If I ask, “How high can a hippopotamus fly?” Instantly your mind tells you that question makes no sense, right? We instantly know that the question is wrong, without even needing to think about it. Because the hippo would never make it past the TSA security screening.
Most people show how innately illogical we are. How many people buy lottery tickets, eagerly buying more as the jackpot goes unclaimed and increases? Justifying they say, “I have as good a chance as anyone.” Yet, logically they know they have a better chance of being struck twice by lightning.
Biases can easily lead us astray. That is because our mind doesn’t rigorously test the logic of every new piece of information that comes in. Instead it has to take a mental shortcut by patterning. Therefore, our minds operate analogically, not logically.
Recall my previous question about flying hippos. How do we know they cannot fly? Our intuitive thinking routinely and unconsciously makes judgements on whether something is illogical. Most likely the new information in the question was compared against existing information in your memory about hippos. Not only did the new information not match, it clashed abruptly. Immediately your mind recognized there was no match, meaning the question made no sense. There was no reasoning or formal logic at play.
If your mind actually handled this logically, you could have reasoned this sequence:
A hippopotamus is an animal
Generally only animals that have wings can fly
Hippos do not have wings
Therefore, a hippopotamus cannot fly
Instead we generally apply plausible reasoning (or natural reasoning). We leap to conclusions that are probably correct based upon the similarities of past events experienced. It is our analogical thinking process of pattern recognition. We accept our conclusions as likely correct and long as the information appears credible. Critical Thinking comes in when we are verifying or testing those conclusions because likely or probably is not good enough.
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I did a previous post on Pattern Recognition a few days ago. How biases affect our mind's judgments and pattern recognition are almost the same when considering stereotyping due to our prior experiences. Discussing how your mind wants to seek patterns where maybe none actually exist is not the necessarily the same as biases influencing judgement in certain contexts. However, you can use Pattern Recognition instead of bias if you want to avoid any negative connotations of confusing bias with prejudice or bigotry.
The issue about bats and flying squirrels are not important to the logical argument, so I just took it out. Thanks.
"Pattern recognition" is a new terminology for me. Is it the same as a bias all the time. I use the term "assumptions". Is that just another term for biases. It's another instance where I think along the principles of the scientific method, define your problem, controlling assumptions and variables, then testing for results,
Are you sure that bats don't have wings? The statement does not resonate with my patterning. Also, flying squirrels don't actually fly, they just glide. Well, except for Rocky.