Rational Philosophy

On intuition and how it can fool us.

In pointing to the problems with what we think we deduce, Dan Ariely, (Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, principal investigator of the MIT Media Lab’s eRationality group, and author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions) points to a study showing that whether someone opts to donate his or her organs depends on whether the question asks them to opt-in or opt-out. People will tend to stick with the default presented to them. Not because they don’t care, but because they care deeply but don’t feel able to decide from fundamental principles.
Similarly, a mathematical analysis of the game show “Let’s Make A Deal” reveals that people aren’t very good at intuiting the correct answers to probability problems. When choosing between three options, knowing that one option is wrong affects the likelihood of one’s secondary choice. On Let’s Make A Deal, Monty allowed the contestant make an initial choice between three doors, behind one of which was a car, while behind the other two were goats. Monty would then reveal a goat behind one of the two doors that the contestant didn’t pick. Should the contestant switch or stick? Does it make a difference to his chances of winning? Counterintuitively, the answer is that he should switch. This seems wrong but is born out by the math. (The “reveal” is constrained, effectively tipping off the chooser; if you switch, you win two out of three times; if you don’t switch you win only one out of three times. When explained in this way — 2/3 plus 1/3 = 1, it makes sense, but that is not how it appears intuitively.)

How does this relate to sexism and misogyny? Nicholas Kristof asks whether the routinely brutal and discriminatory treatment of women in many societies is sexist or misogynistic. He gets a lot of comments on his post. But I think that Kristof and his responders maybe miss the point because it offends intuition. Kristof argues that perhaps ritual abuse and discrimination of women is sexist rather than misogynistic.

It seems to me that intuitively we look at the question from a neutral perspective — that women are routinely discriminated against and abused in a ritual fashion yields evidence of sexism or misogyny. But what if it were evidence of something else? Wouldn’t this change the question?

Throughout the natural world, the male and female of the various species exhibit different behaviors. In some species the females raise the young. in others this is the task of the males. In some species the female is multi-hued and splendid, in others it is the male. In mammals, typically, females protect and nurture the young, men protect and feed the group. These are not sexist behaviors, since sexism is a conscious concept; the animals simply behave as they’ve evolved to behave.

Sexism and misogyny begin from but distort the neutral, natural concepts that differentiate females and males of the human species. But why does this happen at all? Humans exaggerate and conceptualize differences in ways that make them feel less threatened, more in control. Men traditionally exploit and codify the differences between the sexes to reduce their fear and feed their self-esteem. Likewise women do the same, but for the most part with less dramatic and harmful results.

Intuitively, we connect the ill-judged and harmful behaviors of abuse, control and humiliation with the concepts of sexism and misogyny, but they are more closely connected with the concepts of fear and defense. We exaggerate and exploit gender differences to counter our fears and bolster our defenses; this happens more readily in societies that have fewer less harmful mechanisms to bring about the same outcome. These defenses then become codified as socially accepted or tolerated or rejected concepts. Enlightenment, insight, education and social change are the only remedies.

Changing the way we think.

Last week I wrote about the implications of what happens to an animal’s brain when you teach it to use a rake. I was fascinated and excited by the idea that the brain’s genetics may be changed by the way it is used. What might this tell us about our capacity to change the way we think and react?

Sandra Aamodt and Sam Wang write today about the brain’s limited capacity for governing self-discipline. Research going back several years has shown that if you exercise restraint or self-discipline in one activity or area of your life, you will deplete your “self-restraint” resources and find it more difficult to remain disciplined in another activity. Complete a cross-word puzzle and you won’t be able to resist dessert.

The studies implicate blood sugar as an important factor in restoring or maintaining self-restraint. Subjects performed better on disciplined tasks if they were allowed to replenish their blood sugar between those tasks. (If only Spitzer had had a glass of lemonade after a hard day in the legislature!)

But most fascinating for me the research has shown that one can increase one’s self-discipline over time by exercising it. This likely (the article says “must”) reflects “some biological change in the brain.” “Even something as simple as using your nondominant hand to brush your teeth for two weeks can increase willpower capacity.”

