Atheism 13 - Logical Barriers
There are barriers to our logical processes that we all share and that are well documented by psychiatrists. These are not insidious as long as we are aware of them, but can become so if we act on them unawares. Collectively these are known as "cognitive biases." Essentially, these are erroneous "shortcuts" our brains take because, despite the promises made by corporate America, we can't actually multi-task; our brains can only concentrate on one thing at a time, so it invents these shortcuts to more efficiently get on to the next task.
I did a quick Google search, and I was able to find several sites that listed at least 150 different cognitive biases. I have no intention to type long enough to consider all of them. We will explore only a handful; those that seem to stand in the way of our ability to actually maintain the open-mindedness we all claim to have.
1. Self-Serving Bias - this is the tendency to take personal credit for one's successes and blame outside influences (God, fate, the boss, immigrants, etc.) for one's failures. Neither is completely true, obviously. One never succeeds without the assistance of others, and one is always largely (if not exclusively) to blame for one's own failures.
2. Confirmation Bias - this is the tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms one's hypotheses or opinions and to devalue or ignore any contradictory evidence.
3. Fundamental Attribution Error - this is the tendency to judge others purely by the outcome of their actions and to conversely judge oneself purely based on one's intentions when committing to an action, regardless of the ultimate results. That is, when observing actions in another, one tends to attribute those actions to a flaw in the actor's personality, whereas when one performs the same action, one attributes the action to the immediate situation. Similar to the Actor-Observer Bias.
4. Psychological Projection - the subconscious defense mechanism in which one attributes one's own undesirable emotions or behaviors to another. As Jesus had it, to condemn one's neighbor for the splinter in his eye while, all the while, one has a log in one's own.
5. Dunning-Kruger Effect - a bias in which one overestimates one's competence in a specific field. By way of example, to consider oneself a karate master after having read a library book on the subject, or to think of oneself as an expert in a given field having completed a college degree plan in said field.
6. Projection Bias (or Empathy Gap) - A Projection Bias proper is the assumption that others think and feel the same way as oneself. Conversely, an Empathy Gap is the inability to correctly estimate the influence of varying stimuli (including the influence of others) on our mental state. They are not the same thing, but they often go hand-in-hand.
7. Stereotyping - the tendency to attribute a characteristic or trait of a single unit to an entire group; to believe that an entire collection of people - be it a race, sex, nationality, etc. - can be assumed to share a personality quirk or habit of a single individual member or a statistically small percentage of that collective.
8. Stacking - Having learned one thing about a given subject or situation, we will then immediately assume we know a great deal more about it. Having learned that our new acquaintance voted conservatively in the last election, we might then assume that he/she is anti-abortion, pro guns, and anti-immigration. Similar to stereotyping, but usually more individualistic.
These, and many other cognitive biases can - and often do - influence our beliefs and opinions, and usually subconsciously, give us the impression of our own "open-mindedness" when, in fact, we are anything but. It is best to at least be aware of these biases before jumping to any conclusions, lest one position oneself to be (accurately) considered a fool. 😊
Pax
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