Both rely on unproven or unprovable assumptions. [/troll] :D
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
This is kind a classic distinction, rhetoric is the art of persuasion by charm and other means while reason is supposed to have truth standards. But it becomes a little circular when one needs reason to figure out how many repetitions of a phrase in a speech will win over the crowd.
There is nothing divine about humanity. We came from animals and maintain our animal nature in everything we do. There is no reason it should exclude "reasoning." And we have known for quite some time that belief trumps fact.
It shows in nearly everything we do. In fact, "reasoning" has been used to support disinformation, misinformation, lies and misunderstanding for as far back as humans go. Religion and religious organizations are a wonderful example of this. Even the practice of saying "bless you" after a sneeze evolved from the reasoning that sneezes are the body's rejection of bad spirits and to say "bless you" would invoke a barrier that prevents those bad spirits from re-entering the body.
We like to think in terms of ideals even now. The people who want to reject the idea are clinging to their ideals without acknowledging our truest natures.
I had not considered this idea before I read the article. But it really does fit with everything else I know of human nature and behavior -- certainly fits better than the idea that we are of divine origin and everything we do is because we are "special and unique" in some way. Everything we learn about ourselves eventually proves we are not quite so unique or special... we are just dominant, adaptable and successful.
“Reasoning doesn’t have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and make better decisions,” said Hugo Mercier, who is a co-author of the journal article, with Dan Sperber. “It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us.” Truth and accuracy were beside the point.
As such, this model also allows for emotional reasoning ('truthiness') and the acceptance of logical fallacy.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
I used to think I was clever for being aware of how often an argument can be seen as instinctive urges of people to position themselves higher in the primate dominance hierarchy. e.g. I am better than you; the software I use is better than what you use; ad hominem attacks; speaking louder and longer. :)
Then I noticed that by pointing out these dominance hierarchy games that I was really just playing the same instinctual game to show that I am more clever than those people "just" following their instincts. This paper seems to back up my theory that I'm just as much a slave to those instincts as the "me > *" flamebait types.
A biased opinion is just a more convincing way of lying, because the liar actually believes he is right. In that context, lying has a evolutionary advantage because it allows one to siphon resources from others to benefit the spreading of one's own genes.
Sound Reason still is an evolutionary advantage, because stuff actually work when you use it, and I prefer to see that faulty reasoning as closer to lying than a "evolutionally useful reasoning".
If you believe that reason can be used to triumph in discussions, try reasoning with an idiot.
"Reasoning doesnâ(TM)t have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and make better decisions," said Hugo Mercier, who is a co-author of the journal article, with Dan Sperber. "It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us." Truth and accuracy were beside the point.
That is a fairly damning quote on its own, but I will assume that Dr. Mercier is being misrepresented by omission of context.
It is not the case that all strategies have the same value. If reason were no more accurate than random choices, then there would be no evolutionary value whatsoever to evaluating the suggestions of others on the basis of reason.
The "purpose" of claws (if we are ascribing intentionality to natural selection, which is a mistake) may be to help climbing or to grip onto prey, not to be strong and sharp, but if they weren't strong and sharp they wouldn't be able to do that.
Disclaimer: tipping her until she stumbles into a wall can be a substitute.
Disclaimer 2: no unwanted violence in this actions should be implied.
Are we talking here about the evolution of a meme instead of the mankind? The word evolution seem to be used in both contexts in the article, but complex enough language, and probably reasoning as a social weapon came a bit later than the point were we became homo sapiens.
For some things the reasoning hypotesis is not needed, figuring out a pattern could be more expensive or slower than deciding if something fits on it or that could be something random that should be ignored, so could had been an human (or less intelligent species) evoluitionary advantage to keep considering a pattern as valid even if exceptions exist.
Would be ironical than Hanlon's razor could be a way to disprove this.
Nietzsche on back on forth argumentative debates: "As a dialectician, he holds a merciless tool in his hand; he can become a tyrant by means of it; he compromises those he conquers. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to prove that he is not an idiot: he enrages and neutralizes his opponent at the same time. The dialectician renders the intellect of his opponent powerless."
"One chooses logical argument only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to nullify than a logical argument: the tedium of long speeches proves this."
