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THE_GREAT_KAHN_KNOWS
November 17, 2013
Daniel Kahneman, "Thinking, Fast and Slow" (2011)
Kahneman continues with his odd tick
of addressing the reader as though he KAHNEMAN_SLOWLY
knows absolutely how the reader reacts
at any moment.
He leads off chapter 4 asking the reader to consider:
Bananas Vomit
He then remarks: "A lot happened to you in the
last second or two. You experienced some
unpleasant images and memories. Your face Directly addressing the
twisted slightly in an expression of disgust ... reader in second person
Your heart rate increased ..." isn't done very often in
fiction. I've heard it
argued that we find
it off-putting to have
Actually "Bananas Vomit" someone shaking a
sounds to me like a band finger in your face,
name, or an underground going "you, you, you".
comic book or something,
and while I can accept the Remember Kahneman
reactions Kahneman It's of course claims some insight
describes as a statistical possible that if into how to put a
norm, his insistence that I were hooked up message over, hence
I must match the norm is to a polygraph the "System 1"/
peculiar. while reading, "System 2" jargon.
I would realize
It's a mistake you wouldn't that my reactions FIRE_MIND
expect from someone with a are closer to this
scientific background, but norm than I'm aware. How did he miss
he's actually quite the problem with
insist ant about it. using "you" as a
synonym for "most
people"?
STATISTICAL_INDIVIDUAL
K. is ready for my denials-- or maybe
for a similar but different set of
denials-- after laying out the basics
of studies on associations, and how
reaction to one thing can be
influenced by first being primed by a
reaction to another thing he remarks:
"When I describe priming studies to audiences,
the reaction is often disbelief. This is not a
surprise: System 2 believes that it is in charge
and that it knows the reasons for its choices.
Questions are probably cropping up in your mind
as well ... "
"The idea that you should focus on, however, is
that disbelief is not an option. The results are
not made up, nor are they statistical flukes.
You have no choice but to accept that the major
conclusions of these studies are true about
*you*. If you had been exposed to a screen saver
of floating dollar bills, you too would likely
have picked up fewer pencils to help a clumsy
stranger. You do not believe that these results
apply to you because they correspond to nothing
in your subjective experience. But your
subjective experience consists largely of the
story that your System 2 tells itself about what
is going on. ... "
Psychologists have been telling us this in
one form or another since the days of Freud: The idea that we
we are ignorant of our true natures, and only have unconscious
they, the psychologists have access to the impulses is surely
secret knowledge of what we are really like. not so unusual at
this point.
We hope, however, that today's
psychologists are more evidence-driven, I think Kahneman has
and more careful about over-interpreting a knack for provoking
their results... I continue to worry confrontations about
that Kahneman is not so careful. what should be
uncontroversial...
I wonder if he might not be hearing the
message that his audiences have actually
been trying to tell him. I wonder if Kahneman
may be another Lakoff...
In any case, I personally don't doubt
that the priming association effects GOLDLEAF_FRAME
he's discussing actually happen, and
also don't doubt that I personally am
prone to some of them.
But ignoring the possibility that any
particular reader might not share some
particular response, however common,
seems very peculiar.
I'm very interested in questions of application
of this material, as I expect most readers
are... I would be very surprised if anyone,
Kahneman included, really wants to back the
idea that a previously measured statistical
inclination is our eternal destiny.
So, I have Kahneman in a bind:
I want him to take this material
and speculate about applications
both to individual living and
wider social programs. But if he
actually goes there, I'm going to
be ready to accuse him of
pseudo-science...
MONEY_PRIME
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