Can people really be truly rational?

[drelda]

'Irrational' behavior gives us progress.
"Why can't we......" drives many advances in life, even when the thought is not 'rational', but produces a valuable result.

"Why can't we...." can be perfectly rational. Its ok to explore options and still be rational.

An irrational decision is one where you say "I know this makes no sense - and I'd be better off going a different way - but I'm doing it anyway". Usually irrational decisions aren't as explicit as that - and are made without much conscious thought at all.

- Drelda

 

[HansMustermann]

Is it possible to separate emotions from logic?

I'm pretty sure that whether you go formal, informal, bayesian or even simple induction, there is nothing in there that goes 'X => Y only if you really really want it to.'

 

[HansMustermann]

'Irrational' behavior gives us progress.
"Why can't we......" drives many advances in life, even when the thought is not 'rational', but produces a valuable result.

I would like to point out though that progress is usually incremental, and the next step may not be obvious to the vast majority of people, but there usually is SOME logic in trying in that direction. Which is also IMHO why a bunch of things were discovered by more than one person. That's the way you could go from the existing set of stuff that worked.

Even in cases where someone was working on X but discovered Y instead by accident, usually there was at least a reason why X looked like a viable thing to work on.

There is actually very little progress that was made by people acting irrationally. There IS stuff like Columbus discovering a new continent because he thought irrationally that the Earth is much smaller, and that he could reach India with the limited range of his ships. But it tends to be stuff like that: running into some landmark or thing, and it's rare even there. When it comes to science or technology, someone who is irrational, then would have problems making rational use of the data they have.

Most of the supposed examples of how everyone thought X wouldn't be possible -- e.g., that the air would get sucked out of trains above a few miles per hour, or that you can't drive a ship with steam power -- are actually BS motivational stories. Either they're made up, or an early case of PR, or most often taking an unqualified twit's quote as somehow being 'what scientists thought.'

For example, actually most physicists in the 19'th century could calculate Bernoulli's principle for a train speed, since it had been published in 1838, more than a century before the supposed scientist opinion on train speeds. It was mainstream stuff.

For example, when Fulton was laughed off by Napoleon, actually there was nothing irrational in what Fulton was doing, it was Napoleon being an idiot. Actually Fulton hadn't even discovered steam power or anything. The steam engine existed and was proven to work at least since 1775 prototypes. And in turn it was an improvement on the 1712 Newcomen engine. One of the first working trials of a steam powered boat was by John Fitch in 1787. And before there were Rumsey's trials in 1786. And then Symington built his own steamboat in 1788. In France, where the supposed dumbassery happened, actually they had had a trial of a primitive paddle steamer in 1783. By 1800 or so when the supposed dumbassery happened, it was 20 years too late to think that a ship CAN'T be driven by steam power.

Not to minimize Fulton's skill and brain power. He DID make his own technological improvements and he did make the first commercially viable steamship. But using it as an example of pursuing the dream of steam power when everyone else says it's not possible, is waaaaay off the mark.

Etc.

I could give more examples, but actually in any I can think of, there were quite good reasons to research in that direction.

 

[Innocuous]

I think the example is flawed. The scenarios are not the same since the second scenario *causes* deaths, but the first scenario simply fails to prevent death. That is a big difference even if the end result is the same, and a person could have rational reasons for choosing differently between the scenarios.

I don't disagree with the underlying idea. Minor cosmetic changes to the wording in surveys or polls can dramatically affect the responses.

 

[Innocuous]

My point is that people extrapolate from language used and assume all kinds of things that aren't stated - depending on the exact language. I don't think making these assumptions are irrational - its necessary to do that. That's an interesting effect in its own right - but I'd be careful about characterizing it as how people make mistakes or are irrational.

This is an excellent point. There is always incomplete information, especially in hypotheticals. A person will make lots of assumptions that are not necessarily irrational, even if they are not true. For example, if a discount is phrased as a penalty, a person might assume the penalty will affect their payment record with the organization and impact them negatively later. Or they might pride themselves in never being late (which is not irrational and is arguably a good general principle to live by) and apply that ethic in a case where it really makes no difference.

I think it is a leap to call some of these behaviors irrational.

