Re:The seeming irrationality of a well-tuned emotional system
by asgraham on Tuesday July 10, 2018 @09:12AM
(#17497720)
Similarly, quantification is separate from being rational.
In your simple example "sum these assigned numbers and pick the highest option," how did you assign those numbers? In most real life scenarios, qualities are difficult to quantify. If you start from questionable quantifications, as the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out."
Often the rational thing to do is to acknowledge the nigh-impossibility of quantification (let alone combining those quantifications; what if the qualities interact in nonlinear ways?).
Typical way to attempt rationality is to follow a well defined algorithm to make a decision, with well defined inputs. Even if it is a simple as "sum these assigned numbers and pick highest option" it is more rational than the alternative.
You can quantify and tune your "gut" or estimation skills the same way as with any other. Remember and learn from both successes and mistakes, exercise the skill.
Most people learn only from representative instances which is actually irrational and a known human logic hole - representativeness heuristic. This means their gut feeling is relatively mistuned this making for bad decisions.
Asking just one simple question - how meaningful was it - is very effective to avoid the pitfall...
Emotions have more context than one would wish and not all of it obvious. This is what makes using this as decision input hard.