Comment by koheripbal
6 years ago
I once told my daughter that intelligent decisions in life are made by being dispassionate and using logic to reason the optimal course of action.
My wife then snorted and said "says who?". Parenting fail :(
6 years ago
I once told my daughter that intelligent decisions in life are made by being dispassionate and using logic to reason the optimal course of action.
My wife then snorted and said "says who?". Parenting fail :(
I'm probably projecting my own experiences onto your wife, but I always get annoyed with people who hear something like "be dispassionate and try to be as logical as possible" and immediately discount it- primarily because I notice they've never tried it.
I used to make a lot of emotional decisions based on my gut feelings and intuition, and it took me a great deal of work to get over that and to start thinking about the "optimal course of action" whenever I had important decisions to make. My life has drastically improved, and all of my relationships are more stable and my goals have proved to be more attainable.
But when I try to preach this to people, a lot of them give the same reaction your wife did- and I get annoyed, because I observe them constantly having their feelings hurt, getting frustrated, missing their goals, and feeling stressed out, because they're operating off of anything but "optimal course of action reasoning".
I think the reason why this type of attitude gets mocked is that it seems robotic and condescending to emotion, as if emotion is not a real, legitimate source of information. It shouldn't be the only source of information (and maybe that's what you're getting at). But the idea that once emotion enters the picture, the discussion is no longer "rational" is stupid to me. Maybe that is a straw man.
Well, I think that emotion isn't really a legitimate source of information, primarily because it's so subjective. How many relationships dissolve because one party is connecting their experience of an emotion to the actions of the other party, but it's all a complete misunderstanding?
Emotion serves as an indicator, but not as justifiable evidence or information. I still get angry, fearful, heartbroken, elated, etc. but I now spend a great deal of energy trying to make sure that I don't attach my experience of an emotion to a belief that the emotion gives me real, trustworthy information about the true state of the world.
I thought a great deal about this while I was reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, which I highly recommend.
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Emotion is not a real legitimate source of information, it's an inspiration to tell the brain to pay more attention to something and then work it out logically (like when you have a bad feeling about something), but to make any non trivial decision entirely out of emotion is simply foolish.
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Very recognizable. Still, I think the annoyed reactions have more to do with people in general not liking being preached to. In my experience many people take offence with advice. They want to find out for themselves, even if that means getting hurt in the process.
Point in case, I have a floundering friend who won't take business advice from me or that of a mutual friend of ours, despite the fact that we both founded and operated successful businesses. Frustrating.
That's a good point. Considering I only really ever bring this topic up when there's something to get emotional about, it probably comes off as maddeningly condescending.
I once told my daughter that intelligent decisions in life are made by being dispassionate and using logic to reason the optimal course of action.
My wife then snorted and said "says who?". Parenting fail :(
Not necessarily. I think that little story is very instructive. A smart child could well synthesize it thus: There is value in intelligent decisions made by dispassionate logic. Not everyone is going to recognize it, though.
Reality is difficult and messy. If we smart people are truly the smart people, then it behooves us to deal with it gracefully and win. If we end up just railing against the unfairness of the universe and all of the idiots around us, what does that really say?
One of my friends once made this observation about Ward Cunningham. He was convinced Ward was one of the smartest men alive, because he came to realize that Ward always managed to learn something, no matter how smart or how stupid the people were he was interacting with.
"I once told my daughter that intelligent decisions in life are made by being dispassionate and using logic to reason the optimal course of action"
This is the 'most HN' comment of the day.
Maybe someone should start collecting these gems.
On a serious note - I think this is inherently about managing emotions, responses, triggers etc. 'in the moment'. It's ultimately a social issue, not one which can be driven with data as we would like.
On a serious note - I think this is inherently about managing emotions, responses, triggers etc. 'in the moment'. It's ultimately a social issue, not one which can be driven with data as we would like.
It's driven by data which was processed by our ancestors, even before they were fully sentient. There's no sense in not considering that "data as we would like." It's as much a part of us as anything else.
I once told my daughter that "everything bad that has happened to you in your life is your fault". She ran away crying.
I meant this in the context of things not being inherently good or bad, its all your perspective, which is under your control.
I was trying to distill everything I have learned from meditation, Buddhism, stoicism... but I'm not great at communicating, and even if I was she isn't ready for some of the concepts.
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> by being dispassionate and using logic to reason the optimal course of action.
Even with all the logic in the world, it is very hard for most people to overcome their own biases (because they are not always obvious to oneself). So, not sure if it's a good rule to set.
Agreed. The most charitable view of the GP’s definition, is that few decisions are “intelligent”. In a less charitable view, it’s equating rationalizing with being rational.
His wife had a duty as a parent to call BS.
Says who tho