The key to fixing a phobia or changing closely held beliefs seems to involve addressing it within an environment that is perceived as safe. When a person feels attacked or threatened, the instinctive and emotional System 1 of the brain tends to dominate and this system is more heuristic than Bayesian. You can’t rationally update a prior that is not based on rationality, so the trick is to coax that prior into a space where it can be examined by the more logical and deliberate System 2.
The cognitive vs emotional section addresses this but I’m not convinced that the set of purely epistemic trapped priors is significant compared to the much larger set of emotionally trapped priors. Are there better examples than the polar bear of non-emotional trapping?
The key to fixing a phobia or changing closely held beliefs seems to involve addressing it within an environment that is perceived as safe. When a person feels attacked or threatened, the instinctive and emotional System 1 of the brain tends to dominate and this system is more heuristic than Bayesian. You can’t rationally update a prior that is not based on rationality, so the trick is to coax that prior into a space where it can be examined by the more logical and deliberate System 2.
The cognitive vs emotional section addresses this but I’m not convinced that the set of purely epistemic trapped priors is significant compared to the much larger set of emotionally trapped priors. Are there better examples than the polar bear of non-emotional trapping?