Comment by echoangle
2 years ago
Sure, the question was if this is actually beneficial from an evolutionary perspective. Was this an advantage for survival and humans evolved to be this way or is this an accidental side effect of the working mechanism of the brain which just stayed because it wasn’t a large enough disadvantage to evolve against?
A mechanism that causes people to become more decisive (but much less contemplative) when short on food seems like it would be beneficial. It stops analysis paralysis, and makes someone try something rather than just accept their fate.
Essentially the point I was making. There's truth to that pithy aphorism: decide in limited information and act. Making a decision and an action is better than not. And the feedback from the world you get for that choice will be the balm to your previous lack of information. Iterate to grow knowledge, and keep moving to progress.
Question I was considering was whether evolution had a goal in this? I guess it did. Nervous-system-noise helps explore that state space and extreme states (hunger, sleep deprivation) lower inhibition, leading to greater exploration of the decision space. Biochemical/genetic mediators of more efficient (in aggregate across all humans ever) search algorithms.
Those despotic genes! Programming us, the nerve of them! :) Hahaha :)
I think the question is whether bodily discomfort affects cognition, probaly yes, and how large is that effect size. Could that effect be enough to change a ruling in a significant way? I personally dont think so. In my experience with driving, cognitive distraction has a much higher effect than most bodily discomfort.
I think it's domain dependent the effect of body on cognition, but definitely vastly affects. Could be, no disparagement, a present paucity of self-awareness regarding the correlation of these states.
In terms of whether that's large enough for a ruling, I guess it'd depend on all the pertinent factors: the rule, the judge, the context, the level and nature of discomfort, and the definition of significant. Within that multid space, I think, contrary to you, there's ample chance to produce large effects.
Mitigating this is perhaps how similar many judges routines are. What might really be strong support would be some control, and putting some jurists on more extreme diets/routines hahaah! :) Of course, only in mock trials tho, as otherwise that would be unethical.