Reddit reviews Irrationality

>In '87 we knew stormy weather was on the way, she would have known where her house was (presumably an exposed position), she may have even have known her roof wasn't in good condition. The subconscious is quite capable of putting all that together and once that happens it can end up in a dream.

I thought we were told that there was going to be no storm. Rather famously.

>She trusts her gut-instinct, which means she trusts the reasoning of her subconscious which can include dreams.

Interesting. I wonder what the ratio is between her bullshit dreams and the actual practical premonitions?

On that note, how far early did she dream? Was it that night or a week earlier? Why did she not take any action? Was she sure of it?

Has she entertained that her feeling of a dream may be deja vu? Does dreaming of a possible future have any benefits?

What is the difference of dreaming her roof might come off as it is weakened, knowing that there are storms coming, and someone worrying that their roof is not secure and knowing there are storms coming?

It seems the only real difference is the difference between conscious ability to think clearly, and some half assed ability to think about something abstract when you're asleep.

>Normally people balance subconscious reasoning against concious reasoning, and look for a concordance. If she's good at one and bad at the other, trusting her "gut" may even be the rational thing to do, but only if she doesn't have a rational explanation for it. From all the evidence in that blog post, that does seem to be the case.

Subconscious reasoning? It's not reasoning if it's subconscious. It's a different process entirely.

>She's only a local councillor, the decisions she's making are relatively simple. For a councillor I'd rather have an honest person who goes with their gut than a corrupt statistician.

Yeah. It's a funny thing going with your gut. Look at the wiki list of logical fallacies, that's thinking with your gut and it leads to wrongness. I read an interesting book on irrationality

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irrationality-Stuart-Sutherland/dp/1905177070

It's funny how people's instincts can be so utterly wrong so often.

Nah, I don't want a councillor who's got tells her that' where there's smoke their's fire' or that someone looked dodgy because their eyes were too close together or that 'It's all these croatians innit?'

Not saying that's what she thinks.
But my gut tells me she's an ignorant fucking loon and my gut is never wrong about stuff like that.

That's actually quite a fascinating topic - there's lots of good psychological research into it.

For example, take a group of people, and divide them in half (set A and set B).

To set A, pose the following question:

"You are considering buying a lottery ticket. The tickets are $1, the payout is $20. There are 10 tickets in total, of which 9 have been bought. Would you buy the ticket"

To set B, pose the following question:

"You are considering buying a lottery ticket. The tickets are $1, the payout is $20. There are 10 tickets in total, of which 9 have been bought by Tony, the person who came before you . Would you buy the ticket"

Most people in set A will purchase a ticket. Very few from set B will.

This is just one example, of which there are staggeringly many displaying human irrationality.

Very good introductions to this area can be found in irrationality by Stuart Sutherland, predictably irrational by Dan Ariely and many others.

It's a worthy read, but kind of dull. If you're looking to improve yourself, I would recommend Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland. Worthy and surprising.

For more on this kind of thing I'd recommend Irrationality by Stuart Sutherland. It has some great examples of similar occurances. For example on numerous occasions a completed application form with an attached photo was placed in an envelope and left on a bench in a town centre. If the applicant was smiling in their photo a stranger who found the envelope would be more likely to post it.

That's a great book, but if you want the mother-lode of individual and collective forms of irrational behaviour, I would recommend this book as well:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irrationality-Stuart-Sutherland/dp/1905177070