"you're right" = "tu as raison". "This is not right" = "c'est pas juste". I don't know if it's a leftover from the Lumieres, but where English uses terms of right and wrong, French uses reason and justice. Back when I was in the US, I was indeed surprised by how objective reality (or the quest the establish it) seemed to very often take a back seat to feelings and moral / religious aspects.
Turns out both are just "my way" vs "your way" then ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I agree. Reasoning isn't awareness. It's thinking to the point of getting to some desired conclusion. Most all reasoning is biased from the outset. Even my reasoning about this was for the sake of getting this biased point across.
This is just adds a 'scientific' coloration to sophistry, which is 2400 years old now.
Chimp wants bananas. Bananas are in a high place. Chimp realizes he can climb on the a crate to get bananas. It's that simple, folks. The fact that crates are useful for getting high objects is true independent of the chimp: he REALIZES a TRUTH about the world.
Reason was originally for figuring out how to make sharp sticks and poke them into animals. After that stopped being such a problem, it was for poking sharp sticks into your neighbors. Put simply, better ideas meant better technology, which meant you could out-compete everything else.
Ideas are the root thing that reason enables, not debate. Debate might help the process along, but at the end of the day debate isn't about reason, debate is about making your group cohesively strive towards a single set of goals. Winning debates isn't just about reason, it's about charisma... the ability to persuade people to your side of the issue.
Just because we often use reasoning when we debate doesn't mean that reason is only for debate. That's simplistic. It's for all forms of conflict.
Neither reason nor the brain evolved "to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in the search for truth" quoting TFA.
Squirrels have exhibited the ability to reason their way through puzzles requiring a variety mental processes. Territorial mammals can be seen using reason in finding paths of travel when changes in the environment require new routes. These animals don't have debate teams. Somewhere in the world there is probably a person figuring that if they lengthen their grip on a stick there will be more force delivered to some researcher's head. Reason you way through that.
"Sophism in the modern definition is a specious argument used for deceiving someone. In Ancient Greece, sophists were a category of teachers who specialized in using the tools of philosophy and rhetoric for the purpose of teaching aretê — excellence, or virtue — predominantly to young statesmen and nobility. The practice of charging money for education (and providing wisdom only to those who can pay) led to the condemnations made by Plato (through Socrates in his dialogues). Plato regarded their profession itself as being 'specious' or 'deceptive', hence the modern meaning of the term." ...
"Sophists (had) one important thing in common: whatever else they did or did not claim to know, they characteristically had a great understanding of what words would entertain or impress or persuade an audience." (wiki)
Contemporary examples abound...
If the purpose of reason is to win arguments, what faculty is in charge of deciding the winner? We can't reason who the winner is, because reason in this account is about arguing for one side, not weighing the arguments fairly and evenly.
Put it the other way around: This whole argument is presupposing that people can come to reasoned conclusions and by that change their course. But then it is saying the purpose of reason isn't to allow us to come to reasoned conclusions, but rather to undermine the capability of others to come to reasoned conclusions, by allowing us to construct unbalanced and perhaps unfair arguments to virtually force them to come to some conclusion that we, by whatever means, have come to favor.
This is an argument for being a sociopathic predator, a parasite on reasoning society, and the riches which reason has enabled us to amass. It's sanctioning this predator's attitude by saying "Evolution wants us to be this way." It's making the standard form of argument in "evolutionary psychology," in which "evolution" plays the role formerly played by "God" in constructing an argument along the lines of, "Your maker says: behave thus." They're both arguments against using our own reason. That is to say, they are both perversions of reason, turned against reason itself.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
If you assume that there is no teleology, no higher design, in evolutionary processes, you are left with a blind process building up the human mind. Furthermore, you have to reduce everything to physics and chemistry. Why do you believe anything is true? The atoms are bouncing around in your head a certain way. Why does evolution proceed the way it does? It is neutral about truth so the only answer that can be given is to pass on genes.
If believing a lie and being convinced of it will give you an advantage, evolution will favor that outcome.
That is no basis for trusting your own rationality.
"If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." - J.B.S. Haldane
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I am not even going to click on the TFA's link.
Was it a scientific article behind subscription I would consider it, yet I would still complain about it not being on an open-access journal.
