The book Blink is now finished... Pretty good book, I'd give it a 7 out of 10. Another musing about one of the concepts in the book:
In one chapter, the author talks about how people figure out things based off clues that only their subconscious knows. When pushed to explain how they figured it out, they oftentimes make something up, all unconsciously.
"We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem... We're a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don't really have an explanation for."
My parents are really bad at coming up with explantions for things. Most often, they convieniently link to us being bad kids. I.E. my parents explained my bad eyesight on watching too much TV. I got sick because I didn't wear a coat. Now, I can call them on these things. I tell them my sister has 20/20 vision, and you can't say she watches that much less TV than me. I also tell them a cold is caused by a virus, not by not wearing your jacket.
I guess the moral of the story is, don't try to make an explanation just for the sake of making one. Maybe your subconscious figured it out.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I also tell them a cold is caused by a virus, not by not wearing your jacket.
While that's technically true, that statement is misleading. If your body is cold, your immune system is weaker and more susceptible to being infected by a virus. Since the common cold virus is ubiquitous, dressing warmly will in effect decrease your chance of catching a cold.
You could make the statement that no one has ever died from AIDS, but that is also misleading.
I was going to say that. Dale, I'm mainly on your side, but there's some advice that your parents give you that don't have scientific backing, but is reasonable advice anyways.
It's kind of like when you don't know what to do, do what everyone else is doing.
Although true that being cold depresses your immune system, I think it's a small variable compared to other things. For instance, when you get sick, is it more because you weren't wearing a jacket, or because there's a nasty strain of cold going around?
And Winston... I don't discount all of my parent's advice. In fact, I challenge any advice I get (even from you). Not to be a jerk, but because I want to get it right... there's too many instances of people believing something their whole lives without knowing why.
Post a Comment