I am currently reading a book entitled 'Thinking fast and slow' by Dr Daniel Kahneman, which was published in 2011 when he was 77. Effectively, the fast bit is intuition and the slow bit is logic. If we employed intuition only we would probably get run over by a vehicle before the day was out. If we employed logic only we wouldn't get over the threshold before it was time to go back to bed. That is my interpretation so far. It seems highly unlikely that any one person gets the perfect balance all the time. Having said that it seems that nature is very tolerant because otherwise I am unable to figure out how Homo sapiens have gotten this far. I have never advocated referendums being carried out in democracies. I am now convinced that they should never be undertaken.
fxm wrote:It is strange that people criticize the documentation ...
This book tells me that there is nothing strange about it at all - par for the course, more like.
It seems that many folk are lazy thinkers and shy away from an 'uphill struggle' if a level walk presents itself. Intuition is a level walk and logic is an uphill struggle.
Intuition is very powerful but it is not illogical, it is irrational - as is lateral thinking. We can very quickly side step to a solution. However, we can very easily side step into a pot hole.
So, a lazy thinker may say one thing and then contradict themselves by saying another thing later on and be totally oblivious to the fact that they have contradicted themselves because they employed intuition in both cases. They would have to use logic to see the contradiction - oh dear, an uphill struggle. <smile>
It seems that intuition is the default state. The question is when should we call upon logic? That in itself requires logic so a really lazy thinker is bound to get run over. So, how do we get people to stop being lazy thinkers? The book has not told me yet and I am not sure that it will.
Here is an example of intuitive thinking. Don't think about it - come up with an answer quickly.
A bat and ball cost $1.10.
The bat costs one dollar more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?
Most folk will say 10 cents - I did. Wrong!
Treat the first two as simultaneous equations and solve. The answer is 5 cents.
There is intuition and logic in this thread. I treated 'mul + 21' intuitively until dodicat pointed out that "The + sign is a confuser". Logic may have kicked in had it been 'mul 21'. There again it may not have. <smile>
@Trinity. Folks who come to the forum with questions without researching elsewhere first are lazy thinkers and you are well justified in 'kicking their butt'. The problem is that may have no effect. It reminds me of the statement "The more incompetent someone is the more likely they are to overestimate their competence." How do we correct that? Now, there is a question.