I have read enough 'scientific breakthroughs' from clueless journalists to be sufficiently annoyed. Seriously, Slashdot, stop supporting this paywall already.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
The article appears in the Arts Section, not the Science Section. Time for another submission to Social Text? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
In response to this slashdot post and NY Times article (which I have not yet read):
Yawn!
So called claims of "truth" with a word or name for something, is easily to be understood as nonsense without a given context referenced to "it", and ultimately, unequivocal truth claims with an additional claim of certainty is an illusion, and is a rather vague but yet meaningful concept that is ultimately based on whimsical social relations that again is solely based on lone human beings having to repeat what they already thought or read because human beings cannot actually decide specificall what to think upfront, as if thinking as such was a matter of planning ahead or for preparing oneself to think. And worse, in any case, any actualizations will thus does not have any direct relation to any other actualizations, actualizations as a matter of intellectuality which ultimately are reflexive and rather whimsical and incidental.
For further reading, please look up: the problem of representation, problems about the modern and postmodern. I would also reccomend reading about etymology and about dead metaphors. Did you know that the word "alone' supposedly is a contraction of "all + one"?
Major difficulties in portraying "truth" as particulary meaningful are probably:
Avoiding a bias
Avoiding generalizations
Avoiding simplifications
Avoiding the undermining of common sense by using a fancy pants word (english has a lot of them I understand).
Avoiding an authoritarian bias
Avoiding conflicting knowledge
Doubious historical accounts, that compounds the problems with the difficulties above as time go by.
As a short summary, "truth" claims and facts, are fiction.
Recommended youtube video: Introduction to theory of litterature, Prof. Paul Fry, Yale University.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YY4CTSQ8nY&playnext=1&list=PLD00D35CBC75941BD
Reason exists to make the weaker argument the stronger? That's a new idea. *cough* Plato *cough*
Really what they are saying is that the ability to convince someone else of something leads to the convincer having more sex, and therefore his (or her) genes being propagated. Is that so hard for /.ers to believe?
Where it breaks down is if we try to interpret this to mean that people arguing from scientific evidence have no greater claim to the truth than people arguing from their own gut feeling. This theory doesn't state anything about truth being subjective; just that the human brain may have evolved in such a way that we are predisposed to believe stuff based on the argument rather than the evidence.
No surprise from the paper that brought us Judith Miller's Iraq reporting, but in this article the New York Times utilizes the same irrationality and deception that the article claims to be describing as controversial.
The article claims to draw a distinction between rationality (or reasoning) and irrationality in the first paragraph and then proceeds to conflate the two, calling argumentation "reason":
The above paragraph would make more sense if you replaced the word "reason" with "argumentation" and be even more clear if "flawed reasoning" were replaced with "flawed reasoning and deception".
It reinforces the common meme of "reason is bad". An example of that meme is the recent popularity of a word that irritates me just as much as "cloud" and "mashup" do: "narrative". Whenever someone lays out a series of arguments, the media, politicians and spokepeople have recently especially within the past year referred to that as a "narrative". A narrative is what you find in a novel. It's not a series of arguments laid out in the open to be picked apart and contested by the opposition. By using the word "narrative", it denigrates the role of reason and debate (and becomes itself a tool of irrationality and deception to avoid and implicitly win a debate).
The article's bid to further destroy math education at the end of the article demonsrates the New York Times' continued commitment to destroy independent thought:
The lack of good math education is why the populace is so gullible, and this would only make it worse. John Taylor Gatto holds up the ideal form of education as one-on-one tutoring, pointing to the U.S. founding fathers as examples of having received this type of education. That's great if you can afford it; otherwise, compromises have to be taken. The best compromise is limiting the amount of time spent in one-on-one tutoring to make it affordable, even the U.S. founding fathers spent only 2-3 years in tutoring. The compromise conventional education has taken, in contrast, is the didactic classroom with a teacher facing a group of students. While this may work for a history class or even basic grammar (if it's drawn out long enough to allow everyone to learn in sync), it cannot develop the reason or teach math because quick confirmation of correctness and quick correction of mistakes -- i.e. one-on-one coaching -- is necessary. Compounding this problem, of course, is that most teachers are bad at math. Compounding that problem is that math is a subject that builds on itself, so any one bad teacher in the chain dooms the student to a lifetime of math and logic illiteracy. Compounding that is the generational decay of logic and reasoning skills as the problems perpetuate themselves.
