Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas 223 | Tania Lombrozo on What Explanations Are
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Jan 16, 2023 Tania Lombrozo, a cognitive psychologist at Princeton, dives into the primal human urge for explanations. She explores how our quest for understanding shapes our reasoning and learning processes. Lombrozo discusses the balance between storytelling and rationality, highlighting how narratives can overshadow empirical data. She also examines the complexities of explanation-seeking across species, revealing insights into curiosity's role in learning. The conversation unveils the philosophical dilemmas surrounding what constitutes a 'good' explanation and our limits in understanding.
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Explanations in Cognition
- Explanations are fundamental to human cognition, extending beyond social situations.
- This cognitive process has connections to philosophical inquiries about the nature of explanations.
Testing Philosophical Theories
- Philosophers sometimes theorize about human intuitions regarding explanations.
- Psychological studies can test these theories, occasionally revealing discrepancies.
Evolutionary Reasoning
- Human reasoning deviates from perfect Bayesian inference due to evolutionary pressures.
- Optimizing for short-term accuracy, rather than long-term, might be evolutionarily advantageous.