> Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Warren Ockrassa wrote:
<snippage throughout*>
> > I think what Kevin was intimating -- and
> >definitely what I was thinking
> > -- is that human nature, which wants things to be
> >polar and simple, is
> > rebelling against all these fuzzy logics.
> I was saying that that's how people are. But I
> think that's cultural. People in other societies
> often aren't that way.... Whoever was on God's side
> was right and anybody who disagreed was evil. We
> hear that sort of thing again today, but I think
> it's based on fear, rather than ignorance of
> something better.
I agree that fear is a huge factor, but at least part
of that fear _is_ visceral, and not cultural.
> > Physiologically we are not wired, possibly, to see
> >the world in such
> > ambiguous terms. It might cause a lot of
> >discomfort. And it does seem to
> > take some real mental effort.
> I don't believe that. I think we are wired to
> accept a lot of fuzziness, but our culture
> conditions
> us to polarize things, a conditioning that was
> beneficial for a long time by leading to better
> decision-making.
Yet another factor is the tendency to indolence; most
higher creatures will prefer to do things the easy
way, rather than the more difficult. The young,
however, will often 'do it the hard way' just because,
or find it fun; predators have more bias towards doing
things 'hard' because it is good training for future
lean times.
> > Look how many people are uncomfortable with
> >ambiguity.... So maybe
> > some of the tendency to see things in terms of
> >polarities is based, more
> > or less literally, in the gut.
I think _fear_ is the basis of such 'gut feelings,'
rather than a particular mode of thinking - although
some modes can of course be more fear-provoking than
others; this latter is more culturally based, I think
<nods to Nick>.
"Gut feelings" are physiological. When something
really frightens us - and that can be a tiger or a
thought - our adrenal glands pump various chemicals
(frex adrenaline) into our blood, and not only our
brain but our digestive, respiratory and muscular
systems react within seconds. When the stimulus is a
tiger, that response is (potentially) life-preserving;
when it is a thought, it frequently is body-degrading
(in the physiological, not moral, sense). [Naturally
there are thoughts which fit the life-preserving
category, such as "I forgot to turn off the stove!!!"
=>run back inside to switch off the gas.]
The disconnect between gut feeling and thought cuts
both ways as well: the nebulous and seemingly far-off
dangers (like global warming) do not generate that
literal body-sense of fear for most people, so they do
not perceive the danger as real, and therefore it is
not worthy of devouring time or energy. Unlike, say,
the image of a mushroom cloud over Houston or Denver.
*I tried to keep to the intention of the writer, as I
perceived it - obviously, if I did not, correction is
needed.
Debbi
who was taught to cultivate sensitivity to "gut
feelings" -- although it was frequently called
"clinical acumen" instead...
<tiny smile>
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