Now on top of all of that, the scientist quoted (unquestionably) by the New York Times wants to take math education even further away from the ideal coaching scenario by forcing students to stop working and thinking independently. Of course argumentation skills are refined by testing them with a group, but developing reason and logic is inherently a solitary activity. It would be like throwing a group of students on Mt. Everest without each one first individually practicing the use of camming devices.
The New York Time has deceptively advanced the meme that all "reason" is mere deception and has even thrown out a bone to ensure that schools churn out gullible New York Times readers for the long term.
My conclusion is that Some researchers lost arguments a great deal during their work an thought there was a process ongoing rather than a reflection of their own stupidity ... Does that mean I win? :0)
The purpose of existence is to make money.
Success in propagating a meme isn't necessarily related to it's truth-value, merely to it's value in engendering behavior in others. But the mechanisms of intelligence are involved even there. Appeals to emotion or other assorted well documented fallacies have been well described (by reason). The problem, perhaps, is in some philosophical jig where the word 'reason' (traditionally the most gloried phenomenon of human thought) somehow takes on multiple meanings. ...So what is reason?
Is it logic? The claims (referred to in) this article, would seem to negate a pure aristotelian glory of A implies not B and the like. Thus it would seem to cheapen the idea of those who bother to think logically. It leans towards suggesting that 'reason' is merely a sociological, nay, anthropological phenomenon. A matter of primates beating their chests, albeit with their brains instead of hairy arms.
And this is utter nonsense.
First of all, it denies the fact that fallacy is -necessary- in order to convince another thinking being of a false truth, and then turns around to imply that reason has no truth outside of a group phenomenon.
Obviously, pre-and-up-to-humans evolved language to share ideas. (It's audible telepathy, afterall!) And that was adaptive ..why?
Because a meme, a social construct, a compellingly successful narrative could coordinate collective group behavior in an adaptive manner? Of course.
But however does any argument manage to do such a thing? By presenting a compelling explanation to other individuals that they fail to refute the truth of.
It all comes down to the personal analysis of truth of the part of the recipient of an argument, though. To be crass, we all have personal bullshit detectors. ;) And some worse than others, of course.
But to decry the the fact that false but compelling arguments can be accepted too-readily negelects the very fact that they succeed BECAUSE THEY ARE COMPELLING. That they make a logical and self-consistent sense to the recipient. To the recipients own personal sentience, thought, and reason (however mistaken).
Many people may be ill-educated, worse; evilly-educated into a false set of hot-button moral certitudes (due to the social-darwinisticly-adaptive usefulness of such levers, perhaps, so as to facilitate obedience to certain top-down social hierarchy command structures)...
But it's still the reasoning of their own minds that reaches either accepts or rejects any such rhetorical exercise.
Reason is beautiful. Were it not for man's ability to reason, we'd still be living in caves, at best! Nowadays we use ion-beam lithography to carve out features thousands of times smaller than a single hair on our bodies. Nowadays we know the chemical composition of the outer atmostphere of stars billions of light years away. And how?
From reasoning.
---
the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
Winning arguments used to help you get laid. Of course that was before women learned how to roll their eyes.
Since I'm at work, I dont have the appropriate quote, but Nietzsche extensively examined how reason is searving the desires (and the "will to power" in particular, of course).
Then, I am pretty sure it will be possible to find some prearistotelian thinker who came up with the same idea. Its not really a surprise.
Invita Invidia
All human male activity boils down to competitiveness for apparent sexual advantage. Even apparent as opposed to actual advantage.
Reasoning is not a uniquely human trait and to believe so is arrogance. If you study the behavior of animals, they too use reasoning to solve problems and maneuver through their world. Since I have two cats, I'll use them as an example. One is a young, just slightly out of kittenhood and the other is twelve years old. The young one dominates at the food bowl so the older one simply takes her paw to scoop some of the food out of the bowl and onto the floor so that she can eat. If that is not a good example of reasoning, I do not know what is. The "dumb aminal" belief is very much an anachronism today.
That's not to knock the research without reading it. Perhaps it's about arguments that actually matter instead of the many storms in a teacup we have here?
... FTW!
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787)
I8-D
That didactic reasoning was not the path to Quality was Persig's point in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Evidently Plato's fault or somesuch...
