Why liberals & atheists are more intelligent

[Pebble]

Well, the idea that it is an European business was more like a hunch. But the fact remains: each time a new orientation arises, and however less deviating from its sources it is, the next thing they do is label it. Logical Positivism is probably the most striking example. They were like five down in Vienna. I'm not saying this is a bad thing to begin with. But I think handbooks teaching history of science (or history of philosophy, or history alone) should separate "Kant was a rationalist" from "Kant was what some call a rationalist". It sounds better and it underlines the fact that labels are conventional, and if, myopically, they get confused, no harm is done to the actual 'thing' that happened.

The simple reason for categorising is that the human brain finds it difficult to deal with a morass of information. In general when making decisions we rely on no more than four pieces of information, even when we think we are considering all facets of the problem. By categorising our information we can break the decision making process down into steps, each of which is dealt with using the information relevant to that step.
It doesn't matter too much that the categories are artificial, if they are more than simply a way of handling information, then over time one can regroup as more information becomes available. Biology and chemistry started properly when species and chemicals were categorised, libraries would be impossible without categorisation etc.

[Tony Williams]

The simple reason for categorising is that the human brain finds it difficult to deal with a morass of information.

To drift somewhat off-topic...allegiance to political parties in an interesting example (maybe for a separate thread). When considering a whole range of political policy issues, there is not one party which has ever agreed (or is ever likely to agree) with my position on all of these. But I have to vote for only one party (at the moment, anyway). So I need to take a decision based on the closeness of the match between my views and party policies, weighted for which policies I care most about, and informed by by judgment about whether or not any of the (fill in descriptive term of choice) is really competent to run a chip-shop.

[WhenArguing]

The simple reason for categorising is that the human brain finds it difficult to deal with a morass of information. In general when making decisions we rely on no more than four pieces of information, even when we think we are considering all facets of the problem. By categorising our information we can break the decision making process down into steps, each of which is dealt with using the information relevant to that step.
It doesn't matter too much that the categories are artificial, if they are more than simply a way of handling information, then over time one can regroup as more information becomes available. Biology and chemistry started properly when species and chemicals were categorised, libraries would be impossible without categorisation etc.

I agree, but I agree with the spirit of considering things in such manner, not with the actual proposal that "categorisation" is just a tool for figuring things out much faster (and maybe much better). You say that "by categorising our information we can break the decision making process down into steps", whereas I believe that categorising (and, just so it's clear, I'm only talking about "isms", not chemical elements or the classification of mathematical statements) is just the one habit which holds back the process of understanding.

But what are the Aristotelian four things to which you were referring? I was a bit lost with that idea ...

[Pebble]

But what are the Aristotelian four things to which you were referring? I was a bit lost with that idea ...

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CBFw8qtLTyEC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=information+overload+and+decision+making&source=bl&ots=EwdOOgJiXZ&sig=DMXZzfKkeWCdIjCa0E_rTBfSqB8&hl=en&ei=EkCdS-XVEYKUjAeD6LyzDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CB0Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=information%20overload%20and%20decision%20making&f=false


More to do with empiricism than Aristotle. Though to be fair if time constraints are removed many more factors are validly included in decision making. Can't remember precise studies at present though Dawes & Corrigan are specifically mentioned above. Much of the work has been done on battle field use of information and the impact of multiple choices on driver awareness of surroundings.