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107 - Kevin Dorst: Bayesian Reasoning, Irrationality, and Political Polarization

107 - Kevin Dorst: Bayesian Reasoning, Irrationality, and Political Polarization

Robinson's Podcast vor 3 Jahren

0:00

1:45:58

Kevin Dorst is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and
Philosophy at MIT. He works at the intersection between
philosophy and social science, focusing on rationality. In this
episode Kevin and Robinson discuss just this: They begin with
classical theories of rationality and where they fall short
before discussing instances where the empirical literature shows
that humans do not reason rationally at all, touching on the
gambler’s fallacy, sunk-cost reasoning, and the hindsight bias.
They then move on to discuss the phenomenon of political
polarization, which draws both on our capacity for rationality
and irrationality. Make sure to check out Kevin’s Substack,
Stranger Apologies.

Stranger Apologies: https://kevindorst.substack.com

Kevin’s Website: https://www.kevindorst.com

Kevin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevin_dorst

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

01:02 Introduction

04:14 Rationality and Philosophy

15:14 Bayesian Reasoning

45:10 The Hindsight Bias

56:53 What is Bias?

01:04:03 The Gambler’s Fallacy

01:15:00 Sunk-Cost Reasoning

01:19:07 Political Polarization

01:40:12 Talking Through Disagreement

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of
mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations
with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and
everyone in-between.