The only justication for our concepts and system of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no legitimacy. I am convinced that the philosophers have had a harmful effect upon the progress of scientfic thinking in removing certain fundamental concepts from the domain of empiricism, where they are under our control, to the intangible heights of the a priori. For even if it should appear that the universe of ideas cannot be deduced from experience by logical means, but is, in a sense, a creation of the human mind, without which no science is possible, nevertheless this universe of ideas is just as little independent of the nature of our experiences as clothes are of the form of the human body. This is particularly true of our concepts of time and space, which physicists have been obliged by the facts to bring down from the Olympus of the a priori in order to adjust them and put them in a serviceable condition. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36276/36276-pdf.pdf
He sees empirical evidence as providing a ground from which reason can proceed legitimately.
My grand grand father was a statesman; founded a city bearing his name to date.
My grand father a well known writer.
My father a chess champion.
Me, not much yet, except extremely high IQ.
I cringe, just as my forefathers, hearing someone mentioning debates, arguments or just two opposite opinions. It is not an intellectual exercise and it is not reasoning.
You can not argue with reason, because you either agree with it or you do not.
Apply this argument to itself, and by it's own lights there is no *good reason* (in the usual sense) to accept it, only a "hardwired compulsion" to employ it for the purposes of winning a debate. That's the problem with claims which try to reduce rationality to evolutionary or social facts: they undermine their own claim to be taken seriously as a *rational* explanation.
Having read "Snow Crash", my first reaction was, of course REASON is a weapon.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Rationalizing and The Truth are two completely different beasts.
Epic failure... reasoning is not only fucking verbal construct... one can do mathematical, visual reasoning too... and failure to understand whole word reason in philosophical and historical context is so blantantly obvious from the news it makes me cry, it's long time ago agreed among thinkers and later even some hard scientists that reason already contains emotions thus reasoning contains already the element of emotions and illogicalities, purely logical thinking can be done correctly and right, but reasoning itself includes emotions on more subtle definitions.
And the complaint is NOT new.
Sophists are lying sacks of shit and should be fed slowly feet-first into a ham slicer.
With a pause every ten slices and washdown with vinegar that they may better enjoy the next ten slices.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
My benevolent assumption here is that M. Mercier and Mr. Sperber aren't intentionally trolling the academic world: reason is an extension of intelligence, which in evolutionary terms, can be seen as supporting basic functions of protection, feeding and reproduction of an organism. Human civilization, as we are neither the only animals with intelligence nor the only one who organize themselves into groups, is fairly easy to identify as another adaptation/defense mechanism to protect the species.
Therein lies the crux of M. Mercier's and Mr. Sperber's assertion: rational argument by its very nature CANNOT exist until biological imperatives are satisfied. Evolution is the means by which organisms resolved conflicts with those imperatives so as to propagate more efficiently. It's highly dubious to suggest humanity solved these basic problems so we could make noises at each other for a gratifying sense of correctness.
What then is more likely? Do some people engage in sophistry because it's everyone's evolutionary nature? I'd think not. Perhaps it's because certain people are hooked on the neurological pleasure loop of adrenalinized conflict and risk/reward?
I assure you all my arguments are based in altruism and truly wanting the best for others. Unlike yours which are based in crass self interest.
Now, be reasonable and do it my way!
Oh, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
You want room 12A, Just along the corridor (Stupid git!).
Have gnu, will travel.
Seems to me that the way in which we reason develops from how we are socialized as children. The popular kid that everyone wants to hang out with doesn't use logical facts to make everyone like him, in fact, that kid could possibly be a little douche. What he does is puts on a display to persuade others that he is cool to hang out with whether it's just being a nice person or dominating others via duress. For other kids to want to hang out with this person, they also have to persuade the alpha male that they are somehow worthy to associate with him. This involves heavy use of rhetorical reasoning, since these other kids could be little douches with little to no substance as well. Not everyone will be able to hang out with this alpha male so we end up with those kids who are left out and singled out as outcasts. For these outcasts to survive without associating with a powerful figure, they rely heavily on the use of logical reasoning to navigate their world and to justify their right to exist when those associating with the alpha male deny this fact. Years of this kind of socialization either makes us more proficient in the use of rhetorical reasoning or logical reasoning, or a mixture of both. If the alpha male in my example was an outcast instead, it is likely he would grow up being proficient in logical reasoning regardless of whether his brain was hardwired for rhetorical reasoning or not.
