Introduction to Philosophy (407)

Belle Ling 5635213

Regarding Bacons 4 idols and cognitive bias

When we make judgments and decisions in our lives, we are often sure that all these
decisions were made out of rational and logical thinking, since we always evaluate all the
information that we have on hand. The truth is, although human brain is powerful in many ways,
it has its limitations and no matter we realize it or not, we often make errors in decision making.
The reason to that is because of cognitive bias, a type of limitation in human thinking.
Cognitive bias happens during the thinking process, it is often the result of over
simplifying the available information to get a conclusion. It can happen due to a few reasons, for
instance emotions, social pressures and heuristics. Heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows
people to solve problems and make judgments quickly as it shortens decision-making time and
allows people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action.
There are many types of cognitive biases that we can name out loud nowadays. Some
common cognitive biases include the bandwagon effect, halo effect, ostrich effect, stereotyping,
self-serving bias, and etc. The list could go on and on. Francis Bacons famous work, New
Instrument mentioned about some human thinking errors or flaws as well, he called them idols.
There are 4 of them- idols of the tribe, idols of the cave, idols of the market place and idols of the
theatre.
Idols of the tribe are deceptive beliefs derive in the mind of man, and therefore is
applicable to the whole of the human race. They are abstractions in error arising from common
tendencies to exaggeration, distortion, and disproportion. We can relate this to a few cognitive
biases such as the self-serving bias and Pareidolia. Self-serving bias dictates the tendency to
attribute positive events to their own character but attribute negative events to external factors.

Introduction to Philosophy (407)

Belle Ling 5635213

For instance, if a student gets an A for her exam, she says that is because of her awesomeness,
but she I gets a C, she blame her lecturer. Pareidolia is an imagined perception of a pattern or
meaning where it does not actually exist, like how we see images of interesting things when we
look at the different cloud shapes.
Idols of the cave are the understandings that derive from the mind of the individual. It is a
type of logical fallacy whereby the peculiar biases of individuals lead them to errors. It could be
education, books we read, people we hang out with and all these things distort an individuals
perception to nature, much like Platos allegory of the cave. Due to the fact that all men are
different, human perceptions of nature vary from one individual to another. For instance, some
minds are more drawn to new things and new ideas, while other minds are more drawn to
"tradition" and "old school" ideas. When we become more aware of our own mind's tendencies
toward loving novelty or tradition, we might be able to correct them and then hopefully see
things more clearly and truly.
Idols of the marketplace deal with errors arising from words and language. The constant
impact of words variously used without attention to their true meaning only in turn constrain the
understanding and raise fallacies. Words often betray their own purpose, obscuring the very
thoughts they are designed to express. It is more a matter of faulty, misguided, or sloppy
semantics. For example, overusing jargons makes people confuse because they do not understand
the meaning of those words.
It is our propensity to follow certain dogmas without questioning anything at all. Idols of
the theater come from various philosophies, sophistry and false learning. These idols are built up
in the field of theology, philosophy, and science. What is most troubling is that most people dont

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Belle Ling 5635213

even know that this is occurring within them. An example to that would be how Catholics
during the renaissance believed that the earth was the center of the universe just because it was
what the church claimed to be true. What they believed for a long time turned out to be wrong!
We would never achieve zero thinking error as we are only human but we can reduce
the chance of being ignorant victims of our nerve system by gaining knowledge of these biases
and putting efforts in overcoming them.