Gut Feelings

11 December 2014

This week’s show is about gut feelings—and the art of decision-making.

Sometimes we make decisions that we think long and hard about, but often we make decisions simply because it feels right. Call it a hunch, an intuition, or an instinct—what they all have in common is that we don’t know why we feel the way we do, yet the feeling can be so compelling, it moves us to act. The question is, when should we listen to our gut feelings and make decisions based on something we can’t explain? And when should we stop to think?

A first approach to this question might be to consider whether gut feelings are in some sense rational, even if we can’t offer explicit reasons for them. Perhaps for some gut instincts, we are responding unconsciously to particular cues in our environment. For example, sometimes people can sense when they are in danger without knowing exactly why they believe this. They just feel an unusual sense of foreboding. There may be good reasons for this feeling—but those reasons are hidden from consciousness.

From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that we would have a mechanism whereby we unconsciously perceive and respond to stimuli in our enironment. Conscious deliberation is a slow and sometimes cumbersome process, and we need to be able act quickly in a lot of situations, especially when we are in danger. So, it seems safe to say that at leastsomegut feelings are reliable and we ought to listen to those.

Of course, it’s also possible to feel a sense of foreboding because of general anxiety, stress, or paranoia. Just because wefeelwe are in danger, it doesn’t automatically follow that weare. But how do we tell the difference? Is there some way to distinguish reliable intuitions from other feelings we might have? The degree of certainty we feel doesn’t seem to be good indicator. Just think of all the gamblers who lose everything because they are absolutely certain they will win based on nothing but a feeling.

当我们关注某一特定领域专家的直觉时,情况就有点不同了。以鸡的性别鉴定为例!鸡性别鉴定师的工作是将新生的雄鸡和雌鸡区分开来。没有必要的训练,区分雄性和雌性是一件非常困难的事情。没有一个人有另一个人缺乏的明显特征。但专业的鸡性别鉴定师能够一眼就分辨出雄性和雌性。What’s really interesting about chicken sexers is that they can’t explainhowthey know the difference—they simply know. They have developed a gut feeling for it.

You might wonder how chicken sexers would ever be able to train someone else to do the job if they themselves can’t explain how they know the difference. Curiously, if you want to learn how to do this, you just have to watch a professional at work until you too develop the instinct. With a little bit of time and effort, you can start to see the difference, though you probably won’t be able to say what that difference is either. You’ll just know by instinct.

鸡性别鉴定师的案例表明了两件事:(1)经过必要训练的专家的直觉比普通的直觉更可靠,(2)有可能以一种绕过你头脑中的理性部分的方式训练你的直觉。这真的很吸引人,但不幸的是,它不能帮助我们解决一个更大的问题,即普通的直觉是否值得信任。

有些人对直觉非常怀疑,认为当涉及到重要的生活决定时,我们应该仔细评估所有的利弊,然后做出理性的、深思熟虑的选择。Why would you trust your fate to some mysterious and potentially unreliablefeeling? Of course, an obvious exception to this is the decision to get married. Most people don’t carefully weigh the reasons for or against getting married, or if they do, they don’t decide based on that. Even if they take some time to figure out what the right thing to do is, it’s not tocalculatethe mathematical odds of future happiness—it’s to tune into whatfeelsright.

让我们把这个例子放在一边,因为爱显然是心灵的问题,而不是头脑的问题。那么不那么情绪化的决定呢,比如你应该把钱投资在哪里?你是应该相信自己的直觉来做出投资选择,还是应该先做研究,做一些计算,然后再做决定?

On the surface, it may seem like this is a clear-cut case where we ought to make various careful calculations before investing. But what if it turned out that people who trusted their gut instincts made better investment choices than those who attempted to make a rational, well-informed choice? Some surprising research on gut instincts suggests that this is often the case. The reason is that we can become overwhelmed with too much information and need some fast and simple way to cut through all the noise. When there are many variables to consider, thinking through them all becomes a monumental task, so we need some other way to pick out the best strategy. And that’s where the gut comes in.