David Brooks uses insights from sports psychologist H. A. Dorfman’s book The Mental ABC’s of Pitching to argue that the prevailing American emphasis on self-awareness and self-discovery has begun to shift back toward self-discipline and the idea of transcending onesself in one’s work. Brooks, not unusually, doesn’t provide any kind of specific context for his assertion, but his unearthing of Dorfman’s ideas proves a fortuitous coincidence.

Brooks quotes from Dorfman’s book: “Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear — and doubt.”

Combine this idea with the concept that we can, by exercising willpower and self-discipline, increase our capacity for it, and we have an even more powerful idea: we can choose to free ourselves from habits that inhibit our performance and self-satisfaction.

People, particularly young people, tend to rebel against the idea of excessive self-discipline. Too often the concept is fused with the idea of mindlessness or blind adherence to rules. Discipline can seem antithetical to freedom.

But we can distinguish between a reflexive adherence to habits, rules and regulations and the choice of adherence for the sake of improving self-discpline. One is passive and undirected, the other active and end-directed.

According to Dorfman, and supported by scientific research, it makes no difference whether we feel, in the moment, that we want to exercise self-discipline. If we act in a self-disciplined way we will increase our willpower. Just as we go to the gym to workout, whether we feel like it or not, we might be much more inclined to exercise self-discipline if we understand that it will make it easier for us to exercise more self-discipline in the future.

The same philosophy applies to other brain functions. If macaques and rodents in learning to use a rake exhibit changes in brain DNA, then we can postulate that people can experience changes in brain DNA by stretching the use of our minds.

(This theory comports with common sense (sophisticated mental tasks seem to make people more capable of performing sophisticated mental tasks) and studies that show brain exercise is linked with mental health in later life.)

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

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Or, how not to be a misanthrope.

OK, so Richard Branson owns, among other things, not one but two Caribbean islands. I learned this as I read that he recently brought together a bunch of other wealthy and influential people (Larry Page of Google, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister) to his British Virgin Islands retreat to get them thinking about what can be done to end or control global warming. There’s money in it for them if they can find a commercially viable way to reduce global warming gases or produce an alternate source of greener energy, but the intent also seems to be on some level genuinely philanthropic.

David Brooks writes about the socially conscious entrepreneurs, wealthy, smart venture capital types who have begun to take a hard-nosed business approach to tackling the world’s ills. Brooks proposes that the trend toward disaggregated problem solving and syndicated solutions is not only a sign of the times, but a trend worth fostering. Let them give it a go, he argues. And, by the way, they won’t take no for an answer.

Contrast this with the behavior of the top bankers who have been making money hand over fist profiting from the risky securities that now threaten to bring down the financial markets. They keep the money they’ve made ramping up the risk, even if they share in the losses of the moment. The NY Times proposes that these profiteers should have “more skin in the game,” (Krugman argues that the markets should be better regulated.)

Brooks notes that Microsoft’s Bill Gates “fits neatly” into the category of business-like philanthropists. But Microsoft’s wealth, and therefore Bill Gates’ wealth, it could be argued, has been accumulated through selling overpriced, under-performing software to a captive market. It’s nice that Gates is redistributing this wealth in socially-conscious ways. And he worked hard and demonstrated great skills in getting Microsoft where it is today. All credit to him. But the same single-minded determination to drive profit reveals itself in Gates just as it does in the Wall Street bankers. Microsoft is fiercely competitive, fastidiously greedy and has been sued for it.

All of which is a preamble to the question: Why are we philanthropic? And the counter-question, how do we stop being misanthropic?

Gates and Branson provide interesting studies. Both have turned their talents and accumulated wealth toward helping the world, but neither of them seemed to feel compelled to spread the joy on their way to accumulating that wealth. (Gates developed Windows not Linux, for instance.)

Having vast wealth obviously removes the hurdle of financing one’s philanthropic ideas. But one also needs a charitable mindset, a desire to help people. Surely wealth doesn’t do that for you? Otherwise we’d have far more philanthropists in the world.

