From time to time I listen to “Hidden Brain,” an NPR podcast about weird things we do and think. <\/p>\n
Today I listened to an episode called “Why We Hold On To Things,” in which the expert \/ guest gave a couple examples of how we “irrationally” attribute meaning to objects. <\/p>\n
In one example, people were asked how much they would pay for used wedding rings. Some of them were from successful marriages, while others were from divorced couples. People valued the “divorce rings” well below the “success rings.” <\/p>\n
In another example, a man holds up a used (but professionally cleaned) sweater, and asks an audience who would be willing to try it on for $20. A bunch of people raise their hands. Then he asks who would still be willing to try it on after they learned the sweater belonged to an infamous serial killer, and many people lower their hands. <\/p>\n
Valuing a success ring higher than a divorce ring, or being unwilling to wear a serial killer’s sweater, were both labeled as irrational, because things are just things. They don’t have the spirit of the previous owner in them. They don’t carry any magic mojo. They’re just physical objects. <\/p>\n
Right? <\/p>\n
Well … I’m not so sure. <\/p>\n
I would accept that it’s irrational to believe that the sweater or the ring causes any harm if nobody knows about it. E.g., if I find a ring, I’m not going to fear that some magic attaches to it because of the behavior or character of the previous owner. <\/p>\n
But knowing does change things, and I’m not convinced it’s entirely irrational. <\/p>\n
Imagine a guy named Tom who intentionally goes to the estate sales of murderers so he can buy (and usually wear) their clothes. He says he’s doing it to get a bargain, and it’s true that he gets good-quality clothes for cheap. <\/p>\n
Won’t people assume there’s something weird about Tom? And are they entirely unjustified<\/i> in thinking that? <\/p>\n
He says he’s just getting a bargain, but is motivation always a univariate, simple thing? Might the people who find Tom a little odd have somewhat of a point? <\/p>\n
Sometimes materialist assumptions seem to go a little too far at times, in my opinion. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From time to time I listen to “Hidden Brain,” an NPR podcast about weird things we do and think. Today I listened to an episode called “Why We Hold On To Things,” in which the expert \/ guest gave a couple examples of how we “irrationally” attribute meaning to objects. In one example, people were … Continue reading “Is it irrational to not want to wear a murderer’s sweater?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1321,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions\/1321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crowhill.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}