On this episode of The Knowledge Project, I talk rationality, changing minds (our own and others), filtering information, the role of intuition, and a lot more with Julia Galef.
Galef is the President and co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, a non-profit organization based in Berkeley, California, devoted to developing, testing and training people in strategies for reasoning and decision making.
She also hosts the Rationally Speaking podcast, a biweekly show featuring conversations about science and philosophy.
This is a topic I could talk about for hours, so we wasted no time at all. In this discussion, we cover a lot of ground, including:
- What happened when Julia was 7 years old that first sparked a lifelong interest in good argument
- The one thing her parents did that helps her keep an open mind to new evidence even when she might be wrong
- The two types of rationality and how they both affect the way we view reality and the world we live in
- Why she co-founded the Center for Applied Rationality and how they are changing the way people think about problems and make decisions
- The role intuition plays in our decision-making process, (and when we can trust it to take over)
- What the strengths and weaknesses of the 2 systems of our brain are and how they interact to help us function
- The two-step process to changing minds (both your own and others’)
- Julia’s tips on how to process the daily deluge of available information with a more rational mind
And a lot more ...