A good proportion of us, perhaps most of us, tend toward the non-philanthropic, if not the downright misanthropic. I personally like the concept of helping people, for instance, far more than you would think if you looked at what I actually do for other people.

The answer seems to be insight, vision and belief. Branson, Gates and others of their ilk have taken advantage of the kind of perspective that you get when you’re at the top of the heap. If you’re in that position and choose to take in the view you can see a good deal further than the guy at the bottom of the hill, and you have a sense that since you climbed the hill, if you see something you want to change, you can do that, too.

For us mere mortals, a remedy for misathropy then may be to scramble our way up to the top of a nearby hillock (metaphorically speaking,) and cast about for something we might want to change.

Branson cleverly brought his guests to the Virgin Islands to remove them from the hustle of everyday life. By removing other influences, he allowed them to receive new ideas, to focus on his question about what they could do to save the world.

Seems like a pretty good idea to me, even if we can’t get to the Virgin Islands. And with that thought in mind, since it’s Friday and the second day of Spring, with blue, if cool, skies overhead, I think I’ll head off to my own private island somewhere between the kitchen table and the back door, to contemplate what I can do to solve the problems of humankind.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

On personal and public stress.

We tend to regard stress as something inherently bad. Doctors worry about it in their patients. Spouses worry about it in their spouses. Employers sometimes worry about it in their employees. But, as with most things, I would expect that some degree of stress every now and then may not be a bad thing. If we were to react to risky or troublesome situations without any stress, would we respond appropriately?

Researchers have uncovered a connection between the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and particular gene variations. This outcome indicates that the body’s stress responses have evolved over time and worked their way into our DNA.

Stress seems to be of help in its short term effect on our behavior. Stressful situations often require an urgent response. Stress spurs us to focus and act. Stress becomes harmful, perhaps, when it becomes chronic and unaddressed.

When life circumstances lead to recurring or constantly stressful situations the stress response ceases to be beneficial and becomes harmful. If the circumstances don’t change, if we don’t or can’t extricate ourselves from the stressful situation despite focus and action, we begin to suffer. We tend not to recognize this as a problem, because chronic stress works in small bursts over a long period of time and acts on the body gradually.

In an example from recent news stories, Harvard ($35 billion), Yale ($22.5 billion) and many other universities have endowments of over $1 billion dollars. But as the senate begins to ask questions about what this money gets spent on schools have been somewhat tight lipped and not a little affronted. The school administrators are suffering short term stress at the thought of someone poking into their business.

But now that private school tution costs about $50,000 per year, many private school students and alumni (and their parents) face long term stress in figuring out how to repay student loans.

This brings us to the point that some stress remedies are personal — regular exercise, working to a reasonable household budget, taking time for onesself — and some are societal. The cost of private education seems to be a case in point. Generally speaking, the cost of private education has been going up so dramatically that it looms large in people’s minds for years before a child goes off to college, and then looms large for many years afterward as the debt hangs over them.

Society is saddled with this stress and society, it seems, could and should be able to do something to relieve the stress.

I grew up and went to school in England where this stress is to all intents and purposes absent. College education costs very little unless you’re well to do, and even then it doesn’t cost a great deal.

Harvard, with its huge endowment, has been increasing its financial aid to students, and Harvard Law is now considering tution reduction that could amount to as much as $40,000 for law students who enter public service. This kind of step is aimed at encouraging more law students to enter public service by reducing the prospect of the stress brought on by large debt and small income.

The London University study on work stress indicates that we don’t pay enough attention as a society to the long term impacts of stress. As we learn more about stress I expect that we will find that there are many examples of stress that is inherent in our way of living. Identifying such stresses and deciding upon reasonable ways to reduce that stress strikes me as a worthy and interesting challenge.

Until that time, our only recourse will be to recognize the presence and dangers of stress in our own lives, and work to reduce it.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

How do imagination and logical thinking interelate, and what purpose does thinking serve?

