dagblog - Comments for "How to Dispel Your Illusions"

I would say I am eagerly

artappraiser — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:07:43 +0000

In reply to Oddly enough, I just started

I would say I am eagerly awaiting a book report from you, except that I would hate that if it was said to me, so I won't.

I still agree with Donal:

artappraiser — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:02:24 +0000

In reply to How to Dispel Your Illusions

I still agree with Donal: "interesting article." After all, look at the thought it elicited from Lulu, moat and Emma.

For a book about cognitive

EmmaZahn — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:39:30 +0000

In reply to How to Dispel Your Illusions

For a book about cognitive illusions both it and its review seemed to be filled with them.

Both Kahneman and Dyson begin their observations in new and rapidly evolving situations where thinking slow is not always an option even or especially if in hindsight doing so would have been wiser. Hindsight is like that.

I confess to a cognitive bias against people who make too much of statistics and quantitative measures. So much of their utility depends on the skill and intuitions* of the person selecting and interpreting the data. There is also the danger of GIGO as well as self-fulfillment when successful interpreters or too many copy cats begin to skew the data.

LULU is right. What Kahneman and Dyson are talking about is not science. Not sure if it qualifies as art either but in that I defer to your judgment, artappraiser

Oddly enough, I just started

moat — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 03:06:00 +0000

In reply to "A large part of his book is

Oddly enough, I just started reading Fahneman's book and it is too soon for me to know if Dyson has hit the mark or not with his description of the book.

The latter part of Dyson's review does mention Freud and James as a way to question the reductionist view you take exception to. Not to say that your and his objections are the same.

The two things in the review that struck me were:

The notion that nobody has tried to quantify psychological phenomena before Fahneman is incorrect. The statement ignores decades of clinical research of all sorts. Complicating the question is the role different models such as behaviorism or cognitive psychology play in what might be "quantitatively" measured. There is no set of facts that exists without a model when it comes to psychology.

Maybe there is more to it but Dyson's description of measuring outcomes of the crews of Lancaster bombers against a "pure" analysis of the conditions the flights took place in makes no mention of whether some crews survived combat better than others. Without that distinction, it is like saying the fact that more American soldiers died of disease in WW1 than by combat was a reflection of their effectiveness as fighters.

"A large part of his book is

A Guy Called LULU — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:09:52 +0000

In reply to How to Dispel Your Illusions

"A large part of his book is devoted to stories illustrating the various illusions to which supposedly rational people succumb."
A "supposedly rational person" wrote that sentence in a supposedly rational review of a supposedly rational idea from a book. Economics, like psychology, is barely a science and the author of the book is both psychologist and economist. Both fields use scientific methods to the extent that they can but so did alchemy. Psychology deals with understanding the human mind. It has a ways to go. Most psychologists hold that, among the field of psychology's thousands of unproven theories, the mind is located mostly in the brain. This reviewer seems to have reached somewhere else for his thinking.

"His [Fahneman's] great achievement was to turn psychology into a quantitative science."

What a ridiculous statement. If psychology is [only] a quantitative science it will never achieve much of value, certainly nothing "great".

"He made our mental processes subject to precise measurement and exact calculation, by studying in detail how we deal with dollars and cents."

Really? Seriously? Somebody believes that our mental processes are subject to "Precise measurement and exact calculation"? Based on a detailed study of how we spend our dollars and cents? Using the present state of the "art" of psychology or any of the many, many theories of economics or of some combination of both? Is there a polite way to say that Dyson's statement above is moronic bullshit? Probably not a way as strong as I feel it so let me be clear about my opinion as politely as possible: That statement is moronic bullshit.

"His method is to study mental processes that can be observed and measured under rigorously controlled experimental conditions. Following this method, he revolutionized psychology. He discovered mental processes that can be described precisely and demonstrated reliably."

This statement indicates that there is something universal about mental processes that universalizes choices among individual people rather than statistical trends or statistical probabilities of reaction exhibited among groups of test subjects in "controlled" situations. And presumably there was a "control group" made up of what? Humans with standardized, homogenized psyches?
"Thinking Fast and Slow" may be a good book with valuable lessons, but I do not see how that could be if it is as Dyson describes it.

(No subject)

artappraiser — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:13:01 +0000

In reply to Interesting article, thanks.

Interesting article, thanks.

Donal — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:19:38 +0000

In reply to How to Dispel Your Illusions

Interesting article, thanks.