The future of Reasoning

The mind, where is it really? Is it just in your head, where your brain resides, remembering, planning, judging, problem-solving? But wait, you also remember and plan with other things, like objects around you. You solve problems and make judgments using a variety of tools and resources. The more you ponder this, the more you realize that while the brain is just a soft mass of fat and protein, no harder than a piece of tofu, the MIND is something much grander: it encompasses tissues, wood, stone, steel, and even people. Through communication, we can extend our minds to others, tapping into their memories, perceptions, and knowledge with a simple question. I don't have to master fixing cars, practicing medicine, or remembering everything because others are doing that for me, just as I help them in return. We are a species of individuals interconnected in a vast network of growth, a bustling mix of flesh and concrete. We are 'techno sapiens,' driven by our imaginations and passions, empowered by the sacred gift of REASON. Reason, they say, leads us to deeper knowledge and wiser choices. It has enabled us to extend life expectancy, reduce suffering, enhance collaboration, and promises to propel us forward to greater heights until eternity. Or does it? The organ we employ for reasoning took millions of years to evolve, yet the outcomes of reason progress swiftly and exponentially. In the upcoming decades, we anticipate constructing the equivalent of a new New York City every month. More concrete has been laid globally in the last two decades than in the entire 20th century in the US. This growth signifies an improvement in the quality of life worldwide, with electricity, goods, food, comfort, and transportation becoming increasingly prevalent and accessible.

And people. Because of communication we can even make OTHER PEOPLE extensions of our minds. We can access their memories and perceptions and knowledge by simply asking. Or not. I don’t need to learn how to fix a car AND practice medicine AND vulcanize rubber OR remember everything … other people are doing that for me just as I do things for them. We are a species of individuals that is also one big interdependent lumbering growth. A frantic blur of flesh and concrete. A ‘techno sapien’ powered by imaginations and passions made real by a hallowed faculty we call REASON. Reason, it is said, guides us to truer knowledge and better decisions. It’s allowed us to increase life-expectancy, suffer less, work together better, and it’s bound to take us further and higher until the end of time. Or is it? The organ we USE to reason takes millions of years to evolve, but the fruits of reason grow rapidly and are ever accelerating. In the next four decades, we’re expected to build the equivalent of another new york city every month More concrete was installed in the last two decades outside the US than the US installed during the entire 20th century.

The philosopher Timothy Morton calls something so massively distributed in time and space and so viscous — so STICKY that it adheres to all that touch it, a HYPEROBJECT. Every civilizations that grows at the speed of reason must at some point face hyperobjects. In fact, the fact that we still haven’t found evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth has been brought up as evidence that some sort of GREAT FILTER, might exist that few civilizations manage to get past. That a hyperobject like our impact on the planet might be such a great filter is not a new idea. What it’ll take to solve it is the topic of Bill Gate’s HOW TO AVOID A CLIMATE DISASTER. And I decided to do this video in partnership with him and his team because the way we deal with hyperobjects reveals a lot about the mind. It’s easy — and common! — to think that we would all be better off if everyone was just more rational. But what if reasoning wasn’t built for what we’ve become? Let’s begin by looking at behavioral inertia. Behavioral inertia is the tendency to keep doing what you’re already doing. Status quo bias. It can be a frustrating bias if you desire change, but its origin isn’t a flaw. If an organism has managed to survive long enough to reproduce and provide and care for its offspring, then the state of its world, was sufficient for its genes to spread. That’s all it takes to persist. The types of organisms we see around us will naturally be those that managed to persist and didn’t, after reaching the point at which they could persist, rock the boat too much. Behavioral inertia can help slow down the accumulation of unintended consequences and the loss of ideas that work, but it can also slow down innovation and adaptation. If the environmental impacts of our society were more immediate and un-ignorable, it wouldn’t be so tempting to apply this inertial brake. But emissions are invisible and their consequences aren’t immediate or local. They impact future people and people far away. Those who are different from us, poorer than us, people we will never meet. This may be one of the first challenges advancing civilizations face: weilding not just the power of technology and distributed cognition, but also the responsibilities.

An inference is any new information extracted from the information you already have. We make inferences all the time — every living thing does. We don’t have measuring-tape tentacles that shoot from our eyes, and what actually enters our brain is just a 2D image, but our brains nonetheless INFER depth by attending to cues like stereopsis, occultation, perspective, parallax, size… When this happens, we accept it as reality. We aren’t aware of the visual processing that made it possible and don’t have to be. If, however, we do consciously consider WHY a certain conclusion was reached, then BOOM that’s REASONING. Reasoning is the process of making inferences not automatically and instrinctively, but by looking at facts and seeing what conclusion they support. When Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth to within a percentage or two of the value accepted today, he didn’t do it by MEASURING the Earth and he didn’t just percieve it as self-evident, he INFERRED it from what he knew about shadows and how long it took camels to move. Stories like that make it easy to believe that reasoning evolved because it supercharged our abilities; it clearly moves us towards truer conclusions, better decisions, and knowledge no other species could infer. Attempts to describe the rules of good, orderly reason, became logic and mathematics, concepts so general and abstract that while we were still animals, armed with them, we were no longer beasts. But that’s the rub, isn’t it? If reasoning is so great, why are we the only species with such a sophisticated grasp of it? And if its purpose is truth and good judgement, why don’t we all agree on everything? These questions make up what Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber call the Enigma of Reason. It’s tempting to think that disagreements happen because while I’M being rational, those who disagree with me are being irrational. Urgh! If only people would use reason and logic. What’s happened to the world! That’s a fair complaint if you’re arguing over logic puzzles, but the world is not a logic puzzle. this, however, is: Paul is looking at Mary. Mary is looking at Peter. Paul is married. Peter is unmarried.

If some people have more to lose than others, who gets to decide which are fair? Still, though, it would seem that reasoning should be able help out here. If each of us would just attend to ONLY the facts, surely we’d all recognize the same, reasonable approach. Problem is, that’s not how reasoning works. Since the scientific study of human reasoning began about a hundred years ago, it’s been found again and again that we’re not only BAD at reasoning, lazy and biased, but almost seem PROGRAMMED to be bad. Like the flaws are intentional.