Cognitive biases effect both the uncritical as well as the critical thinker. — Caerulea-Lawrence

I would just say that I see cognitive biases as the result of a normal emotional response in humans, which affects the "direction" of thoughts. I don't like to put people in two distinct groups "critical and uncritical", that's actually one of my critique for cognitive biases, it seems like they want to make people "critical" but most of the time, they just tell people how to meet the standards of one discipline (often science) without taking personal experience into account. So basically, it often ends up with "trust serious experts and don't try to understand yourself because you will be biased". And to them, the "critical" people are simply the ones who meet the standards of a discipline. So that term is meaningless to me.

In other words, to me, it's not about being "critical" or "uncritical", it's about how much people fight emotional responses: and the more they do; the more objective knowledge they will produce. And to me, trying to be aware of cognitive biases is not going to help in fighting the influence of emotions on the rational mind. And this is because you can never know if you're biased or not. And on the contrary, working with emotions is clearer. It seems easier for me to judge if I'm angry, defensive or happy, rather than asking myself "Was I biased by the success of the lottery winner?" How could you ever answer that? You can't trace back the unconscious reasoning. So even if you feel like buying a lottery ticket afterwards, how would you know if it's biased or not? However, you could access your emotions and realise you're more excited than before you met the lottery winner, so you could decide to wait until that emotion fades away to see if you still want to buy a lottery ticket. And only then you would have a better estimation of how much it affected your thoughts at the time.

I used the term "ego trap" because a lot of people feel like they're more critical because they know these theories, while to me, it's the opposite. For example, they would judge the opponent's opinion as biased (which is very easy to do because they are so many biases, you can always find one) and reject it because of it. But they wouldn't be as rigorous when it comes to inspecting their own biases: we tend to notice the splinter in the other's eye, but don't notice the beam of wood in our own. And I don't see how any of the cognitive biases theory could help prevent this.

Which I see as concluding that critical thinking doesn't immunize against biases. — Caerulea-Lawrence

So that's not what I meant. To rephrase it, I would say: fighting emotional responses would mitigate cognitive biases, because it's fighting the cause. But fighting cognitive biases directly seems pointless as they're unconscious and are very difficult (impossible?) to perceive with certainty. So fighting cognitive biases directly doesn't help mitigate them!

And my main point is that when you fight the emotional responses, it prevents cognitive biases so naming them and finding "tools" to detect it seems useless and extremely complex compared to just assessing emotions.

So that's not what I meant. To rephrase it, I would say: fighting emotional responses would mitigate cognitive biases, because it's fighting the cause. But fighting cognitive biases directly seems pointless as they're unconscious and are very difficult (impossible?) to perceive with certainty. So fighting cognitive biases directly doesn't help mitigate them!

And my main point is that when you fight the emotional responses, it prevents cognitive biases so naming them and finding "tools" to detect it seems useless and extremely complex compared to just assessing emotions. — Skalidris

Hello Skalidris,

I am grateful you clarified this for me.

In my own experience, what you say is very true. Biases in different forms mask themselves behind a pretty rationale or with 'sound' logic. The clearest sign to me is not the logic, but the off-tune emotions it is expressed with.

There is also something else that works for me, and that is to be asked open questions - directed towards exploring gaps in my conclusions or my motivations. It is important to me to follow my inner logic, a logic which also includes its own sets of parameters. Good questions help me engage my inner troubleshooting tool, and lets me more easily spot inconsistencies.

This kind of troubleshooting is often part of the first half of a process to get closer to the jagged feelings underneath. It's like dusting or cleaning to get a better look at what's the issue, with the added bonus of softening the edges as well. Doing this is a complementary route for me, and it helps a lot in reducing direct reactivity with regard to issues I find difficult, even when I am not ready to process the emotionality directly.

And getting care and attention from my partner is also something essential for me in delving into these things - or I might have just opted to ignore some of them. There is only so much self-compassion and self-understanding I am capable of. Getting compassion, space and understanding makes it a lot easier to take a closer look at the dangerous splinters, lest I keep projecting them onto other people in the form of beams of wood for the rest of my life.

Kindly,
Caerulea-Lawrence