We Aren't a Mortal Enemy of the Intuition
So far, we have emphasized that the intuition is the cause of the prevalence of biases.
Hmm, I would say that the intuition is the source of the prevalence of biases.
What's the difference?
Any thing happens as a result of the whole of the course of events. We can't pick up one thing and name that one thing as the cause of the result.
Ah. When it rains and we are drenched, is the rain the cause of our underpants' being wet and stuck to our skin, or is our not bringing an umbrella the cause? Or is the faulty weather forecast the cause? Or is our not escaping into a cafe the cause? Or even, is our wearing the underpants the cause? For, if we didn't wear any underpants, you know, underpants couldn't be wet.
The appropriateness of our not wearing any underpants aside, from the view of causality, to pick up a single cause is utterly arbitrary.
In the case of the intuition, certainly, biases originate from the intuition, but biases spread because we don't check and remedy those biases.
The intuition creates biases as it rains. It's futile to blame the intuition as it's futile to blame rain, and we aren't doing such a futile thing. We are blaming believing the intuition.
The intuition Is Indispensable and Even a Source of Discovery and Invention
We can't stop the activity of our intuition, right?
Probably not. Basically, the intuition works regardless of our intentions.
That's the same with optical illusions. An line segment looks longer than another line segment of the same length: the difference of the ornaments at the ends of the line segments make us erroneously judge that an line segment is longer than the other line segment. Can we train ourselves to dispel those optical illusions?
I don't know. As for that one optical illusion, we might be able to dispel it by training ourselves to ignore those ornaments. However, to stop our entire intuition seems hopeless. Besides, our intuition is indispensable.
I know. We can't live without our intuition because the logical thinking and the statistical thinking are too slow to be able to process information instantaneously as required we live along.
Yes, the slowness is an important defect of the logical thinking and the statistical thinking. They can be accurate, but can't replace the intuition because of the slowness.
For example, when we ride a bicycle, we can't logically decide our next move at every moment.
No, we can't. As I said, the intuition is indispensable.
They say that the intuition is also the source of discovery and invention.
That's true. As we don't have enough known facts, we can't reach discovery or invention by only logical deduction. We conceive ideas by our intuition. And as a logical deduction can take countless courses, we choose a course by our intuition.
The intuition is important even in science studies.
Of course. Science studies are no exceptions.
We Are Saying That What the Intuition Says Have to Be Examined
So, we aren't saying that the intuition isn't important or something?
Look; understand correctly. Scientists use what their intuitions say as springboards for their studies, not as conclusions or proofs. The intuition is important in that use.
Ah, scientists don't claim, "Because my intuition says this, this is true." They don't write such theses. They pick up and closely examine what their intuitions say, create logically consistent hypotheses systems based on those examinations, and support those hypotheses systems by data. That's what we are saying we should do.
Yes. That's what to prize the intuition has to mean, not to blindly believe in the intuition.
When we believe in our intuition, we are just letting the intuition dominate us: we are a slave of the intuition.
We aren't saying that we should discard the intuition; we are saying that we should achieve freedom from the intuition and strategically use the intuition, not be helplessly dominated by the intuition.
In fact, that 'strategically' part is difficult. What should our strategy be?
That's a substantial issue that we have to contemplate endlessly, but basically, we should know typical tendencies of fallacies made by the intuition, and counteract or remedy the fallacies. As logical and statistical thinkings are too slow to instantaneously counteract fallacies made by the intuition, we have to plan ahead to be prepared to counteract them and review later to remedy them afterward.
Ah, when we watch a news of a terror by a Muslim, it's natural for our intuition to instantaneously create an association, Muslim -> terrorist: the intuition is supposed to do so. But, we can contemplate it, and identity and remedy the fallacy afterward.
We have time to do that because we aren't required to take an instantaneous reaction.
What many people do is to stick to what their intuitions say and rationalize it.
They rationalize it by ignoring inconvenient information.
We have to avoid gaps in logic; if we say, "Because the intuition is indispensable and important, we should believe in our intuition," that's an absurd gap in logic.
Yes, absurd. Something's being indispensable and important doesn't mean that it should be accepted blindly.