The way we socialize indicates that we value association with prestige more than individual autonomy, and this is what perpetuates an excess of rhetorical thinking. There are huge problems in this world that can only be solved if we reduce all the pointless rhetorical debate and start solving problems bit by bit. This requires more people who are capable of logical reasoning, or rather, more people of significant influence and those who have the most decision making power. The only way we can do this is to change the way that kids learn and socialize so that they have a diverse inventory of discourse to rely upon for when they solve problems both in the real world when they grow up and in their social lives as well.
to quote Snow Crash, "you can't argue with Reason".
You could say the same thing, or make a more powerful argument for Religion over Reason.
What single purpose has pitted groups of people to dominate, absorb, convert, other groups in the entire world. Nations perhaps. One could simply look at "government" or nations as the biological extension of the individual will to dominate its neighbors and protect like advantages.
This falls into the common fallacy that something evolves for one purpose only, and is always and only used for that purpose. If I use a long stick to support me wile walking, I can also use it to fight of attackers. The tongue evolved to help me eat also helps me talk. If I develop the ability to reason in order to understand my environment, I can use that same ability to bullshit the rest of the tribe. It is not an either/or, it is both.
And you see it in action often. People try to win an argument by logic. When they realise they are losing, the retreat into bullshit. Or try to change the argument to one they can win. Because coming out top in an argument - showing one's wisdom - is a status thing among humans. And, as always, if you haven't got it, faking it will do as well much of the time.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
"Rationality allowed a solitary thinker to blaze a path to philosophical, moral and scientific enlightenment. Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments."
The difference seems simple to me: those who would seek enlightenment in a search for truth would be turning their reason inward, toward the figurative human heart, trying to evaluate the inner movements of human consciousness.
(Plato's Republic, Book VII 539b)
How new is this notion again?
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we'll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena.
No it isn't!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Now we're using Pat Benatar as a troll.
It's official... civilization is done with.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
This argument has been settled a very long time ago...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
So, when you're trying to persuade me that this theory is true, is the theory true of your attempt to persuade me?
If not, then that kind of disproves the theory.
If it is true of your attempt to persuade me, then you just admitted that in your attempt to persuade me you don't actually know whether your position is true, and you don't care. What's more, you admit that your mind is incapable of actually telling whether it's really true or not (or whether anything else is). So you can't really say "this position is true".
In fact, there is no answer to my question that lets you also say "this position is true".
That's the trouble with positions like this. Nobody realizes that the position applies to itself as well as to everything else. (It's just recursion...)
It's impossible to separate Reason from the capacity to argue. The article incorrectly divides the capacity to argue from the rules of argumentation, as though "Reason" referred to methods of argumentation rather than the very thought processes involved in thinking rationally. (Hint: it is the latter. That's why we call it "Natural deduction")
Reason did not evolve to win arguments; arguments existed from the moment reason did, and so debates could be won the moment either existed. If one could debate at all, then one already possessed Reason.
And btw logicians have known for CENTURIES that logic (or reason, whatever) is not about the pursuit of truth. It is about maintaining consistency in thinking - whether argument, debate, etc. Internal consistency, not truth. What can be known is not the same as how and why things are known, and Reason was never really concerned with the former. This guy is saying nothing new, just trying to be famous, and probably simply squandered some research money and came up with this "radical new theory" the day before his abstract was due to his boss.
Also, I think he just isn't aware Philosophy classes were offered at whatever university he graduated from.
Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!
There, it's been said. Can we stop, now?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal."
Take a guess who wrote this, slashdotters should be the first to know.
"America loves a winner!"
Sigh. Reasoning implies referencing an absolute standard. To say we reason is to insincerely flatter ourselves. We rationalize.
Soooo, things that are NOT reason, pollute something they are NOT, namely reason. Therefore, reason itself evolved not as a path to truth, but merely a way to win arguments. Huh?
If anything, this article shows that bias and lack of logic evolved as weapons. Reason is innocent.
