Following up on the posts What Intelligence Tests Miss: IQ and rationality are largely independent and A Closer Look at Rationality here are some thoughts and questions about what the view presented in the posts might imply. Let me start by saying that I find the basic ideas presented in Keith Stanovich’s book convincing, namely that: 1) Intelligence as measured by IQ tests and rationality are largely independent, which explains why intelligent people may behave and think irrationally, 2) IQ tests don’t measure rationality and contrast between the strong focus on IQ testing and the very limited attention to measuring and teaching rational thinking is a bad thing, 3) rational thinking could be taught more and this would lead to social benefits. Here are some additional thoughts and questions on the desirability of raising rationality.
Perfect rationality is out of the question. That this is so can be understood from an evolutionary perspective. As Stanovich explains in his book, evolution does not lead to perfect rationality because natural selection does not specifically favor maximizing truth or utility. Instead it favors genetic fitness in a local environment. This means developing rationality is a matter of optimization instead maximization. Spending extreme resources on building rationality does not guarantee evolutionary advantage because those resources might also have been spent on other useful things. As Richard Dawkins says in his latest book: “Perfection in one department must be bought in the form of a sacrifice in another department”.
That maximal rationality is undesirable and impossible also follows from Stanvich’s tripartite model of the brain which consists of the autonomous mind, the algorithmic mind and the reflective mind (further explanation here). It is true that the autonomous mind works with rough heuristics which work in a quick and dirty way and which may frequently miss the mark. An override by the deliberate part of the brain (which consists of the algorithmic brain plus the reflective brain) can help to correct the inaccurateness of the autonomous mind and make judgments and decisions more rational. But because deliberate thinking demand so much attention it would be impossible to let deliberate thinking make all judgments and decisions. So much of everything we do and think has been ‘delegated’ to the autonomous mind that this would be unthinkable. Some division of labor between the autonomous mind and the deliberate mind is efficient. The question is how to divide it most effectively. How often and when should the deliberate mind override the autonomous mind? How can we recognize situations which ask for such overrides? When must we demand rationality from ourselves and from others?
Another perspective on the question of how much rationality follows from looking at its advantages and disadvantages. It seems logical that increasing ones rationality is usually beneficial, both for the individual and for society. After all, increasing instrumental rationality means that one becomes better and goal directed thinking and acting. And increasing epistemic rationality means that ones maps of the world become more realistic; in other words ones beliefs about reality correspond more closely to the actual structure of reality. But there may be som disadvantages, too. I am not talking about the stereotype of Mr. Spock, the assumption that there is a trade off between rationality and social or emotional competence. I would predict that rationality and social or emotional competence are largely independent (in the same that rationality and intelligence are largely independent). In am talking about the possibility that increasing your rationality may be aversive to others and might lead to some extra social barriers, like social rejection. History shows many examples of people who are now considered to be ahead of their time in terms of rationality who were punished by their contemporaries. People challenging widely held beliefs (never mind if they are true or not) can be considered as a threat to power positions, to the stability of institutions, or can be viewed as disloyal, crazy or arrogant. There are many examples of people who have been ridiculed, isolated, imprisoned, banned, imprisoned, convicted to death and murdered because of their ideas which later turn out to be true. The paradox seems to be: it requires rationality to appreciate it.
This leads me to the question of how to fight contaminated mindware. Contaminated mindware refers to a belief system which is not true and potentially harmful to the person who holds it and others but which can still spread quickly through a population due to some of its characteristics (which are explained here). The question is whether a head on attack of popular contaminated mindware will leads to its demise or runs the risk of making it even more popular. A head on attack might lead to further publicity for the contaminated mindware, thus exposing more people to its attractiveness. And it may lead to more attacks on its opponents (because contaminated mindware often contains an instruction to attack opponents, non-believers). Or might a different approach work better? For instance an approach of teaching people to recognize contaminated mindware more easily and protect themselves better against it?
As you see, these are just some open ended explorations. Further suggestions are welcome.
