260722: Reasons, Intuition, & Taste
If the scientific reasoning of the Enlightenment is insufficient, what psychotechnologies might support it?
Conservatives, in the vein of Chesterton's fence, may cite tradition here—may make the evolutionary argument that Time is the only true test. Fair enough; and running social experiments at scale (states as the laboratory of democracy) is probably still underrated. But note that:
In the 21st C, states' rights have primarily advanced progressive experiments (gay marriage, public healthcare, marijuana legalization); and in most cases, broader/federal adoption has been rapid and mimetic, rather than a considered outcome backed by Time.
Evolution is slow, and cognition is quick. That's the whole reason we want psychotools for better decision-making in the first place!
In the past few decades, a concept of "intuition" has emerged as a catch-all for making judgments we cannot verbally account for, justify, or defend. Sometimes, "intuition" is defended as properly computational, but it is usually treated as a secondclass citizen. Under certain constraints (e.g. time constraints, high-pressure situations) intuition may outperform reason, but ideally, important decisions are always made through System 2 processes. This bias is especially pronounced in behavioral economics and rationalism, but it exists in some form throughout the educated & elite West.
In the past half-decade, "taste" has emerged as a new, and less stigmatized shorthand for certain nonverbal judgments. ("Vibe" fulfills many of the same conceptual functions, but represents an innate quality of of an object or array of objects.)
There are a number of reasons I like the taste metaphor, despite its cargoculty adoption by Valley technophiles. I will try to outline those reasons in a future post. But for now, I'll merely note that, the more complex math gets, the less it looks like math. Which might be helpful towards transcending the Classical-Romantic, Rationality-Feeling, shape rotator-wordcel dualism: because romantic feeling, taste, and vibey affect? Is nothing if not extremely complicated math, as Grietzer's work helps make clear.