We Must Not Believe in Intuitions
What I observe among Earthians is that there are many of them who seem to believe that their intuitions are very accurate and even have some supernatural power to divine what are unknowable.
Ah, that will be the biggest reason why the Bias planet is so full of biases. As long as one has that belief, there will be no possibility of his or her beginning to remedy his or her biases.
I thought that the inaccuracy of human intuitions wasn't known on the Bias planet, but that wasn't so. There is a great Earthian book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, which experimentally proved the inaccuracy of human intuitions, and is extremely helpful to understand the reality of human cognitions.
Oh. There are great individuals even on the Bias planet.
Nevertheless, that belief in intuitions prevails on the Bias planet.
Well, that's understandable: there are reasons why people tend to want to hold on to that belief.
Anyway, someone who believes in some overestimated power of his or her intuition will just persist in his or her any false cognition, saying "~ is true because my intuition tells me so. Period," and there will be no progress from there.
Yes. That's a one-fit-all justification for whatever insistence for someone who believes in his or her intuition.
The Human Intuition Is Systematically Biased
The human intuition is not only inaccurate but also systematically biased. Being systematically biased means that the human intuition is intrinsically a mechanism that makes certain kinds of biased judgments in predetermined ways.
That seems to have been experimentally proved in that book.
And I have a hypothesis of why the human intuition is (and had to become) as it is from the perspective of the origin of the human intuition.
As a premise, the human body, including the system of intuition, has been formed in the process of evolution. In the process of evolution, what are optimal for survival are selected, and the system of intuition isn't an exception. That is, the system of intuition cognize things, but do so to be optimal for survival, not for accuracy itself.
Isn't being accurate good for survival? Sometimes, It is bad, or at least unnecessary. For example, when a man watched another man bitten by a snake, what will be a correct cognition about snakes that can be formed from all the information he has? "The snake has bitten and killed the man, but the snake may not kill any more. And an existence of one killer snake doesn't prove that other snakes are also killers." That's correct, logically speaking, and in fact, not all snakes have venom. . . . However, is that optimal for survival? Probably, "Snakes are killers!" more contributes to survival. The point here is the speed of the cognition: the man has to escape instantly when he watches a snake. The correct version of cognition may not necessarily mean his going near snakes carelessly, but at least it takes more time to judge whether he should escape, than just the direct association, snake->killer, does. Even if there is not a significant difference in time, what's required for survival is only to issue evacuation orders, and it's natural that a unnecessarily complicated mechanism to enhance accuracy but slows the cognition process isn't favored in the process of evolution.
That association process is, in fact, stereotyping. Now, according to the intuition, "all the snakes are killers". You will be able to see the pattern: "Muslim -> terrorist"; "woman -> weak"; "Japanese -> wears a topnot". Stereotyping is a specialty of intuition, and is the essence of intuition. It's fast certainly, but roughly bundles things into a group, and baselessly inflict attributes found in only one or small number of members, to all the members of the group. It's inaccurate and unfair.
Stereotyping itself is unfair, but intuition also has a bias in adopting associations. Because survival is the primary concern, good reputations and bad reputations aren't weighed impartially. Even if one sees some good Muslims, one bad Muslim tilts the scale more: it's safer to assume that they are worse and expel them.
Thus, inaccuracy and bias are systematic and unavoidable in the human intuition.
Hmm, that hypothesis coincides well with what the human intuition is actually like, what behaviors of animals are like, and the theory of evolution. A great insight of the book is that the essence of the human intuition is the speed: it had to be inaccurate to be fast; it was inevitable.
The Human Intuition Isn't Optimal for Survival Now
One may ask, "So, what? It's optimal for survival, right? Then, it's fine. And it's inevitable, and what can I do about it?"
Well, first, it was optimal for survival in the environment in the long past, but the environment around humans has changed too rapidly lately for the human body, including the intuition system, to evolve to adjust to the environment: the intuition system may have been optimal for survival on prairies living in tribes, but not for survival in concrete buildings living in state systems, having launch buttons of nuclear missiles, flying in airplanes, having means to spread insults instantly around the world. Now, our primary concern isn't to escape snakes (although it isn't absolutely unnecessary).
Second, survival is all for the process of evolution, but isn't all for humanity. The intuition is a cause of unfairness, and actually is causing many serious problems.
Third, although it's inevitable that the human intuition is as it is, it isn't inevitable that one believes in his or her intuition and leaves unfairness as it is. Humans have some ability to examine and remedy what their intuitions say.
Hmm, whether every normal human has that ability is disputable. Although some nonalcoholics may think everybody can quit drinking only if he or she intends to do so, alcoholics may not have the willpower to refrain from drinking or the ability to intend to do so. Although some thin people may think fat people can become thin if they just become less gluttonous, the cause may be genetic predispositions. To assume that others should be able to do something easily because one can do the thing easily is a common fallacy.
- Daniel Kahneman. (2012/05/10). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Penguin.