I'm suprised these same authors don't argue that since bombs and bullets are often transported by railroad, then railroad was originally designed to kill people.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
It is easier for earthworms to draw in a leaf by the tip than by the edge, and Darwin reasoned that this behavior demonstrated rudimentary intelligence.
xx
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
So the eternal Jew is up to his old tricks again...
"Who do you believe? Me? Or your own lying eyes..."
THAT is what the Jew is saying in this laughable piece.
Reason is used to work out how to build a house so that it won't fall down, or how to put a man on the moon, etc. Of course it isn't a 'weapon', this is just the Jew, as usual, trying to tell YOU not to think for yourselves...
(Cue Jew-brainwashed lemmings telling me how 'bad' and 'evil' I am for pointing out the truth about their 'masters'...)
It seems pretty obvious that some people - maybe most - use "reason" as an rhetorical debating device to win. It is equally obvious that some people actually use reason to sort their way to the truth. Most people probably do both, depending on the topic and their mental/emotional state at the time.
I've had my mind changed on important topics by reason and discussion, so I know that I have the capability to use it that way. I have convinced others of things with reason and discussion, so I know it goes both ways. I've also had arguments where I could sense that the other person was not really interested in the truth, but in winning. I'm sure I've done that too, but I didn't "sense" it :)
The researchers may be right that it evolved as a weapon. But many things that start as a weapon become useful in other ways. I think a large percentage of people use reason to seek truth a large percentage of the time - whatever its origin.
Reminds me of one of my favorite Archer moments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS-7zTzrSAA
I guess that the continuing of the species requires believing but reason shows that belief is false. If you believe you will continue the species but be wrong. If you refuse to believe you will be right but go extinct.
The tongue is the only weapon that goes sharper with use.
(I know it was not Confucius).
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
...or not.
My own view is more survival oriented: Cave man's friend walks under a tree and gets his face eaten by a jaguar. Cave man says, "why?". The realizes that he should look up to check for jaguars before walking under trees. Cave man lives longer and has a better chance of passing on his genes.
;)
Most humans have a driving need to know 'why' - so much so that we make up "reasons" in the absence of conclusive evidence. We just aren't comfortable without answers and it's nothing more than a hardwired survival mechanism working overtime. Explains a lot about the world's religions, really.
Winning arguments could improve survival/chance to pass on genes, so I'd call TFA's argument a subset of mine.
I'm blowing 5 moderater points to contribute to this diatribe, but... Evolve? Really?
When I think evolution, I consider the slowly emerging symbiosis between wasps and dicotyledons during the Cretaceous, something that took about 80 million years to get right (and less than 200 to shove to the brink of extinction by apes).
When I think evolution, as well, I consider that "reason" is unreasonable about the forces that push plastic DNA into every available free space in a four dimensional ecosystem that owes far more to Yin than Yang. Malthusian drama? Puh-leez.
When I think of reason, I am most often reminded that most often it is not cogent appreciation, but barratry, that passes for intellect in the brains of apes. When reason finally annihilates the human race, I will suffer, but when I get to address Gaea about her mistakes this time around, I will suggest that next time, no brains for apes might be a good idea.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Why would people even think nuclear-powered gatling guns were the path to truth?
At least those "Ultima Ratio Regnum." stamps were honestly admitting that it has always been about winning arguments, not about finding the truth.
**TODO** [X] Steal someone elses sig.
It's so obvious. So this smug-face publishes an article that says "reasoning is a way of measuring and comparing the intellectual cock". And what happens? A bombardment, one more verbose than the other. "My personal view" (so the one you don't have to value much) is that this article actually makes some sense, however the fact that it's published with a picture of this dude, posing arrogantly, tells me that he claims this piece of "truth" for himself. He pisses on intellectual turf, to mark that spot as his own, by which he disrespects everything around him that contributes to the publication. Hog. We cannot reason untill we stop claiming "truth". I post this based on my own experience, and if you disagree, you've experience otherwise. To reason is to share experience, not to shred it to pieces. -- since I made that up you may now shred that to pieces.
Winning arguments used to help you get laid. Of course that was before women learned how to roll their eyes.
Because only men are capable of reasoned argumentation.
The real triumph is getting to the truth.
The Human Being is a predator animal, that is, everything either can be eaten or can eat you, and our brain is organized to help this behaviour. That is why Buddhism has such a dismal opinion of human thought and searches instead for a direct, non-thinking way to truth.