I have recently been corresponding with a friend who studies psychology regarding human cognition and the best underlying models for understanding it. His argument, summarized very briefly, is given by this quote:
Lastly, there has been a huge amount of research over the last two decades that shows human reasoning is 1) entirely constituted by emotion, and that it is 2) mostly unconscious and therefore out of our control. A lot of this research has seriously compromised the Bayesian point of view. I am referring to work done by Antonio Damasio, who demonstrated the essential role emotion plays in decision making (Descartes' Error), Timothy Wilson, who demonstrated the vital role of the unconscious (Strangers to Ourselves), and Jonathan Haidt, who demonstrated how moral reasoning is dictated by intuition and emotion (The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail). I could go on and on here. I assume that you are familiar with this stuff. I'd just like to know how you who respond to this work from the point of view of your studies (in particular, those two points). I don't mean to get in a tit for tat debate here, just want the other side of the story.
I am having trouble synthesizing a response that captures the Bayesian point of view (and is sufficiently backed up by sources so that it will be useful for my friend rather than just gainsaying of the argument) because I am mostly a decision theory / probability person. Are these works of psychology and neuroscience really illustrating that human emotion governs decision making? What are some good neuroscience papers to read that deal with this, and how do Bayesians respond? It may be that everything he mentions above is a correct assessment (I don't know and don't have enough time to read the books right now), but that it is irrelevant if you want to make good decisions rather than just accept the types of decisions we already make.
I predict that the lesson behind this exchange will turn out to be "Don't argue with people who think consciousness is fundamental".
Yes, I already try to adhere to that. The reason I came to LW to ask around was because I just wanted to make a succinct reply containing some relevant reading materials and a short summary of the error going on. Emotions do play a significant role in human cognition, and we are not by a long stretch good Bayesian reasoners. But there's no special reason why we have to treat emotions and our current modes of cognition as if they are innately good or fundamentally not understandable. Some evidence supports this as mentioned in many of the comments above. I'... (read more)