 

[Rasmus]

The original paper says "Assume that the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows" which should clarify, though It's still possible that some misunderstood.

It doesn't.

If I suffer from Ebola, a bullet to the head will still "cause my death".

Also, a "fatal disease" doesn't (neccesarily) have 100% mortality rate, untreated or not.

The framing effect has been shown in many other experiments as well. In a study called "Are experimental economists prone to framing effects? A natural field experiment" by Henry Orzen et al. it was discovered that 67% of PhD students would register early when presented with a discount for doing so, but 93% would register early if it was presented as a penalty fee for late registration.

Was there just one cut-off date? (i.e. is there a time-frame of "normal" registration, or do I only have a chance between "early", and "late"?)

It seems to be important here, how the prices were communicated.

Do I assume I am paying $100, and then later find out that it will be more expensive unless I register early? I might not *have* $120, so I am more motivated to be early.

 

[blutoski]

Is it possible to separate emotions from logic?

It's possible, but not a complete solution.

One of the assumptions in this thread was that irrational thinking is usually emotional thinking.

This was actually disproven decades ago.

We now know that probably the majority of irrational thinking is probably incomplete or informal analysis.

A good nonfiction resource for this is Kahneman's book Thinking, Fast and Slow^WP.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, not all irrational thinking is emotional, maybe even not the majority, but for example the main driving force behind cognitive dissonance is wanting something to be true for pretty much emotional reasons.

Someone can take a decision or do a reasoning that is based on incomplete data, or on flawed induction, or just not having the time to think it through, and it can turn out to be wrong. But if they have no personal stake in it, chances are they'll correct it when it's pointed out to them. E.g., if someone were to blabber about buying from shop X 'cause they just posted a 10 Euro reduction on a TV, and someone else points out that the gasoline to drive there costs at least 20, chances are they'll just go, "really? I hadn't thought of that." and adjust their decision accordingly.

It's pretty much when some emotional need gets in the way that someone insists on the same irrational thing even after they were proven wrong. Be it clinging to the idea that they're hip, or that they have a certain set of morals they just acted against, or some need to belong somewhere, or just needing to be right because they're too smart to be wrong. That's all emotional needs.

So I guess a case could be made that while it's not the main cause of irrational thought, it is worse.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Also, a "fatal disease" doesn't (neccesarily) have 100% mortality rate, untreated or not.

And even if the disease was 100% fatal, killing the patients might still be immoral.

As worded in the OP, the two scenarios are definitely not equivalent.

"You can employ treatment A which is guaranteed to save 200 lives, or you can use treatment B which has a 33% chance of saving everyone, 66% chance of saving no one."

Here there is no indication that the treatment will cause any harm, only that it might not save everybody from a disease that would kill them anyway. I would choose option A because it guarantees 200 lives saved, and doesn't preclude the possibility that some of the others might also be saved.

"600 people carry a deadly disease. You can employ treatment A which will cause 400 deaths, or you can use treatment B which has a 33% chance of causing no deaths, 66% chance of everyone dying. Which do you choose?"

In this scenario treatment A is guaranteed to kill 400 people (who would eventually die anyway, but what right have you to hasten their deaths?) and doesn't necessarily prevent any deaths, vs treatment B having odds ranging from a 33% chance of saving everybody to possibly having no effect (they die anyway, despite your best efforts to save them).

In scenario 2 only a monster would chose treatment A, but of course the only rational choice is to reject both scenarios, because the World is grossly overpopulated so the less people we save the better!

Can people really be truly rational?

Yes, but rationality is not always the best choice. We don't have emotions for nothing...

 

[HansMustermann]

Aside for the wording being indeed crucially different between the two scenarios (e.g., yes, the second version of A guarantees 400 deaths, but there is no indication that any of the other 200 will be cured), I think the problem with such scenarios are assuming humans to operate completely context-free. The assumption seems to be that somehow suddenly they forgot all about the real world while taking that test.

E.g., that in the real life you don't have the omniscience to know that treatments A or B are all that'll ever be available. In the real life there is no telling if someone with any terminal disease will 100% die (people had spontaneous remissions even from cancer), nor that there won't be a different cure next month. Not killing someone now is a very rational decision in the real world, because there may be a cure next month for them.

