1. "Inferential learning mechanisms" refer to the workings of the baby's mind. Their brain absorbs the surroundings of its environment, and the baby constantly gains new ideas about life, however simple they may be. As the baby grows older, its brain gets more advanced, and the theories that it has formed about life grow more and more sophisticated. This article shows just how much humanity underestimates the knowledge of an infant's mind.
2. Once a baby turns one, it really starts to understand people. The baby begins to observe the direction in which people point. It also begins to discover how it should feel about something by seeing how the situation effects the people around them. Whenever a baby takes an object, it observes how their parents react to it, and then determine whether or not the object is good or bad. By eighteen months, the baby starts to realize that other people have aims that are different from its own.
Nevertheless, it is ignorant of the fact that other people have different beliefs than it does, for those beliefs are hidden away in the individual's mind. On average, babies are unable to lie until they reach age four. Before they reach that age, they cannot lie because they lack understanding of how to make an individual believe something.
3. The author assumes that babies are able to dismiss or embrace certain theories about the world. In an experiment in which a baby is shown a box of candy, it instantly believes that the box contains the yummy treats that they yearn for so dearly. However, once the baby opens the box, it will discover that pencils have replaced the candies, and it will be surprised that its theory has been proven wrong. Since this experiment no longer fits the evidence, the baby will conclude that candy boxes now hold pencils, and until it discovers the truth behind this experiment, its dismissal and acceptance of new theories will continue.
Also, babies can also draw conclusions as to what people like and don't like. For example, a woman named Betty showed some infants two foods, one she liked, and one she disliked. When she ate each type of food, she made a positive and negative face to show the baby which food met either her approval or disapproval. A theory began to form in the babies' minds on which food met which category. As a result they gave Betty the food that she desired. This proves that babies are little scientists who come up with new theories, however primitive they may be.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
Intuition And Knowledge
1. What is meant by reading thin slices is that people judge certain situations by relying on their intuition. For example, when Warren Harding ran for president, people voted for him because he was tall, dark, and handsome. People just thought he looked like an excellent President. However, when Harding was elected president, the American population was unsatisfied with his work. This is what reading thin slices is about, jumping to a conclusion because a person's gut is telling them to do so.
2. Intuitive expertise is when a person is subconsciously reliant on their intuition. After a chess master has been practicing the game of chess for a very long time, the strategies he undertakes in order to win the game is second nature to him. When it is time to develop a strategy for the game, there are many moves that this master can undertake. However, since he has been playing the game for so long, the chess master uses intuition to determine the right move to make.
3. There are many perils of relying of intuition. If a person jumps to the wrong conclusion merely because they had a hunch that it is correct, the situation will not go over well. One also needs to keep the facts of the situation in their mind in order to accurately solve the problem. For example, one could get a wary feeling in their gut when they see a teenage boy giving a girl a gruesome smile. They might feel inclined to call the police and report this suspicious teenager. However, the peril on relying on their own feelings is that they wouldn't know that the girl he was staring at was his sister, and that the gruesome smile was an inside joke between the two of them. The boy would now have a criminal record, and it would all have been created under false pretenses. That is the reason why it is risky to only rely on intuition.
4. I think intuition is a fair justification for mistakes in desicion making if there are valid and moral reasons to support your arguement. One example is that a police officer shot and killed a man. The victim of the shooting was a convicted serial killer out on parole for good behavior. Three days after the killer had been released, another murder had been commited. The officer, more than a little suspicious, went to the man's house and to ask him some questions. The officer, thinking he has a gun, shoots him in the chest three times. When he inspects the body, he learns that the killer contained a gun. In a situation like that, the officer's intuition is potentially justified, for the man in question was proven to be a serial killer, and there was no reason to believe that he would not have ended the officer's life.
However, there are also examples of where intuition is not justified. When four police officers were driving a red car in the city, they saw a twenty two year old black immigrant standing outside his doorstep. They suspected that he was up to something, and pulled their car to a stop and approached him. Panicked, the man rushed inside and was most likely trying to pull out his ID. The officers thought it was a gun and shot him to death with forty-one bullets. They went over to his body and saw that there was no gun. This situation was not justified, for there was no probable cause to approach him in the first place. Even if that man was a threat, and even if he did have a gun, it was still barbaric to put that many bullets in him and tear apart his body like that. As it has been stated above, I think intuition is fair justification for ones mistakes if they have evidence and a moral standpoint to back it up.
2. Intuitive expertise is when a person is subconsciously reliant on their intuition. After a chess master has been practicing the game of chess for a very long time, the strategies he undertakes in order to win the game is second nature to him. When it is time to develop a strategy for the game, there are many moves that this master can undertake. However, since he has been playing the game for so long, the chess master uses intuition to determine the right move to make.
3. There are many perils of relying of intuition. If a person jumps to the wrong conclusion merely because they had a hunch that it is correct, the situation will not go over well. One also needs to keep the facts of the situation in their mind in order to accurately solve the problem. For example, one could get a wary feeling in their gut when they see a teenage boy giving a girl a gruesome smile. They might feel inclined to call the police and report this suspicious teenager. However, the peril on relying on their own feelings is that they wouldn't know that the girl he was staring at was his sister, and that the gruesome smile was an inside joke between the two of them. The boy would now have a criminal record, and it would all have been created under false pretenses. That is the reason why it is risky to only rely on intuition.
4. I think intuition is a fair justification for mistakes in desicion making if there are valid and moral reasons to support your arguement. One example is that a police officer shot and killed a man. The victim of the shooting was a convicted serial killer out on parole for good behavior. Three days after the killer had been released, another murder had been commited. The officer, more than a little suspicious, went to the man's house and to ask him some questions. The officer, thinking he has a gun, shoots him in the chest three times. When he inspects the body, he learns that the killer contained a gun. In a situation like that, the officer's intuition is potentially justified, for the man in question was proven to be a serial killer, and there was no reason to believe that he would not have ended the officer's life.
However, there are also examples of where intuition is not justified. When four police officers were driving a red car in the city, they saw a twenty two year old black immigrant standing outside his doorstep. They suspected that he was up to something, and pulled their car to a stop and approached him. Panicked, the man rushed inside and was most likely trying to pull out his ID. The officers thought it was a gun and shot him to death with forty-one bullets. They went over to his body and saw that there was no gun. This situation was not justified, for there was no probable cause to approach him in the first place. Even if that man was a threat, and even if he did have a gun, it was still barbaric to put that many bullets in him and tear apart his body like that. As it has been stated above, I think intuition is fair justification for ones mistakes if they have evidence and a moral standpoint to back it up.
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