Maybe, but I don’t think that we developed our tendency to lock in emotional beliefs as a kind of self-protective adaptation. I think that all animals with brains lock in emotional learning by default because brains lock in practically all learning by default. The weird and new thing humans do is to also learn concepts that are complex, provisional, dynamic and fast-changing. But this new capability is built on the old hardware that was intended to make sure we stayed away from scary animals.
Most things we encounter are not as ambiguous, complex and resistant to empirical falsification as the examples in the Epistemic Learned Helplessness essay. The areas where both right and wrong positions have convincing arguments usually involve distant, abstract things.
Maybe, but I don’t think that we developed our tendency to lock in emotional beliefs as a kind of self-protective adaptation. I think that all animals with brains lock in emotional learning by default because brains lock in practically all learning by default. The weird and new thing humans do is to also learn concepts that are complex, provisional, dynamic and fast-changing. But this new capability is built on the old hardware that was intended to make sure we stayed away from scary animals.
Most things we encounter are not as ambiguous, complex and resistant to empirical falsification as the examples in the Epistemic Learned Helplessness essay. The areas where both right and wrong positions have convincing arguments usually involve distant, abstract things.