Let’s Get Rational

One of the reasons I started this Seeing Clearly project was because, over the past two years, I was noticing many people, myself included, forming and sharing judgments on major issues. And often, these judgments had an emotional base. Social media makes it so easy to share without considering nuance or whether the information is even correct.

It made me wonder. How do people form opinions that shape their decisions? How do they decide who to trust? Why do they feel compelled to share their opinion? How do emotions fit into the picture? How is our attention hijacked? How can we learn to see as clearly as possible? Of course, I was asking myself those questions too. 

I did some “research,” read a few books, took courses on media literacy, and wrote a few posts (see below). I became acquainted with the work of philosopher Julia Galef, who this year came out with a book called The Scout Mindset. Recently her name was brought to my attention again while listening to a Conspirituality podcast episode, called Rational Emotions and Poetic Science, where Julian asks, “Are emotions separate from rationality?” Most people think so.

What is rationality?

Generally, rationality is a method for making decisions based on reason, facts, knowledge, or logic. Someone who is rational is considered to be grounded in reality, level headed, and sensible. Galef says that most people think rationality means never making decisions until you have all of the information (this is impossible) and never relying on intuition or emotions. 

Is this how most people make their decisions? I don’t think so. 

We rely on emotions and intuition way more than we think or know. According to Galef, rationality consists of two parts: obtaining an accurate view of reality and then choosing the actions that will help you achieve your goals. The thing is, the goals we set are based on emotions. They emerge from what we care about or value most. 

Rationality is a path or map for making decisions that maximizes happiness or goals. It includes logic and emotions.

Two Mindsets

In her book, Galef introduces two types of mindsets - soldier and scout. Here is a very brief summary.

A soldier is single-mindedly focused on winning a battle against a predetermined enemy by defending a territory (or their life). Bringing this defensive mindset into everyday life isn’t necessarily good for your health or your relationships. Reasoning becomes like combat, seeking out evidence to defend your beliefs at all costs and ignoring evidence that refutes your beliefs. The thought of being wrong feels like a defeat. This is called motivated reasoning and is the opposite of seeing clearly. 

Scout mindset, on the other hand, epitomizes seeing clearly. It’s seeing things as they are, not as you wish they were. With a scout mindset, seeing clearly is like making a map of reality, a map that is constantly being revised and made more accurate to reflect new and changing information. 

“Striving for an accurate map means being aware of the limits of your understanding, keeping track of the regions of your map that are especially sketchy or possibly wrong. And, being open to changing your mind in response to new information.” (Galef)

We all use both mindsets, depending on the circumstances, and most of us think that we’re more scout than soldier. Galef says, though, that the soldier mindset is the default mindset because it brings rewards of comfort, certainty, and belonging. Even if we think that we’re being rational - calm, objective, etc., with all of the facts at our disposal, it doesn’t mean that our position is fair. You may be knowledgeable and intelligent but still prone to motivated reasoning. 

“The more objective you think you are, the more you trust your own intuition and opinions as accurate representations of reality, the less inclined you are to question them.“ ~ (Galef)

There is so much more in Galef’ s book if you want to learn more. For this week, however, my goal is to get you to think of rationality differently and to become aware of when you bring motivated reasoning to the table. 

Practice

How do you make decisions? Reflect on some of the biggest or most impactful ones you’ve made (deciding on a marriage partner or having a child are good places to start). How did logic and emotions and intuition play a part? 

When have you changed your mind about something and what was it that caused you to do so? 

Notice when you’re feeling defensive about a particular belief. Why is that? For example, I decided that I don’t need to defend my decisions around the Covid pandemic. I’ve decided who to trust for the best information and I’m willing to revise my stance as new information becomes available. 

How can you bring a scout mindset to bear and be more open and curious? Galef suggests saying out loud as often as possible things like: I see your point. You’ve made me think about this differently. I’ve changed my mind since learning this new information. I’ll have to learn more about this. Yes, you’re right. 

As we wind down this seeing clearly project, how has your map of reality changed?

Resources

Previous Seeing Clearly posts on Intuition and Emotions.

Julia Galef is a co-founder of the non-profit organization, Center for Applied Rationality. I highly recommend her book, The Scout Mindset. For an overview of her work, check out her TED talk (12 minutes).

Website Posts: Be Aware before you Share and Where are your Blindspots?