我们本周的嘉宾是柏林马克斯·普朗克人类发展研究所的心理学家盖德·吉仁泽(Gerd Gigerenzer),他是研究直觉的权威专家。A lot of his work focuses onheuristics—simple rules of thumb we use when making decisions, big and small. He is the author ofGut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious(2008),Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart(2000), and many other volumes.

I’m looking forward to getting some answers to the following questions: How do we know when our gut feelings are reliable? Is there a way to distinguish trustworthy intuitions from irrational feelings and biases? And what about the gut feelings of experts? Are they fundamentally different from ordinary gut feelings? Should we be willing to trust an expert’s instincts when the expert is unable to provide an explanation for them? What role should intuitive thinking play in important decision making? And how can we train ourselves to have better gut instincts?


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Comments(20)


Guest's picture

Guest

Friday, July 20, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Thank you for this article on

Thank you for this article on gut feelings and I loved your intriguing questions. I wanted to give some responses to these questions, if I may. I say responses because these are questions that are only truly answered by each person within their own knowledge of themselves and their own gut feelings. At any rate, here are my responses, which I base on both my own gut feeling awareness and over 40 years of counseling and research study on gut feelings with hundreds of people:
?How do we know when our gut feelings are reliable? Is there a way to distinguish trustworthy intuitions from irrational feelings and biases??
非理性的感觉是我们的情绪,不是我们内心的感觉,虽然不幸经常混淆。让我简单解释一下情绪和直觉之间的区别,因为我认为这是解决这个问题的关键。情绪的感觉一般高于内脏,高于原,是来自内脏的感觉和来自头部的思维的组合,即恐惧、内脏感觉的空虚与头部对特定威胁的投射相结合。直觉不像情绪那样有思考的成分,它是纯粹的空虚或充实的感觉,是所有情绪感觉的来源。情感是身心的,而直觉是纯粹的感觉,与人类有机体的状态有关。可以说,直觉是你的真实,与你接受和控制自己对生活/自由的反应的需求得到满足的程度有关,它们总是以这种方式可靠。要开始理解这一点,在你自己的经验中看到这一点,需要对我们的直觉进行相当多的反思,特别是如果一个人不习惯探索感觉并区分情绪和直觉的差异。但是,正如理解思维和感觉的差异对提高我们的情商(EI)非常重要一样,花时间理解情绪感受和直觉的差异对进一步提高我们的智力和能力(我们可以称之为“直觉”)也很重要。所以,我们可能通过理解我们的思维感受或情绪的差异来提高我们的“EI”,但让我们更进一步,通过理解和反思我们的情绪感受和直觉感受的差异来提高我们的“直觉智能”。
?What role should intuitive thinking play in important decision making? And how can we train ourselves to have better gut instincts??
我们需要探索我们的直觉,而不是仅仅用一些模糊的概念来使用它们。一个人真的必须“了解你自己”,并努力去做内心的工作,以便在做决定时成功地运用自己的直觉。我们的直觉不仅仅是“模式识别大脑印象”,尽管这些模式肯定是我们的直觉智能与我们的思维相结合的结果。准确的思考与否取决于我们是把我们的直觉作为思考的前提,还是忽略经验对我们的影响,在解决问题时把我们的人类需求作为不重要的考虑而边缘化。这一切都影响了这些心理模式的准确性和模糊,以及我们拥有和增加直觉智能的能力。我的同事罗伯特·斯特林(Robert Sterling)和我在这个问题上做了40多年的顾问、研究人员和教育家,发现人们发现他们的直觉和健康决策随着对自己直觉意识的躯体反思而呈指数增长。
We think you would find it intriguing to check out our recent book "What's Behind Your Belly Button? A Psychological Perspective of the Intelligence of Human Nature and Gut Instinct", available on Amazon, as we have included techniques and discussion on increasing gut feeling awareness (understanding the difference in gut feelings and emotional feelings) and how through gut feeling reflection we "update" our old "patterns" in our thinking brain, increase our Intuition, and learn to serve our inner needs as human beings in healthy decision-making.
http://careerstorefront.angelfire.com
Aloha and I look forward to more of your blog articles,
Martha Love

哈罗德·g·纽曼's picture

哈罗德·g·纽曼

Friday, July 20, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

这么多问题,约翰/肯!

