amit varma blog::Often when i argue with friends, or on the internet, i am dismayed by how intransigent some people are amit varma blog

amit varma blog::Often when i argue with friends, or on the internet, i am dismayed by how intransigent some people are.
No matter how many facts i throw before them, or how solid my reasoning is, i simply cannot convince them of my point of view.
No doubt they feel the same about me.
This is not a phenomenon peculiar to me: we live in deeply polarised times, and around half the world believes that the other half ignores reason altogether.
Well, it is my belief that we overestimate reason to begin with.
An excellent illustration of how our mind does this comes from neuroscience.
In the 1960s, neuroscientists michael gazzaniga and roger sperry carried out a series of experiments on patients with splitbrain epilepsy.
A common treatment for such patients used to be to sever the corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.
This effectively splits the brain into two: rational thought is carried out by the left hemisphere, but the two halves of the brain stop being aware of the happenings the other half.
The patient would get up and start walking.
The world is full of complicated phenomena, and the most intelligent among us would not be able to make sense of it all if we tried to place each disparate event in its proper perspective.
We would be perpetually bewildered.
To deal with this, our brains evolved to seek patterns in everything.
Thus, a cricketer who makes a century when he happens to have a red handkerchief in his pocket may carry that handkerchief with him for the rest of his career.
Indeed, this explains religion.
Similarly, in the modern world, we have all kinds of belief systems that help make sense of the world around us, and provide us with cognitive shortcuts to think about the world.
When these belief systems are attacked, it is natural for us to not want to have to rethink them.
As an economist would say, that would be inefficient, wasting too much time and energy.
Thus, various kinds of defence mechanisms originate for this purpose, such as the confirmation bias, which is a tendency to consider only evidence that fits our existing beliefs.
A believer in astrology would do this, for example, by considering all correct predictions by an astrologer to be proof of its validity, while ignoring the ones that turn out false.
And indeed, this is why most arguments, especially about politics and economics, are so frustrating.
If both sides have firm beliefs, they stand little chance of convincing the other person, for most reasoned argument in such cases is rationalisation couched as reason.
The next time you get into one of those arguments, and witness one of them, you will actually be able to observe this happening.
The delight of it all is that the people involved will not be aware of this process, and will honestly believe themselves to be openminded individuals who are, well, thinking it through.
But that is mostly selfdeception.