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jerryatrics says | |||
| "Truthiness is a satirical term coined by television comedian Stephen Colbert to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts." (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness). It is a meme that was popular a few months ago, maybe still is, for all I know. It is the polar opposite to a reality-based belief. Truthiness is always based on some heuristics like "go with your gut" or "I always trust my first impressions," and others. I don't know about you, but my record of accuracy in first impressions is abysmal. Serial rapists and politicians, supposing for a moment there is some relationship, rely on truthiness to score their victims. Ted Bundy's victims always thought he was such a nice man, good manners, nice looking, didn't smoke cigarettes, etc. Of course we don't know what they thought as he strangled them but it is safe to assume they realized their mistake at some point in the process--talk about a crash course in reality therapy. And the master of truthiness, the guy who wants us to believe in war to help out Halliburton... It may be tempting to ascribe truthiness to mostly men or women (or George Bush), depending on your hormonal dominance. But that's a load of crap. No matter what your gender preference is, you engage in truthiness, at least some of the time. We all do and I have to ask why. Because it is easier than fooling around with reality-based truth. This reality-based truth is such a pain in the ***. For example it requires that you ask some questions of the person you just met, who has a lisp, yellow teeth, and shaved head. But what's a person to do? You meet a hundred people and you have to ask yourself who is worthy of my time. I know it is difficult, but the only sane answer is "I don't know." These are magic words that, when used by an expert, have profound consequences in the evolution of a personal reality-based belief system. |
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| Total Topic Karma: 13 | - More by this Author | |||
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zenmonk says |
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| 'I don't know' what to say about this...but watch me say something anyway. To quote Neil Peart, one of my favorite poets, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." The world is filled with paradox and we feebleminded humans must sometimes make choices based on very little or no evidence. Indeed, this is what high-power executive types are for...well, that and acting as scapegoats. Analysis paralysis on one end of the spectrum; acting from the gut, based on truthiness on the other. No wonder we seem illogical and inconsistent to one another. Fact is, there are so many variables at work in any given decision, we might never be able to tease them all out and measure their respective weights. That being said, the human brain is quite good at abstracting billions of observations into guiding principles, then generalizing back to specific concrete instances as needed. I saw someone wearing a tee-shirt this weekend - the front said "Rule #1: Don't sweat the small stuff." The back said "Rule #2: It's all small stuff." In short, we give attention by degrees to that which is important to us...including the paying of attention. |
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| - Author's History - 12 June, 2007 | |||||
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QuantumBeep says |
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| Truthiness is necessary, in part, because mathematical rigour would be too time-consuming to apply to every problem. We humans have an incredible back-formation of intuitive directives that serve us well. Granted, sometimes our intuitions are wrong. Often this is because we don't have the necessary experience to make the right call. For others, particularly the elderly, not enough neuroplasticity remains for the subconscious to tune intuitions to experience, and so truthiness simply becomes erratic bias. I think you would agree that the overwhelming majority of the decisions we make are based on some form of intuition. Even thought processes involving reason tend to contain components of experience and emotional tilt, both of which are decidedly fallible. When was the last time you broke down an argument to its a priori components? Usually it can't be done. |
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| - Author's History - 12 June, 2007 | |||||
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CamouflageNoise says |
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| I don't have anything to add to this discussion, just wanted to say I am going to be seeing a live taping of The Colbert Report, on the 20th of this month. The creator of the word "Truthiness." | |||||
| - Author's History - 12 June, 2007 | |||||
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jerryatrics says |
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| CamouflageNoise He is a funny guy. His brand of sarcasm is devastating to those who insist that feeling right about something is all the proof you need to do it. I would love to hear your impressions of the live taping. |
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| - Author's History - 13 June, 2007 | |||||
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poss says |
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| I agree with quantum beep on this one. Truthiness IS a cognitive bias, just like instinct. And like he said, it serves a function, by allowing us to make complex decisions quicker. We find ourselves in an environment where many of our instincts no longer apply or are even counter productive. The people you have mentioned use these obsolete instincts against us, by appealing to our instant decission making, bypassing our higer processes. truthiness isn't all bad tho, sometimes it IS the truth. Not all our instincts are obsolete, and the certainty of truth that they provide is often a very useful part of our lives. We just dont think of that type of poorly thought out decision making as truthiness. |
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| - Author's History - 13 June, 2007 | |||||
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jerryatrics says |
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| Truthiness brings the concept of reality-based belief system into focus. Intelligently seeing our tendency to believe first and then ask questions as being the heart of the problem of screwy beliefs, stuff like the earth is 6000 years old or putting the 17 year old boy in jail (for 10 years) for having consensual sex with a 16 year old girl. We don't have to reach very deep to see so much of modern life inundated with this kind of screwball logic. But maybe I'm full of crap. too. |
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| - Author's History - 13 June, 2007 | |||||
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Ati says |
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| I never use 'truthiness' for important decisions. If it's vital and I feel my gut trying to say something, it's time to start ignoring it. There are far, far too many people out there hurting other people for no reason because their gut instinct tells them to. |
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| - Author's History - 13 June, 2007 | |||||
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zenmonk says |
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| What about when your gut instinct is to help someone, despite cost to self or lack of potential reward? I generally try to include my gut in the decision making process, though it's sometimes relegated to a very small role. If you're interested, I'd like to include some links to relevant interesting reading. |
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| - Author's History - 13 June, 2007 | |||||
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jerryatrics says |
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| Would love the links, Zen. | |||||
| - Author's History - 13 June, 2007 | |||||
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Mad Ant says |
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| I do allow Truthiness to take some decisions, but they're generally unimportant, non-vital, or just sometimes inane. But I wouldn't like to base an important decision solely on truthiness. | |||||
| - Author's History - 13 June, 2007 | |||||
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jerryatrics says |
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| Good links from Zen. Here is one that is good: http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20070515-000007.html Basically integrating gut feeling with thinking seems to be the best we can do, especially when under time pressure. There is no line in the sand about what works for all people, as I'm sure everyone already knows intuitively  . |
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| - Author's History - 13 June, 2007 | |||||
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zenmonk says |
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| Here's another link about the connection between gut feelings and 'luck'. | |||||
| - Author's History - 14 June, 2007 | |||||
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zenmonk says |
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| Received complaints that the above link is dead. If you go back to MensHealth.com and search with quotes: "get lucky", it should be the third result: "Want to hit the jackpot like the Powerball winners? This science shows you how". | |||||
| - Author's History - 15 June, 2007 | |||||
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jerryatrics says |
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| The premise here is that we all have about the same amount of "luck" but some people recognize it when they see it and some do not. Nice article. Thanks, Zen. http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel;=guy.wisdom&category;=howto.guides&conitem;=dba0b6c832597010VgnVCM100000cfe793cd____&page;=2 |
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| - Author's History - 18 June, 2007 | |||||
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