这么多问题,约翰/肯!你的例子乞求下面的瑜伽:当你走到岔路口时,接受它。对于上述大多数问题,我想提出以下观点:我们大多数人都有一种根深蒂固的蜘蛛感,或者你也可以说是直觉。这种感觉随着时间和经验的积累而发展。(我不太擅长启发式、解释学之类的词。)你的专家GG可能对这些事情知道很多。无论如何,“培训”来自个人经验。那些活得最长的人,没有遭遇“坏运气”(或糟糕的决定),导致早逝,最终发展出一种相当好的蜘蛛感觉,或者正如你描述的那样:直觉。不合理的感觉和偏见是道路上的颠簸——这是学习曲线的一部分——如果明智占上风,我们最终可能会克服。(如果不是,那么早死的可能性就会越来越大。) Gut feelings are not science yet. But, even though there are "life sciences", neither is life.

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, July 21, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

In his revised edition of The

In his revised edition of The Mismeasure of Man, Copyright 1996, Stephen Jay Gould said: "...never trust a gut feeling...". That admonition came at the beginning of his discussion of correlation, cause and factor analysis on page 269. Certainly, many of the IQ scientists he debunks in his book (Goddard, Broca, Burt, etc.) did not, in many cases at least, adhere to such advice which may have been given in their day. Gut feelings of experts must have some more credible bases---at least when related to those specific areas of expertise. Lay persons who have gut feelings about things with which they have no knowledge, experience or training are most likely talking through their hat.
Gut feelings do have some credibility, it seems. They have saved our skins, literally and figuratively, many times.
And the longer we survive, the better they become as predictors. Your expert may or may not affirm that assertion. But, I'll stand by it, regardless. We go with what we know.

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, July 21, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
哦,我标记了明天的第一条!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
One of my favorite poems!
当然,最好的道路是选择感觉正确的,使所有的合一或统一的我。
Follow your heart, it rings true,
=

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, July 24, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

I must admit being unclear on

我必须承认,我对感觉和情绪之间的确切区别并不清楚。感觉被定义为对某事的感觉或意识,对一个人产生的印象,意见,情绪或预感。情绪似乎是一种感觉的外在表达,有时伴随着身体的反应。
Nevertheless, a gut feeling as I understand it, is never reliable, otherwise it would be knowledge. However, almost all human decisions must be made with incomplete knowledge, therefore on gut feelings. The point is that gut feelings should be pursued by an effort to get further information or knowledge as corroboration, time permitting, before action is taken.

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Gut feelings must date back

Gut feelings must date back to the earliest experiences of the earliest human ancestors. These are senses we are now dimly aware of, but which once must have meant life or death on a daily basis. Old habits die hard. Damned good thing, don't you think?

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

2 points. 1: intuition looks

2 points. 1: intuition looks to me like how animals think.... before we muddled up the process with our incredibly useful invention of language and its right arm, logic
2: Intuition collects unbelievable reams of information that we fail to describe... thats how the woman predicted the rock fall... who knows.. heard things, saw things etc. Logic would not have helped a bit.

