Humans: Not Carved from Marble

lukeprog

Michael Vassar has been known to say that humans are not 'corrupted' by heuristics and biases and other elements of modern psychology. Humans just are psychology.

Robert Kurzban puts this rather eloquently in his new book:

Michelangelo is famously quoted as saying, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." Some economists are, in some sense, like this. They start with theories in which agents - people - have some idealized, rational mind minus the stuff that economists carve away - thus we see terms like 'biases', 'heuristics', and 'irrationality'. They document departures from (supposed) perfection - rationality - much as a sculptor chips away marble, hoping that when they are done, human nature is left, like Michelangelo's angel.

I see no reason at all to proceed this way, as though human psychology is perfection minus shortcomings. My view, the modular view is more like clay than marble. Like sculptors who add bits of clay, one after another, until the product is done, natural selection added - and changed - different bits, giving rise to the final product. We'll get done with psychology not by chiseling away at human shortcomings, but by building up a catalog of human capacities working together - or in opposition - in various contexts.

Michael Vassar has been known to say that humans are not 'corrupted' by heuristics and biases and other elements of modern psychology. Humans just are psychology.

Robert Kurzban puts this rather eloquently in his new book:

Michelangelo is famously quoted as saying, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." Some economists are, in some sense, like this. They start with theories in which agents - people - have some idealized, rational mind minus the stuff that economists carve away - thus we see terms like 'biases', 'heuristics', and 'irrationality'. They document departures from (supposed) perfection - rationality - much as a sculptor chips away marble, hoping that when they are done, human nature is left, like Michelangelo's angel.

I see no reason at all to proceed this way, as though human psychology is perfection minus shortcomings. My view, the modular view is more like clay than marble. Like sculptors who add bits of clay, one after another, until the product is done, natural selection added - and changed - different bits, giving rise to the final product. We'll get done with psychology not by chiseling away at human shortcomings, but by building up a catalog of human capacities working together - or in opposition - in various contexts.

Request for downvote explanation?

(My semi-charitable guess: It isn't clear why you'd want to familiarize yourself with these models in the first place, let alone spend effort filling in all the "e.g."s and "i.e."s that I left out. If that guess is accurate: Sorry ya'll. I'm up against constraints.)

I didn't downvote, but I literally had no idea of what you were talking about in the first paragraph. First sentence of first paragraph: "...use their logos-granted power..." - what the heck is logos? And so on. The fact that there was absolutely no context and nothing that seemed to connect it to the original post didn't help.

It seemed like I might be able to make sense of it if I read the whole comment, or maybe even just the paragraph, carefully enough. But that felt like it'd take a lot of mental energy and I'd probably still just remain conf... (read more)

0Armok_GoB15y

I found it interesting and upvoted it. I'd suspect the reason it was downvoted was people interpreting it in a much more literal way, and as more representative of your beliefs, than intended, rather than a source of metaphors and conectps to make you think by yourself.

26JenniferRM15y

I didn't down vote but I think its useful to quote from here: [...] You are violating this guideline so severely that it makes me think about the last time we met and wonder about your mental health. Most people don't violate norms of intelligibility nearly as much as you do in the down voted comment. I had to google to recognize the Heraclitus, and finding out that it was Heraclitus honestly wasn't very comforting. If I question the normal background assumption that you're not simply philosophically confused and tone deaf then your writing kind of looks like a symptom of a serious problem. I've known a number of people who sort of wobbled on that line and were very good people before, during, and after, and your text kind of reminds me of their speech. If you are seriously questioning your own basic mental health, please seek assistance from a wise and competent family member or close friend. If you're uncertain whether or not you're crazy, and don't want to disrupt your reputation with friends and family if it turns out you're just confused and rude, you might try tests like these. If you are very certain that you're not having a serious mental problem then please stop disrespecting the community and yourself with communication acts full a confused pastiche of theologically inspired language. ETA: Fiction using similar themes! I just noticed this and upvoted it. Good solution to the problem :-)