The ``classic fallacy of mind'' in which the subject becomes huge and generalized by assuming that it can be applied to other people from a single example that has been experienced by oneself.
There are many people who think that everyone else has experienced what they have experienced, and that others can understand what they can understand. A column was posted on LessWrong, a forum site focused on cognitive bias and psychology, about these distortions of human cognition.
Generalizing From One Example — LessWrong
In the late 1800s, there was a debate about the definition of the word 'imagination.' There has been a lot of disagreement over whether people can actually create vivid images in their heads, or whether they can simply say that they ``saw it in their heads'' metaphorically.
Of course, humans have mental images, and there are many people who can create images in their heads. However, this idea was not widely accepted at the time.
This debate arose because people who had mental images believed that everyone had them, and people who didn't had them believed that no one had them. Those who participated in the discussion assumed that their common sense was also the common sense of others, to the point where they began to question why the other person was lying or why they misunderstood what they were saying. is.
The person who settled this debate was a man named Francis Galton, who invented eugenics and standard deviation. Galton did very detailed research and discovered that some people have mental images and some people don't, and he is making the public accept that they exist. According to one theory, only about 5% of people can have completely clear images, and about 3% are unable to form mental images at all.
Mr. Scott Alexander, who posted the column, seems to have liked the above episode told by his teacher, Professor David Berman. Professor Berman called the above misunderstanding the ``classic fallacy of the mind.''
Typical errors of mind are serious problems related to mental structure, and the same phenomenon can be seen in things that are closer to the spirit than the mind, that is, human personality and behavior.
Mr. Alexander is an introvert, and when he was alone as a child, he would often be dragged along by other children for active play. When Mr. Alexander protested, the children around him started protesting back and telling him to join their group. Mr. Alexander believed that the children were ``bullies trying to get him in trouble'' and learned how to hide from them and pay them a lot.
Later, Mr. Alexander thought, ``Isn't this a fallacy?'' The children around him probably thought that ``Mr. Mr. Alexander thinks that people who disturb people who are reading may have thought that they were just people who wanted to annoy others.
Errors continued to occur as Mr. Alexander grew up. Mr. Alexander's former flatmate was someone who criticized his messy room. Mr. Alexander, on the other hand, hated noise and found even the voices of his housemates to be annoying. However, every time Mr. Alexander asked him to 'tame it down,' his housemate responded, 'You're just being sensitive.'
Looking back on this in hindsight, the fact that the room was a mess was as unbearable and non-negotiable as Mr. Alexander's feeling that the room was a mess. There is a possibility. This is nothing more than the fact that both of them had the belief that ``because I am this way, the other person should do this as well,'' and were dissatisfied with people who did not do the same things as them.
Beliefs such as ``It's just my roommate's weird habit of criticizing things'' or ``I'm just being overly sensitive'' can be said to be problems with typical ``mental'' fallacies. When people have conflicting opinions, they tend to belittle each other's spirit, and assume that the other person is distorting or misunderstanding their own opinions.
The fallacy extends to what is believed to be a 'general theory' within a narrow community. For example, in some communities, men believe that women somehow prefer men who treat them poorly. Men who believe this may think that because women prefer dominant males, so-called boss monkey-type men, they, as decent human beings, are ignored.
On the other hand, when you ask women about their opinions, there are many who say, ``That's complete nonsense, and women don't think like that at all.'' Of course, this boils down to ``some people think it, and some people don't,'' but even what is believed to be a ``general theory'' can be said to be a fallacy in a sense. .
There is a way to deal with these fallacies, and Mr. Alexander says that the way to deal with them is to ``always act rationally and not follow your intuition.''
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