Michio Kaku has spent some time thinking about which inventions of the imagination may be plausible in the forseeable future. He’s written a book on it called “The Physics of The Impossible.” But Kaku’s descriptions of the possible scientific implementations of invisibility mechanisms, force fields and lightsabers seem far less functional and intuitive than their fictional counterparts. This got me thinking about the power of the imagination. Which got me thinking about why we think.

After two years of study the National Mathematics Advisory Panel has issued a report on what to do about the poor state of math skills in late middle school. American students stumble in 25th in math competency out of 30 developed nations. The panel recommends streamlining math education, relying more on specialist math teachers rather than generalists, and ensuring that children memorize core math facts, a tactic that “frees up working memory for more complex aspects of problem solving.” After working with my daughter on her middle school math for the past few years, I’d agree with the panel on these points. There’s a lot to learn in middle school math, and math as a discipline relies a great deal on adding and combining concepts.

As I consider the power of the imagination alongside the power of rational or logical processing I realize that the kind of thinking we do to survive combines these two elements. Thinking entails imagining scenarios or possibilities and calculating or predicting outcomes.

The more powerful our imagination, the more options we will have. The more adept of processing of facts and likelihoods the more likely we will be to make good choices.

This brings us closer to answering the question of why we think. Working backwards, since thinking gives us the power to manufacture and select options, thinking evolved as a good way of gaining advantage through anticipation.

All of which seems rather obvious now that I’ve set it out. But I don’t think I’d ever before considered that imagination had such a powerful and important role in rational thinking.

In an individual, a healthy dose of both capabilities seems advantageous. But if we think about society as a whole, we can all benefit from the imagination of others, as well as from the logical processing power of others. In society we have a collection of minds, some more disposed to imagination, some more disposed to logical processing. If we respect the value of both, society as a whole will benefit.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

Education Issues: On the dangers of paying for improved test performance. The psychology of value.

“An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all”
– Socrates

Researchers at Duke have determined that a high-price tag placebo works better than a low-price tag placebo, even though the two pills have the same active ingredient (i.e., no active ingredient). The perceived price of the pill increases the psychological expectation of positive results. “If it costs more, it must be better,” our brain tells us.

Schools across the country have begun to experiment with programs that reward schools, teachers and children for good test scores. The Times paints a somewhat anecdotal picture of the enthusiasm children have for this approach, but it is not hard to imagine that the picture is largely accurate.

When first read this story, I had a strong and immediate negative reaction to the idea of paying children to do well on tests. As I read about the apparent promise of the programs, I tried to put my negative reaction to one side. But it lingered.

Psychologically, I think, I am reacting to the idea that children are being paid to learn. There is, it seems, a placebo effect at work. With good intentions the program architects and educators want to achieve better scores by paying more for them. But do better test scores reflect a perceived improvement or an actual improvement? Test scores, after all, measure the ability to score well on tests. Scoring well on tests is symptomatic of a good education, but not the same as a good education.

Just as a placebo makes the perception of pain go away. So, too, improved test scores make the perception of subpar education go away.

I don’t want to overstretch the analogy. The other profound misgiving I have also relates to the psychology of value.

Once you pay a child to study, in the child’s mind studying and learning become fused with reward or compensation. (And the research on the perceived value of placebos demonstrates just how powerfully our minds connect value and reward.) What happens when that child finds himself in a situation in which he won’t receive any immediate reward for studying or learning or growing? Will he be in a worse position than a child who hasn’t been paid to do well? Quite likely.

And, as adults, while what we do to improve our understanding comes with reward in the workplace, that’s not true in life generally. Will these children grow up to be less likely to apply themselves when there’s nothing to be gained from it?

Education is a long term investment. It’s very easy for legislators, professors, administrators and educators to get caught up in the need to improve school performance, to get children’s test grades up. But ultimately this is not the goal of education. Education aims to foster the acquisition of knowledge. If we turn our schools into factories that churn out paid learners, we are creating a generation of adults who will be confused about the real value of knowledge and learning. And that is a worrying thought.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.