Also there is a rational reason why we balk at choices like imposing treatments that are guaranteed to kill people. IRL that should be the patient's choice. And there's a rational reason for that too. Every time we gave someone arbitrary power over who lives and who dies, it got abused.

 

[eight bits]

Hans and I are way too close to agreement for comfort .

It is unclear what is the information sought in the topic title. Performance failures will always be with us. Computation is not a free good, so the use of heuristics which economize on computation cannot be dismissed as irrational out of hand. All heuristics will have episodes of poor application, that's what makes them "heuristic." To show they are are irrational is not to get the right answer on a specific occasion when they don't, but to show that you could replace the heuristic - with what? - and achieve better overall performance at no increase in cost.

Good luck with that.

It can also be unclear what the "right answer" is. Other posters have pointed out some difficulties in the phrasing of the epidemic problem.Beyonfd that, if you've never worked in a bureaucracy (which, coincidentally, public health decision makers sometimes do), then you'd be amazed the difference "mere words" make. Obamacare's "personal mandate penalty" reportedly had five justices against it as an abuse of Commerce Clause powers, but sailed through as a tax measure - which the act says it isn't. Welcome to government. Back to our public health decision maker who sees there are going to be dead bodies, and has a preference how the press spins it. Yup.

Take the "good discount/bad penalty" situations.

There are states where it is illegal for a landlord to charge a penalty for late rent, but legal to give a discount for paying early.

In the United States, it is settled and fundamental law that any variation in contract terms to which all principals agree is permissible. I volunteer to pay early, the landlord agrees to forgive some of the rent. Done. It would be absurd if we could not agree in writing to do what we can do without any writing, or in contradiction of what is written. A penalty, however, does not arise from our mutual agreement. If the landlord wants one, then it must be in the lease - and the state certainly may announce that it will not enforce any contract terms which it pleases not to.

In other words, the analysis fails to consider that there are actually three parties to the transaction, landlord, renter and a state which either party may ask to enforce the lease contract. That the distinction is without a difference to two of the three does not imply there is no difference to the third, and it is that third party whose actions are being critiqued.

67% of PhD students would register early when presented with a discount for doing so, but 93% would register early if it was presented as a penalty fee for late registration.

Not surprising if about 1/4 had financial aid that pays or defrays their out-of-pocket expenses minus penalties. The beneficiary doesn't get the benefit of the discount but does get the sting of the penalty. Sounds like a difference, and one that might arise in practice.

At the risk of proposing a heuristic, if I think somebody is behaving irrrationally, then I'd ask them about it. I might get a rationalization instead of a reason, but I also might discover that I have made an assumption that fails to reflect the actual facts of the case. Overlooking that possibility may be a performance failure, although it does economize on computation.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'd also add that real world heuristics also say that penalties are sometimes stuff that goes on your record or in some way might make a difference later. E.g., getting penalized by your bank for not paying on time might also go on your credit rating.

Seems to me like erring on the side of caution when lacking the information of exactly what else it entails, is just playing it safe.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'd also like to add another thing which may not be immediately obvious about phrasings and real life based heuristics. While most people won't instinctively think in terms of actual statistics and distributions (though you'd be surprised how many at least heard of them in school), I think most people know on some instinctive level that everything in life has some random component. They might call it luck or whatever, but essentially nothing is guaranteed.

When someone calls something guaranteed, it usually just means they're hedging their bets enough and going far enough off one tail end of the gauss curve (or any other distribution) so it it's improbable enough to be wrong about that guarantee. Also, there might be legal or PR nightmares if you guarantee something and you don't have a safety margin to ensure it. E.g., if you guarantee your hamburger patties to be good for 7 days in the freezer, and people get wheeled to the hospital with food poisoning on the 6'th, it won't really help.

So in the real life guaranteed X out of Y, pretty much means (almost) guaranteed to get at least that many.

Why does it matter? Because the test in the OP proposes 3 choices, grouped into two tests that group A and C or B and C.

