>>11488522The task that reason evolved to perform is to prevent us from getting screwed by the other members of our group. Living in small bands of hunter-gatherers, our ancestors were primarily concerned with their social standing, and with making sure that they weren’t the ones risking their lives on the hunt while others loafed around in the cave. There was little advantage in reasoning clearly, while much was to be gained from winning arguments.
People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people. In the case of a toilet, someone else designed it so that I can operate it easily. This is something humans are very good at. We’ve been relying on one another’s expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, which was probably a key development in our evolutionary history. So well do we collaborate that we can hardly tell where our own understanding ends and others’ begins.
One implication of the naturalness with which we divide cognitive labor, is that there’s no sharp boundary between one person’s ideas and knowledge and those of other members of the group.
This borderlessness, or, if you prefer, confusion, is also crucial to what we consider progress. As people invented new tools for new ways of living, they simultaneously created new realms of ignorance; if everyone had insisted on, say, mastering the principles of metalworking before picking up a knife, the Bronze Age wouldn’t have amounted to much. When it comes to new technologies, incomplete understanding is empowering.
As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding. people experience genuine pleasure—a rush of dopamine—when processing information that supports their beliefs. It feels good to ‘stick to our guns’ even if we are wrong.
