Jen told me a story about an episode of 30 days she saw in which an athiest lived with a fundamentalist Christian. The atheist was trying to explain why she was uncomfortable with the phrase "In God we Trust" on our currency. The Christian kept saying things like, "Well, that's normal; that's just what our money says, what's the problem?" She attempted to explain using a counter-factual: "Imagine if all our money said: There is no God. How would that make you feel?" Apparently the man seemed unable (or maybe unwilling) to consider this possibility. He just kept repeating things like: "But that's not what our money says."
Of course, this misses the whole point. But I have definitely had my share of this same experience in all sorts of situations. I ask someone to consider a scenrio to illustrate a point, and often get the reply back: "but things aren't that way" or "but things would never be like that".
This initially confused me; people should be good at this kind of reasoning since we all have to use hypothetical reasoning all the time. We imagine what if we did this or that, imagine the consequences and use that to guide our actions. So what's the difference?
My hypothesis is that the difference may lie in how well someone is able to imagine the alternative world. Hypothetical situations (what if I did X) may be generally easy for people to imagine. Counter-factuals that involve more drastic changes in the world (what if we lost WWII; what if there were a God? What if there were no God?) are, for some reason, harder for some people to imagine.
It's difficult for me to separate ability from inclination here; are they really unable to imagine a counter-factual situation in detail, or just unwilling to expend the effort to imagine it (they don't see the point, maybe)? My gut feeling is that usually the scenario they're being asked to imagine (in an argument, say) is both difficult and _unpleasant_ to imagine. These may be enough to make most people resist the attempt ("but it wouldn't be like that"), rather than really try and grasp the point.
People I've discussed this with in the past often identify this as a failure of logic or rationality--people are too dumb to get it. I now think it's a failure of imagination and of trust--a difficulty and discomfort with imagining things one finds unpleasant.
If we were going to rectify this kind of failure in school, the solution probably isn't a focus on the logical structure of such arguments. It probably will have more to do with creating safe environments to use, experience, and appreciate the legitimacy of the technique.
Of course, this misses the whole point. But I have definitely had my share of this same experience in all sorts of situations. I ask someone to consider a scenrio to illustrate a point, and often get the reply back: "but things aren't that way" or "but things would never be like that".
This initially confused me; people should be good at this kind of reasoning since we all have to use hypothetical reasoning all the time. We imagine what if we did this or that, imagine the consequences and use that to guide our actions. So what's the difference?
My hypothesis is that the difference may lie in how well someone is able to imagine the alternative world. Hypothetical situations (what if I did X) may be generally easy for people to imagine. Counter-factuals that involve more drastic changes in the world (what if we lost WWII; what if there were a God? What if there were no God?) are, for some reason, harder for some people to imagine.
It's difficult for me to separate ability from inclination here; are they really unable to imagine a counter-factual situation in detail, or just unwilling to expend the effort to imagine it (they don't see the point, maybe)? My gut feeling is that usually the scenario they're being asked to imagine (in an argument, say) is both difficult and _unpleasant_ to imagine. These may be enough to make most people resist the attempt ("but it wouldn't be like that"), rather than really try and grasp the point.
People I've discussed this with in the past often identify this as a failure of logic or rationality--people are too dumb to get it. I now think it's a failure of imagination and of trust--a difficulty and discomfort with imagining things one finds unpleasant.
If we were going to rectify this kind of failure in school, the solution probably isn't a focus on the logical structure of such arguments. It probably will have more to do with creating safe environments to use, experience, and appreciate the legitimacy of the technique.
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