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, July 26, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

I know this is beyond the

我知道这超出了本文的范围和时间范围。不过,我妻子今晚要看夏季奥运会。多年来,她一直相信我总有一天会的;总有一天,你会被遣返,成为美国的爱国支持者。但是,唉,在美国之外生活了一段时间之后;在看到了世界的另一面之后——我就是无法对奥运会感到兴奋:无论是对美国,还是对其他任何人。这是政治上的装点门面,也是所有人在商业上的一笔巨大的财富:钱能让一切发生,跳过所有的“如果”、“并且”和“但是”。我对奥运会的直觉是:1)它们对世界和平没有什么贡献;2)他们是一个虚荣心的平台,而不是真诚和共同利益的诚实竞争;3)它们对任何参与国的声望没有任何帮助,除非在这个国家的公民眼中。
我希望一切顺利,为了大家好。不过,我不会观看,因为我的直觉告诉我不要这样做。

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, July 28, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

This is not unlike the

这和马尔科姆·格拉德威尔的畅销书《眨眼》没有什么不同。
不用思考就能思考的力量。
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blink_%28book%29
[criticisms acknowledged]
Handy tools for an over-analyzer like myself. Gut feelings are supermajority correct and advantageous.
更别提我在IT行业干了几十年了。逻辑和理性多次遭到藐视。

Guest's picture

Guest

Sunday, July 29, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Dr. S. sounds like a hardcore

Dr. S. sounds like a hardcore evolutionary biologist, speaking through a sociological megaphone. Which is certainly AOK with me. I like his impressions of the late Dr. Gould, whom I consider one of the finer minds of the twentieth century, along with Linus Pauling; Christopher Hitchens and several others who are still alive. Me? I am one of the mid-roaders. I believe that gut feelings are both a blessing and a curse. Here it is: those gut feelings that arise from inexperience, tend to be genuine. They are most likely to be that "spider sense"---the survival instinct, latent in our reptilian brain. Those that arise from teachings are, by their nature, biased. They are less reliable, seems to me, because they are open to variable interpretation. Such stimuli lead us to a fifty-fifty proposition: Doomed, if you do; damned if you don't. Uh, I guess fifty-fifty is overly optimistic. If this is confusing, imagine MY difficulty in trying to explain the notion. I'll try again: education leads us to educated responses, which are, by their nature weighted and biased, in favor of what we have been taught---and the institution behind that teaching.
那些我们学习的东西,没有监督,没有教学或辅导,有一个公正的“纯粹”。如果我从一个小悬崖上摔下来活了下来,记忆会让我不再犯同样的错误(我希望)。
If after sufficient financial counseling, I plunge into a second shaky venture and lose another $100,000, then I must be a dumb shit. They are out there. Time after time.
(我还没有经历过20万美元的经历——现在还没有。)
TAP

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, July 31, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

The Armchair Ph. makes some

The Armchair Ph. makes some excellent points. The ancient Pythagorians considered education a learning process in which the educator served as guide. Their philosophy (by the way, they coined the word) could be interpreted as guiding the student to elevate his or her (yes, they had both as students and educators) gut feelings into concrete knowledge. Unfortunately, education became a teaching process in which the educator no longer teaches students but teaches a class and it is up to the individual students whether they sink, tread water or swim.
By the way, my gut feelings are in accord on the Olympics.

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, July 31, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Gut feelings are always with

Gut feelings are always with us, how ever we may act upon them. I notice that many of my neighbors are still using kerosene to fire up their charcoal grills this summer. I do not use "charcoal lighter", because of a singular friend who died about twenty-five years ago. Al was a cigarette-smoking, liquor-drinking man, then in his sixties. Or late fifties. He looked old, in any case, but was fun to be around. A friend and I of similar age used to go to his home and fire up his grill for him, cooking 'burgers and sweet corn, or steaks and other such, when we had the money. We did this once a week---sometimes, more often. Long story shorter: Al died of stomach cancer about a year before paths parted and we went our separate ways. Al's cancer was probably a culmination of alcohol, tobacco and food-borne carcinogens, acting quickly in the last two years of his life.
I am around the age Al was when he died. I still consume alcohol, but do not smoke and do not use kerosene to start charcoal for cooking food. Maybe it is just dumb luck or genes---maybe I'll die next year. I do not know. I do know one thing however: food cooked on a charcoal grill tastes better---without kerosene. Maybe you, too, have noticed this? If not, try it. There are several low-petroleum alternatives to kerosene. Alcohol would work---if only it would burn long enough. Hmmmmph, said the Camel. And the Irish Elk (sorry, Stephen J.)

