Here's a snippet from a Bloggingheads diavlog between Robert Wright an Matt Hudson, who wrote The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking:
This is why Danny Kahneman wrote in his latest book Thinking Fast and Slow, that optimism would be the one bias he would most want his children to have.
This is why Danny Kahneman wrote in his latest book Thinking Fast and Slow, that optimism would be the one bias he would most want his children to have.
1 comment:
No doubt magical thinking is one of human beings’ default settings but we’ve advanced to a ~78 yr. lifespan free from most material wants mostly by overriding that hard-wiring. Can’t tell from this if Hutson is asserting that optimism is mostly synonymous with magical thinking but I don’t see why this has to be so. Surely we are all in debt to those who were optimistic about science over magic.
Perhaps we have in fact evolved ourselves to a post-everything world, forever free from the most dire concerns of our ancestors - a world in which most reasonable human wants are at our fingertips. If you also believe that “happiness” as currently defined is the be-all-and-end-all of human existence then it probably is best to foster as much optimism in your kids as possible - no good to have them moping around because there are fewer mountains to climb. But if history hasn’t “ended” so to speak and there is a chance that swans of various shades of darkness could manifest themselves in the near future (these days, where does one start!), a healthy dose of pessimism and non-magical thinking will probably yield better outcomes.
The Kahnman book looks more gee-whiz interesting but I can’t help but think that both of these guys are searching for a way to avoid the conclusion/reality that there is no substitute for intelligence.
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