In the world, things happen for reasons. When anything happens ever, there’s a reason for it- even if you don’t know what it is, or it seems strange. Start with that: nothing has ever happened without a cause. (Here we mean “reason” and “cause” like how a ball rolling into another ball will knock it over, not like good or bad. Think about it- it makes sense.)
If you’re interested in knowing more about the world, often, you want to know the real reason things happen (or the reason other things DON’T happen, which can be just as important!) If you do that, you can learn about a lot of things: why the land looks the way it does, all about the different stars, tiny things much smaller than you can see, even all about other people!
But your brain isn’t the very best at doing this. Remember that idea about how animals change over time? How parents, and the parents of parents, all make a kind of animal change a little all the time, because of who lives and who doesn’t? You know, the idea from the old man who said humans used to be just animals? Well, think about that- our brains let us think about so much, but they used to be just animal brains. And an animal doesn’t need to worry so much about true reasons- especially for things that are too tiny to see, or big things up in the sky. Say, when an animal sees something big and bad, it would be bad if it stopped and thought about all the reasons it happened. It’s best to just run away!
Human brains aren’t any different, really, except in two ways: We don’t want to just always run away, and we can change how we think about things! But if we don’t learn how to think about real reasons, then we use animal-brain thinking- and that can make a lot of problems, especially when it’s about things that animals never thought about.
If you want to learn about the real world, and real reasons, it’s important to know about animal-brains and how they can be wrong. Remember, animal-brain thinking is hard to spot- if you don’t look for it, it just seems like normal clear thinking. But when you see it. you can fix how it works in your own brain, and see the world a little clearer.
This works as a beginning to explaining this group of ideas. I like the focus on passed-down-change, but I want us to do more to exactly pick out what we mean here. It’s especially important to note:
A brain wrong-going (bias) is different from many other kinds of problems and troubles your brain can have.
A brain wrong-going is sometimes about doing what you want, rather than about knowing what’s true.
And the idea of a brain wrong-going can’t be explained without also explaining the idea of a brain short-cut (heuristic).
Cognitive Biases
In the world, things happen for reasons. When anything happens ever, there’s a reason for it- even if you don’t know what it is, or it seems strange. Start with that: nothing has ever happened without a cause. (Here we mean “reason” and “cause” like how a ball rolling into another ball will knock it over, not like good or bad. Think about it- it makes sense.)
If you’re interested in knowing more about the world, often, you want to know the real reason things happen (or the reason other things DON’T happen, which can be just as important!) If you do that, you can learn about a lot of things: why the land looks the way it does, all about the different stars, tiny things much smaller than you can see, even all about other people!
But your brain isn’t the very best at doing this. Remember that idea about how animals change over time? How parents, and the parents of parents, all make a kind of animal change a little all the time, because of who lives and who doesn’t? You know, the idea from the old man who said humans used to be just animals? Well, think about that- our brains let us think about so much, but they used to be just animal brains. And an animal doesn’t need to worry so much about true reasons- especially for things that are too tiny to see, or big things up in the sky. Say, when an animal sees something big and bad, it would be bad if it stopped and thought about all the reasons it happened. It’s best to just run away!
Human brains aren’t any different, really, except in two ways: We don’t want to just always run away, and we can change how we think about things! But if we don’t learn how to think about real reasons, then we use animal-brain thinking- and that can make a lot of problems, especially when it’s about things that animals never thought about.
If you want to learn about the real world, and real reasons, it’s important to know about animal-brains and how they can be wrong. Remember, animal-brain thinking is hard to spot- if you don’t look for it, it just seems like normal clear thinking. But when you see it. you can fix how it works in your own brain, and see the world a little clearer.
This works as a beginning to explaining this group of ideas. I like the focus on passed-down-change, but I want us to do more to exactly pick out what we mean here. It’s especially important to note:
A brain wrong-going (bias) is different from many other kinds of problems and troubles your brain can have.
A brain wrong-going is sometimes about doing what you want, rather than about knowing what’s true.
And the idea of a brain wrong-going can’t be explained without also explaining the idea of a brain short-cut (heuristic).