Laura Maguire's picture

Laura Maguire

Sunday, August 5, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

Thanks for all the great

谢谢大家的评论!绿色自由主义者——格拉德威尔的《眨眼》一书的大部分内容都是基于我们的嘉宾吉仁泽的研究。

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Friday, December 12, 2014 -- 4:00 PM

~~ McCOY

~~ McCOY
(imploring)
Jim, try to be open about this.
KIRK
About what? That I've made the
wrong choices in my life? That I
turned left when I should've turned
right? I know what my weaknesses
are. I don't need Sybok to take me
在他们的旅行中。
McCOY
If you'd just unbend and allow
yourself -
KIRK
然后被这个骗子洗脑?
McCOY
I was wrong. This "con man" took
away my pain.
KIRK
Damnit, Bones, you're a doctor.
You know that pain and guilt can't
be taken away with a wave of a
magic wand. They're things we carry
with us - the things that make us
who we are. If we lost them, we
lose ourselves. I don't want my
pain taken away. I need my pain.
Study the chicken picker carefully. You will note her extending the chick's wing and examining its leading edge.

mirugai's picture

mirugai

Sunday, December 14, 2014 -- 4:00 PM

THE RELIGION OF CAUSATION

THE RELIGION OF CAUSATION
听到关于意识的某些方面的哲学讨论真是令人耳目一新。直觉?)而不涉及神经科学。这可能是由于正确的直觉,直觉?是与神经和大脑结构相关的;它们并不是由大脑活动引起的。另一句很有说服力的话是:“我突然想到一个主意。”这不是对大脑的描述。工作原理;这是对意识运作的描述。在大脑中设置意识只是一种(错误地)让我们确信因果关系的方式;器官中有一个机械的、科学的、化学的等过程在产生我们的意识。 This is indicative of the harm that science (and especially, neuroscience) has done to philosophy.
I call this strong, natural need for causation the religion of causation.
?Why do you think everything needs an explanation?? Prof. Jennan Ismael
这是一种信仰。万物皆有因;当一个原因没有明显的证据时,人们会试图填补一个。因为他们相信?在因果关系;他们相信原因就在某个地方,如果可能的话?不被发现,就会从伟大的解释者——科学中创造出来。进化提供了一种反馈机制??这是因果宗教的说法:达尔文的进化完全是由于随机性和突变发生的。但是,因为对于任何值得我们忠诚的东西来说,这似乎不是一个令人满意的方法,所以我们附加了“适者生存”的概念。 and ?adaptation? to the representation of the process, to give us comfort that really there is some direction, some reassurance of reliability. (Almost like believing in God, which few Darwinians would admit). When John says ?Evolution provides a feed-back mechanism?? all he is really doing is saying ?I ?believe? something scientific says that something caused ?? But there is no scientific causation, in the sense of direction or certain repeatability, to DE. The urge to supply it is a classic human urge, like religion.
我喜欢鸡的性别鉴定?讨论。我能说的就是我有鸡,当我买那些在我看来是母鸡的雏鸡时,总会听到这样的建议:如果你想要四只母鸡,那就买六只雏鸡,因为其中一只可能是公的(在我居住的城市里养是违法的),另外一只可能会死掉。我们这些理性主义者很难相信这一点,我知道,但我可以抱着这些一天大的小鸡,看着它们,我可以感知它们。男性还是女性。我认为这可能是一种能力。或运动?正在打开?和接受?这些非科学的问题,你可以看出这是我的兴趣所在。 At least being open enough to take them seriously enough to investigate them.

