You can't not think in terms of stories, that is simply how our minds work. All you can do is to try to keep that (in the form of "intuition") from preventing the adequate weighing of statistics, probabilities, and explicit evidence that can't easily be fit into narratives.
Added: Even when thinking with images or kinesthetically, a person can only use the images or feelings as isolated "facts" or as part of a consistent sequence which has all the same problems as verbal stories.
I wonder how many people here besides me lost their appetite for consuming monomyth-structured stories after their naturalistic awakening?
After my naturalistic awakening, I went on a journey, overcame an almost insuperable obstacle and then returned, having achieved a worthy reward.
Seriously, though - what makes you think you've lost your appetite for consuming monomyth-structured stories?
Some things come to mind: Nassim Taleb in his books criticizes this habit of story telling all the time. From the field of biases: scenario thinking(which is a way of mental storytelling). A reason for the planning fallacy is because a plan is essentially a good story we tell ourselves and others but we neglect all the details that mess it up.
As a counterpoint, see Dennett's idea of "The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity" - narrative as an integral part of consciousness.
Consider the normative models against which we evaluate "biased" vs "unbiased" decisions, for instance expected utility. To even begin to apply such a model you'll need to have identified some set of decisions among which you are to choose - should I or shouldn't I eat this ice cream, drink this whiskey, turn down this job, whatever - and relevant consequences which vary in their utility: fit vs...
It's the people who realize they don't know anything at all that end up doing pretty well.
Sounds like a story to me...
I know, tis pretty old, but some remark: How about the upsides of stories. I mean... a) we apparently are in a way programmed to find/make up stories, because they help us make sense of the world. Isn't it good, to break complicated stuff down into simpler stories, then tell those stories and make the audience want to hear more (or find out more themselves)? b) they stick. If I want to remember something I make it into a story or try to find it's internal story (or I stupidly repeat it over and over again if I really don't get it).
Don't get me wrong - I a...
I got as far as "some things actually are good versus evil, we all know this, right?" at 4:00, and lost all respect for the man. I didn't watch the rest.
Other than how we treat them, what's the difference between a story and a theory or hypothesis?
Edit: I'm guessing from the downvote that I may've been misunderstood. The above question is not rhetorical; it's intended to spark conversation.
As a counterpoint, see Dennett's idea of "The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity" - narrative as an integral part of consciousness.
Consider the normative models against which we evaluate "biased" vs "unbiased" decisions, for instance expected utility. To even begin to apply such a model you'll need to have identified some set of decisions among which you are to choose - should I or shouldn't I eat this ice cream, drink this whiskey, turn down this job, whatever - and relevant consequences which vary in their utility: fit vs. fat, temporary mellow mood vs risk of alcoholism, shape of future revenue stream...
This selection of a set of competing decisions and their consequences isn't neutral, unchanging, objective. It is very much determined by the deciding person's "story to date" - it is that story which frames the question of what consequences matter.
There is a lot of ambiguity in such stories; in Stumbling on Happiness Daniel Gilbert argues that this ambiguity is a key component of psychological resilience. A self's success in life is partially determined by their ability to redefine utility on the fly, in answer to the difficulties they encounter. If they didn't do that, I suspect they wouldn't survive long as a self.
A similar frame turns up in the game of Go, which is probably a "cleaner" model of decision making to appeal to than everyday life. In principle, every configuration of a Go board has a single "best next move". The story of previous plays should not matter to determine future plays! And that's probably how it would be if Go was played by planet-sized computers who could work out all possible games arising from that situation, and just play the best move every move.
In practice things work out differently, as the game is played by minds who make more effective use of limited resources than that. Pro players place a lot of importance on things such as "consistency with your previous strategy". Conversely, they also say things like "you have to be flexible", which goes to show that ambiguity also plays a role in high-level Go strategy. Good play often depends on reinterpreting the meaning of a previously placed stone. Sacrifice tactics are a common example, and so is the more subtle concept of "aji".
I suspect that something like the following is true: to "steer the future" you have to be able to make plans, and to make plans is much the same as to tell stories - dangerous as they can be.
This isn't really a counterpoint. Cowen realizes that thinking in terms of stories is human and that we can't really get away from it completely without negative consequences (if at all). The point is that we are too apt to force complex, messy life into the simple stories that we tell ourselves. Like "life is a journey" or "good vs. evil" etc. Hence my summary that we should be more suspicious of them on the margin.
Tyler Cowen argues in a TED talk (~15 min) that stories pervade our mental lives. He thinks they are a major source of cognitive biases and, on the margin, we should be more suspicious of them - especially simple stories. Here's an interesting quote about the meta-level: