THINKER'S ALMANAC - September 22

How can thinking of an elephant better help us understand the way humans think?

  

Subject: System 1 and 2 - Jonathan Haidt’s Rider and Elephant

Event:  National Elephant Appreciation Day

  

September 22 is National Elephant Appreciation Day. The day was created in 1996 by Wayne Hepburn, owner of Mission Media.  Hepburn’s fascination with our largest land mammal began when his daughter gave him an elephant paperweight (1).

There’s an old story about an elephant, a parable about how we can be bound by our beliefs or our limited imaginations.  One day, a man was walking the grounds of a circus.  Just outside a tent, he saw a huge, fully grown adult male elephant tied to a stake.  All that was holding the great beast from breaking free was a small, thin rope tied to his front leg.  The man spied a trainer nearby and inquired about the elephant, asking why the elephant made no attempt to break free since he could clearly snap the rope with ease.  The trainer responded saying, “It’s all about conditioning.  When this elephant was an infant, the rope was strong enough to hold him in place, so he grew up believing the rope could hold him.  Now that he’s fully grown, he’s conditioned, so he never tries to break free.”

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

While the above elephant-related story tells us a bit about thinking, there’s an elephant-related metaphor that gives us prodigious insight into the nature of human thinking.  The metaphor was created by psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his book The Happiness Hypothesis where he was trying to illustrate the two independent thinking systems at work in the human brain.  The first system is the emotional, automatic system. Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize for his research on behavioral economics, calls this the brain’s System 1.  Haidt, however, gives it a bit more life by calling it the elephant brain.  This is the brain’s autopilot system that developed early in evolution.  The elephant brain works on instinct and intuition, allowing us to think without conscious thinking to make quick decisions.  Haidt calls the second system (Kahneman’s System 2) the rider.  It’s the rational, more evolved, and much newer part of the brain.    The rider controls the intentional systems of the brain, such as the prefrontal cortex where the executive functions are housed.  Perched atop the elephant, but nevertheless, largely outweighed, the rational rider attempts to steer and control the movements of the elephant.  The elephant brain functions with much less effort, while the rider’s conscious, deliberate thinking takes more effort.  

Haidt’s metaphor of the rider and the elephant reminds us that although we like to think that we are evolved, rational beings guided by logic instead of emotion, the reality is that the elephant may really be in charge.  As the Scottish philosopher David Hume said, “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them” (2).

Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason:  What are the contrasting thinking systems represented by the elephant and the rider?

Challenge - The Elephant in the Room:  Another opportunity for human insight via the elephant comes from John Godfrey Saxe’s classic poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant.”  Read the poem carefully, and then write your interpretation of it.  What insight does the poem give us about perception?

The Blind Men and the Elephant

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,

who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),

that each by observation, might satisfy his mind.

The first approached the elephant, and, happening to fall,

against his broad and sturdy side, at once began to bawl:

"God bless me! but the elephant, is nothing but a wall!"

The second feeling of the tusk, cried: "Ho! what have we here,

so very round and smooth and sharp? To me tis mighty clear,

this wonder of an elephant, is very like a spear!"

The third approached the animal, and, happening to take,

the squirming trunk within his hands, "I see," quoth he,

the elephant is very like a snake!"

The fourth reached out his eager hand, and felt about the knee:

"What most this wondrous beast is like, is mighty plain," quoth he;

"Tis clear enough the elephant is very like a tree."

The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said; "E'en the blindest man

can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can,

This marvel of an elephant, is very like a fan!"

The sixth no sooner had begun, about the beast to grope,

than, seizing on the swinging tail, that fell within his scope,

"I see," quoth he, "the elephant is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long,

each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong,

Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!

So, oft in theologic wars, the disputants, I ween,

tread on in utter ignorance, of what each other mean,

and prate about the elephant, not one of them has seen!

Also on This Day:

September 22, 1692:  On this day the last eight people were hanged for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials.  In total, twenty people were executed. 

September 22, 1862:  Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which warned the Confederate states that if they did not rejoin the Union by January 1, 1863, all slaves in those states would be freed.  The Civil War was still raging, but the Union had just claimed a victory at the Battle of Antietam on September 17th, the single bloodiest single-day battle in American history.  Prior to the Proclamation, Lincoln had not issued any anti-slavery proclamations, maintaining that the war was more about preserving the Union than about ending slavery.  Issuing the Proclamation changed this.  Now support for the Confederacy translated to support for the institution of slavery.  This discouraged anti-slavery countries like England and France from intervening in support of the South. When the Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, no slaves were actually freed because it applied only to the Confederate states that were still at war with the Union.  It did, however, change the moral tone of the war, making it not just a struggle to save the Union, but also a battle to support human freedom.  It also set the stage for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1865, which put a permanent end to slavery in the United States (4).

Sources:

1-Daysoftheyear.com.  Elephant Appreciation Day.

2-Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2006.

3.  Saxe, John Godfrey.  “The Blind Men and the Elephant.”  1872 Public Domain.

4-http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/emancipation-150/10-facts.html

5-”The Founding Moment.”  peacecorps.gov.