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Monday, December 15, 2014 -- 4:00 PM

Eliminativist neuroscientists

消除主义的神经科学家确实歪曲了意识,但诚实的科学家指出,他们找不到意识,他们通常使用的方法,无论是刺激或损害,或研究受损的大脑,在某些区域以某种方式讲述了心智的故事。更重要的是,他们从这种刺激或损伤中得出的结论,比如让一个人的左手拇指抽搐,或注意到某一特定区域的受损组织导致某种精神能力或敏锐度的丧失,可以被研究对象以否定研究结果及其方法的方式排除。

Chickens make a wonderfully soothing clucking noise that roosters do not. Perhaps this is sensed even in the chicks. I learned of the chicken sorting trick on an epsiode of Mr's Rogers. The roosters, as I recall, have some rather more ragged feathers on the leading edge of their wings. In any case, mystery does not imply mysticism. I was riding my bycicle today and, looking down to see if the wet of the road was spraying onto me from the front wheel, I almost lost control of the bike. It seems that my reflex inverted with the upside-down perspective, and my steering went awry. It is easy to forget how much that we do is intuitive. (intuition--dare I say?-- "=" a commensuration between the empirical and the rational impossible but for the intervention of a mode of being capable of surviving the change between two incommensurate systems. I call it person, though consciousness will do in a pinch.)

mirugai's picture

mirugai

Monday, December 15, 2014 -- 4:00 PM

The "honest" neuroscientists

The "honest" neuroscientists are beginning to admit to what neuros and philosos are calling "the gap," between as far as neuroscience can take you, and the constitution of consciousness. It would be very welcome (though not very popular in TED talks) if neuros stopped insisting that they, someday, will bridge the "gap." Honor the gap, neuros, you will be more respected for acknowledging limitations, rather than steam rolling over them.
你对哲学演算的持续、迷人的讨论让我想起了一种精神理性瘫痪的状态,我通过解构主义的思考和思考来追求不可企及的意义。加里,当你一直跑到球门的一半距离时,你可能会瘫痪。这时,诗歌的隐喻(以及喜剧的讽刺)就能提供慰藉。过一段时间你就可以继续切了。

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Tuesday, December 16, 2014 -- 4:00 PM

Even space cannot be divided

Even space cannot be divided endlessly. That is why the infinitesimal is so problematic. But if the least term of space is the infinitesimal that cannot be decisively placed within any more than without the calculation, or its governing law, can time be divided even further still? If the least term of space is in contrariety to its geometric perfection or mathematical certitude what would the least term of time be? The conviction that everything material is enumerative, can be counted which one and how much it is, is incommensurable between these differing modes of being one, what divisions of that conviction but a kind of dialectic in the character of it? A sort of ebb and flow? Like, say, emotions? And if the last final and least yet most encompassing term of that conviction is its loss, then that dialectic is act. Act in a sense the concept of agency is but immanent to as a sort of epiphenomenon. Of course, like any contrariety, it is anomalous to its nominal or antecedent law unless it is in some sense enabled a response that completes its being the even more encompassing context of it. It is literally true that the least term of time is all the differing it is. The image of Achilles arrow or the tortoise and the hare is just an evasion, a putting off of the moment. The dilemma being that the most real act is loss and the most articulate term is what responsibility of the worth of that loss yet lives amongst us. Between loss, and responsibility of its worth being recognized (love), time is emancipated of its ordering and tempo. We cannot prepossess that moment, for there is no enduring it is.
Bertie Russell (not Wooster) somewhere says (I paraphrase) that a philosopher should start with commonplaces and derive outrageous truths. On a discussion board like this there is little scope for the extensive argumentation this requires. It necessitates outrages as the starting point, in hopes someone will show enough patience to hear some of the (more or less) commonplace reasons of it. The usual response, of course, is outrage, so I am gratified when I meet with a kinder one!

