Humanity Slowly Learns To Think

Perhaps you think we bloviate on about cause-effect relationships too much on this site, but as recent research reveals, logical thinking requires tracing effect to cause:

People are generally very good at detecting cause-effect relationships. This ability helps us understand the world, learn, make decisions, and predict the future. In short, it helps us adapt and survive. In fact, we are so good at spotting causal patterns that sometimes we find connections that don’t really exist.

As a result, we fall into the so-called causal illusion, i.e., we mistakenly believe that one event causes another, when, in fact, both are unrelated.

To avoid this type of error, it is essential to develop scientific thinking which establishes cause-and-effect relationships only when supported by evidence.

Interesting, this can be helped with instructions about how to think, which in theory our schools teach. In reality, it cannot be taught to most, but those who can understand should learn it, even if it leads away from Leftism and consumerism:

In the third experiment, half of the participants received a piece of information explaining that people tend to develop causal illusions and that, in order not to fall into this error, it is important to consider all available information, not only what happens when the potential cause (treatment) is present, but also when it is absent (i.e., to think scientifically).

Meanwhile, the other half were not given this explanation. This simple advice helped to reduce the causal illusion significantly, although it was not enough to eliminate it completely.

The “scientific method” here involves testing, which requires a falsifiable hypothesis or one that can fail and by its absence show a causal not just correlative relationship. That works well for materials sciences but is not applicable to more complex questions like politics.

Interestingly, the bear we struggle with is a rejection of realism for moralizing emotion which leads to illogical thinking:

However, we identified a systematic progression from civil discourse to the formation of echo chambers.

As emotional rhetoric takes hold, participants pull farther apart and animosity grows. They start characterizing people on either side of the debate as morally right or wrong.

In phase two, the issue itself takes a back seat, and participants started blaming their opponents for making matters worse. There is less dialog about an approach being right or wrong, and more about the people involved being right or wrong.

In th[e next] phase, we noted that the rhetoric wasn’t even about what was right or wrong anymore. It was more about expressing disgust toward one another, leaving no room for facts, evidence or even different opinions, firmly establishing two entrenched sides.

Emotions make the question into a battle of personalities in which any attack on either side is perceived as an attack on the legitimacy of those personalities, therefore things get nasty, and all of Leftist politics and “keeping up with the Joneses” is based on this emotional projection.

The giant bugbear of humanity, causal inversion, happens when people confuse effect/method for cause/goal because they insist on removing certain methods like violence. “Might is Right” and Darwinism point out that you cannot do that without distorting your thinking.

Means-over-ends thinking begins with this desire to morally/emotionally exclude certain methods because we fear them, like violence. Pacifism uses a reduced set of methods and therefore confuses method with goal because avoiding certain methods has become part of the goal.

All bad thinking arises from this but, because it can be deduced using the Hegelian stepladder, makes us think it is correct because it is popular. Hard consequentialism, or measurement of results in reality not opinions about it, is the only antidote.