Oddbean new post about login | logout Over-thinking and over-feeling is detrimental noise. I see both of these pitfalls screw people up often. Instincts are the clean signal. Honing the ability to trust instincts will take one so much farther than over-thinking or over-feeling, which typically lead to worse outcomes. The book Blink makes a great case for human instincts as a compass and is well worth a read.
Can’t instinct be confused for urges? Because as men, we definitely have to keep that shit under control 😂
I think an urge would be considered over-thinking or over-feeling. Instincts are a snap assessment that more often than not turns out to be correct or directionally correct. Read Blink.
I wouldn’t say it’s overthinking. You see a hot woman and you get aroused. This is a common experience for teenagers. It’s not overthinking, it’s a natural response that we learn to suppress through thinking. Animals get aroused and start trying to fuck on the spot haha What is blink?
Arousal is a physiological reaction. An urge in my opinion is your brain planning / rationalizing further action(s) based on thoughts or desires. “They had an urge to do x or y.” If we want to have a real philosophical conversation we should define the words we’re using out the gate so we’re not talking past each other. Blink is a book about the power of the instinctual “brain” which makes the case for it being incredibly clever and powerful and able figure things out in one second that your thinking brain will likely never figure out or in many cases lead you further from the best decision.
Fair point I think we have different definitions. I read something similar about how the unconscious mind processes thousands of bits of information that our conscious mind can’t handle. This is then reflected in our emotions and gut feelings. Is that similar?
No but that is interesting. No it’s about instincts vs thinking. Easy, fun read. And useful. Human instincts have kept the species alive through some very hard and dangerous times. Learning to trust instincts is effectively a powerful biohack. When you get a gut feel, trust it, because that signal is coming from your most effective processor.
It sounds similar. One of the stories I heard is about a woman that had a gut feeling, which was processed by her unconscious mind, about a strange man trying to help her take groceries up to her apartment. She didn’t know why she felt unsafe but she ignored it. He ended up raping her. It turns out there were a lot of red flags that her unconscious mind processed to be dangerous. One was that she’d never seen him before in that building so he didn’t actually live there. The other was that the doors locked upon entering the building so there was no way he could get in unless he was following her very closely. Another sign was that he seemed to know where she was when he talked to her while she didn’t know where he was, meaning that he was following her sneakily. He also came off as dangerous. We don’t necessarily think about pheromones but we definitely respond to them instinctively and her unconscious mind probably sensed that his cortisol was elevated. She ignored all those red flags by telling herself that she’s being paranoid.
Yes, exactly. I thought you were referring to all of the erroneous information that doesn’t make it through filters. But yeah our survival brain is privy to all kinds of info that our conscious mind isn’t. It just computes all of it and gives us the conclusion most apt for survival. Pure signal. People override that signal at their own peril.
A gut feeling is something developed from experience. Listening to your gut is almost always a good thing. If you are conscious of your gut feel make note, mental or otherwise. Let time prove your gut right. Cannot be compared to instinct.
Again this just boils down to definitions. Different people have different definitions for terminology as this thread shows. For proper and reasonable debate on a topic we must agree to the definition of terminology first. Then we can discuss the topic and its downstream effects with integrity. I use gut feel and instinct interchangeably and per definitions this is correct. Your idea about gut feel is not correct per definitions. What you’re referring to is wisdom or experience. Dictionary definitions: Gut feel: noun. an instinctive feeling, as opposed to an opinion based on facts. Gut feel: noun: a strong belief about someone or something that cannot completely be explained and does not have to be decided by reasoning Instinct: noun: the way people or animals naturally react or behave, without having to think or learn about it. Instinct: noun: an inborn impulse or motivation to action typically performed in response to specific external stimuli. Per these definitions they’re closely related if not interchangeable.