mirugai's picture

mirugai

Tuesday, December 16, 2014 -- 4:00 PM

So provocative, your thoughts

So provocative, your thoughts I differ with; so brilliant, your thoughts I agree with. Haha.
时间:看TSEliot的四首四重奏(每首四重奏的第一节是关于时间的)。我认为时间不是“点点点点”,而是“白噪音”。非常解放,尤其是当每个人都有资格描述“时间是什么”的时候。关于“无穷小”与“有限”:我再次提醒大家,不要在试图“找出”某些东西的时候,对这个问题产生过多的好奇而导致瘫痪。“潮起潮落”是对创造和变化的一种比“大爆炸”更理性的描述。这里的潮起潮落比“所有物质的爆炸(侵入)进入的无限虚无”要多得多。我接受一切辩证法;我接受黑格尔式的综合理论,作为过程的一部分:问:我们如何看待随机性和突变,试图找到令人安心的因果关系(其实并不存在);如何认识(发明)损失的价值责任。希腊人(最伟大的哲学家)有两种看待事物的方式: what they called "normal" which meant what everyone (except nutcases) knew was the case, and 2. the product of phlosophical investigation, a rational dialog about thoughts. I am a BRussell fan because of his wonderful History of Western Philosophy, which I consult all the time (in fact, it is the only phil hist I read); but I am not a fan of his methodology: define terms. "Defining" sophistically makes the rules, asks the question, and then answers it, without examination. Defining is not doing philosophy; phil does not seek "definitions" it seeks "meaning," or significance, or what comes from the realization that EVERYTHING is representation.

Gary M Washburn's picture

Gary M Washburn

Thursday, December 18, 2014 -- 4:00 PM

Schopenhauer? (The World as

Schopenhauer? (The World as Will and Representation, the inspiration of Nietzsche's 'Will to Power')

My problem is that I have to reference a vast body of unpublished justification.

理查德·费曼(Richard Feynman)写了一本很好的小书《量子电动力学》(QED),关于光的行为,这本书可能会给你一些思考的东西。时间既不是单一的,也不是划时代的。显而易见的事情背后隐藏着一连串的活动。光和物质不是单独的事件,而是一系列奇怪的不可能事件,它们本身隐藏着更深层的不可能,尽管费曼轻松幽默地指导我们的微积分是我在另一篇文章中提到的缺陷。关键是,时间并不简单,它是一种动态的姿态,为其他姿态提供了机会,而其他姿态则是一组令人困惑的“可能”。但这些都不是单独存在的。只有在某种意义上,不受因果或理性法则支配的事物比不受因果或理性法则支配的事物更完整的时候,才有真正的事物存在。在普通的时间观念中,无限小并不被排除,因为它太小,不能固定在那里,而是因为它太不单独。如果它确实是在法律之外或在法律之内,这就给其他时间提供了这样的机会,没有那么多在规范的节奏之内,在同样的意义和同样的程度上是在法律之外。因此,时间的性质是在法律中发生的变化,即使对全世界来说,它似乎是在强加它的节奏。 The only power the will has is to get out of the way as the rest of time finds its freedom from the grinding tempo of necessity in the sense its loss offers it. No god can save us. No act of will can expropriate or represent to itself what time means. We engage in a dialectic of inner reverie through which the very rigor of preserving our convictions end in the final term their loss is. This loss is the act of our needing each other free. But the world is sustained as the conviction of a regular and regulated tempo of time that deflects responsibility of that loss, and maintains that conviction, as an offer of facile understanding. We take for granted what our words mean and that we are understood. But insofar as that needing each other free is recognized, not in the lost conviction, which remains a personal reasoning, but in the demise of that facile presumption the world is offered us, there is meaning more real intimated here. In other worlds, the dialectic is the growing recognition of the joke the world is in its offering us the language of its steady constancy in the face of our growing recognition of its changing wildly. Who is the agent of that change? Every changing mood of the world presents itself as the paradigm of time and tempo, and many find profit in pretending to keep abreast of it or even to generate it, but the freedom we derive through each other in the dialectic of a changing mind and recognition of the freedom it wins for us can never become a public property, any more than a private hoard.