Human Understanding and How We Use It

First published on June 1, 2017

I went to a talk today, called A New Theory of Human Understanding at the RSA. It was about our ability to reason. The traditional view of reason is that it is there to stop our instincts, which control most of what we do, making bad choices. It will catch our instincts and correct them. In fact, the speaker said, it doesn't do this. Or at least it often doesn't. However, in conversation and relationship with someone else, it does serve this function: two people together can catch each other when our instincts can go wrong. We personally justify ourselves, as quickly as we can. And we have conversations with others to reason with them, testing their arguments. Through this kind of discourse, people can work together, and those whose instincts are right generally persuade people whose instincts are wrong. Even when these people are convinced, 10/10, that they are right when they aren't, someone else can change their mind. (He uses a version of this problem to test it experimentally.) 

In that same room, before, I have seen Jonathan Haidt speaking about other instincts and rationalisations. Well, in fact the same ones, but in his case applied to morals and political reasoning. 

I find this stuff fascinating. A whole section of academia dedicated to understanding our race and how our minds work. And a whole room of people there trying to get to it, too. A part of this is our (as a species) desire for continual development, to better ourselves and improve our sense of perspective. 

For some people, this is a natural curiosity. Others have a professional interest. For others, it comes after some significant pain: I don't understand why this is happening to me, and I need to. I don't understand why this is happening to my friends, or my parents, or my loved ones, but I need to. 

But the question is, will our continual and ever growing sense of how we work help us lead happier, healthier lives? I think it could and does, indeed I believe that when anyone understands themselves more - what makes the unique and what makes them human, just like everyone else - they are almost always happier and healthier in the long term. But if it does, how do we speed that up? How do we maximise its use?

I spoke to a teacher at the talk who said teachers know - as the speaker suggested - that group learning is incredibly valuable for children, but the curriculum puts them under too much pressure to let them use this in the classroom. We are holding ourselves up. We are lagging behind our own understanding. How can we help ourselves catch up?