A) a cure is guaranteed to cure 200 out of 600,

B) a cure is guaranteed to kill 400 out of 600,

C) there's a cure with a 33% chance to work, so basically an average 200 out of 600 saved

In terms of real world expectations, that "guaranteed" actually reads like this:

A) one cure is guaranteed to cure AT LEAST 200, but probably more

B) one cure is guaranteed to kill AT LEAST 400, but probably more

C) one cure on the average will kill 400 and again on the average cure 200

And if your instincts are to understand guarantees that way, there is a very rational reason to choose A over C, but choose C over B.

 

[Modified]

In the United States, it is settled and fundamental law that any variation in contract terms to which all principals agree is permissible. I volunteer to pay early, the landlord agrees to forgive some of the rent. Done. It would be absurd if we could not agree in writing to do what we can do without any writing, or in contradiction of what is written. A penalty, however, does not arise from our mutual agreement. If the landlord wants one, then it must be in the lease - and the state certainly may announce that it will not enforce any contract terms which it pleases not to.

I'm still not seeing the difference. If two people can agree to a discount for early payment that is not in a contract, why can't they agree to an added fee for late payment that is not in the contract? Either way, the terms of the contract have not been fulfilled.

 

[eight bits]

Modified

I'm still not seeing the difference. If two people can agree to a discount for early payment that is not in a contract, why can't they agree to an added fee for late payment that is not in the contract? Either way, the terms of the contract have not been fulfilled.

So the two principals can. But suppose I have a lease, and I am a little short this month, and I won't be able to pay the March rent until this Friday, the 7th, when I get paid.

OK, says the landlord, "but you owe me $50 additional." I protest. He reminds me of paragraph 84 of our lease. I remind him of the motto of American independence, "So sue me."

And now, unless one of us backs down, the state is involved. And perhaps the state would rather not be involved. So, it simply voids paragraph 84 - maybe even assesses a penalty of its own on the landlord for trying to foist paragraph 84 on renters.

On the other hand, if I had paid my rent last week, and the landlord gave me a $20 rebate, the state is not involved. He could do that whether it was in the lease contract or not. However, he couldn't demand $50 more than the rent this month unless it was in the contract, and he won't collect unless I pay it, which I might resist more than I'd resist accepting his $20.

Put another way, then, the state may have no problem if landlords want to include programs to encourage prompt rent payments in their leases, but it may require them to structure the programs in ways that predictably place few burdens on the courts in enforcing those terms.

 

[HansMustermann]

Hans and I are way too close to agreement for comfort .

Yeah, that has to be one of the signs of the apocalypse, just like the newest Garfield movie

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm still not seeing the difference. If two people can agree to a discount for early payment that is not in a contract, why can't they agree to an added fee for late payment that is not in the contract? Either way, the terms of the contract have not been fulfilled.

Essentially because laws tend to have to be vetted by majority vote, and because one variant has more people agreeing that it's abusable than the other. Most of contract and customer protection laws are dealing with the more customary situation that the two sides are to some extent adversarial, so to speak, and that basically nobody wants to have to read and debate a 20 page set of clauses printed in 4 point Arial, nor to have to pay a lawyer to decypher it. The more immediate and actual threat is that the side with more power and the one who drafted the contract in the first place, will try to shaft you with some clause, than that they're willing to give you a 200% discount if you pay early. Not to mention that most people will have more of a problem with the former than the latter.

The more realistic historical danger is that the side with more bargaining power is someone who is willing to bend you over a table and make you squeal like a like a <insert derogatory term for a female dog>, going all the way to setting the house on fire with you inside, and no advance warning, to make you move if they think the terrain is more valuable for something else -- as actually historically happened in 18'th century Britain -- not that they're willing to offer you an irrationally high discount.

So essentially it's like the legislative branch being more concerned with car accidents than with hypothetical deaths by meteor strike.

There is nothing irrational in that. They're just dealing with the dangers that are an actual concern, rather than with the stuff that morons trying to feel superior impute to others as a hypothetical but somehow equal danger. Perfectly rational, in fact.

See, game theory. You deal with the damage and probabilities of actually probable stuff, not with stuff like someone getting 5 aces in a one-deck poker game. No matter how much some moron tries to feel superior by saying you're irrational for not treating a 5 ace situation as equal.