Superstition, can we really live without it?
On Friday the thirteenth, NPR was having a show on superstition, no big suprise there--they try to be USA Today while interviewing Einsteins these days, whatever. The thrust of the comparason was between making decisions based on logic or scientifically proven fact, or based on superstition/magic/religion--characterized as socially acceptable magic or superstition.
So two days of living later, and two nights of dreaming and assimilating, and I finally figured out that they missed a major input to decision-making and a critical aspect to making decisions.
The major decision-making input they missed is character, or making choices based on internally held values, Some of these values are perhaps innate to the species survival, others learned, and still others adopted by choice. So an example, also from an NPR human interest spot, but slightly enhanced. You hear people yelling for help from the lake. You go out to see two men in the water in trouble. It is Friday the thirteenth and you are a superstitious person, so it makes sense that a bad thing happened, and it follows from that belief that something bad might happen to you if you try to help them. From a logical perspective, with the tools available to you, and your skill level at this sort of thing, it is likely you will fail at rescuing them, and a strong risk that you could end up in the same trouble and drown right along with them. Let's also throw in that you aren't of a religous persuasion that would either ascribe to your god protecting you in such an endevor, or glorify you in an afterlife for the attempt.
Some people would try anyway, and I would say that was a values based decision--pehaps based on their perception of themselves as a:
1) risk taker
2) glory seeker
3) selfless rescue type person
or some other self-construct. Lesser values might be more habit than self adopted and understood behaviors.
The critical aspect they missed, is that most decisions we make during a day we make without full information. Your nondescript coworker asks if you want to go to lunch and you have no better offers or plans, or handy coin to flip. How do you make that decision? Science has very little guidance on this issue. One has to use another technique. The decision making process we must use in these every minute type decisionmaking is more akin to superstitous thinking than scientific method. Now that I brought it to the surface, perhaps you will decide on a value for it and apply it, if you are strong enough to overcome the habitual response, whatever that was for you. Still there are hundreds of those decisions we have to make every day. In the face of this, I don't think getting rid of superstition is possible.
So two days of living later, and two nights of dreaming and assimilating, and I finally figured out that they missed a major input to decision-making and a critical aspect to making decisions.
The major decision-making input they missed is character, or making choices based on internally held values, Some of these values are perhaps innate to the species survival, others learned, and still others adopted by choice. So an example, also from an NPR human interest spot, but slightly enhanced. You hear people yelling for help from the lake. You go out to see two men in the water in trouble. It is Friday the thirteenth and you are a superstitious person, so it makes sense that a bad thing happened, and it follows from that belief that something bad might happen to you if you try to help them. From a logical perspective, with the tools available to you, and your skill level at this sort of thing, it is likely you will fail at rescuing them, and a strong risk that you could end up in the same trouble and drown right along with them. Let's also throw in that you aren't of a religous persuasion that would either ascribe to your god protecting you in such an endevor, or glorify you in an afterlife for the attempt.
Some people would try anyway, and I would say that was a values based decision--pehaps based on their perception of themselves as a:
1) risk taker
2) glory seeker
3) selfless rescue type person
or some other self-construct. Lesser values might be more habit than self adopted and understood behaviors.
The critical aspect they missed, is that most decisions we make during a day we make without full information. Your nondescript coworker asks if you want to go to lunch and you have no better offers or plans, or handy coin to flip. How do you make that decision? Science has very little guidance on this issue. One has to use another technique. The decision making process we must use in these every minute type decisionmaking is more akin to superstitous thinking than scientific method. Now that I brought it to the surface, perhaps you will decide on a value for it and apply it, if you are strong enough to overcome the habitual response, whatever that was for you. Still there are hundreds of those decisions we have to make every day. In the face of this, I don't think getting rid of superstition is possible.